Mr Lee Kuan Yew with forum moderator Michael Tay at the Russia-Singapore Business Forum held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre yesterday. Mr Lee also fielded questions on the global economic turmoil and the challenges facing Russia. -- ST PHOTO: LIM WUI LIANG

By Kor Kian Beng, Political Correspondent

SINGAPORE'S founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew considers himself first- time lucky in developing the country to what it is today and believes that he 'could not have done better'.

Now, at age 88, Mr Lee is no longer harbouring burning ambitions to further shape Singapore, as that is a job for the younger generation, he said yesterday.

'I'm strolling into the sunset. When you're 88, there are very few new things you can undertake and have the hope of having enough time or energy to see through.

Background story

VALUE OF EXPERIENCE

'I'm strolling into the sunset. When you're 88, there are very few new things you can undertake and have the hope of having enough time or energy to see it through... So all I do is take part in dialogues like this and dispense my experience.'

Mr Lee Kuan Yew, in response to a question about his plans for the future.

'So all I do is take part in dialogues like this and dispense my experience,' he said at the Russia-Singapore Business Forum (RSBF).

Mr Lee was responding to a question from Mr Michael Tay, Singapore's former ambassador to Russia and founder of the RSBF, about his plans for the future.

It was one of two questions that got Mr Lee more pensive during the dialogue, which otherwise focused mostly on international and Russian affairs.

Asked what he would have done differently if he could start over again, Mr Lee, Singapore's first prime minister from 1959 to 1990, cited a lesson gleaned from his golf instructor to make his point.

He said: 'I think I can best describe it by my golf pro who taught me a trick when he put a golf ball on a high peg. He took a golf wedge, swiped, broke the peg into two and the ball dropped down.

'So I said, 'Show me again.' He said, 'But it may not happen the second time.' He was first-time lucky. I see my life like that. I won't like to retrace my life. I could not have done better.'

Mr Lee's response triggered applause from the audience, who were mostly Russian and Singaporean corporate leaders.

They were among some 700 participants at the yearly RSBF, which began in 2006 as a platform to explore business and investment opportunities in Russia and Singapore.

As in previous years, the three-day event, which ends today, featured a dialogue with Mr Lee.

Most of the 16 questions that he fielded revolved around the global economic turmoil, and the challenges facing Russia.

On the global economy, Mr Lee called it 'a difficult situation', with the two big growth engines in the United States and Europe both slowing down.

He added: 'China and India have not slowed down, they are having their own internal consumption to push... But if the US market does not improve, then after a while the export growth volume of China and India selling to America and Europe will also begin to fall.

'So we have to hope that within the next few years, the American economy will recover and exports from China and India may carry on.'

Asked by a Russian participant if Russia or Singapore stood a better chance of coming out unscathed from the economic difficulties, Mr Lee said he would not compare the two countries.

That is because Russia is able to rely on its 'enormous resources' such as oil and gas, while Singapore is more dependent on external demand, he added.

So Russians are doing well now as commodities are commanding high prices and will continue to do so for a long time, Mr Lee pointed out.

But there are downsides too, he said, because as long as the country is doing well, there will be no incentive to change its systems and move towards becoming a more technology-based economy.

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kianbeng@sph.com.sg

October 08, 2011 at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Economist: Corporate Culture

Corporate culture

The view from the top, and bottom

Bosses think their firms are caring. Their minions disagree

Sep 24th 2011 | NEW YORK | from the print edition

AS WALMART grew into the world’s largest retailer, its staff were subjected to a long list of dos and don’ts covering every aspect of their work. Now the firm has decided that its rules-based culture is too inflexible to cope with the challenges of globalisation and technological change, and is trying to instil a “values-based” culture, in which employees can be trusted to do the right thing because they know what the firm stands for.

“Values” is the latest hot topic in management thinking. PepsiCo has started preaching a creed of “performance with purpose”. Chevron, an oil firm, brands itself as a purveyor of “human energy”, though presumably it does not really want you to travel by rickshaw. Nearly every big firm claims to be building a more caring and ethical culture.

A new study suggests there is less to this than it says on the label. Commissioned by Dov Seidman, boss of LRN, a firm that advises on corporate culture, and author of “How”, a book arguing that the way firms do business matters as much as what they do, and conducted by the Boston Research Group, the “National Governance, Culture and Leadership Assessment” is based on a survey of thousands of American employees, from every rung of the corporate ladder.

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It found that 43% of those surveyed described their company’s culture as based on command-and-control, top-down management or leadership by coercion—what Mr Seidman calls “blind obedience”. The largest category, 54%, saw their employer’s culture as top-down, but with skilled leadership, lots of rules and a mix of carrots and sticks, which Mr Seidman calls “informed acquiescence”. Only 3% fell into the category of “self-governance”, in which everyone is guided by a “set of core principles and values that inspire everyone to align around a company’s mission”.

The study found evidence that such differences matter. Nearly half of those in blind-obedience companies said they had observed unethical behaviour in the previous year, compared with around a quarter in the other sorts of firm. Yet only a quarter of those in the blind-obedience firms said they were likely to blow the whistle, compared with over 90% in self-governing firms. Lack of trust may inhibit innovation, too. More than 90% of employees in self-governing firms, and two-thirds in the informed-acquiescence category, agreed that “good ideas are readily adopted by my company”. At blind-obedience firms, fewer than one in five did.

