Update on my life: why I decided to go overseas?

I’m sipping on my fresh Cuban Breeze Mojito while typing the night away in the hotel lounge of Novotel, in Bandung. Who would have thought 11 months ago.. where to start writing this long overdue update on my life? I’m not the most succinct in style, so I’ll have to do this in several times

Why did I decide to go overseas?

I left Belgium on the 19th of Nov 2008 for Singapore, to start my first professional steps outside the safety and comfort of AIESEC and my student life. The 3 months that led to my decision, I mostly spent on the road doing some soul searching, reading and meeting enriching people.

I knew I needed to leave Belgium again, to find my way. I felt it was holding me back and couldn’t carry the weight of my expectations and aspirations. I always wanted to discover Asia – the one continent I knew the least about. But I wasn’t quite decided on what to do there, to find my next peak.

Of course, it had to be something that was aligned with my long-term goals of living as responsible global citizen, with humility and integrity, and of setting up my own change management consultancy focused at “world-work”. The questions I eventually ended up asking myself were:
- What opportunity is most unique at this point in time and aligned to my vision?
- What lifestyle do I want?
- And what qualities do I want to develop in the next year?

The answers came in the reflections and conversations I had on the road:

# The most unique experience would be to live in a continent I knew least about and a have a job that required intense challenges intellectually and would maximize my exposure to business fundamentals. I choose Asia as place and management consultancy as professional field.

# The lifestyle I envisioned was one where I could slow down and focus on myself. These may sound selfish, however during my years in AIESEC my focus gradually moved from my own personal development to serving the organization and its members. In the process, my attention moved away from my own identity. I needed a year for ‘me’. The other element I felt strongly about, was mobility; to explore new cultures, places and people – but also to finally have the financial independence to stand on my own two feet, to follow my heart and express my values in my economic actions. In short, I was looking for a new “life-mix” and a diverse but yet balanced environment where I could develop a career and have my space.

# Finally, I thought long and hard about the qualities I aspired. In my years in AIESEC, I developed a strong sense of intuition and learnt a great deal about people and what drives them. It has been the perfect place to develop the life skills that will allow me to navigate life’s hurdles with determination, joy and meaning. However, by living several lives in one – juggling with university, AIESEC, and my other personal investments – I was running the marathon and along the way undervalued slowing down; to appreciate the breath of fresh air that comes with deep sensing and balance; understanding problems more profoundly and systematically in order to act with more leverage; to value my own body and physical experience. Using Wilber’s integral framework, I envisioned a year focused on the “body” and the “mind”, as compared to “heart” and “spirit” in AIESEC. One interesting reflection was my need to actively use my analytical and strategic skills again. Although my last role as president was supposedly “strategic” in scope, I felt the AIESEC lifestyle and “operating system” (with 1 year cycles) did not truly allow for anything beyond tactical thinking.

This led me to define 4 simple decision-making criteria:

1. A job in management consultancy in Asia with client facing time and high-impact projects involving significant change. Access to different industries was a bonus.

2. Early on, much responsibility to contribute to the content and process of my work – e.g I had to find an international-minded and ambitious SME, with a leader who would be willing to invest in my learning.

3. Ability (time, money & context) to invest in my lifestyle: identify exciting urban areas and regional hubs in Asia where “many worlds meet”.

4. Rational criteria aside, I needed to feel excited and happy with the opportunity. My heart and intuition had to be singing in chorus.

I shortlisted a large number of places in Asia, down to India (Mumbai, Delhi), Singapore, Hong Kong and China (Shanghai, Beijing), and started researching websites, talking to my network and generally putting all my feelers out there.

At first I was hoping to find exciting consultancy opportunities through AIESEC’s internship program, but quickly realized these companies usually don’t advertise through recruitment channels like AIESEC.. at least, not officially. Needless to say, it left me wondering to some extend about the quality of options AIESEC offers, beyond the personal network. Eventually, 4 weeks of search later through my network, I got interviews in Delhi and Singapore with management consultancy SMEs that fitted the profile.

Singapore got the upper hand; it offered a more professional opportunity with (not surprisingly) much better remuneration package, with regional traveling as opposed to India-wide, and a better gateway to the multicultural facets of Asia. Though no contribution to AIESEC’s exchange numbers (god, how often have I been reminded by my fellow AIESEC friends hehe), I signed up as business analyst.

So, what do I actually do then? That’s for my next mojito..

Some people see more in a walk around the block than others in a lifetime

Singapore, a model for Judgement

An interesting, though slightly overoptimistic post on Singapore from Harvard’s blog. Enjoy!

The Next Big Thing – Tom Davenport
Source: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/davenport/2009/08/singapore_a_model_of_judgment.html

Singapore: A Model of Judgment for the United States?
3:01 PM Friday August 21, 2009

Tags:Global business, Politics

We often talk about judgment with regard to individuals, but
organizations and countries can have good and bad judgment as well. I
was recently in Singapore for a SAS customer event. Every time I
visit, it has struck me as a country with good judgment. Singapore
just celebrated its forth-fourth birthday as an independent country,
and it deserves to congratulate itself (although it rarely engages in
self-congratulation — another aspect of good judgment). In fact, I’d
argue that in many ways Singapore is a great example for the United
States. Why? Here are a few reasons:

1. Singapore is a hardworking, disciplined country. It decides what it
needs to do, and then does it. Every year for National Day, for
example, the government publishes a list of challenges it needs to
overcome. This year’s list included such bracing issues as “How to
maintain high economic growth and improve living standard?” and “How
to stamp out new diseases and keep health-care costs down?” There is
also the lighter, but sociologically problematic challenge of “How to
get younger Singaporeans to marry and have children?” The list of
challenges is enormously appealing in its clarity and directness.

