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[h=2]NOT ANOTHER COMMITTEE !!![/h]
August 13th, 2012 |
Author: Contributions
NOT ANOTHER COMMITTEE!!!!!!
I read with interest (and perhaps a sigh) when PM recently announced during his National Day speech the formation of another committee to review policies and programmes in Singapore.
I must confess, my first response was… “Not another committee/ taskforce/council/ advisory panel!!!” We have had many many such committees over the years… and while challenging oneself is good and introspection is necessary to prevent complacency… it does beg the question as to why we should need so many reviews, taskforces… Is it because, the previous reviews/ task forces members did not get it right in their reports or is it because what they recommended was not followed through?
If I may suggest… rather than rush into yet another flurry of appointments of members, meetings, minutes writing and compilation of reports to be announced with much fanfare… some thoughts to be considered so that this new committee led and made up of eminent leaders… does not end up like so many others. Proposed Terms of Reference, Code of principles perhaps… HUMILITY
H-Hunger to know your people.
Policies and programmes should of course be designed by the able but be designed for the less able. Hunger to know your people- rich, poor, young, old, hawker and headhunter, cabdriver and CEO. Ask them- what they want, what they feel can be done better.
U-Us.
It is not one minister, one ministry, one civil servant, one policy, one programme that will determine whether a policy is successful. It is US, all of us. And especially remember, solutions in the new world requires a Whole of Government, Public-Private-People sector approach. How, after you come up with recommendations, do you incentivize the “US” to be part of the solution? Hunger to seek the inputs of all and seek to engage all in the solutions.
M-Manpower. It’s the people lah!
There is an obsession in Singapore with numbers. Perhaps because many of our leaders are economists, mathematicians by training and hence crunching numbers is what they are trained to do and are comfortable doing. But every number can shed light on the truth or hide a lie. Statistics are but numbers. You can analyse any set of numbers any way to tell a story as you see fit. Perhaps we should start with the purpose of why we want the numbers. We seek the numbers to better understand the challenge, to better serve our people, to build a stronger better Singapore. Ask the right questions and then find the “right” numbers that truly provide a true answer to those questions.
I-Intelligence is not wisdom.
It has been said all too often, that the Singapore political and government system is too obsessed about exam smarts. Only scholars are able to lead and be leaders.. But what is a scholar? A scholar is someone who did well enough in this exams to win a scholarship. Intelligence is not wisdom. Exam smarts means you can write well, talk well and promote yourself well. It does not necessarily mean that you can relate with those less “smart”, understand how the real world works outside your ivory tower inhabited by equally smart individuals and inspire them to follow you. Chinese history teaches us what happens when the elites, scholar class govern but lose touch with reality. It is called… a peasant uprising!!! That said, there are many scholars who have been both intelligent AND wise.
L-Love your neighbour.
Trust and credibility to lead has to be earned. It cannot be demanded or bestowed because of title. Intelligence or ability does not win trust. Especially in a world where many others are equally able, or equally intelligent. But the hallmark of a great leader, someone who inspires respect and therefore is able to encourage others to follow is that he shows that he cares.
Colin Powell says it well. “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems are the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
Governments may not be able to solve all the ills of our modern world. But they must show that they care. Love your neighbour.
I-Incentives
What is measured is what is done.
Incentives, rewards are what drive human and organisational behaviour. There are very few Mahatma Gandhis or Mother Teresas, driven by the purely altruistic desire to do good. Politicians, Governments, organisations, individuals choose to do certain things not necessarily because they are the right things to do but because they will be recognised and rewarded for doing those things. In a busy world of many things to do and the need to prioritise, we must align incentives to the desired outcomes. If I may share some thoughts on government KPIs and measures of performance.
T-Time.
Things change. People change. Countries change. And for many things, we need time. This constant rush and desire to show quick results, get it over and done with is detrimental to good government. Government as defined by:
In each of these As, time changes how we achieve them and time is required to achieve them. Take Awareness as an example. Awareness isn’t just about announcing in ST nor having a politician say it in parliament. We need a time based plan on how we can reach out to every single individual and enable him to gain awareness, accessibility, affordability and availability of each programme designed to help him. The 80:20 rule of government results in 20% not getting help. Is this acceptable to the population? Another A- Acceptability. This is different from populism. In a democracy- acceptability of any policy, painful or otherwise, by the people for whose good it is intended, is essential.
And above all, Auditability. We need to have a regular system of reviews and audits. Not ad hoc committees. And auditors must know what is to be audited and measured and be able to do so.
