Hard Truths - Lee Kuan Yew

This was a very fascinating book to read. And it was surprisingly also easy to digest. Lee Kuan Yew (or the scribes) had this ability to distil complex ideas into bite-sized concepts that are easy to comprehend.

I will divide my learning points into three parts: policy/political, personal development and relationship.

From the policy and political angle, I think LKY had very perceptive and accurate understanding of the world (as proven by history and our progress). A key theme that appeared many times in the book is the dearth of talent in a small country like Singapore, and the key role it plays in a nation's development. This even include the running of large companies - hence the limit to which Singapore can privatise our linked enterprises. This was a theme that fundamentally changed the way I look at many of the policies that are in place today, and it also affected the way I perceive talents - I think the ones that LKY is looking at to make a significant difference to Singapore is pegged at a very very high level. Not sure how many of the people I know today will pass LKY's muster, even though I think many of them are already very smart and capable. [Not covering other policy/political learning pts here as there are too many to cite. Other ones that struck me deeply were ones about nation-building, LKY's views about other countries and the changing landscape in Singapore politics.]

From the personal development angle, he highlighted several qualities that determined talents (whether in government or private sector): IQ, EQ, leadership, stamina, determination, resourcefulness, energy, drive, ability to interact with people, to get people to work in a team, etc. This set of qualities corroborate strongly with the qualities that I've observed in some of the leaders that I've come across. Stamina and energy are very key traits that allow people to work much harder than everyone else and scale higher peaks. To LKY, nurture plays a relatively less role in life - it's all in the genes. (That runs a little contrarian to my beliefs that hard work can surmount everything.) Other things that I picked up: he jogs regularly, 20 min each time. And he also meditate frequently too, after having been taught by a Buddhist Dr. He is so intensely focused that he almost doesn't read anything that contributes to his work (like Sherlock Holmes) and he hardly watches film. He respects De Gaulle, Deng Xiaoping and Churchill. Perhaps I should spend some time reading their biographies. He appears to be agnostic and doesn't think too much about the afterlife.

Relationship-wise, I like what he said about an Indian Minister who was matched-make and saying that he learnt to love his wife, while in America, people start out loving and learnt to unlove each other. I think sometimes putting the commitment first (and setting the constraints) can beget more love in a relationship than one where an individual merely watches the love ebb and flow passively, and decides where to peg his/her commitment. It is also very clear that LKY loved his wife deeply - it was very touching reading about their relationship, and I can only hope to be able to have a similar love story in the future.

Linchpin - Seth Godin

This is the first book by Seth that I've read. Seth makes a very persuasive argument, solidly built up paragraph by paragraph, for the key ideas in his book, and then eases nicely into explaining what these ideas are. I find the ideas very pertinent for me, especially at this stage of my career and life. I believe that the fundamental issue that Seth is tackling is that many of us office workers are gradually working ourselves into redundancy by not progressing to the next level in the knowledge revolution. The gap is that we don't tap on our artistic instincts and produce value that cannot be easily replicated by others, or worse, a very smart computer.

These are the key ideas that I've picked up:

1. Many of us office workers perform our work like what he calls "bureaucrats, note-takers, literalists, manual readers, TGIF labourers and fearful employees". These reflect many of the working styles that I observe around me: people sticking to rules and not exercising judgement, people living Mon to Thur waiting for Fri to come and living in dread in the meantime. This perspective towards our jobs leave us vulnerable to becoming redundant and dispensable.
   
2. The working class, which had so far been indoctrinated by the industrial revolution to follow instructions to the T and limit their creativity, needs to unlearn some of these practices and progress to the creative level to remain relevant. Otherwise, their salaries will constantly be chipped away by lower-wage workers as the world.
   
3. The key to becoming indispensable is to add value through creative innovation - not just incremental ones. My own interpretation is that incremental innovation would be, in the policy-making context, reacting and changing the rules in a narrow fashion to meet today's needs. Creative innovation requires the ability to see the future that does not exist yet, deep expertise, sound judgement and an innovative mind to create a fundamental change in policy.
4. Seth feels that schools should just teach two things, if nothing else: how to solve interesting problems + lead. I think I'm still struggling to learn these two things even after being 6 yrs out of school!
   
5. Creative innovation comes in short bursts, but are worth disproportionately more in value. For example, he quotes the example of Richard Branson - much of what he does everyday can conceivably be done by many other brilliant or good people. However, some of the "magic" that he does, particularly in seeing opportunities and capitalising on them, is what makes him a billionaire.
6. These magic moments require deep knowledge and sound judgement, which is a rare quality. But it sounds like it can be developed, based on Seth's book.
   
7. Emotional labour is another key ingredient - putting one's full emotional commitment and inspiration into one's work can add that additional edge.
8. I think 5,6 and 7 translates into moments of intense thought and meditation that one needs to cultivate and block into one's day. This is something that I've been thinking about for some time but haven't been able to do so diligently enough. This is time where a knowledge worker exercises his most significant leverage - to come up with creative solutions. Seth calls it "letting the silence into your life".
9. He contrasts this silence to the "busy-ness" that we try to immerse ourselves in non-stop everyday, which makes us feel gainfully occupied and less anxious (about the "absurd"? this might be the subject of another book review :p) but is of minimal value, because they can be done by many others. This includes checking email constantly, chasing every single details, etc. He says that there's a Tibetan name for it - shenpa - an itch that feels good when scratched but serves no other purpose.

So the question after all this is really: what do I need to do to become a linchpin? Am I gaining the necessary depth of knowledge, experience to build my judgement and also setting aside enough time to exercise my creative and innovative engines? I think one new thing I'll do is to being ten-minute "thinking blocks" where I focus on solving a particular task innovatively (rather than incrementally). This could be increased in the future, both in length and frequency.