2. Singapore is obsessed with education — not just for children, but
throughout life. Another of its declared challenges is, “How to design
job-training programmes and wage supplement schemes for low-income
older workers?” The country tops the ranks of educational achievement
regularly. While it was once justifiably criticized for emphasizing
rote learning, it has introduced programs that encourage creativity.

3. Singapore is a highly capitalist society, but its government plays
a strong guiding role. Some of the country’s smartest citizens go into
government. The government creates industrial policy and actively
facilitates growth and capability-building in those areas. It did a
masterful job emphasizing IT and building up that industry, and now
it’s actively pushing biotech and services. For example, in services
the government wanted to build on organizations with great service
like Singapore Airlines and Raffles Hotel. So it encouraged Singapore
Management University (a private university that was established by
the government) to start an Institute for Service Excellence, and
stimulated the development of a Singapore Customer Satisfaction Index
that would be applied to all service industries.

4. Like the US, Singapore is a highly diverse society, with lots of
citizens with Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Arab backgrounds. Yet they
all seem to get along pretty well, and the country’s culture is
greatly enriched by the diversity. Public housing is ethnically and
religiously integrated. Other countries could probably use a version
of its “Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act,” which prohibits
religious rabble-rousing.

5. Singapore invests heavily in infrastructure — housing, roads, IT,
airport (only one, but Changi is a very impressive facility). 83% of
its citizens live in public housing, but it’s clean and
well-maintained. The country is rolling out a new high-bandwidth fiber
optic network. Buses and subways are clean and run on time.

6. Singapore’s economy is doing pretty well. It does anticipate a
decline in GDP of about 5% this year, but there are signs of a strong
recovery. Its stock market is booming. Its banks didn’t go crazy with
subprime lending or bizarre derivatives. One economist told me that
the Asian financial crisis of 1997 was worse than the current
recession for Singapore.

Okay, it’s not a Utopian society. The government is a bit
authoritarian for my tastes, but not as much as in the Lee Kuan Yew
(its first prime minister from 1959 to 1990) days. The prohibitions
against spitting and selling chewing gum are a little much — though I
really like the clean streets. Yes, you may be caned if you misbehave,
but it might be better than locking up the world’s highest proportion
of citizens in jails. I feel that Singapore destroyed much of its
interesting architecture in the headlong rush to modernize. And it
seems to me that too many of its citizens are obsessed with luxury
brands and conspicuous consumption. These are relatively minor
concerns, however, compared to the country’s strengths. And many of
the seemingly autocratic regulations might be justified by the ethnic
diversity and high population density of the country.

Singapore is tiny compared to the United States (and most other
countries, for that matter), but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a
model. Barack Obama keeps saying that we need to buckle down and work
hard to build an economy based on real production, not hollow
financial chicanery. We need a little more social order, and a little
less individualism. Singapore has already pulled off both objectives,
and continues to provide a good example of good judgment for the
United States and the rest of the world.

My chinatown, my neighborhood

This must have been the most random night since long!

I had a late dinner around 11.30pm and walked around my beloved neighborhood of Chinatown with my new SLR camera – a Canon EOS 1000D, a beauty – taking pictures of “the ordinary” nightlife here. I stumbled upon a group of happy locals, drinking at a hawker center in typical Singaporean style, with lots of bottles kept cold on ice and laughing loud at random jokes. It was such a lovely sight and put a smile on my face, so I stopped and started taking pictures from afar.

No later than 3 pictures and they spotted me, waving to join them. I did of course And what an unexpected experience! They treated me on beer – lots of beer – and questioned me about everything; from who I am and what I do here, to my travel experiences and my impressions of their society. All in drunken-interview style, with the occasional hick-ups, the accidental pouring of beer over each other, uncontrolled laughter and convincing jibberish and mumbling conversations! I got to learn a lot too about local life and the people that live in my neighborhood! They were quite a diverse inter-generational bunch; 2 youngsters from Vietnam (25-35) and 3 Singaporean Tamil/Chinese (Thomas, Mike and Lian) between 40 and 70.

As soon as I get my camera all setup, I’ll share some pictures. To be continued …

Fresh Fruit Juice at your doorstep

Ahh, I love Singapore. And I can’t help but marvel at the ingeniousness of small entrepreneurs with nothing to lose and lots of energy to give.

Tonight my flatmate Basti and me tried out a new service, promoting itself as “fresh fruit juice at your doorstep within 5 min – free delivery”. Given that we live on the top floor of an apartment building on top of a hot humid jungle-covered hill, I thought this was a bit exaggerated.. but as the fresh juices cost the same as the (ridiculously) low prices of the food courts, we had nothing to lose. At 11pm we sent out an SMS with our order.

And yes, within minutes an Indian guy dressed in a dhoti stood in front of our door, with both our mango juices freshly prepared in a plastic bag container with the best straws I’ve seen on the island. And he wasn’t even breaking a sweat!

I seriously don’t know how he did it. He told us he came by bike up the hill.. holding the two plastic bags in one hand. For the nice reward of 1.50 SGD/juice. That’s what I call determination.

We figured we could in the future as well order juices for breakfast in the morning. It’s cheaper than buying good juice in the supermarket, more convenient than making it ourselves, and these guys start delivering at 6am! SMS template already saved, one per choice of juice.. hallelujah for good service!