1-Minute Insight: Destiny — During a NAVEX early in my military career, the section I was a part of was lost. As the section came to a stream straddled by secondary forest, we decided to rest as we had been rucking it for over 8 hours. As with all sections, there is usually one…

1-Minute Insight: Efficiency versus Effectiveness — “Congratulations Captain! You have successfully captured Hill 265. You destroyed the enemy and did it will minimal casualties. Unfortunately, Hill 265 has no tactical significance to our Army’s overall mission”. The above is an analogy of the classic management conundrum of efficiency versus effectiveness. Too often, leaders are so engaged…

1-Minute Insight: Don’t hate the rich — I read with some dismay a recent call to impose a form of luxury tax on Singaporeans who own more than one car. To me, this is the wrong philosophy. This is because I believe that society should be built on the concept of equality of opportunities and not equality…

Tips for succeeding in the corporate world Corporate life lessons I learned while stuck in traffic this morning during my daily commute to the office. Stay in our lanes. At work, it is important to stay in our lanes. Much thought has been put into defining the lanes for each…

Forget lifelong learning! Instead, embrace lifelong earning. — In life, as in sports, how you end matters more than how you start or how well you play in the middle of the game. With an average life expectancy of 85 and an official retirement age of 63, 22 years is the number of years we will need to…

1-Minute Insight: 3 tips for success — As I reflect on my fitness journey over the past year or so, I have gained three life lessons: Comfort is the enemy of progress. When I first started, progress was swift. I lost weight and I gained muscle mass. But with that progress came aches and pains. Slowly, over…

To know me is to love me …. — I believe that there is science behind that statement - especially in the corporate world. We often jest that those who are "close to God" are ranked better than those who are not. While this is generally true, it is not for the reason we think. During a recent leadership…

Have we lost our empathy? — “Justin, don’t get old,” the elderly resident said to me with sadness in his eyes. The elderly resident, a gentleman in his 70s, is the subject of a noise complaint filed by his neighbor. As I helped to mediate the dispute, I learned that his wife was injured in an…

Leaders often forget that while they are responsible for those they lead, they are at the same time also accountable to the organization that put them in charge. This is because the role of leaders is to achieve the organization’s goals by organizing, directing, controlling, and motivating those they lead. …