Transcription
Meet Claire, who grew up in a small flat in Singapore with her five older brothers. Today, she's a co-founder of Banyan Tree, part of a group with 15,000 employees operating hotels and resorts in 26 countries. Claire shared the principal differences between Singapore and Hong Kong, the biggest challenges Singapore could face in the future, and what Westerners misunderstand about the Singaporean way of life.
I'm Max Chernov. Let's go.
When people compare Singapore and Hong Kong, two like biggest rivals in the region, like what's your take on it? When people say some people say, "Oh, Hong Kong is better." Some people say Singapore is better. Like how you approach this?
"I love the seasons in Hong Kong. Singapore doesn't have that. I love the huge mountains and the oceans and all that around Hong Kong. We have that, but we don't have the mountains. The seasons, the mountains, and I I love the movies. They have their own fairly established film industry. Quite big, which we don't really have. And we grew up actually with all the Hong Kong stars before we grew up with Singapore stars. Yeah. And I think there's the Cantonese food is a delight. So that that's something uh wonderful."
[clears throat] "And there's that go-getting spirit in in Hong Kong that I I knew that I find very very fascinating. And also that the homogenization of language. They all speak Cantonese and Cantonese is a beautiful language that I I enjoy uh because I I went to a Cantonese school called Nanoa in Singapore. All the board members and among us we speak Cantonese and I I spoke Cantonese more than I spoke Hainanese. I'm a Hainanese. So that has become a lingua franca and I found that it's so sophisticated in Hong Kong and that that is a pleasure for me. So I think it's a two different feelings. One is so close to China and we are more Malayan in that sense. We we speak Bahasa and English. There you speak Cantonese and maybe Mandarin. So that more homogenization there compared to the diversity in Singapore and I like both. I I love going up to Malaysia by car by train before and uh there are lot of inter-university games between Singapore University and and KL University. So I grew up with the Malayan mindset and I love that my relatives were all in Johor uh in the rubber plantations and that's where my grandfather my grandmothers uh when they migrated from China they started from Skudai. So Singapore-Johor is very much like one family and then I used to go to KL by train to visit friends and then I love Penang and I love to eat the whole fun. So the Malayanized uh perspective is very much in our growing up before '65 in 1965. So it's so different the diversity of cultures and Hong Kong is closer to so-called the Chinese culture. So both has its charm and I feel that Singapore is more that Southeast Asian texture. Hong Kong is more quite the northeast texture."
"And Singapore is more westernized. You think?"
"Now here it is. I now define myself as Claire from Singapore. Why? I go to China, they don't see me as Chinese. I am at best overseas Chinese. And I go to um I'm in Singapore, I feel I'm in a Chinese school before, they see me as very western. I go to a Chinese school, they see me as very western. But when I go to a English language school, they see me a little bit China. So in that sense marginal, neither east, neither west, that seems to be what how you categorize Singapore too."
"Neither east, neither west, neither north, neither south."
"But that's exactly where the potential is. You can be east and you can be west. You can be north, you can be south because there's no other city-state in the world where the four civilizations is concentrated in one island. So we have the potential to be able to take in all these civilizational influences and cultures and the best practices to recompose the Singaporean excellence. So the potential being east, the potential being west or north or south, all in Singapore defines Claire from Singapore. I have bits of all that to scale to excellence. So that potential is there. So I used to feel that we are neither east or west. It's like 'rojak'. But now I don't see that anymore. I see the potential of taking the best from all these bits and to recompose a Singaporeanness that can scale all different and diverse cultures. And we can be the bridge and the interface for all these countries and all these cultures with one another because of the way we are brought up. And our location allows that diversity and that aggregation and that synergy that we can cultivate and that's for me exciting and I hope the young will feel that challenge will live up to that challenge by learning more the languages of the region by sharpening their own professionalism to offer to the market what we are good at and to adopt that universal and global mindset to be of service to all. So we are a bridge, we are peacemakers, we are a builder for communities. So that's again this is no longer a small kong. This is the global kong."
"Mmm. I like it. What do you think the biggest challenges for Singapore within the next like 10 years? Let's say."