Y-YOU
The reality is there are many things that only government can do. Regulation, long term planning, whole of government implementation. The desire to “privatise”, outsource government functions has as we know, resulted in many challenges. SMRT being but the latest in a long series of government experimentation and desire to shift responsibility away from itself, to the people or pseudo-private organisations.
There is a great difference between government as a nanny versus government as a steward. No one is asking PAP or our government to nanny us. And indeed, the government was rather intrusive and nanny like. But perhaps government has swung to the other extreme. In the name of cost effectiveness, efficiency, we have outsourced, privatised away government’s responsibility in many public good services. Services that only a government can lead, audit and ensure will be sufficient to serve the needs of the people. Leaving it to market forces has been taken to the extreme. Chasing profit and efficiency without necessarily achieving effectiveness has also been taken to the extreme. Perhaps it is right that certain government functions be not about profit alone. (in addition to defence)
I do not doubt the sincerity of PM and many of our leaders in their desire to do good by appointing another committee. But “Good” is an elastic term and is defined by perception and context. And appointing a committee is a process and not an outcome. We had many processes of change. But there is a great fatigue with the many processes tried among our people and indeed loss of faith in our government. And perhaps it is warranted. It is indeed a tough time to be a politician or civil servant. Certainly more brickbats than bouquets. And a growing impatience for substance rather than style, substantive changes in outcomes rather than more and more processes. In the end, people make committees. And people make policies. I do pray that the right people are given the right TOR to make the right recommendations (this time) and implement the right changes to achieve the right outcomes. For our people, by our people In the spirit of servant leadership and HUMILITY.
Concerned Citizen
.
NOT ANOTHER COMMITTEE!!!!!!
I read with interest (and perhaps a sigh) when PM recently announced during his National Day speech the formation of another committee to review policies and programmes in Singapore.
I must confess, my first response was… “Not another committee/ taskforce/council/ advisory panel!!!” We have had many many such committees over the years… and while challenging oneself is good and introspection is necessary to prevent complacency… it does beg the question as to why we should need so many reviews, taskforces… Is it because, the previous reviews/ task forces members did not get it right in their reports or is it because what they recommended was not followed through?
If I may suggest… rather than rush into yet another flurry of appointments of members, meetings, minutes writing and compilation of reports to be announced with much fanfare… some thoughts to be considered so that this new committee led and made up of eminent leaders… does not end up like so many others. Proposed Terms of Reference, Code of principles perhaps… HUMILITY
H-Hunger to know your people.
Policies and programmes should of course be designed by the able but be designed for the less able. Hunger to know your people- rich, poor, young, old, hawker and headhunter, cabdriver and CEO. Ask them- what they want, what they feel can be done better.
U-Us.
It is not one minister, one ministry, one civil servant, one policy, one programme that will determine whether a policy is successful. It is US, all of us. And especially remember, solutions in the new world requires a Whole of Government, Public-Private-People sector approach. How, after you come up with recommendations, do you incentivize the “US” to be part of the solution? Hunger to seek the inputs of all and seek to engage all in the solutions.
M-Manpower. It’s the people lah!
There is an obsession in Singapore with numbers. Perhaps because many of our leaders are economists, mathematicians by training and hence crunching numbers is what they are trained to do and are comfortable doing. But every number can shed light on the truth or hide a lie. Statistics are but numbers. You can analyse any set of numbers any way to tell a story as you see fit. Perhaps we should start with the purpose of why we want the numbers. We seek the numbers to better understand the challenge, to better serve our people, to build a stronger better Singapore. Ask the right questions and then find the “right” numbers that truly provide a true answer to those questions.
I-Intelligence is not wisdom.
It has been said all too often, that the Singapore political and government system is too obsessed about exam smarts. Only scholars are able to lead and be leaders.. But what is a scholar? A scholar is someone who did well enough in this exams to win a scholarship. Intelligence is not wisdom. Exam smarts means you can write well, talk well and promote yourself well. It does not necessarily mean that you can relate with those less “smart”, understand how the real world works outside your ivory tower inhabited by equally smart individuals and inspire them to follow you. Chinese history teaches us what happens when the elites, scholar class govern but lose touch with reality. It is called… a peasant uprising!!! That said, there are many scholars who have been both intelligent AND wise.
L-Love your neighbour.
Trust and credibility to lead has to be earned. It cannot be demanded or bestowed because of title. Intelligence or ability does not win trust. Especially in a world where many others are equally able, or equally intelligent. But the hallmark of a great leader, someone who inspires respect and therefore is able to encourage others to follow is that he shows that he cares.
