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| Sharing insights on leadership and innovation |
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| Ms Yeoh
Chee Yan, DS (Development), PSD, PMO |
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A seminar on innovation and creativity in
the Civil Service was held at Dewan Shutt, a Civil
Service Institute in Brunei Darussalam, on 5 March
2005. Ms Yeoh Chee Yan, Dean and CEO of Civil Service
College and Deputy Secretary (Development) of the
Public Service Division spoke on “The role
of leadership in building a creative and innovation
culture in the Civil Service”. Challenge
reproduces the full speech below.
Pehin Haji Hazair bin Haji Abdullah, Permanent Secretary
at the Prime Minister’s Office; Dr Azaharaini
Haji Mohamed Jamil, Director, Civil Service Institute;
permanent secretaries; friends and colleagues from
Brunei Darussalam:
It is a great honor for me to address such a distinguished
audience and a pleasure to be in Brunei again. I
last visited Brunei in November last year on a study
visit with a group of some 40 directors on the Governance
and Leadership programme. We all learnt very much
from that visit and were impressed by the innovative
thinking, policies and programmes we saw here in
Brunei. I would like to thank Pehin Hazair and all
our Bruneian colleagues who hosted us on that visit
for your time, your candid sharing and your warm
hospitality. We treasure the spirit of friendship
between Brunei and Singapore.
Thank you also for inviting the Singapore Civil
Service College to share on this fascinating topic
of innovation.
“Innovation and Enterprise” is a key
strategic thrust of PS21, which is what we call
our Public Service reform movement. This does not
mean that the Singapore Public Service is always
innovative and enterprising. In fact, just this
week, a Member of Parliament was reported by The
Straits Times as saying [and I quote] “civil
servants who 'fear change (and) fear mistakes' are
the nation’s economic obstacles”. Certainly,
we are better known for our efficiency than for
our willingness to take risks! But while an innovative
and enterprising Public Service may still be more
of an aspiration than a reality in Singapore, it
is something we recognise as strategic for the future.
And we are happy to be able to share our thoughts
and experience on this with our friends in Brunei.
In preparing to speak today, I asked myself: “why
should the Public Service be innovative”?
Is it just a management fad, or are there more fundamental
reasons why we must be innovative?
To be sure, the Public Service has traditionally
been a monopolistic provider of many public goods
and services. So unlike the private sector, where
competition and corporate survival drive constant
innovation to come up with new products and services
to meet customer needs, the incentive for the Public
Service to seek innovation and enterprise is not
as strong, or perhaps less direct. It has also been
argued that the Public Service is naturally conservative
because as a custodian of public funds – we
need to be cautious so as not to be seen as squandering
money that belongs to the people, through failed
ventures.
So if there is little natural motivation for public
servants to be innovative, why is creativity and
innovation the theme of today’s seminar and
why is it increasingly a theme of Public Service
reform in many countries?
For instance, the European Union has identified
Innovation as the principle engine to make Europe
the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based
economy by 2010. The Council on Competitiveness
within the USA is presently working on the National
Innovation Initiative involving hundreds of leaders,
scholars from universities, corporations, professional
societies, industry associations and government
agencies. South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand
are also beginning to make some impressive inroads
into innovation, and they have recognised the need
to build innovation capability as a national imperative.
The Public Service in Dubai is also studying other
governments, adopting best practices from the private
sector and actively innovating to make themselves
the government of the future.
There are a number of reasons driving this emphasis
on creativity and innovation in the Public Service.
Here are some of the pressure points.
First, citizen expectations about public
services are rising. In many cases,
citizen expectations are being shaped by the private
sector. For instance, when private sector companies
started allowing for cashless payment via credit
card, the Public Service felt pressure to follow
suit. Cashless payment is now an option in many
public sector counter services in Singapore. The
use of Short Messaging Service (SMS) in the private
sector to reach out to younger customers has also
been emulated by the public sector. Some of these
public services include the notification of National
Service allowance payments and even summons by the
police!
Citizen expectations of the Public Service are also
being shaped by what they see when they travel or
work abroad. Take Creative Technology Chairman Mr
Sim Wong Hoo, for example. While driving in the
United States, he saw that U-turns could be made
anywhere unless explicitly forbidden. (By contrast,
in Singapore you could not make a U-turn unless
there was a U-turn sign.) This led him to call upon
the Public Service to adopt a similar mindset and
not over-regulate. To give another example, a Singapore
citizen who wanted his shophouse to be converted
into a homestay hostel cited the Australian, New
Zealand and Thai governments as being very proactive
in wooing backpackers. He wanted the Singapore government
to relax regulations so that shophouses could also
be converted to backpackers’ hostels1. With
globalisation, citizen expectations are increasingly
shaped by what they experience when they live and
work abroad.