"One worry is the complacency of the young people that feels that, you know, they have to they do not earn the living. We had to earn our degrees at that time. We had to fight for a university seat. Today, I think that young people had a lot of choices, but the competition is also very harsh and because the competition is so competitive at the same time and there's so many choices, they can be distracted. So my one worry is where is the anchor in terms of what do they want in life? That sense of purpose, direction, and raison d'être, and the cause of life or purpose of life. I do worry. Do they have it? Can they see it other than money, other than wealth creation? Do they see more than that? Do they feel that contentment about living well? And what does that mean? Do they think about having themselves to lead the life and not be provided for and being given so much? So that perseverance and that warrior mindset of earning your living and giving your best and going up, going up and down with the vicissitudes of life and yet able to overcome them all. The resilience, I have a little concern about that capacity because I think we have been we have done so well and I cannot blame them. All the more we have to be conscious about it and then we have to think about how to let them through thinking that this is not going to be always the case and therefore do they have the capacity to fight back. That's my biggest concern. And with the all the other countries around us emerged and do better and evolving towards a more sophisticated state, being a late developer, they short-circuited a lot of what we have done years to get to. They short-circuited and they do it better and faster. Would that be a threat to us? Whether it's the ports, the airports, and the the manufacturing sector, the business sector, the banking sector, all these are questions that we need to always look at. But I feel there's one area we have a long play and that is the whole professionalism, the way we do things, the systems, the legal structure, the structures and the policies, the the processes we have we have developed to manage business, governance, etc., have been years of training and that's I feel that we are still above the the others. But we cannot be complacent that will be able to thrive because I think where we become so much a Singapore Inc. way we forget about the diversity of the cultures around us. So that's my concern that dilution of empathy and understanding of the regions around us made us therefore arrogant and disconnected. If we can exercise more empathy and then apply more cultural and political understanding of the region around us together with the professionalism of our management practices, we will be great. That's for me is going from good to great. And that is about the qualitative aspects of growth, not the quantitative part of it. And to therefore address the relationship building challenges in understanding the diversity and penetrating that diversity to harness and optimize the resources to scale for performance. If we can do that, we are combining the hardware and the software to even become greater."
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So, you grew up in Singapore and then you moved to Hong Kong at some point, right?
"Yeah, after we got married."
"After you got married. So, was it the big difference back then between Singapore and Hong Kong?"
"Yeah, Singapore we are on an island and every morning I have to get up at 5:50 to take that ferry to get to Hong Kong Island and that time was a slow boat of 50 minutes and from Hong Kong I had to take number four bus and another 40 minutes to get to Buffalo to the university and I was teaching and doing my research. KP was a journalist. So that daily three hours ride from home to work and work to home is become a routine and three hours a day is quite a lot of time."
"So when I got back to Singapore and then people are complaining about the traffic and of having to work and all that took only 25 minutes or 30 minutes. They were complaining."
"I looked at them and said that my god, we were spoiled. So definitely different. But the island experience in Hong Kong, I think, is the genesis for KP and myself on what is like on an island paradise. There were no cars, no road, vegetable farms, mountains and the ocean around you. I think that started and stirred us the first imagination on privacy, romance, community, recreation and well-being. I think all that we were doing afterwards, the jealousy may have started from there, be other than our own upbringing where we traveled quite a bit. But the four years in Hong Kong, the ferry ride, the talking with the aunties and uncles who are the farmers and for me, I was working in a factory. I was working in Kung, you know, with a group of young girls doing sewing Levi's pants. Yes, and doing soldering for all the uh motherboard of the computers that again gave me a sense of the meaning of work and more important the importance of self-dignity at work. So Hong Kong for me was really a an experience in nurturing certain consciousness in me about empowerment, about sustainability, about what life can be because living on Lamma at the Banyan Cove highlighted the importance of water, oceans, the importance of uh privacy and the significance of community."
You lived for some time in the West as well, right?
"I think it's Paris. Yes."
"Yeah. You lived in Paris. You studied there. What's your take on like the East and West now? Like some people say, 'Oh, East is the future. West is declining.' Probably exaggeration like what's your is more nuanced. What's your take on the East versus West now?"
"I think two levels. One, this whole dichotomy about what is East and what is West and whether one is more superior, the other one is not. One has got wisdom, the other one has got intelligence. These are all labels. I really do not like stereotypes. I go on the big age, humanity. I think we are all Homo sapiens. For the good of humanity, nationalism, border politics, country ideologies all come in, but these are man-made defined. The universal Homo sapiens, what we like as people. You go to every country, it's the same. They need to be fed. They need security and shelter. They want a good life. They care for the young and they want a job and they want a future. So we have certain fundamental needs. The same. What is East and what is West, I feel, are manifests of the way we do things. But what is deep inside, what we want as Homo sapiens, it's universal. So if we can understand that and see all the way we are, the way we dress, the way we talk, whether we shake hands or whether we do the uh the kung fu style, it's manifest of the culture. But it's more important that we feel for what is the purpose and meaning of this life and what is the respect we need cross-culturally. If we can do that, we already cross the boundaries of East, West, North, South, red, white, yellow, etc. But I know I'm talking in a very idealistic term and people will say that it's so pollyannish. But if you don't have the fundamental spirit of that oneness of humanity, then competition, antagonism, conflict will arise. But if you have and you start off with the respect and acceptance followed by empathy and cultivation of diversity, you have a fair chance of reaching a certain common core for humanity. And that's the common core that I work on. And that common core for me is about generally sustainability to save the planet, community building to find that common core amidst the diversity. So we work with the differences, not despite. And the differences do not scare me because the differences, I love the diversity, but I find that common core. So corporations and businesses have that opportunity to create through the way they manage that common core of good values."