Colin Powell says it well. “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems are the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
Governments may not be able to solve all the ills of our modern world. But they must show that they care. Love your neighbour.
I-Incentives
What is measured is what is done.
Incentives, rewards are what drive human and organisational behaviour. There are very few Mahatma Gandhis or Mother Teresas, driven by the purely altruistic desire to do good. Politicians, Governments, organisations, individuals choose to do certain things not necessarily because they are the right things to do but because they will be recognised and rewarded for doing those things. In a busy world of many things to do and the need to prioritise, we must align incentives to the desired outcomes. If I may share some thoughts on government KPIs and measures of performance.
- Individuals don’t achieve great results. Teams do.Devise group measures of performance. Refrain from rewarding only the leader. Doing so only demoralises the team and ensures that you end up with top down leaders, no followers and poor results.
- Do not get obsessed about short term KPIs when results are only possible after many years. Many national programmes require taking a long term view and only show real results after many years. Devise a better system of road maps and step KPIs. Starting with the outcome in mind and working out who needs to do what where and when along the journey, measuring “performance” and incentivizing performance by a step wise approach.
- Do not get obsessed about numbers alone. Qualitative measures are just as important as quantitative. Find a way to build this into any policy or programme launched. Don’t trust the numbers alone. They don’t tell the whole story.
- Reward not just the beginning but also the end. The current system is heavily skewed towards launching more and more programmes; more and more committees; more and more reports. But no one is measured for the outcome of those reports. Were the recommendations successfully implemented? Often times, the officer in charge of launching a programme is long gone, has moved on. Whether the programme launched was truly successful long term in achieving its desired outcome is irrelevant. We see the results now of many programmes, policies launched with great fanfare, showed instant “results”, resulted in promotions of a few, but fizzled out or had disastrous long term consequences.
T-Time.
Things change. People change. Countries change. And for many things, we need time. This constant rush and desire to show quick results, get it over and done with is detrimental to good government. Government as defined by:
“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” Thomas Jefferson
The 5As of good policy making and successful implementation of programmes that must be the desired outcome of any policy and purpose of “caring for human life”.
- Awareness
- Availability
- Affordability
- Accessibility
- Auditability
In each of these As, time changes how we achieve them and time is required to achieve them. Take Awareness as an example. Awareness isn’t just about announcing in ST nor having a politician say it in parliament. We need a time based plan on how we can reach out to every single individual and enable him to gain awareness, accessibility, affordability and availability of each programme designed to help him. The 80:20 rule of government results in 20% not getting help. Is this acceptable to the population? Another A- Acceptability. This is different from populism. In a democracy- acceptability of any policy, painful or otherwise, by the people for whose good it is intended, is essential.
And above all, Auditability. We need to have a regular system of reviews and audits. Not ad hoc committees. And auditors must know what is to be audited and measured and be able to do so.
Y-YOU
The reality is there are many things that only government can do. Regulation, long term planning, whole of government implementation. The desire to “privatise”, outsource government functions has as we know, resulted in many challenges. SMRT being but the latest in a long series of government experimentation and desire to shift responsibility away from itself, to the people or pseudo-private organisations.
There is a great difference between government as a nanny versus government as a steward. No one is asking PAP or our government to nanny us. And indeed, the government was rather intrusive and nanny like. But perhaps government has swung to the other extreme. In the name of cost effectiveness, efficiency, we have outsourced, privatised away government’s responsibility in many public good services. Services that only a government can lead, audit and ensure will be sufficient to serve the needs of the people. Leaving it to market forces has been taken to the extreme. Chasing profit and efficiency without necessarily achieving effectiveness has also been taken to the extreme. Perhaps it is right that certain government functions be not about profit alone. (in addition to defence)
I do not doubt the sincerity of PM and many of our leaders in their desire to do good by appointing another committee. But “Good” is an elastic term and is defined by perception and context. And appointing a committee is a process and not an outcome. We had many processes of change. But there is a great fatigue with the many processes tried among our people and indeed loss of faith in our government. And perhaps it is warranted. It is indeed a tough time to be a politician or civil servant. Certainly more brickbats than bouquets. And a growing impatience for substance rather than style, substantive changes in outcomes rather than more and more processes. In the end, people make committees. And people make policies. I do pray that the right people are given the right TOR to make the right recommendations (this time) and implement the right changes to achieve the right outcomes. For our people, by our people In the spirit of servant leadership and HUMILITY.
May God grant us…
Serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
Courage to change the things we can,
Wisdom to know the difference
.Serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
Courage to change the things we can,
Wisdom to know the difference
Concerned Citizen
.
