Transcription
I'm absolutely sure that 50 years from now, we are going to have a complete civilizational reset. You will have a very strong Eastern civilization, dominated by, but not only comprising, uh, China and East Asia. You will still have a European and hopefully a renaissance in Islamic civilization. But the whole Western civilization that we, we in Singapore in particular, in the past have looked up to and sort of worshipped, I think they're having a severe civilizational crisis in their own values, and I think it's going to go for decline, and I think this is just the beginning of it.
But in the medium-term, the other thing that I'm quite sure about is that America itself is going to go through the worst, uh, civil war, as it were, that it's had ever since the 1860s. Because what's happening in America today and in Europe are such fundamental, uh, domestic, um, divisiveness, the likes of which they've never seen before.
And the danger I see in Singapore is that we could be a secondary global city. Not in the first rank, but in the secondary ranks. Just like in America, you've got Minneapolis, Cincinnati. I think at all times, you have to know when do you lead from the front. And my sense is, do not lead from the front when it's time to take credit. That's the worst time to lead from the front. Lead from the front when there's a crisis, and people are not sure, people are scared, they're worried. That's when you have to step in and give them confidence. And then you step back again.
Fore speech. Fore speech. Let's shift away a little bit from your business and talk about Singapore and the world at large. You, you, you did speak a little bit about the world at large earlier when you referenced, um, the quick drop of DI and various things by by big tech or Wall Street. But broadly speaking, are there any things that are happening in the world today that not necessarily keep you up at night, but certainly concern you?
You know, one of the things that I find very curious about what's happening today is that normally, um, and I can actually see we're probably in some global crisis. Now, normally in a sort of global crisis, I can, I can, uh, foresee what's happening in five years and or or three years, five years, but the longer term, you cannot see. That's normal for a crisis. What's happening today, I find quite curious because I'm absolutely sure what's going to happen 50 years from now. 25 years, a little bit. For the next three, four years, not sure at all. It's a reverse scenario, and I find that curious because what's happening now, I'm absolutely sure that 50 years from now, we are going to have a complete civilizational reset.
And not even 50 years, but in 50 years' time, I think the whole of Western civilization, and I say this quite seriously and without any attempt to be insulting to Western civilization, which I've benefited from, but I think 50 years from now, which is means you're taking a slightly longer-term view. If we look at history, it was only the last 200, 50 years which coincides with America's founding next year, that, um, Western civilization has been dominant in the whole world because of Western science, because of Western technology, the rule of law, and of course, imperialism and so on. But it's not something that's been there forever. The idea of America and Pax Americana as being global hegemony, although a benign and a good one for until up to now. Um, people take it as a god-given thing. It's only since World War II. So I'm absolutely sure that 50 years from now, we will go back to what the world was like in the movie Back to the Future, when you will have a very strong Eastern civilization, dominated by, but not only comprising, uh, China and East Asia. You will still have a European and hopefully a renaissance in Islamic civilization. But the whole Western civilization that we, we in Singapore in particular, in the past have looked up to and sort of worshipped. I think they're having a severe civilizational crisis in their own values, and I think it's going to go for decline, and I think this is just the beginning of it. That, that, that's my view.
In the next 10 over years, I think it's less clear because you're still looking at things like Taiwan and and Russia, US relations, and how that is going to be reset. And of course, in the immediate future, in terms of what the impact of the tariff wars are going to be, um, I'm not that sure. But in the medium term, the other thing that I'm quite sure about is that America itself is going to go through the worst, uh, civil war, as it were, that it's had ever since the 1860s. Because what's happening in America today and in Europe are such fundamental, uh, domestic, um, divisiveness, the likes of which they've never seen before. And I don't think it's going to be a matter of whether Donald Trump is going to win the next election or not. So, I mean, I, I guess what I'm seeing quite curiously is a completely different crisis than the past. It's a crisis which I can't see how it's going to be played out in the immediate future. I mean, the tariff war might actually result in nothing because of taco. Trump's always, you know, chickens out. He's chickening out over Japan. He's chipping out on the Japanese tariffs. He's chickening out everything, but he just beats his breast. So, we don't know what's going to happen.
But 100 years from now, I'm quite sure the civilization that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren live in will be one in which which Eastern East Asian civilization, as a civilization, our values, our soft power, and many other things than just economic power. The civilizational power of Asia is definitely going to be resurgent, and that of the West is going to be not declining and coming under East Asian civilization, but at least as parallel, unlike in the past where where Asian civilizations always looked only to the West. Well, I mean, we are in the 21st century, and we've often heard it being dubbed the Asian century. Today, we're at the quarter mark of it, and based on your assessments, as we get to the middle and three-quarter mark, the needle will certainly move, and we'll see a post-spec Americana world. We'll hear a lot more about this with our next panel after this about geopolitics, and, uh, they will tell us, and we'll ask the tough questions of them about what where will the tariffs lead us to.
