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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3rd Key to Nations’ Success - Simplification

3rd Key to Nations’ Success - S
2010 03 10
solvere.blogspot.com
Solvere Lim Swee Keng

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Simplification

Leaders cannot be functioning by eloquent speeches done, technology most advanced, spending coffer undone.

Leaders must invent more effective, efficient and elegant solutions.

Solution, inventing good solution is the key.
What is an invention?

What is an invention?
An invention is one that has fewer components, simpler, smaller; perform more, bigger, faster, easier.
This is the first principle of invention – well known requirement for filing patent.
This is shared among nations, with no exception.
This is not ideology; this is wisdom crystallized from centuries long scientific research, technological innovation.

Drainage systems is one of the most ancient invention, drainage maintains its primary importance even in most modern metropolis today – wisdom of our fathers dictated that no drains should be concealed.

However, Technology, Machineries make digging drains a breeze.
Therefore, more drains are dug. They are dug deeper, concealed, until it consumes more imported sand, cement, granite than building a house, the road.
They also becomes so difficult to maintain.
This is a common error in drainage design committed not just in rich metropolis, it happened even in remote fishing villages like Balai, Indonesia.

If the corridors on the second floor of ENV buildings got flooded - sending canteen operator sweeping in the storm is not a solution.
Flooding on second floor of Autobay in Bedok, built years latter certainly is no surprises - more, bigger floor trap, bigger inlet while keeping the drain pipe horizontal, without slope is not a solution either.

This is not the most costly mistake, a major mistake even after cost of labors, sand, cement skyrocketed.
Action is further taken to complicate, intensify matters - by expanding the cavity under the cover so that man can enter, access and perform cleaning and maintenance.

Make simple complex, make obvious concealed, adding many to one.
These are enlarging, propagating what is already wrong – can wrong not be multiplied, magnified, proliferate everywhere?

There will be no ending to this wasteful approach.
No coffer can support such costly expedition.
But the worst is human brains are left idling while lips asking for more land for drains, bigger budgets, more shopping trips.

This is a Technology crisis, it is parallel to Financial Crisis – inventing derivatives from what is already direct and measurable …
Financial Crisis resulted in few billionaires committed suicide. But it does not take away life directly.

Technology crisis impact not just market, systems, corporations, also life and safety.
Technology crisis is indeed a bigger crisis.

To solve this crisis, to keep the excessive brains, labors fully employed in constructive work, is to demand every idea, solution, machine, instrument, policy, law to be simplified, solve with fewer, smaller, lighter, everything made concise, easier, faster, less energy use.

The very first requirement for Invention is therefore Invention must be simpler than prior arts.

With this approach, computer used to be bigger than a train cabin, over 40 tons, consume 15 kilowatts, own by Defense department, operated by experts to make only Hydrogen Bomb.
Today, even less brainy know how to operate computers by dragging, clicking mouse and playing with his children at home thousands miles away.

This is the most important yardstick, not only more nations can afford simplified solutions, many difficult problems found simple, affordable solutions.

This will not just expand the economy, reduce the cost of living, it also inspires all the brains to engaged in elaborate considerations of every aspect of natural sciences and human behaviors.

With this sharing, I hope the world will start to evaluating everything at hand, and trying to simplify every aspect of all machines, construction, market, methods.

“Post Industrialization Dynamos” Autumn 2009, ISBN 9810 833558 detailed four key improvements encompass all aspects of machines, markets, societies.

The explanation here is adequate for policy maker to take position and set direction for technocrats to elaborate and implement, verify through experiments in real life.

One proven implementation is by rally forces inherent in water flow to concentrate and elevate flotsam to an easily accessible collection point and drip dry – there is no machinery, no power needed yet the filter is always clear, the flotsam so easy to collect – even by less agile, aged workforce.

This is one of the ways to address aging population - design jobs for the aged.

“Effective Separation, Easy Maintenance” Jointly invented with Leung Chi Lam. Solvere shared with Public Utility Board since 2005, Patent jointly filed with Leung Chi Lam IPOS200806192-4, partially implemented by Ch2M at Kallang River.

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