"Yeah, like absolutely agree ideally, yes. But feels like the world now is kind of going to the opposite direction. It was like more globalized before, now it's separate, like being..."
"The second point I want to make about this East and West thing. I feel that when I do GPT now and ask questions and get the responses, I find a set of responses in some of the text. I ask, where does it come from? Who originates this data? Where is the data feed? Do I have the data feed from China? Yes, I can get that through a Chinese platform because I read it. But many don't read the Chinese Chinese feed. Do I have any Southeast Asian feed? There must be, whether it's in Tamil or is in uh Malay or in Vietnamese, but we don't get it because it's not translated and takes time to translate it and we don't know it. So I feel that our data feed is one-sided from the West. So the whole mindset modeling of what is right or wrong, what is good or bad, what is better and what is greater, what is defined is all originating from the West. Mhm. Called the Western feed. That has to change. The China, the the Southeast Asian, the Asian, the European, the feed has to come in in a way that we can all access through and read and understand and we have to take confidence in also relying on this data feed to compose a judgment. That is, you know, something we KP and I have been talking about called the civilizational resetting. We have to reset the criteria defining what is right or wrong, good or bad. What are the commandments? What is called the best? Is there another way? Is there an alternative? Is there another option? We may not have the absolute answer. But if we have to start asking the questions and have confidence in getting the data feed elsewhere, locally from our corporations, from our own experiences, write about it to be confident the way we were, the way we are, and how we have succeeded can become the sources of data for the West so that they can then depend and look into the Asian data feed to recompose the way they work and think. That is equalizing, I feel, the cognitive mindset."
"It requires therefore a whole educational experience [snorts] of travel, crossing borders, communication, exchanges to restore, enhance mutual understanding. We try that in Singapore with a lot of our festivals and costume sharing etc., which is good and I think in a way uh Singapore has one of the best is the best experiments in creating racial harmony and enforcing and fostering a respect and integration. I wish we could go beyond that where we could do the soft sciences, so-called, I call them sciences because it is about the mind play. Yeah, the mind, the way it works with poetry and music and art, all that is soft sciences. I think that will be really something that will enhance the Singaporeanness. It will soften us."
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What are the countries or the places that we shall like closely look at and see their development? Is it like Vietnam or like some parts of Indonesia or like what are the like biggest players in..."
"South Asia has 700 million people."
"Yeah."
"It's a treasure."
"Yeah."
"It we have so it is very complex. Sometimes the religions and the and the cultures are quite different, but I still feel being South Asian, it has a lot of history behind and before colonization and we know so little actually about it. I'm actually reading a uh a book by Milton Osburn, it's a 14th edition on the introduction to Southeast Asia and I what what hit me was at the same period when London was 350,000 people, Nonpen was 1 million. Wow. So there were decades, centuries before the Khmer civilization, the Rigas, there had been so much before colonization, the history that we do not know about. And that's why probably explain why there is so little so-called transmission of the delights and and and beauty of of of Asia and I think we have to relearn that. So I feel History should be a must lesson for Singaporeans. History, poetry, the arts. We have to revitalize those in our school curriculum to situate our a mindset, a cross-cultural mindset among Singaporeans so that they can optimize the region in order to synergize for the future. That's a real lack because we go straight to America. We go straight to Europe and England, Switzerland, we or now we straight to even Japan or China. But Southeast Asia is a possibility, especially for all memes which anyway could not leapfrog to the West. Yeah. But they can easily look at optimizing the region. That's a a dream, a vision, you know, but not people will still think that the money is still out in the West and not in this region. I don't know."
"Yeah. I mean like US is like the biggest market and it's very unified. That's why people like dream about US and here is more much more complexity."
"Yeah. But that's also where the opportunity is."
"For sure."
"They needed a lot of bridges and they need a lot of core brokers. Um, and this is our region and therefore it's going to be generations, our region. All the more we need to understand it, accept, like and optimize it."
[music]
[music]
[music]
"Wow, this is very cool."
"I think it's professional, actually."
"I cannot compose this again."
"I played it, but I see you. I feel it. I play something."
"Oh, really?"
"This is totally spontaneous."
"Oh, wow."
"Wow. How have you been playing like all your life? Like for a long time?"
"No, I stopped. I was 18. I was sort of like, you know, playing for the grade one to the grade eight."
"And uh I didn't want to go through my last LRSM exam."
"Mhm."
"And I quit after 18 years old and never played again. And then when I uh broke an ankle and KP decided I should for six months nursing the ankle."
"Yeah."
"I have something to entertain myself."
"So we bought the piano and then to replay."
You grew up as I understand in quite like poor environment. Is it is it the case or..."
"I never felt poor."
"No."
"I think poverty is is is relative."
"But I certainly did not grow up in a so-called big home."
"Yeah."