In the competition for foreign investment, companies
also compare what they may receive elsewhere in
terms of regulatory costs and efficiency. Many countries
realise this and see public sector reform as a factor
in economic competitiveness. If the Public Service
does not innovate and make things quick and convenient,
businesses will simply move elsewhere. So the main
driver for creativity and innovation is citizen
and customer expectations.
A second driver is cost pressure.
Even as public expectations are rising, many governments
are faced with tighter resources. In Singapore,
the budget of all ministries was cut by 2% in FY2004.
For FY2005, there will be a further cut of 3%. So
in Singapore, as in many other countries, the Public
Service is faced with the challenge of finding new
ways of doing more with less. In order to do more
with less, we need innovative solutions.
One strategy to innovatively restructure the delivery
of public service is eGovernment. For example, setting
up a business in Singapore used to be a tedious
process. Entrepreneurs needed to apply for many
licences from more than seven agencies and fill
in numerous forms. By innovatively re-engineering
processes and leveraging on technology, potential
businesses can now go to a one-stop portal called
OASIS
to apply for all the licences they need. Now they
only have to fill in
one form.
Another example: Application for a passport used
to require two trips to the Singapore Immigration
and Checkpoints Authority or ICA. With eGovernment,
citizens can now apply online, and they need only
make one trip to ICA to collect their passports.
The cost savings from a simplified process are passed
on to the citizen – so citizens who apply
for passports online pay less. To make it even more
convenient to citizens, the government has even
partnered with private sector service providers
to deliver better services. When citizens go to
Fujifilm outlets in Singapore to take their passport
photographs, the Fujifilm shop can send in the online
application on their behalf.
A third reason to innovate is that in
an era of rapid and revolutionary change, the government
needs to have the capacity to respond quickly and
creatively to totally new situations.
During the SARS crisis in Singapore in 2003, quick
and creative responses were necessary on many fronts
to detect and contain the SARS virus. These measures
included temperature screening at all points of
entry and exit in Singapore and the distribution
of thermometers to all civil servants and students
for routine temperature checks. The Singapore Tourism
Board also introduced an award, known as the "COOL
Singapore" Award, to ensure precautionary measures
were taken against SARS in hotels and other tourist
establishments in Singapore. These measures were
all new to Singapore. Yet, if the Public Service
did not have the capacity to innovate and find new
solutions to new problems, then Singapore would
not have been able to respond well to the SARS crisis.
Having outlined the need to be innovative, let me
move on to talk about the role of leadership in
creativity and innovation. We believe that every
individual officer can be creative and innovative,
but leadership is necessary to empower and direct
their creativity towards organisational goals. So
what role does the public sector leadership play
in fostering innovation?
First, leadership is necessary to put
innovation on the agenda of the Public Service.
In Singapore, the Committee of Permanent Secretaries
sets the agenda of the public sector reform programme
or PS21. This Committee of Perm Secs endorsed “Innovation
and Enterprise” as a key strategic thrust
for PS21. To jumpstart the innovation movement,
a Steering Committee for an Innovative Public Service
was set up in 2000. Each ministry appointed a senior
executive (at the Deputy Secretary or Director level)
to the Steering Committee as their agency’s
Chief Innovation Officer. The job of this Chief
Innovation Officer was to draw up a plan articulating
his ministry’s vision for innovation, and
the processes to promote innovativeness in his ministry.
This Steering Committee served as a platform for
ministries to share best practices on systems and
initiatives to promote innovation. My Head of Civil
Service also takes a personal interest and sends
an article every month to all public officers to
communicate the importance of Public Service values
and PS21 thrusts, including innovation. Top leadership
support is key.
Second, Service-wide initiatives provide
opportunities for all public officers to innovate
and share good ideas. In Singapore,
we have the Work Improvement Team Scheme (WITS)
and the Staff Suggestion Scheme (SSS) to enable
public officers to contribute their ideas. A WIT
is a group of officers who come together to create
continuous improvements and innovative outcomes2.
The Staff Suggestions Scheme (SSS) serves as a channel
for public officers to voice their ideas and see
them implemented – in spite of the bureaucracy.
Third, leadership must ensure that resources
are available to support innovation.