As we wrap up this conversation, if I can ask you a little bit about Singapore. We can't, we can't have a Singapore MICE forum and a conversation about state of play and what's next without talking about our homeland. Are you fundamentally optimistic about Singapore's continued growth, economic miracle, visionary leadership, and successes as we work towards SG 100 and essentially, what is your take on the future of Singapore?
Cool. Um, I, I, I alluded to this in, uh, uh, in something I did. What do younger people call it? A podcast. Is it a podcast? Yes. I only started doing podcasts because of my grandchildren. But I've, I've done one where I was asked a question about the same thing about Singapore. And I think, and my reply is that basically, I don't think that dangers are dramatic ones, but it's a slow kind of like the analogy of the the frog that sort of gets boiled in the hot water not knowing that it's going to happen. Meaning, I don't subscribe to the view that sovereignty, the sovereignty of Singapore will ever be challenged. Although in theory, it's possible. I think we all know that as Lee Kuan Yew said, we want to be a poisonous shrimp in the ocean so the bigger fish won't eat us, and I think we will remain very poisonous. So I don't doubt that we will survive as a sovereign country. All of us who've done national service, who know our capabilities in terms of defense, would know that we would be a very foolish country to ever try to take over Singapore. I think in terms. So I think Singapore will survive for the next 100 years. That's a given. If you look at the the wealth of Singapore today compared to our relatively small size, uh, to the reserves that we have and so on, I think Singapore will continue to be prosperous. But I have said that other than that, I'm not so sure what is guaranteed. And the danger I see in Singapore is that we could be a secondary global city. Not in the first rank, but in the secondary ranks. Just like in America, you've got Minneapolis, Cincinnati, and many other cities in America. They're very decent secondary cities, but they're not the New York, Los Angeles of the world of America. And by the same token, we could become a secondary city, quite prosperous, quite complacent, but I've used the word quite mediocre. And to me, the biggest challenge for Singapore is mediocrity. Um, meaning we ourselves basically are complacent and happy with what we have because we're so well off. And we are well off by any standard you of measure. And are we still hungry then? And hung hungry for what? My generation, I grew up in Singapore. I mean, was like completely different than now because Singapore was a developing country, and as Lee Kuan Yew put it, from third world to first world in one generation. That was what my generation aspired for. And it's such a tangible goal. You really wake up every day and that's what you go towards. And I can't blame young people today. Um, but what can they hope for in Singapore? That's more than material wealth, a better HDB, you know, maybe lower COE prices, more ability to travel. What is going to be the vision of Singapore that is beyond material and economic growth that can inspire young people to not just sleepwalk through life, wake up in the morning, go to work, with weekend comes, I go shopping to a mall, I go to a shopping mall, I go to a nice restaurant, I do this and that, and you and I travel and buy things and so on. What is there to inspire younger people? And that I don't know the answer to that. But I think if we lose that ability to dream and to be inspired by a vision of what we want to be, then we will go into mediocrity. So my hope for Singapore is that younger people will find things that inspire them so that we don't gradually decline and become a wealthy second-rank mediocre city-state.
Well, we've got business leaders in this room who certainly should aspire for more than that. And we've got the Singapore Tourism Board in this room who should certainly make sure that Singapore remains a first-tier global city, not a second-tier global city. Um, on that same point, and this is taking a question from Pigeon Hole, talking about the young and being inspired to want to do better and to to raise the bar. The question is, what advice would you give to a young professional in the MICE or tourism industry, particularly in the context of Singapore's evolving economy and global dynamics?
Singapore's what economy? Evolving. Yeah. And Singapore's evolving economy and the global power dynamics. What advice to give to a a person already in MICE? A young person in MICE or tourism? I would say that there are many areas within this industry which we have not sufficiently explored, not just as an industry, but as an area of endeavor which we can be inspired by. Um, by that, for example, just as a pure example, when I talk to all my colleagues in in the hotel industry from around the world, and we do so many Zoom sessions and I visit them and so on, and you know, I asked them, um, do you think this is a noble industry? Because you wouldn't think it's noble at all. You would say, first of all, it's a shitty industry. Sorry, it's it's a shitty industry. Um, yeah, people think it's glamorous, but we know you do shift work. You are underpaid compared to all these AI guys and worst of all, investment bankers who are just very bright, but they don't really create real value in the economy and so on. And I, my sense is that too many people in hospitality have a low sense of self-respect. We somehow think that we're always just serving other people, and so as a as a whole, people look at the things that we can do in the industry like specific things, but without a huge degree of self-respect. And when I talk to young doctors, for example, it's very different, although now many young doctors are only inspired by how much money they can make, but you can imagine, you can talk about how medicine is a noble endeavor. So I think there's always something that is the purpose of what we try to do, and I try to ask people, what is it that, what's the inspiring part of your business? And I think the inspiring part of the business that we bring people from all walks of life together, and we increase understanding among people, and that may sound like a cliche, but I think it's really true, especially in today's world where there's so much divisiveness. If If we can bring people together and increase understanding, we are ourselves creating a a no, we are in a noble endeavor of of increasing peacemaking in the world or preventing the divisiveness because we bring people together. And the MICE industry brings people together. So I think if you, I would tell a young professional in MICE today, don't just think of your business as one of convention building in Singapore for the global dentists association or the global association of whatever it is, because that's what MICE is. We bring people together. But if you're a young professional in MICE, what is the noble part of your business that you try to build upon more? Even as you bring in dentists from all around the world to Singapore, the noble part of what you're doing is no other industry brings people of such varied backgrounds together. Now, if that's the noble part of what we could be doing, what can we do to increase, um, the purpose of what we're doing? So, that's what I would tell a young person. Know your industry, of course, say great things and have new ideas that allow you to be promoted and be innovative, etc. But more most important is have a deep sense of self-respect for what you're doing, because what you're doing, you must believe and find a way to tell yourself, this is actually doing good for the world. If you can't do that and can find a way of doing that, then this is just a, this is just a job for you to get enough money to do all the other things you want to do, and that will never make you a very passionate, uh, advocate for your own industry.