"It's a two-room flat in a shop house with 10 people and I remember sleeping on canvas beds [clears throat] and double decker with my five other siblings."
"Yeah. So it's not luxurious or all comfortable. I never had my own room till I was 18 or even beyond."
"But I never felt poor. There's always enough to eat. And of course, we at that period we had to queue up for water."
"Singapore, we had to queue up for water to go at the morning at 5:00 a.m. to collect water because we we had a water shortage and then we did have uh curfews etc. So in a way uh Singapore, I grew up in the 700,000 people Singapore."
"Now we are about 6 million and over, but it was a very mixed community where I was in Little India. I had uncles and aunties from the Malay community, the Indian community. I love it. And mom is my first teacher on uh on race relations. I'm always bringing food to the IU across the street to the Malay community. And at that time, mom was sort of like illegally renting the flat below to an Indian barber family. And when they left Singapore after some decades, they all [clears throat] prostrated themselves on the floor to kiss my mother's feet."
"Oh, wow."
"Gratitude. And I just remember as a child I'm always bringing food to Indian uncle, Ibu Malay family, and the Chinese tailor even further down the road. So the idea of a kong spirit, a village is so much a part of me. It's like a is about community. Hence in a lot of work that I did afterwards, it's all connected to this idea of living the kong life."
"These are the three trees, Banyan Tree. Ah, one, two, and three. The three children."
"Okay."
"Yeah."
"Oh, they're very old. I guess..."
"We when we started this house, there was no tree at all."
"Ah."
"And I was I was pregnant with my third child."
"Yeah."
"And so we got these trees from Ma imported all the way here and they started with this house. We've been here about 32 years."
"Yeah."
"And these trees grow. So they're the three Banyan trees with us. They're beautiful. Absolutely beautiful."
"And you know the story of the Banyan tree, right?"
"That is is we're inspired by Tagore. Trees are earth's efforts to reach out to the listening heavens. And for us trees, they got roots and roots means foundation. Yeah. Yeah. And for us, it's so important that whatever we do, we are driven by the foundation of values. And the tree trunk, you see, is this for Bry is diversity and many clutter together to form a strong resistance and resilience. Yeah. Yeah. And they and they got this foliage of leaves and and they got the roots will come down again and become another trunk. So this multiplicity and this um diversity really sort of uh and, you know, delighted us. So my children are all named after trees as a result."
"Oh, wow."
"Yeah. All three of them. My oldest son is a birch tree. Uh, really young. My daughter is Banyan Tree. Mhm. And uh my youngest is a cedar tree or another version of the Anacardium. So I love trees because they are growth, they are dynamic, they've got roots, they nurture and they provide shelter to people. Yeah. It's all about this. It's really an iconic tree for the community."
You founded Banyan Tree in 1995.
"Oh, earlier than that. The first hotel was in Phuket, 1987, but Banyan Tree is 1994. Yeah. 30 years. Yeah. 31 years now."
Did you run any businesses before or it was your like first business project for you?
"I was teaching in the University of Hong Kong as well as Singapore and KP was a journalist. So we didn't so-called run businesses in that sense. Yeah. We when we founded uh uh Banyan Tree at in Laguna in Phuket, it was a it was we were blown away by the sunset. Mmm. We will wanted a place on the weekend where we can take a plane flight to easily and then able to come back on a Monday to work. It's just like people in the America or in in Europe, you know, it's a weekend home. So I thought we'll have something that is the weekend we could get out of Singapore and come back on Monday. Uh, and we founded the closest place, one and a half hours away, Phuket. And a beautiful sunset and the stretches of beach. This is the place. No winter, no clear monsoon rain. Yes, but it's a pearl of Asia. So it was not a SWOT analysis, business calculus. They made us settle in Phuket. Nola is is coincidental and encounter a delightful one on high side. Uh, we just felt that try that passion for travel and that familiarity with Thailand because KP grew up in Thailand and that short distance from Singapore, those were the important factors why we settled there. And there's no language issue because KP speaks Thai, that did the job. So it was not through careful business calculus. It's entirely a heart and situational calculus."
Throughout my YouTube journey, I met so many interesting people like billionaires, politicians, celebrities. With some, we even became friends. Um, some became my clients. And what's funny, I started all of this in Singapore from [music] scratch. I didn't know anyone. My English was not perfect. Still not. I didn't have any like a fancy [music] MBA degree or something. But step by step, I managed to reach out to people, get them interested, and build real connections just by talking [music] to them. I really believe that people around you shape your life more than anything. And good conversational skills make everything much easier. So, here's what I want to do. I'm putting together a small group and bring everyone to Phuket where we will spend a super productive and [music] fun weekend, probably around February or March. We will work on your social and leadership skills, networking, [music] personal brands, and you will make friends with great people. I even arranged a couple of hours with a billionaire [music] I interviewed before. I'm sure this little getaway can boost your life, business, and career. [music] And of course, we'll have a lot of fun together, too. If you want to join us, get on the waiting list and answer a few quick [music] questions so I can shape the program properly. So scan this QR codes on the screen or click the link below. See you in Phuket soon.
