Choosing the lowest hanging fruit: Papaoutai

Hi guys. I'd like to share a little episode with you so as to get it off my chest: you see, I was working on a deal recently, trying to get an institutional investor in Belgium to invest in a Singaporean company and that's what I do for a living, as a corporate finance broker, if I can persuade the two parties to work with each other, I get a cut. As the crucial middle man spanning Europe and Asia, I mismanaged the project - the Belgians lost confidence in the Singaporean company they were dealing with and pulled the deal. Was it unpleasant? Well, yes - those of you who have watched the reality TV series The Apprentice will know what it is like when an ineffective project manager totally loses control of the team when there are too many strong personalities and the project manager is effectively ignored. I don't like to play the blame game - the only person I blame is myself and I suppose the purpose of this blog post is to reflect on what happened and see if I can learn any lessons. I am also going to then tell you about a Youtube video that gave me clarity on what happened. So, I'm going to post several versions of that song featured in the Youtube video for you to listen to as you read this piece.

So in a nutshell, here's where things went wrong - may I stress that the only person I am holding responsible is myself and I take full responsibility for what went down. Let's introduce some characters. There's this older Singaporean lady, let's call her Ms Xin (short for 新加坡, Singapore in Mandarin) and a Singaporean middleman called Mr Zhong (short for 中间人 - middleman in Mandarin) and then I had my Belgium investor in Brussels whom I shall call Mr Brussels (sorry for being so unimaginative). I was introduced to Ms Xin back in July when I was in Singapore and was shown a project she was working on - she was looking for an investor willing to put US$20 million into her project and I took the project to Europe, showed it to a number of people and Mr Brussels got interested. So there was a long process of negotiation during which Mr Brussels grew tired of Ms Xin's unwillingness to communicate directly via the phone - I chalk this down to the cultural difference: both Ms Xin and Mr Zhong believed strongly that in putting everything down in writing and cc:ing all parties, then there would be transparency but in Europe, this is simply not the done thing. We place far more emphasis on the social aspect of doing business - so that means getting to know the people you want to do a deal with, going out for a meal, talking about everything from current affairs to sports to movies or even the weather - anything but work, in order to form some kind of social relationship before you feel comfortable to sign a contract to work together.

Now the problem with both Ms Xin and Ms Zhong is that they weren't the kind of people with great social skills - don't get me wrong, they both work extremely hard and are good at what they do, but I chalk it down to a clash of cultures. I've seen this before in the job market - there are these Singaporean graduates who have been absolutely brilliant in school, scoring nothing but straight As and making their parents proud but somehow, they are unable to get ahead in the business world and they can't quite figure out what is missing. You see, I am the king of small talk - I do a lot of networking at events and I'm always ready to walk up to a complete stranger, introduce myself and start a conversation with them. Let's not pretend that this is an easy task: when I told Mr Zhong to meet my chairman (an English guy) in Singapore with another business associate, the feedback I was given was that Mr Zhong simply sat there in complete silence to the point where my chairman was wondering, is he not participating in the conversation because he is shy, he doesn't speak English or he doesn't want to be here? When I asked Mr Zhong why he was so quiet in the meeting, he claimed it was just his style to be a good listener and learn, rather than talk all the time. You get the picture: I got the feeling that Mr Zhong and Ms Xin expected Mr Brussels to want to invest on the basis of the numbers being impressive, that it could prove to be a very lucrative investment: I don't think it even occurred to either of them what went so wrong.

Watching this deal fall apart is like watching a car crash in slow motion - I could see Mr Brussels getting increasingly fed up with Ms Xin and they began to doubt her credibility: is she trying to hide something? Has she fully explained the offer to the client in Singapore? Does she have a mandate from the client and is it exclusive? Is she taking us for a ride - why is she not answering these questions? I then got on the phone to Ms Xin but she refused to take my call. I then called Mr Zhong who then said that if the Belgians were coming up with such slanderous accusations, then he wouldn't want to subject Ms Xin to an interrogation where she had to defend herself against these false accusations - instead, he wanted to start a new email thread to cc: everyone involved. Yup, that was his way of clearing the air. I made it clear: if Ms Xin doesn't pick up the phone to call the Belgians within the hour to clear the air, the deal is off the table. And sure enough, as Mr Brussels pulled the deal I did think - do I dive in and defend Ms Xin's honour, after all I knew she was well respected in Singapore, she was just clueless when it came to dealing with white people (LOL, how utterly Singaporean). But at that point, I decided that the only thing left to salvage was my relationship with the Belgians and I did think Ms Xin's behaviour was bizarre at best, downright clueless if I may be blunt. I didn't want to be seen to be defending the indefensible, so as they say in Belgium, I decided to laisser tomber (let it fall/go). It was a hard choice but I had to do it.

