Much of the success that Singapore and its East Asian neighbours enjoy comes from a mixture of Confucian family values and the Taoist capacity to see two points of view as simultaneously complementary rather than opposing.

The UK and USA condemn government interference in the economy and dub this ‘crony capitalism’. Singapore has avoided this trap by ‘intervening’ in a way that improves rather than distorts markets. It prefers high-end to low-end products. Hence, items requiring much know-how are favoured. The free market operates as before without favouritism, but now at a higher level of knowledge intensity than other nations. Knowledge scarcity elsewhere ensures that such products earn higher margins for Singapore. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea have all adopted this policy. That is the advantage of listening to both sides of an argument and designing a solution that is a synthesis of the two.

Straight Lines & Circles

Westerners tend to think in straight lines, using means-ends rationality. East Asian nations influenced by Taoism tend to think in circles. Business in Western eyes is a competitive joust between knights. When businesses compete, the best company does more than win. It transfers resources from the loser to the winner and puts these under better management by taking over its customers, its revenues and sometimes even the company itself. This victory is in the interest of the community at large. In Figure 1, we see the lances of two opposing knights of ‘Capitalism’ and ‘Socialism’. Yet those who think in circles ‘bend’ the lances (see Figure 2), enabling them to reconcile free competing with community-based cooperation.

Is Community Enough?

Adam Smith recommended that we prioritize our own self-interest and forget the public good. He was mistaken. Cooperating with each other inside the company and within networks of suppliers, sub-contractors, partners and customers also leads to the self-interests of each one of these parties being better served. This is why cultures believing in individualism were the first to industrialise. But cultures believing in community are rapidly catching up. This community spirit is neither communism nor socialism, but rather a legacy of Confucianism and family- style solidarity. Believing in community alone can be dangerous—think of China’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. What really creates health, wealth and happiness is the reconciliation of individuality with community, individuals serving their community and, in turn, communities nurturing individuals. Capitalism and socialism must start learning to co-exist. When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union came apart, Western capitalism felt it had defeated socialism and set a disastrous course of triumphalism, culminating in the financial collapse of 2008. While Singapore was badly affected, it has rebounded, unlike the UK and the USA.

New Way of Measuring

Since its founding, the Trompenaars Hampden-Turner consultancy has been measuring ‘Individual Freedom to Compete’ versus ‘Taking Care of Your Fellow Man and Cooperating’. Table 1 shows how various nations scored.

Table 1: Different nations' emphases on freedom to compete

 

Singapore is roughly in the middle, yet more communitarian than individualist on the whole. But this study fails to distinguish compromise (in which each value partly frustrates the other) from reconciliation (in which more freedom is used to help more members of a community and that community then nurtures more individuals). So, over the last five years, the consultancy has been developing another kind of measurement that could help nations, like Singapore, and its Ministry of Manpower, to set policies. We have been asking this question in different forms: a) “I work so as to achieve as much autonomy, freedom and self-satisfaction as I can.”  b) “I work for the pleasure of helping customers, network members and taking care of the needs of people generally.”  We then invite the respondent to transcribe his/her scores onto the grid below:

Table 2: What are you working for?

 

The Results?

In Table 2, those two or three squares from the top right corner are far better performers than both those seven to nine squares from the same spot, and those tending towards extreme self- interest or altruism. Singapore could measure its own progress as an economy by such indicators and run seminars for others to develop their talent this way.

Other Opposing Factors

Other opposing factors include centralisation versus decentralisation. It is possible for a company to increasingly decentralise its activities, while the information about, or from these activities is centralised in a particular locale. It is even possible to have decentralised centres of excellence, with nations specialising in what they do best. For many years Singapore has been Apple’s centre of excellence for skilled assembly. Recently, Motorola made Bangalore its centre of excellence for software – due to the skills of local engineers. Kuala Lumpur is ABN Amro’s Asian information hub, since 18 languages are spoken there. Using the above measuring technique, early indications show that a company’s ability to reconcile is a measure of its financial, human and moral success.

Reconciling Dilemmas is Vital

The failure to reconcile dilemmas can be disastrous. At the time of writing, the USA is on the brink of running out of money because Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on the conditions for raising the debt ceiling. Other dilemmas, if reconciled, may transform the fortunes of a company. Extremely indicative of the success of a corporation or an entire economy is the capacity to reconcile universal rules, standards, codes, benchmarks and technology with particular exceptions, variances, personalities and contingencies. Consider this traffic accident scenario, in which respondents must choose between Truth (as a ‘universal law’) and Love (as a ‘particular exception’ or bond): “Your best friend is driving above the speed limit and strikes and injures a pedestrian. Do you tell the truth in a court of law, or do you express your affection by supporting him/her?” When it comes to the crunch, many East Asians will stick with their friend, while the generally Protestant West will side overwhelmingly with the truth, even if this means their friend will be jailed. Here are the results (see Table 3):

Table 3: Different nations' emphases on universalism

 

Once again, Singapore, strongly influenced by America and the UK’s common law tradition, is somewhere in the middle, although more universal than particular. But in using these new measuring methods, early indications suggest that Singaporeans are keener to reconcile the two.

Qualities of a Reconciler

What qualities distinguish those who prefer to reconcile multiple viewpoints? They are usually interested in long- term, superordinate goals and have a broad tolerance of other people’s perspectives and beliefs. Rotating an employee around the company and the world encourages this. Reconcilers look for larger meanings, since meanings are the integration of different ideas. They also have an eye for stories, since most narratives have serial crises or dilemmas. A high tolerance for anxiety, (since encountering new people and ideas raises tensions), would also be desirable. Above all, reconciliation can be taught – as it is a form of inter-cultural competence.

References

• Benedict, Ruth (1934) Patterns of Culture, Boston: Houghton- Mifflin
• Hampden-Turner, C (2010) Teaching Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Building on the Singapore Experiment Cam- bridge: Cambridge Univ. Press
• Handy, Charles (1984) The Age of Paradox Boston: MA Harvard Business School Press
• Trompenaars, Fons and Charles Hampden-Turner (2010) Innovation and the Global Crisis Oxford: Infinite Ideas Press
• Trompenaars, Fons and Charles Hampden-Turner (1997) Riding the Waves of Culture London: Nicholas Brealey
• Wright, Robert (2000) Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny New York: Pantheon