What are the biggest skills that you think kids need to learn these days?
"The biggest skills."
"The biggest skills. Yeah. Like from school, like they know math, they know physics, but what? Yeah. What are the like life skills that they need to learn or it need to be combined academic plus life or..."
"Emotional intelligence and resilience. Emotional intelligence is to is to address the softer side of the the way people behave, think, feel. We always only see the way people perform and the KPIs and the outcome go behind that. The way what drives people's thinking, feeling and actions. So, emotional intelligence, the way people then negotiate, come into a consensus during a conflict, agree to disagree, and yet not get into a conflict. Those are all about emotional skill. The other area is resilience. And resilience is all about able to pick up when you fail and you will fail in many ways. Can you pick up and go again? Or do you feel shame and you hide and moan and groan? That emotional resilience is going to be required even more so in this very competitive era because you think you're smart. There are many people smarter than you are. How are you going to find your pathway that fits the align with what you want and you experiment on it. So the resilience is not about able to pick up. The resilience is all about to able to persevere in a course of action without always thinking about having to just win and be the top, but to be at the cause consistently getting there with hard work, with integrity. And that resilience and not giving up, not quitting so easily. It's really a quality in corporate life that is so necessary today because it's harder to get into the proof points of success. You continually have to show proof. You continue have to persevere to get the proof. So if you give up halfway because you just don't have anymore the energy, the stamina, the courage, you're out of the race. So emotional intelligence and emotional resilience. So those are the two paramount qualities I feel uh Singapore will need uh the next 10 years, especially with the competition from the emerging economies and with all the troubling uh circumstances around us uh at all circumstances, these are two qualities I feel will stand out."
"Is there a way to develop them? I mean, for example, resilience, if you not struggle when you're a kid, so it probably and your life is pretty comfortable, it's it's hard to get to this emotional resilience stage."
"So every year, I think our government send out thousands of students overseas to learn to live in different dormitories in different contexts to uh help them uh skill up in that area of character building. Yeah. We have to do more of that. We should triple those experiences to get them out, but not to the States or to England or to Japan, that's comfortable. They should get them out to difficult zones like Africa, you know, Southeast Asia, uh, India, and, uh, all the stunts to to far away places where there will there will be some physical hardship and there will be challenges of diversity of cultures where there will be um, uh, the the need to understand more, empathize with. So I think those were the test beds for resilience and if they can overcome one and again the people, the cultures, the differences, and all the physical conditions, it will nurture, I feel, a stronger and more courageous people. So send them to harder destinations."
You're very active, you're busy, you've been busy for the last like 30 plus years. Do you believe in work-life balance at all? Uh, what does it mean for you?
"Okay. I I was a uh the chair of the work-life integration for Singapore for about like 8 to 10 years before to try to get companies to design a workplace management practice that helps to uh motivate women at work and also retain them so they do not leave because of young children. Yeah. So we try in many ways to see how we can help them integrate. Balancing is a different ball game. Balancing is almost like saying that you 8 hours work, 8 hours home. It doesn't happen like that. There are periods of a corporate life where we do 16 hours work and less. But overall, you women have to ask themselves, do they manage the time? And that time has to be stretched. It's not at one point of time. Can they manage time in a longer perspective so that they can have it all? They can. Two of them start the marriage, they want to get the promotion. Maybe the children can wait. When the children come, can they therefore one stay at home or one travels or both travel? Can they have money to have a nanny? It is planning. And children are younger, you spend more time with them. Do you want to talk to your boss to say that maybe for the next three years I prefer not to be traveling, I like to do more in something else, and that is courageous conversation, communication with the boss, and then when the children are older, you're able to travel, then it is a negotiate with the husband and wife that you both do your thing and yet keep the family and there's division of labor within the household and there's using resources in the community to support the children. So all this requires the systems and ecosystem of support and resource optimization for the working woman and men. That's where integrating these resources to help balance the work and life aspirations. Yeah. So work-life balance is not about equal. It's about, you know, the wanting of both worker goals and life goals, but doing in a flexible way that also resource it in different sources to make it happen and work. And that requires the effort of government, parents, couples, husband and wife, and older children to support what I will call a work-life integration household strategy. It should not be just a woman's work to do the house. It should be the older children who can do the laundry. It could be an older girl can go and do the supermarket. It'll be the husband doing the laundry. You know, everyone does a little bit of the household task. Therefore, it is a household strategy. The same way we do corporate strategy, there should be a household strategy and it should be engaging all and not leave it to just the mother or the wife. Yeah."
"Shall the strategy be written in some kind of form or it's more like a your alignments with your let's say husband to wife?"