Um, I had some questions for you about leadership, but I think, um, somebody else on Pigeon Hole has put his question very, very well, and let me, let me pull it out. Um, which is, how has your approach to leadership evolved over the years, and what lessons have you learned about leading a global company?
Uh, well, there are two aspects about that. What lessons have I learned about leadership, and what do I think is most important attributes of leadership? If I take the last one first, I think I've learned that the people whom you think should be the most obvious leaders might not necessarily be the best leaders. And you have to look for quiet leaders, who who may not exhibit the the normal behavior patterns that you expect for a leader. And perhaps the most important attribute that I wrote about, which is the title of one of my books, asking why, is still to me something I practice when I look for potential leaders. And the term asking why is really the attribute of having an inquiring mind, where you don't just take what is given to you as the accepted truth, but you think deeper and ask, why is something like this or something like that? And it really displays an inquiring mind. And I've found over the years that when I talk to younger colleagues or other people, it's not always the loudest person or the most glib person who's going to be the best leader. It's sometimes a very quiet person who says something out of the blue, and it strikes you as somebody who really knows a topic more than most people, that my God, there's an insight I didn't know about. And immediately you think, how come this person had an insight? Because that person thinks maybe a bit differently. And I've always held that thinking in a new way, or in other words, thought leadership is at the very heart of all leadership. And I've wrote about that in terms of, you know, people like, um, Isaac Newton, Galileo were thought leaders in the field of science. People like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi were leaders in the field of social activism and so on. So if you want to be a leader, you must be able to think originally. So I look for that when I talk to people. Obviously, if you're in the military or sometimes a hotel business, even, you need action leaders. Um, but action leaders are actually more common than people who are a little bit more quiet, but actually think very originally. So I look for that, and I try to then, if I find a person who then I think has original thinking, then you can develop that person in terms of other leadership attributes, how to speak more openly to people, how to lead and so on. So to me, leadership is not always something you find from the obvious people. Um, I think the, and the job of a leader is to not get, not get fooled by the leaders who seem to be the obvious leaders, but to look deeper and look for other people who have what I would say, deeper leadership attributes. So for all the managers in the room, you have heard firsthand of when your boss asks you why is an insight into leadership.
Building on that question, and may I ask you another question about leadership? As an entrepreneur, you've obviously spent many years on the ground building up your business. At which stage do you go from leading from the front, bringing the troops behind you, to leading from the back, being a strategic advisor or strategic council?
I think, I think that's a false dichotomy. In the same way that somebody, I remember somebody who had an image of what SEO does, asked me, oh no, KP, were you, are you, do you micromanage or do you micromanage? And I said, I don't do either. I mean, I do both. And I think the attribute of a leader is to know when do you have to intervene and micromanage because it is absolutely mission critical, and when do you micromanage because you, you are looking at the bigger picture, and if you micromanage too much, you're getting into people's way. So by the same token, my, my sense is, even now, at my age, and with many, many far more capable people than me, but and we are close to 100 hotels in in so many countries and so on, there are times when I have to lead from the front, and there are times I don't. At a moment of crisis, when COVID happened, I had to lead from the front. I had to get to all the town halls, I have to speak to all the people, because you can't hide behind a crisis. It's, uh, when it's time to celebrate great things happening, I stand behind, and I let all the people who deserve the credit to go out there, and I push them to get all the credit, and that's why I stand behind. And even now, in the company, I am directly in charge of a few things which move the needle, but don't involve being that much involved in the front line. So the answer to that, I think, is you never have one or the other. You either macromanage and you never micromanage, or you only lead from the back, or you lead from the front. I think at all times, you have to know when do you lead from the front. And my sense is, do not lead from the front when it's time to take credit. That's the worst time to lead from the front. Lead from the front when there's a crisis, and people are not sure, people are scared, they're worried. That's when you have to step in and give them confidence. And then you step back again.
Fore speech. Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Fore!