How Not to Surround Yourself with Yes-men

The Straits Times

05 March 2017

Han Fook Kwang

Is there enough diversity of views in the political and public sector leadership?

Are there people in their midst who challenge one another’s thinking and the conventional wisdom?

There was an interesting lack of diversity in the answers to this question among panellists at a discussion organised by the Behavioural Sciences Institute of the Singapore Management University which I participated in last week.

We had not discussed beforehand what we would be speaking on.

But when the moderator of the forum, Ambassador-At-Large Tommy Koh asked us what was the one big change Singapore needed to overcome the challenges of this increasingly uncertain and volatile world, having naysayers who speak out topped the list.

… The writer is also a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University.

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