"It's a lot of of talking together. Uh, you select a spouse that thinks like that in the first place and then when it is formed, there should be a lot more of discussion together about how you can create the division of work. I think it has to be a buy-in by both sides. Yeah. And I would encourage all young women before you get married to settle this score first to make sure that he understands that a family is the effort and contribution of all members in the family."
What's the biggest lessons that you learned through this years of doing business or maybe some insights that you can share? What are like the main like three main principles how to build successful business?
"You have to do what you like and you have to do it with people you like to sustain. Sustainability, people think it's all about climate. For me, to sustain the business is to sustain leadership ability. That leadership ability is about how you can optimize and gather the right resources and people around you to help you scale. So doing what you like, working with people that you like, and able to foster that leadership um mindset to persevere to endure with you, that I feel is that team leadership. I don't feel charisma or individual leadership is critical to all. I think team leadership is even more uh cogent in today's world. You can have a leader that lead, but he doesn't have the tribe to follow, it will fail. So the second principle is team leadership is collective wisdom, is diversity management because the more inputs you get, the less mistakes you will make or it lessens that that that margin of mistakes. Yeah, because you get inputs. You may still make the mistakes, but it's a collective mistakes overcome that together. But more and more now, I think as we move on, I I really do think that, you know, corporate teams must engage in courageous conversations, especially in the Asian context where we are seen but not heard, part of the whole cultural upbringing. So corporates don't speak up, they let the leaders speak and lead and do it all in command. That culture must be intervened. And we must nurture a more courageous teamwork where people speak up to gather the information. Third principle, do it. Just do it. Rhetoric and the dreams and visions motivate, but execution, performance, and measurable to deliver and measure your output critical. Talk less, do more. And when you do deliver, measure [clears throat] that and evaluate. All these are each each component is a hard exercise. Dreaming and visioning uh is the easiest cuz it's dreaming big, dreaming long, and all that, you know. Mhm. Execution is the hardest. So again, it goes back to the right person to lead and execute. Yeah. And when they execute that they can monitor, they supervise, they monitor, um, they deliver and they measure, then evaluate. Those are the harder processes and I think we do not do enough or we may do it in a way that has is already a thought being adopted by a CEO. Mhm. That may not allow diversity of thinking. So that that processes of of uh that principle of diversity management, courageous conversations, and getting inputs um surely is a process that we need to continually nurture, cultivate in an Asian context. I I find it so hard to get people to be honest and courageous in even though I feel that I am quite open-minded, that Asian upbringing somehow has not still does not let them become less fearful of hierarchy and authority and be able to brainstorm and be open-minded about it. So I feel that I don't get the best of the persons. So as a leader, all the more we need to [clears throat] open up the field, open up the mind, allow give permissions to be able to fail, give permission for people to make mistakes, and to know who fits, who is best for what. So it's the question of the fit."
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Doing business with your husband. Was it difficult for you cuz you spend so much time I guess together or like you're working on the same type of problems?
"Luckily, we are in different domains that help. I'm in gallery sustainability and uh a certain spa area that he's not concerned with. Yeah. And then now I do business development in China. Uh, he I I'm the hunter [clears throat] in this way. He is the gatherer. So the hunting part, it's I do and he then completed on the project development. So that's the division of labor. So in a way, we are we are both like two circles, two clear circles with very independent spheres of influence and authority within the group and with a common core where we share all about the see because I'm his biggest confidant, everything about the company. I would know. I may not know the in a granular fashion, but some of the bigger issues and and what he's tormented by, what he's not happy about, what he's worried at, I will be the one to know. So we are two concentric circles, independent but linked, and we are like the infinite symbol symbol, you know, where it is that infinite, that the thread that binds it, but we move independently and that has helped us thrive as a in our couple entrepreneurship. We do have disagreements about people, about job roles, about the way we may define the next direction. Of course, we have a lot of disagreement. Of course, we will have the quarrels. But there's a certain principle that, you know, if it is critical, we stay and let's hear what others say. If it's not critical, give way. Sometimes I do, sometimes he does because it's not critical. So that that requires a certain level of maturity and a certain level of conviction that we are there not to cheat each other at all. Not it's not like two indifferent parties. We care, but we care differently. As long as we recognize that, then um, it helps you to move to the next step. But giving way is very different from giving in. Giving in, you surrender all. Giving way is that you don't get into headlong clash. Mmm. You sometimes just walk away. You sometimes just leave it for a while. Uh, sometimes you just say it doesn't really matter."
"But in now, we actually have a family council."
"Okay."
"The family council is started a few years now where all the five of us, the three children and two of us will discuss all matters that related to the family. Whether it is the the wealth bit or the holiday bit or the wish list bit, we all have it on the agenda. We set the agenda and we meet at least once every two months and then different rotational chairmanship. We minute it, it is all transparent. So anything happens to us tomorrow, the children can take over and they know where is everything and they know what matters and there's no secrets, it's transparent. Mmm. So we have this family council and they also have the run council, that means the three siblings, the three children themselves will meet among themselves before they come to the family council where they discuss with the parents and the parents versus the parents, the old and the young is intergenerational. It's very healthy to us see the way they connect and relate so that we can point out any any possible conflict and they will get used to us being there to able to speak up whatever that concerns them. I think this is the family business culture that we hope to cultivate so that there'll be no surprises if we do leave the scene. Yeah. That's very advanced, I'll say."
