Analyzing Mr Philip Yeo

Photo from Mr Philip Yeo’s wikipedia page

This article was written some time ago, but minor editings were done prior to its publication here.

This was Mr Philip Yeo’s first message to his online detractors when he ventured into cyberspace in a rare occasion to engage the bloggers:

A SENIOR MOMENT
“A very self-important university freshman attending a recent football game, took it upon himself to explain to a senior citizen sitting next to him why it was impossible for the older generation to understand his generation. “You grew up in a different world, actually an almost primitive one,” the student said, loud enough for many of those nearby to hear. “The young people of today grew up with television, jet planes, space travel, man walking on the moon, our spaceships have visited Mars. We have nuclear energy, electric and hydrogen cars, computers with light-speed processing and…,” pausing to take another drink of beer. The Senior took advantage of the break in the student’s litany and said, “You’re right, son. We didn’t have those things when we were young…..so we invented them.Now, you arrogant little XXXX, what are you doing for the next generation?

This was my reply to Yeo:
A SENIOR MOMENT REVISITED
An octogenarian came back to a city he once lived in after a long trip. He was surprised by the city’s transformation over the years in his absence, with the landscape dominated by new buildings with modern architecture. He wanted to capture the modern landscape in a camera. He walked into a camera shop and was shown a variety of sleek looking digital cameras. He was taken by surprise because the cameras were so much different from the ones that he used when he was young. He asked the sales personel if these digital cameras needed an external flash and asked why the cameras were so much different from the ones that he was used to during his younger days. The sales personel replied with a smile,”Sir, during your years of absence, your junior generations came up with innovative inventions like the lithium battery and especially the microchip. The microchip that is found in this camera is found in many other electronic devices. Your junior generations’ inventions has not only resulted in new applications, but has also pushed current technologies like photographic technology to new heights.”

Two years have passed since the exchanges. I happened to catch up with a scholar from SPRING Singapore and it appears Mr Yeo is still very much in the thick of things where selection and grooming of scholars are concerned. He was also very much involved in the selection and grooming of his scholars when he was back at A*STAR, paying close attention to their progress and dropping by to visit them at their overseas locations whenever he had the chance. That would endear himself to a number of his hand-picked scholars. Another fact that made him more endearing especially to scholars from a lesser socio-economic background was the fact that he would rather award the scholarship to a student from a poorer background if all things are equal as far as the scholarship applicant pool is concerned.

To credit the man, it is rare to find civil servants who share the same level of enthusiasm in developing young talents as him, even to the extent of preferring talents from lesser socio-economic backgrounds to boot. Well at least it scored his former agency, A*STAR, some brownie PR points…it is more socialist than the likes of the Public Service Commission, in which approximately half were from well-to-do background. It also earned the man the unofficial title of “closet socialist”.

The merits aside, observers are not wrong to point out that there is room for improvement as far as Yeo’s engagement of the public is concerned. For instance, when online detractors questioned Yeo’s management of biomedical research, the latter displayed the same tendency as some leaders in our government to revert to their achievements in their past, similar to those who spoke of their active role in bringing Singapore from the backwaters into the first world. Yeo was to relate to me his list of achievements when he was at the Ministry of Defense, Economic Development Board and else where. The point is that such an array of achievements impressive as they may be will not convince the critical reader. In other instances, such may backfire as it may alienate other readers. The biomedical science initiative is a completely new one as far as Singapore is concerned, and not even Yeo can boast of a single track record that reads “a successful start-up of the biomedical science initiative” (well depends on how you define success) prior to his A*STAR appointment. To be fair, Singapore’s R and D initiative within the field of Biomedical Sciences needs a constant source of huge fundings in order to achieve the goal of putting Singapore in the R and D world map. There is no short-cut, and it would take a mixture of constant funding and a risk-taking creative culture for the initiative to bear fruits.

From Yeo’s engagement of the public and my later correspondences with him, I seem to perceive a clash between the old school methods and perhaps expectations of the newer generation. Readers would recall Mr Yeo’s comments to the media that he would rather award scholarships to hungry foreigners instead of whiny male Singaporeans. Another one which famously created quite a lot of stir was Yeo’s “got a basic degree, go wash test tube” comment. Subsequently, I quizzed Yeo for his intention behind those remarks. It turned out that his intention was really to encourage more Singaporeans to pursue graduate studies. At that time, our Research Institutions were staffed by a relatively low ratio of local researchers. To achieve this intention, he resorted to what is known as Ridicule psychology. The purpose of this Ridicule psychology is to spur the ones ridiculed to prove the taunter wrong. In fact, Yeo said: I “learnt this practice from Dr. Goh Keng Swee. Must be cruel to be kind.They will hate my guts now but when they get their Ph.D., they might wake up and thank me.” On the humorous side, it is not difficult for one to assume that Yeo was probably at the receiving end of Dr. Goh’s “Ridicule psychological” taunts. But if that really did happened, maybe it worked wonders for Yeo.

However, the crux is whether the public can interpret Yeo’s remarks as a form of “Ridicule psychology”. Coming from a sporting background, I have seen examples of how “Ridicule psychology” are being used. In one soccer practice, our coach/trainer who was displeased with our touches pointed to a kid juggling a ball more than 50 times and taunted us that even a kid can handle a ball better than us. That taunt rankles but it spurred us to work harder to improve. The references to younglings doing better than us ‘old-lings’ seems to be an effective “Ridicule psychological” taunt. However, our coach do not tell us “Stop playing soccer and go be a waterboy!” because such a statement may be interpreted wrongly and may be psychologically-damaging. Some do not even see it as a form of “Ridicule psychology” but rather a prompt to quit the team altogether. Thus, I am not too sure if Mr Yeo’s “preference of females and foreigners to whiny male Singaporeans” and “got basic degree go wash test tubes” remarks can be interpreted as a form of “Ridicule psychology”. If Yeo says something like “so and so country has so many early 20-something Ph.D.s producing good research and you Singaporeans are so far behind them”, at least it can be seen as a form of “Ridicule psychology” to spur Singaporeans to reach greater heights.

We will never know the type of “Ridicule psychology” taunts that Dr. Goh used on his subordinates. We will also never know how effective will “Ridicule psychology” be if used on the current generation of young Singaporeans. Some may respond positively, others we do not know. But one thing that can be observed from Yeo’s engagement is the ongoing engagement between old school methodologies and expectations of the new generation.

Of course, Yeo will be less controversial and perhaps more likeable should he revise his public engagement approach coupled with his good points such as his enthusiasm in developing young talents. But then again, it is his entirely his own perogative, and he can choose to remain as the same old Mr Philip Yeo as we know him to be, just like a leopard who never changes his spots.