Now, how can I account for Xin and Zhong's behaviour then? I can see this is reflected in the Singaporean education system - this belief that as long as you study hard and get good results, you will somehow excel in the business world. It felt like Xin and Zhong were treating this trust-building exercise like some kind of essay writing exercise like when they were back at school when really, establishing rapport and trust is a completely different process in the West. However, if the vast majority of people in Singapore respond to this issue the way Xin and Zhong did, then that does become the cultural norm. Don't forget, in the Singaporean education system, students are not encouraged to speak up - I remember in my primary school, the talkative students were seen as the trouble makers whilst the ones who were practically silent were praised for their excellent behaviour. The teachers took it to quite an extreme: those of us who played games during our breaks were scolded for being naughty whilst those who sat down and read a book were praised for being studious. This is so different from the West, where we look at your rather rigid education system and Asian Tiger Mums with utter horror. Now I stress that I knew Xin and Zhong were extremely Singaporean in that aspect - they're not the kind of Singaporeans who may have lived/worked abroad and are more exposed to other cultures, no they are the epitome of the Singaporean system. But I thought, hey I understand these people, I can handle this - I survived NS, if I can do that, then I can handle Xin and Zhong, right? Wrong. But let me be clear: I don't blame Xin or Zhong at all, you can't blame a dog or a cat for not knowing how to fly. After all, dogs and cats simply cannot fly at all. They were just Singaporeans acting like typical Singaporeans and I, of all people, should have known what I was dealing with. No I only blame myself.

I did learn a few things about the Singaporean psyche through this experience: Xin and Zhong are adamant that they did nothing wrong - they blame me for failing to stand up for them, for not having defended them enough and essentially not convincing the Belgians to do things their way. I don't even think that they realized that white people had a very different business culture - or even if they did realize there was a gulf, they didn't realize how wide it was. I told this story to a friend and he responded by saying, "yeah, that proves there is a need for your kind of service, to bridge the difference between East and West, to facilitate this kind of international transaction." I replied by pointing out that in this case, Xin and Zhong weren't interested in allowing me to play that role - they just wanted me to convince the Belgians to invest and to do the whole process their way, the Singaporean way despite the fact that the investors are white. I knew Xin and Zhong lacked the skills to do business with white people, what they didn't want however, was to be told what to do by me. So I couldn't tell them point blank, "如果你要跟 Angmoh 沟通的话, then you have to listen to me and do as you're told." They were totally oblivious to the effect they had on the Belgians and despite the fact that I could see what was going wrong, I couldn't get the ship back on course without their cooperation and that accounted for the failure of this task. I went into the relationship treating them with respect, as equals, rather than people who needed my help and guidance: unfortunately, that approach simply didn't work. I had totally lost control of the team and failed to manage the process.

Am I good at things like that? Hell no. I can only look at my own parents: I have lived in Europe for more than half my life, but they still have virtually no understanding whatsoever about the mystical world of white people and still default to the most racist stereotypes. I had over two decades to teach them a thing or two about European culture but I basically shrugged my shoulders and didn't even bother as I thought, what's the point? They're old and retired, they are unwilling and unable to change at all. The only person I think I would really want to teach is my nephew because he is still young - he has to grow up, finish his education and get a job. Learning to deal with people from a very different culture is one of the most important lessons he could possible learn in his life and I would dearly love to be able to impart that knowledge to him. The problem with people like Xin and Zhong is that they are blissfully unaware of just how lacking their social skills are in this aspect; look it's one thing to know you can't do something (like for example, I will be the first to admit that I suck at mathematics), but it is another thing to have the Dunning-Kruger effect when you think you're actually really good at something you suck at. Imagine if I tried to help my nephew with his mathematics homework despite the fact that I clearly suck at the subject. As bizarre as that sounds, my mother is still trying to help my nephew with his home work (roll eyes), talk about Dunning-Kruger. I just don't want my nephew to grow up to become like Xin, Zhong or my mother - I want him to be better than that and that isn't just going to happen, somebody needs to teach him and show him the way.

I have been catching up with a friend from Germany in town this weekend - he's a very interesting guy, his wife is Taiwanese and he has worked nearly two decades in Taiwan and China. And of course, he speaks Mandarin, Taiwanese-Hokkien fluently on top of German and English. His job had been facilitating international companies looking to tap into the lucrative Taiwanese market and so when I told him about my story, he shook his head as if to say, yeah I've seen it all before. He then recounted various stories about how he had been engaged to work with certain Taiwanese clients who want him to promote their products and services to the West, but they essentially refuse to listen to a word of his advice. That left me puzzled - I asked him, "what's the point of spending all that money hiring you as a business consultant then if they are totally unwilling to do anything you ask them to do?" He said that it was because these rather old Taiwanese businessmen aren't even prepared to acknowledge the fact that business is conducted quite differently in the West and because they have this attitude like, "hey I am paying you good money, you are expensive, so just fucking do as you're told or I won't pay you." Then that begs the question - if you are so convinced that your tactics will work, then what's the point of even hiring a business consultant in the first place then? Why not just execute your business plan yourself? I asked him how he would handle such a situation and was told, "just walk away, choose the right people to work with. You have 24 hours a day minus 8 hours of that for sleeping, so that's a good reason to avoid people you can't work with."