"So we we I I now counsel most family businesses to do just that. I say it need not be so formalistic. They should just gather a lunch or meal. If this is the uncle that they are working for, not the father, then have a meeting with the uncle. Call it a family council and not be the own family council. It's still a family council or clan council, whatever council. But the the the objective is to create conversations of a safe and open environment for the younger generations to dare to voice their concerns, their worries, and their feelings of inadequacy. And it is for the older people, older people to understand that and guide and direct them. So guidance is surely something we need to do in intergenerational transmission and we don't often do that. We either award or penalize because we only look at outcome. Mhm. We are not looking at process management and process nurture. That requires mentorship, patience, love, and honesty, and of course courage that mutually they can tell each other that, oh, I'm no good at that. You learn. I'm really no good at that. Okay, we find something else. I'm okay, but I'm not sure how. Let me show you. I want to do this, but I have really feel that I'm not good at it. We try, let's see, show it, and you take them forward. So guidance has become, I feel, a very important corporate tool to scale performance. Yeah. And we don't do that enough."
What's the happiest moment in your life?
"When I am able to um sit down and have a good chat with people from different parts of the world that is safe with a hot hot cup of good coffee and my favorite cookie, that's the moment. I'm very much a a person of the moment. I collect moments when I travel or when I'm home or when I'm elsewhere, the moments that build up that feeling of life. It could be a moment with an old person. It could be a moment in the street with a vendor. Those are the real moments. This moment with you is a conversation that is real that I hope it sparked and some imagination on your side and it creates the delight in me by conversing that I found my voice. So this moment is real for me and I feel that the more wholesome moments are constructive as they are, and even productive perhaps, it is the trigger and the spin-off of the next action to become. So this multiply effect, whatever that is shared with us between us this hour, it can spin off to the next line of action or thought process for me is the fruit of the conversation of this engagement. Yeah. So if you take each moment this way and not dwell on the past and then uh worry about the future, but you see how each moment could be constructive to create the next moment of productivity, that's evolution."
That's improvement. Is there like a tool, a way how to learn, like to be present in the moment, like to feel this moment? Like, I don't know, meditation? Or because it's difficult, people worry about the future, people like think about the past.
You do not not worry about the future. But that I'm saying that you put aside the future concerns, park it.
Ah.
You put aside your past, which you cannot just shake off, right? You park it. You seize this moment. Like, I'm looking at you in your eyes. I'm listening to you as you to me. We take this moment to say, what am I saying about myself to you?
M. What am I hearing from you to me? What is the new insight I get that helps me rethink? Or vice versa? That's what I meant about take this moment. It's all about listening. The listening moment is the most difficult and most at least done, even in the corporate world.
People talk, they don't listen. They hear, but they don't listen. So the listening skill can be nurtured. There are the ways to you pause, you stay silent, you focus, pay attention and listen, and you will learn so much more.
That I was in a, uh, many, many years ago, I taught in the police academy. And that time, I was given the job of designing workshops on rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. And here I was, a chair, long skirt with boots. And then I went into the police academy, all the 300 men in blue. And I did my, I thought, fantastic lecture about domestic violence, male, male, female conflict, etc., etc. A police constable, a female police constable, came to me very courageously, told me, "Miss Chang, you are good at your work, but you are totally ineffective."
For someone my age, at that time, in their 40s, an NMP, nominated member of parliament, thinking that I am quite good, to be told by a young woman constable I was ineffective. It was a bit of a shock, a little bit of a letdown, a bit of a losing face. I took it to heart. I said, "What do you mean?" And she was very kind. She said, "You were looking directly in the eyes of the police, which to police training is an invite to fight."
Yeah.
"Is too fierce."
Yeah.
"You should be looking at the third eye."
And she said, "You are too close physically in the classroom. You should stand further away so that..."
They feel intimidated.
"...they feel intimidated. You just gesticulate too much because for the police, when you put out your hand, they defend." So I gesticulated, and therefore they were intimidated. And your pitch was fierce. You have to moderate it, too. Pitch down the tone.
And you were walking towards them when you say something that was so directed that they got scared of. So all the time they're reacting to you, not to what you say.
M.
"That was the best feedback I've gotten from a young woman constable. I'm eternally grateful." And then the next lesson I went, I was less very conscious. I looked at the third eye. I smiled a bit more. I moderated my voice pitch. I didn't use my hand gestures. And I safeguarded my distance. And I could feel the energy that's more positive.
