2nd Key to Nations’ Success - Hardship

2nd Key to Nations’ Success - Hardship
2010 03 10
solvere.blogspot.com
Solvere Lim Swee Keng

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Hardship

“Singapore had succeeded in the past because it had a generation of people who grew up in hardship, were prepared to take risks and tackle challenges.”

Lee Kuan Yew
Senior Minister of Singapore
Poster found on the inside of a boy toilet cubicle door in North Light
a school for the less academically inclined

Great wisdom often found in humble places.
Less academic inclined, even shipyard workers, peasants became leaders, Presidents, even Emperors.

Leaders are those who lead the herd, overcoming challenges.
When severe challenges come, leaders have to unite all, select the best alternative and fight against all odds.
No alternative is perfect, every choice bound to fail at one point or another; improvisations are made all the time.
Even though not all leaders live to taste the fruits, the herd eventually shall see the victory, enjoy the success, as their pride pressing them on, leading them through crisis after crisis.

A nation already determined its failure when leaders are manufactured through express streams that subjected to lesser test, not solving real problems, enjoy bullying the weaker, soon they become disconnected with realities, truth, virtue, never mind the masses, ……

Those who are elected to serve are called Advisors.
Advisors merely advise, do they feel they are responsible to the outcome?
They needed no execution, will their wisdom progress in the process?
Youth, inexperienced, simple minds can becomes advisors – what relevant wisdom they have to offer?
They should be called Responsible Persons, Perons-In-charge.

A bureaucracy failed when those shouldering heavy responsibilities are called Super Scale.
They scale the super-surface without even looking for root causes - resolving small problems, communal quarrels, attending meeting, writing blogs becomes their important tasks.
What about setting direction, trimming wastage, improving efficiency, enhancing competitiveness?
What about nourishing successors?

Ministers are called ministers because they have to nurse sicknesses, minister solutions.
Grass roots are called grass roots because they nourish others with humility in order to keep the grass green, for leaders to harvest.
Civil servants are neither civil nor serving the greater good, the society will become brutal and broken.
Civil servants should be named as entry level, apprentices, light scale, heavy scale, immense scale….

Otherwise, when problems come, “Haze will go when monsoon come”, “dengue will go when dry season come”, “more, deeper drains”, “that University is privatized”, “the resignation I was not consulted”, “I do not know there are so many foreign workers”, "the greatest drug to invent is one that improve human memory" were heard loudly.

Those who said the above, you need not feel embarrassed.
You just need to recognize your responsibility is immense.
You just need to set high priority to understand the problem, ceaselessly improve your understanding.
You need to seek right solutions, to implement and improvise them.

Do not communicate to your electorates - Communicate with them.
Do not tell them they are not Ang Mo, Ang Mo solutions certainly work.
Even the greatest contemporary leader LKY's words can be found in the toilet cubicle door - who are you to say your brethren's has less wisdom than you, know the situation less than you?

And even God was sent to be crucified.
Who can manipulate everything at will?
Who can conceive even one flawless solution?
Even the most powerful, the smartest leaders in history did not attain it?
Ignorant, do not know the right solutions are natural.

One of Singapore founders, Goh Keng Swee recalled he had to exercise in order to have the access to inspect the nation’s vault.

A great nation is in the making, when leaders’ children are sent to the front, saving people trapped in dangerous spot, overcoming most pressing crises, fighting wars against mightiest enemy.

How to expose to hardship when time is peaceful, economy is prospering?

Young Singaporean men are required to serve two or more years of full time national service. Then they are required to serve up to about 40 years old as reservist.

I personally participated in the conversion of lay back, obese reservists into highly motivated, organized, trimmed and swiftly operation ready troops.

This conversion took less than five years.

Now, within less than few hours, we are able to mobilize civilians across the island and form into battalions of operationally ready soldiers, swiftly, confidently.
Security we sense, brighter future we shall hold.
We accomplished this through artificially created hardship with a purpose, a convincing, worthy purpose.
These fortified the strength, the will of Singaporeans even in their daily life, their work ethics, their values to investors.
We see students working part-time to pay the high tuition fees, we never see before.
We see old men and women taking first bus to work earlier than school children, riding motobike home latter than clubbing youth.
Chinese workers despised Singaporean for not allowing these elders to retire!

Singaporeans are able, devoted, never ask for higher pay, longer holidays, lessons in fine cooking.
Those who blamed Singaporean elders not able to work in over weekends are not human.
Those who do not discover Singaporean can work hard, are disciplined, are not interesting, are choosing the wrong segment of Singaporeans as peers, as workers, as officers -therefore setting the wrong curriculum, agenda, and over labor themselves.

Human basic attributes do not differ so much, every race has fair share of champion and laggards.
Leaders make the decisive difference - even layback can be motivated, obese can become trimmed and fit.

If the masses already took extra miles, leaders have to take much more, to be ahead in order to lead. Otherwise Champion can blaze their tails into delinquent.

Leaders cannot be functioning by eloquent speeches done, technology most advanced, spending coffer undone.
Leaders must be cultivated through challenges in real world, able to identify priority, do more with less, solving with effectiveness, efficiency and elegance.

They then gain insight and foresight, continue their journey with vigor and rigor, for an unwavering purpose of serving all people on the public front, and securing their regimes in their private feeling, deep in their hearts.

Serving can be beautifully said, but serving need solutions, what are good solutions?

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