Furthermore, I think I have fallen prey to the mentality of thinking that I must use all of my skills to make a living: like I do have a good knowledge of Singapore and I have some contacts there, so there was a part of me that thinks, I should tap into this for my work. But there are loads of aspects of my skills that I don't use at all for work: I am a great cook and it is something I truly enjoy. When I looked for my mother, she was so impressed that she said I could be a professional chef or even open a restaurant. I told her no, that's a bad idea: chefs don't earn that much and there's no correlation between being able to cook well and making money. McDonald's is one of the world's most lucrative businesses in the food & beverage industry - yet would you consider their hamburgers gourmet cuisine? No, not at all - yet they are making a lot of money with their business formula. Likewise, I am actually a fully qualified gymnastics coach and I still volunteer at my local gymnastics club, but would I want to teach gymnastics for a living? No, for the same reason why I don't want to be a chef: I know I can make a lot more money working in corporate finance. I'm quite happy enjoying my gymnastics by training and volunteering and just cooking for my close friends and family, without trying to make any money from any of those skills. So by that same token, why should I need to make any kind of money from my knowledge of Singapore? 

Anyway let me move on to the Youtube video clip that got my attention: I stumbled upon the clip of Leticia Carvalho's blind audition for The Voice Portugal when she sang Papaoutai but she reinterpreted the famous dance number into a heartfelt, slower version accompanied by a pianist. Leiticia's parents are Portuguese but she grew up in Switzerland and speaks French fluently as a result, hence her choice of a song made famous by Belgian singer Stromae, aka Paul van Haver. Now his surname would suggest that he is from Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, that's in fact his mother's surname and he was brought up in Brussels - the bilingual capital city of Belgium which embraces both French and Dutch and Stromae's music is primarily in French. Leiticia then had a funny bilingual exchange in Portuguese and French with one of the coaches Mickael Carreira who is himself a big star in Portugal, but was born in France (to Portuguese parents) and grew up there and she eventually chose to go with him, finishing third in that year's The Voice Portugal, launching her successful music career.  And of course, my regular readers will know that Papaoutai by Stromae is one of my favourite songs (don't make me pick one favourite, but Papaoutai is in my top three) and I don't think anyone has ever managed to cram so much anger, pain and hate into a song before and still make it sound so good. For those of you who don't speak French, it's a song about just how much bitter hatred Stromae has for his late father - there are loads of songs about love out there but few about hate that are this good. French is of course my second language and I do speak Portuguese too - so somehow this clip just connected with me and I have watched it many, many times since.

When I get frustrated at work, one thing that I do is to go onto Youtube to watch a video or two to relax and I stumbled upon that video. By like the third time I watched that video, I realized, what the fuck am I doing trying to broker deals with Singaporeans when there's nothing about me today that has a connection with Singapore? My cultural identity is mostly European and Singapore is but the place that I grew up in - I can watch a video like that and feel a connection to all the countries involved in this story, whilst I have a much weaker link to Singapore today. I am currently doing three other deals involving a mix of Americans, Europeans and Arabs - are things smooth sailing? No, there are of course other kinds of problems that come up and let's not pretend that corporate finance brokering is an easy business. But are these deals easier to handle than the Singaporean one that fell apart? Oh yes, so much easier. And here's the thing: as a broker, I get a cut of the deal when it happens, the deals are all priced in US dollars and there's no 'bonus' for me if the deal involves a Singaporean entity apart from any kind of sentimental value for dealing with people from my hometown. Money is money. It just makes no sense from a business point of view: if it is easier to make money say dealing with the Americans or the Belgians than with Singaporeans, then why not just go for the lowest hanging fruit and find the easiest way to make money when one route has clearly proven to be easier than the other? I need to be rational and pragmatic.

I suppose the most important reason why I want to put it all out here is to avoid a mistake that I've seen a lot of other people do: when they mess up, they point fingers at others and desperately try to blame everyone else so as to avoid accepting any blame or responsibility for what has gone wrong. No, I'm not like that. I want to be the one who will be the first to blame myself as I think I owe it to myself to do so and hopefully, in a small way, set an example at least for my readers of my blog on this issue. If I take responsibility for my mistakes, then I have the chance to learn from where I had gone wrong, become wiser about dealing with such situations and hopefully, never make the same mistake again. But if all I did was play the victim and blamed everyone else, how the hell am I going to learn anything from this episode? I've already fucked up, I may as well learn my lesson. That's it from me on this issue, please do leave a comment on the issue if you've been in a similar situation before. Perhaps you will have some sage advice for me about how I should handle a situation like this, please my friends, I am all ears and would love to learn from you all. Many thanks for reading.