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So I feel that in life, the relationship building, the interaction between people, solve actually 60%, 70% of any problem. The rest is the mind work, and is the deal, your negotiating.
Yeah.
A lot of it has to deal with that human part, and that is the hardest skill set to learn. Not easy.
Yeah. And we are too. We just want to get in there, have a cup of tea, coffee, get to the deal. And then the terms, legal contract, signed off or not signed off, disagree or agree. The area we don't agree to, can we talk about it? No. My way or no way. How to negotiate like that?
It happened ever so often.
But some will say this is the way. So I'm now asking a new question. Is this the only way? Can it be another way? Is there an Asian way? Is there a Chinese way? Is there an Indonesian way? Is there a Japanese way? We have to ask all these questions and not adopt a Western way, so-called, the way it has to be only this way. So that's a difficult part. This is something that we never were taught in school, right? These are all that we learned while working on it and getting and failing in it, and we lose deals. I lost so many deals. Partly, a lot of that is because we do not want to compromise on certain principles. Those are obviously no-no, but many deals we lost also because we weren't able to to smoothen the whole relationship building. That I feel is something to mature and to learn.
Claire, you are 75.
Yes.
Um, okay. First, you look super young. I cannot, like, I wouldn't ever say that you are 75. That's that's the first one. Second one, how does it feel to be 75?
I feel very, um, blessed that at 75, I'm traveling. I've got three good children, two married, uh, one on the way, even perfecting his career. I've got five lovely grandchildren. So I feel blessed, and I'm in good health. It is really another blessing, and I'm still traveling. I'm still doing business development. I still have something that I focus on. I still feel the importance of stewarding and mentoring the younger people. And I love the generations of people that I I'm still traveling with. I'm organizing lifecations. And this last trip, I brought 300 Singaporeans to China. I had seven generations with me.
Oldest at uh 84 and the youngest at one year old.
Wow.
And yet we were like a compound in that hotel because we had the hotel all to ourselves. And that was a wonderful feeling. So I feel that age is a number.
M.
What matters is the way you think, the way you feel, the way you can act, and the way you connect. And I feel sometimes no difference from being 24 or 40 or whatever. I don't feel, I don't feel yet that age burden until someone comes and says that, "Hi po," means grandmother, or "Hi auntie," which is like, you know, older sister, then because they are my children's friends. Yeah.
Yeah. But I sometimes feel that the 40-somethings that I'm with, it seems older than me in terms of the spirit. So I think it has a lot to do with the, that that openness to always be curious about and wanting to learn something new, something different. That that learning, uh, practice actually comes from my father, who at the age of 70 is still trying to pass his accountancy degree by himself, reading and learning and taking exams by himself.
M. So I think in my family, uh, wanting to learn is a big, is a big plus. And that has to today, I'm still reading, writing, learning, and that that curiosity and the imagination to do something else, something different, it's always something that enlivened me. And maybe that's that's one thing that keeps me up. And I tell you, having a child at 43 is a seismic transformation of your body. And maybe that gives me that uplift.
Yeah. A boost of energy.
So I, I would tell women, don't fear if you're in a good health condition to have a child at 40-something.
Are you afraid of death, of the concept, that mortality concept, that is the end?
I, I feel, I feel, and uh, the the urgency of time now. I feel there's so much I want to do. All these things I want to write about and share and talk about. I feel the urgency of time. Do I have the time enough to do all that? Do I have enough time to complete that? All that. Then I say to myself, I've done already so much. Yeah. And whatever I've done, the critical things I, I, I wanted is done. What's the hurry? What's the worry?
And and that sort of like, you know, uh, made me feel a bit better. Still, I feel the urgency of time because I'm greedy for life. I'm greedy for life. I mean, so much there to see, so much more to do. But I know in one life, I could never do it. Therefore, I seed the ideas now to the next generation, cuz what I did not do, able to complete, I hope they will carry out through the legacy. It may not be just my children. It'll be friends. It'll be people that I know that I've touched and inspired, and who will carry Claire's thought pieces forward. So I do talks, I gather networks, I do life cases, bringing people together. That for me is legacy building. It's generational building, and I like that.
Yeah. And to some extent, it's how you achieve immortality, actually. Yeah. Through other people.
Absolutely.
That's why I said that, you know, parents never die. My parents live through me in the way I express my life.
Yeah.
In the same way, Claire will not die physically. Yes. But the spirit and the feelings and the thought pieces of Claire will be amplified by the hundreds that have been in touch with me, and they will carry that forward. And I like that.
What's the meaning of life for you?
For me, it's as simple as being alive is good, and leading a good life the way you defined it is even better. And that definition is all about answering this simple question: What is enough for you, for Claire, to lead self-agency? A good life, define it. So for me, life is self-agency, me taking action in a responsible way, and me defining my composition, what that good life is.
M. If you are able to align all this, what is enough for me to lead a good life, I am in alignment. My way, I think the way I feel, and the way I act, I am whole. That's life.
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