Trying to understand NLB CEO Elaine Ng's mindset

Hi again everyone. The latest episode about the epic PR disaster on the part of NLB is just a long line of PR gaffes on the part of Singaporean organizations - we're not just talking about the NLB who are guilty of being ignorant when it comes to PR, everyone from the government itself to SMRT have demonstrated an alarming lack of basic PR skills when it comes to dealing with public opinion. Thankfully, communications and Information Minister Yaacob Ibrahim has instructed the National Library Board to place two controversial children's books in its adult section, instead of pulping them. Is Elaine Ng a bigot who hates gays? Is she merely incompetent when it comes to handling PR? Let's try to understand her mindset before we rush to judgement on this epic PR fiasco.

Now it is clear what has happened, Elaine Ng is your typical Singaporean who would obediently 乖乖听话 and follow all the rules. She takes the same approach when it came to implementing the rules and procedures when it came to dealing with this situation. Thus when it was clear that her course of actions would not only cause a huge international backlash, bring the NLB into disrepute and propel these three books into the international spotlight (thus creating a situation where plenty more people would end up reading those books), what did she do? Did she stop for a moment and ponder, "oh dear, those are some pretty nasty consequences should I persist in following the rules, hang on..."

No she is too Singaporean to contemplate deviating from the rules, despite being in a position to change the rules as CEO of NLB. She was unable to deviate from the script and improvise or compromise, she felt that it was more important for her to do her job to implement the rules regardless of how disastrous the outcome may be. This is unfortunately a very Singaporean mindset where the citizen is programmed to follow the rules (and in this case, implement the rules) without questioning if it is the right thing to do. Thankfully, minister Ibrahim does have the EQ to understand the complexity of the situation and offer a sensible compromise.  Allow me to give you a hypothetical situation to demonstrate how this mindset can cause many problems in real life.

Imagine if your father had a heart attack and you needed to rush him to hospital within ten minutes or he will die. Do you drive like a maniac, breaking the speed limit, driving through red lights to try to save your father - or do you accept that the nearest hospital is at least 15 minutes away by car under normal circumstances and your father will die today? Or what about this story: If you knew that your brother had cheated in his exam and you had proof, would you report him to the school knowing that doing so would invalidate his exam results and thus mean him losing his place at university? Would you do the right thing and "follow the rules" despite the consequences of your actions?

What would you do in these tricky situations?

The first situation is probably a lot more straightforward for most of you - you would do whatever it takes to save your father. But what about the second situation? There is some moral ambiguity there - would you do "the right thing" and report your brother for cheating, thus ruining his life in the process by depriving him of a precious place at a great university? Would you do "the right thing" when you have really little or nothing to gain from doing so, apart from a sense of self-righteousness and risk totally falling out with your brother for life in the process? We can talk about this situations and debate the relative merits, but there are some Singaporeans who will simply default to following the rules regardless because they are conditioned to do so as in the case of Elaine Ng.

Why are some intelligent people blighted by this blind spot - this inability to exercise some kind of initiative in tricky situations? It is because doing so would jolt them out of a fantasy that the rules are there to protect them, to make their society a better and more civilized place and that they are being governed by a benign authority who cares for them and knows what they are doing. Questioning these rules would open a Pandora's box for them and they would rather turn off their brains, blindly follow the rules even if doing so would lead to certain disaster, as in the case of Elaine Ng. There is a certain comfort in trusting the rules and following them - people like Elaine Ng goes to bed at night believing that she is protected by these rules and in enforcing them, she is making Singapore a safer, better place for all Singaporeans. She is not a bad or evil person - it's just that she places too much trust in the system. Questioning the validity of some of these rules would undoubtedly jolt her out of her vision of a perfect Singapore. Mind you, many religious people have the same problematic mindset - they have their blind spots when it comes to being critical of their own religion because they want to believe in the vision of a benign, loving god and a perfect religious experience.

Asking questions may open Pandora's box in the process.

The irony of course is that as the CEO, she is in the position to break the rules and it won't be hard for her to do so - all she has to do is to say that these rules regarding how these books were to be handled were drawn up many years ago, long before she assumed her current role. This would be an opportunity for her to review these rules and see if they can be updated and improved at this point in time. That would be effectively saying, "hey don't blame me, the rules may be dumb but I didn't make them, it is someone else's fault so don't blame me - but hey, I will do what I can to improve the situation. Everybody happy, yeah?" She could have come out of this episode looking like a heroine, but she lacked the vision to see the opportunity that lay before her. It was minister Ibrahim who spotted that opportunity and took it. 

There is a saying that comes to mind, "when in a hole stop digging, ask for help." Did Elaine Ng ask for help - or even if she did, did she listen to the advice she was given? Evidently not, because if she had, the whole matter could have been handled a lot more tactfully and it wouldn't have led to the fiasco that ensued. She kept digging and digging! This tells us that she was totally oblivious to her mistakes - I certainly don't doubt that she is a highly educated woman who is intelligent (at least in the academic sense), but her behaviour does demonstrate the wider problem with Singaporean education system and Singaporean society. There are so many Singaporeans who are just like Elaine Ng.

Why was Elaine Ng so oblivious to her huge mistakes?

Elaine Ng is hardly unique, in fact she is pretty typical. We have created a generation of highly educated people who are very good at following rules and implementing them but are useless when it comes to exercising any kind of critical thinking skills when it comes to solving problems or taking any kind of initiative to come up with creative solutions in tricky situations. It's not all bad news - Singaporeans have this worker ant mentality, you follow the rules, work very hard and never question the authority. This makes people like Elaine Ng very good employees in any company because you know you can throw anything at them and they will just get on with the task at hand without asking any questions. The Singaporean system has created a generation of followers, not leaders - something which suits the PAP just fine.  Time to stick Elaine Ng back in middle management where she belongs, where she can turn off her brain.

So there you go - that's some food for thought for you on the issue. A lot has been said about Elaine Ng over the last few days, what is your personal opinion about this woman? Is she this nasty, evil homophobic bigot that some people have made her out to be? Or is she simply so painfully Singaporean that she has blindly implemented the rules without thinking? What do you think? Do leave me a comment below please, thank you very much for reading.