Singaporean Pragmatism

I mentioned recently that I just returned from teaching a graduate school course as a Fulbright Scholar in Singapore. It was a pretty amazing experience, not just the teaching and the great students, but also immersing myself in another culture. Singapore is intriguing in that it's been somewhat Westernized, but just enough to lull you into a false sense of security before BAM, you make a social error. But overall, I think I did pretty well. Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to consider some of the differences between Singapore and the US, to help Americans better understand some of the concepts we've been discussing, and also to help leaders in other countries analyze their own cultures to see how they encourage creativity.

One thing I learned early on is that Singaporeans are pretty pragmatic. Before my first class some students came to talk with me and pointed out that, unlike other professors, I was unknown there, and no one knew how I'd be teaching my class. As I explained my teaching philosophy -- emphasizing students' responsibility for their learning, the importance of classroom discussion, and a preference for understanding concepts rather than memorizing details -- one student told me "we're Singaporean, we're very pragmatic, we just want to know what it takes to get a good grade." In truth, I had quite a few students (including Singaporeans) who went far beyond "memorization and regurgitation" to some much higher levels of learning, but his comment stuck with me the whole time and I watched for signs of this throughout society.

I found that, to a large extent, he was right. In many aspects of their lives, including professional, many people seemed to want to do the bare minimum without worrying about going beyond. I sensed a common attitude of "it's good enough, why do more?," and I'm still trying to figure out where that came from. Why would people be satisfied with "good enough?" Were they concerned about losing face if they tried to do something more, and failed? Were they more interested in stability than in advancement? Were they relying on the government to push things forward rather than doing it themselves?

A culture where "good enough" and "bare minimum" are considered acceptable, and even desirable, isn't a culture that encourages creativity and innovation. It's hard to put the effort into developing new ideas if there's no internal or external motivation for doing so. With no interest in being innovative, societies don't set up the necessary infrastructure to support innovation, and appropriate corporate cultures don't emerge. In many cases (and I heard this a number of times in a number of fields), local Creatives leave for better opportunities outside the country where they'll be appreciated and their talents used.

All of this seems strange when you consider Singapore's dramatic economic development over the last 45 years. It's even stranger when you consider a report released this month that rates Singapore as the most innovative country in the world (the US was eighth). How can this be the case if so many Singaporeans are only interested in "what it takes to get a good grade?"

One reason they might be doing so well is the creativity brought by foreign talent. For a number of years the Singaporean government has had an active program for recruiting foreign talent. Is this who's doing the innovation? Hard to say, but there's one interesting point I noticed there: among my friends in Singapore, the only ones who had university degrees...weren't from Singapore (they were pretty much all from Malaysia).

It could also be that the innovation report was examining only a snapshot rather than looking at how the culture has encouraged innovation over time. For me, there's another index that's useful for measuring how well a society supports creativity and innovation: the number of Nobel laureates it has produced. So far, no Singaporean has ever won a Nobel Prize.

What lesson can leaders take from this? Simply that encouraging a pragmatic attitude and designing a culture that supports it does not encourage innovation. Leaders should be worried about employees who want to do "just enough" without any interest in pushing boundaries. That's a recipe for a very un-creative firm. Employees should be encouraged to take risks and shouldn't be punished when those risks don't pan out.

That student's statement got me to look around the larger society and watch closely to see how much that attitude was repeated. I found it to be pretty common, and for those who did strive to do better, I saw little support for them. I had friends who were starting small creative businesses, I saw others trying new ideas in their jobs, I saw some trying to push training and education in their firms as a way to improve their creativity, but in many respects they were fighting an uphill battle.

And if the US really does rank eighth in innovation, well then, leaders here can't afford to let their Creatives adopt a "what it takes to get a good grade" attitude.