We behave, much of the time, as though it were possible to take a couple of hundred successful entrepreneurs, put them into a juicer, and create an entrepreneurship tonic. Let’s say we wanted to commercialise this idea and start a business around it. The entrepreneur wastage from our juicing technique would be high, and may not be popular. So we’d call in some analytical chemists and possibly bio-engineering experts, to identify the critical ingredients in our organically produced entrepreneurship tonic. Then we’d look for artificial substitutes, and make millions from our recipe.

Posted on 27 March 2003

Singapore’s corporate leadership has had a bad press of late, not least in the government-linked sector. In September 2002 a report from International Survey Research (ISR) cited Singapore’s workers as the second most “bo chap” (Hokkien for indifferent) in the world (Japan was bottom). A storm of outrage and debate erupted, local business schools and unionists sprang to the workers’ defence, and very quickly it turned into a question of blame: fingers pointed at Singapore’s managers.

Posted on 27 March 2003

Imagine, if you will, that you are arriving for the first time in Singapore on a special holiday package, with your own individual tour guide as part of the package. You arrive at the airport, and there, as promised, is your tour guide. He is tall, about 50 years old, and very distinguished looking, but he is almost completely blind. He first started going blind in 1968, the year he graduated from tour guiding school, the year of flower power in California and student revolts in Paris, before man ever got to the Moon. Before you gird up your loins for an assault on your tour operator for short-changing you, imagine two more small things. First, you live in a world where all tour guides start going blind as soon as they graduate, and second, you live in a world that accords great respect and deference to tour guides. You never ever question a tour guide’s ability to show you around.

Posted 15 August 2000

In Part one of this series I argued that there was a deeper digital divide between old economy and new economy workers than simply the ability to manipulate technology. In Part two I laid part of the blame for our discontinuities on the failure of leaders to adopt new models of leadership more appropriate to the transitions we must undergo. In this article I want to focus on that other, more difficult area of resistance to change: the interplay between leadership and corporate culture.

Posted on 8 August 2000

In ancient Nordic legend, when warrior heroes die they go to Valhalla, a place of great feasting, golden mead and limitless food. After sating themselves on wine women and song, they turn to their favourite sport, mortal combat. They fight till only one is left standing. Yet in the morning they rise again, whole and complete, to start their heavenly round of feeding and fighting again.

Posted on 18 July 2000

There is no single digital divide. The digital divide is not simply a matter of the gap between technology haves and have-nots. Behind this simple description of the rift there are deeper and bleaker gaps in literacy, skill and attitude that few of us see – even in ourselves. While commonly described as a special problem with the lesser-educated older worker in Singapore, these fault lines actually cross the entire spectrum of employment from operator to chief executive, and across the range of organisational forms. Failure to address these gaps will mean failure for workers in the market for employment and it will mean failure for organisations in the market for customers.

Posted on 11 July 2000