Tragicomically, the study found that bosses often believe their own guff, even if their underlings do not. Bosses are eight times more likely than the average to believe that their organisation is self-governing. (The cheery folk in human resources are also much more optimistic than other employees.) Some 27% of bosses believe their employees are inspired by their firm. Alas, only 4% of employees agree. Likewise, 41% of bosses say their firm rewards performance based on values rather than merely on financial results. Only 14% of employees swallow this.

from the print edition | Business

October 08, 2011 at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 07, 2011

ST: Tuition, Parents

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The Straits Times

www.straitstimes.com

Published on Sep 25, 2011

Parental guidance

Parents are taking lessons from mathematics to languages so that they can help their children cope better in school

When Ms Ling Yit Lin taught her seven- year-old son Harry Nicholls how to work out the problem sums in his mathematics worksheet, he ended up getting everything wrong.

The Primary 2 pupil came home from school crying, saying that the method she taught him was wrong, even though the answers were correct.

'It was confusing. I asked the teacher who said they use methods such as modelling. I did A-level maths but I didn't do modelling,' says the 40-year-old housewife.

It was the same when she used algebra to help her 10-year-old daughter, who is in Primary 5, solve mathematical problems. She was told her daughter's teacher had taught her to use heuristics instead - which refers to various problem-solving strategies such as finding patterns or working a sum backwards.

So when their school, Zhonghua Primary in Serangoon, held a three-hour free workshop earlier this year, Ms Ling, who is married to an IT manager, immediately signed up for it. She and other parents learnt problem- solving strategies such as model-drawing and heuristics.

The school's head of mathematics, Mrs Lee Peck Har, 42, says it has been conducting the class for parents since 2008 to prepare them better to teach their children at home. 'We believe in garnering the support of parents to help us teach their children with the right method. It also makes our job easier.'

It is the same scenario at West View Primary. Its mathematics department head Lee Lee Cheng, 34, says parents are keen to learn more so they can help their children. 'With these workshops, they are kept informed of the changes in syllabus and are equipped with skills they can use when coaching their children.'

It helps to bring parents up to date, especially since the way the subject in school is taught has evolved.

'The maths syllabus today emphasises problem- solving. It requires pupils to apply concepts and skills to a range of situations, including open-ended and real- world problems,' says Madam Lee.

Principals interviewed say they have been organising such workshops because more parents are asking for them. West View principal Rashidah Abdul Rasip, whose school has workshops in English, mother tongue and mathematics, says parents often lament that they want to help their child but are unsure of what to do. 'At times, their child refuses to listen to their advice.'

Mathematics seems to be parents' biggest bugbear. Apart from free lessons by mainstream schools, private tuition centres have also jumped on the bandwagon.

Private tuition centre Neuromath's principal trainer Norman Tien, 44, started offering classes for parents a few years ago after they asked for it. It now trains 30 to 100 parents in each session, which costs $280 for a three-hour block to $490 for a full-day workshop.

But conscientious parents seek help not only in mathematics but also in a broad range of subjects.

Many are working parents and spend precious weekends or weekday nights picking up the intricacies of creative writing, learning to sound words using phonics or brushing up on tips to ace Chinese examinations.

Madam Daphne Choo, 41, a part-time pre-school teacher, took lessons at enrichment school The Alternative Story on weekends. The school has free help sessions for parents whose children attend its classes.

Madam Choo, who aims to help her daughters Shan Min, 11, and Shan Lyn, seven, ace English, says: 'I've learnt how to help them be exam-smart. For comprehension, they should read the question before reading the passage. So I remind Shan Min about that.'

Even parents with older children have found it useful to go for workshops. Lawyer Shirley Lo, 43, who has two children in secondary school and one in primary school, attends such workshops in her children's schools as they give her a better idea on how to help them tackle a subject.

When her son entered Secondary 1 this year, she went for two seminars organised by the humanities department. She says: 'It has helped me to better understand how my son can study geography and history more effectively. He was going through the same content during curriculum time, so we were able to discuss some of the skills and strategies.'

Even parents with children as young as 18 months are also signing up for classes in phonics to give them a headstart in reading, says Madam Jannalin Ng. The 39-year-old conducts a home-based phonics class for parents. It costs $350 for seven lessons.

Madam Fion Poh, 37, a church worker who has two children aged five and 21/2, takes leave to attend the class on Monday mornings. 'I can guide them better now that I know how to sound the letters.'

But educators say parents should not overly stress their children.

The head of Lorna Whiston's teacher development unit, Mrs Anita Wilks, 57, says parents are feeling the pressure for their children. They feel that schools are expecting children to complete more demanding tasks and they want to help them. But she adds: 'We can guide children when they are very young but they need to take things at their own pace to some extent.'

Zhonghua's principal Bucktha Seelan says even though more parents are asking for these workshops, it does not mean more stress for the child. 'If parents are attending classes so that they are more aware of what the child is going through, it should not overly stress the kid. They are just one more source of assistance the child can turn to for homework help.'

janeng@sph.com.sg

www.facebook.com/ST.JaneNg

Do you think it is necessary for parents to go back to school so that they can coach their children? Write to suntimes@sph.com.sg