In Singapore, The Enterprise Challenge (TEC) was
introduced in year 2000, and $5 million is set aside
every year to fund the trial testing of radical
innovations that could potentially result in significant
gains to the Public Service.
Since 2000, TEC has approved funding for more than
60 proposals. An example of a TEC project is the
Temasek Polytechnic’s trial of the Problem
Based Learning methodology in its business marketing
course. After the successful TEC-funded trial, the
Problem Based Learning methodology has been extended
to other courses and other learning institutions
in Singapore. Employers are also more satisfied
with diploma graduates' hands-on attitude and problem-solving
skills.
Fourth, make innovation count.
In the Singapore Public Service, an officer’s
efforts to be innovative are considered in his performance
appraisal. This is so that innovation is not seen
as an extra-curricular activity, but as part and
parcel of work which is duly recognised and rewarded.
To recognise and celebrate the importance of innovation,
a large-scale Service-wide convention is held every
year to share innovative ideas. Service-wide awards
are also given out at this annual convention to
recognise innovative officers and agencies. Many
agencies also have their own ministry-level awards
for officers who have come up with innovative ideas.
Fifth, training ensures that public
officers are given the knowledge, skills and tools
to be more innovative. At the Civil
Service College in Singapore, we have developed
a Hand of Innovation Training Framework that outlines
six key competencies critical to innovation. Every
civil servant is also entitled to 100 hours of training
per year. This policy commitment to training enables
public officers to acquire the skills which allow
them to be more innovative.
So the role of the top organisational
leadership is to set policy directions and communicate
that innovation is a Service-wide priority, as well
as to ensure that the organisational culture, systems
and resources are in place to support innovation.
But beyond this, leaders and managers
at all levels also need to show the way by their
personal example. Through our daily
work, staff can see whether we, as leaders, truly
value innovation and seize opportunities. Every
time we are enterprising and willing to take calculated
risks, we exercise leadership in innovation. Also,
when our staff make mistakes not because they are
lazy, careless or reckless, but because they want
to try something new – and we treat it as
a learning experience – we are exercising
leadership in innovation. At the end of the day,
people are more convinced by what we do than by
what we say.
Leaders and managers also shape the work culture
and environment for their staff to innovate and
try new ideas. Because innovation often depends
on the ability to see things differently, leaders
also need to encourage diversity in terms of the
backgrounds and the thinking of members in their
team. So if we do not micro-manage, but consult
staff and encourage diverse views, we are exercising
leadership in innovation by helping to create a
climate for bottom-up innovation to blossom.
In a volatile world, where huge changes can hit
us suddenly, where people and capital are mobile,
and where expectations are rising even as resources
become tighter – the Public Service must innovate
if we are to serve our nation well.
We must continuously look for new ways of doing
things. No longer should we see our jobs as just
about taking instructions, following rules and
procedures and doing the same old thing. We have
to be activists for change and see change as an
opportunity to create new value.
In Singapore, we have concluded that a spirit of
innovation and enterprise is critical for the Public
Service. We still have a long way to go. Frankly,
some agencies, like the Singapore Police Force are
well on their way. But many other agencies still
lag behind. This is because while top Public Service
leadership plays an important role, ultimately,
much depends on the leaders at all levels in each
agency.
In conclusion, thank you again for this opportunity
to share my thoughts on the role of leadership in
innovation. For me, such inter-national exchanges
are important opportunities to hear new perspectives
and innovative ideas. Indeed, we always learn much
every time we visit you in Brunei and this is why
the Civil Service College continues to send our
delegates here on study visits. We believe that
partnerships with other public services are an important
source of innovative ideas and that such partnerships
can be of great mutual benefit, particularly when
they take place in the context of friendship, which
Singapore and Brunei enjoy. I look forward to hearing
your views and to a fruitful exchange. Thank you.
1 In this case, the Urban Redevelopment
Authority agreed and allowed shophouses to be
converted into homestays or backpackers’
hostels on a three-year temporary basis with renewal
subject to no complaint.
2 The group can be made up of officers
from different units and different grades. Each
WIT can choose to use whichever tools the members
feel are most relevant to their project so long
as the tools help them to go through a rigorous
thinking process.
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"The
role of top organisational leadership
is to set policy directions and communicate
that innovation is a Service-
wide priority, as well
as to ensure that the organisational
culture, systems and resources
are in place to support innovation.
But beyond this, leaders and managers
at all levels also need to show the
way by their personal example."
Ms Yeoh Chee Yan
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