Speech by Mr Lim Siong Guan, Head, Civil Service at the 2004 ExCEL Convention, 13 Oct 2004, 9.20 am, Ministry Of Education, Edutorium

Good morning Colleagues

Ladies and Gentlemen

I am happy to see all of you here at the 2004 ExCEL Convention.

Revisiting Fundamentals

2 After last year's Convention hit the press headlines, I was told some people asked if that was the end of WITS. Far from WITS' end, it was an opportunity to go back to the fundamentals underlying the WITS movement. Let me revisit these principles, so that pruning what is unhelpful may result in more vigorous growth of ExCEL, our drive for Excellence through Continuous Enterprise and Learning.

3 The WITS movement is based on three assumptions. First, that every individual is the best person to suggest improvements to his work, and has the creative ability to do so. Second, that every individual takes an interest and pride in his work, and has the motivation and conviction to see his ideas through. And third, that every individual will find his work more meaningful and challenging when he is given the opportunity to contribute his ideas, make changes and work with others to create new value.

4 Just in case there is any doubt about the reasonableness of these assumptions, let's ask ourselves what we were thinking of when we were coming to work today. Were you thinking "How can I mess things up today?", or "How can I get away with doing the bare minimum?" or "How can I give the boss a hard time?" I very much doubt it. I think it far more likely that most of us were wondering how we could do something good today, something worth our time and energy, something we can get done despite the politics, the bureaucracy and unthinking procedures that might be in our way. People have an inherent desire to do good, to contribute to their organisations. We also know that people come together because we realise that by joining with others, we will often be able to accomplish something important which we cannot accomplish alone.

5 The term WIT has been coined in our Public Service to refer to any group of people working on improvements and innovations to create new value. The WITS movement is based on the belief that when people get together, ideas grow, people learn, things happen and good results come out of teamwork.

6 A WIT is simply a group of officers who come together to produce continuous improvements and innovative outcomes. Officers of different levels and from different areas of work can make up a team; the greater the diversity and motivation in the team, the greater the chances of new ideas and creative initiatives. The stories we are going to hear later this morning are stories of the solutions and experiences of people - our people - thinking together, breaking through together.

7 The Staff Suggestions Scheme works on the same assumptions that people want to see improvements in the way they work and to create new value. It gives all public officers an avenue to voice their ideas and see them implemented - inspite of the bureaucracy. And just as WITS represents the right to work in teams, the Suggestions Scheme represents every officer's right to give ideas about how we can do things better or do different things to create new value. It represents the right not only to question the system but also the responsibility to make suggestions about how to do things better.

8 Together, WITS and SSS give opportunity to every single public officer to contribute to the improvement of the public service, either as an individual contributor or as a member of a team. Importantly, WITs and the Suggestions Scheme are structured such that it is difficult for immediate bosses to veto a good idea - of course they have a say, but if they turn down an idea, they need to give the reasons why it cannot be implemented so that the idea may be further refined and improved to make it implementable. So WITS and SSS are avenues for officers to get around bosses who may otherwise be obstacles to change. But at the same time, they also provide an avenue for both officers and bosses who are receptive to new ideas to work on the same side to bring about change.

Pruning WITS

9 Over the years, WITS has come to be associated with certain practices and a certain way of doing things. The ExCEL Committee and PS21 Office took stock of last year's ExCEL Survey results and feedback from our people on the ground in agencies and ministries. While the results of the survey showed that many perceived WITS as an effective mechanism for effecting change at the workplace, only 55% said they enjoyed taking part in WITS. Also, only 51% disagreed with the statement that "if given a choice, they would not want to take part in WITS." While 79% had received WITS training, only 55% were familiar with the WITS tools. The ExCEL Survey found that the two thorniest issues were about "How we do WITs" and "How we measure results." The ExCEL Committee went to work on these issues.

Slaves to Rules

10 The first point of unhappiness on "How we do WITs" was that we had somehow become rather rigid and prescriptive about the proper use of WITS tools because competition had unwittingly placed an emphasis on form over substance. I am told stories about how WIT teams had been "chastised" because their "fish-bones" were swimming in the wrong direction. But thanks to the good work of Mr Bilahari and others who have worked on the ExCEL Committee, this lack of flexibility is no longer an issue.

11 For the benefit of those who have not read the revised Government IM (Instruction Manual), teams can choose to use whichever tools the members feel are most relevant to their projects so long as the tools help them go through a rigorous thinking process. The tools' helping to think is the critical point. A lot of the frustration in WITS presentations has also been the sense that so often it has been very much a "reverse engineering" process. The team had quickly figured out the solution, but had to go backwards to do Gantt charts, pareto diagrams, fishbone diagrams, and so on, in order to make it a "valid" WIT project. Not only did they feel they were made to waste their time making up their reports, they also felt bad about making up their stories. In this way we have made ourselves slaves to our rules. Well, today, if you have not realised it earlier, throw away these rules about having to use all the various WIT tools. Use only the tools you need, report only the things you did, but may I at the same time advise that you give some thought as to whether the tools you did not use could have been useful in your thinking and decision process. The choice is now yours as to whether to use PDCA, Six Sigma, fishbone charts or any other tool.

12 The ExCEL Committee has also revamped the ExCEL Convention. The new format now includes just a few presentations, each sharing the substance and benefits of ideas that have worked in individual ministries which could also be applied in other agencies. The new format of the Convention leaves plenty of room for diversity and creativity, as it allows each agency the freedom to choose the appropriate methodology, thinking tools and system of evaluating projects. Participants are free to present their projects in any format they choose. Ministries are organising their own in-house activities which recognize and celebrate the ideas and innovations of their staff in a way which makes the most sense to them. This is all good news.

Slaves to Numbers

13 On "How we measure results", much has been said about SSS and WITS being a numbers game. Just as we have unconsciously made ourselves slaves to rules, we have also made ourselves slaves to numbers. Many supervisors set targets which their people are told to meet. This goes diametrically against the self-driving philosophy of WITS. People in a unit should be asked how many suggestions they think they can reasonably expect to put in, and how many WIT projects they can reasonably expect to complete. We should be going for this number, which constitutes the expectation of the people in an organisation, and not a target the people are driven to meet, willy-nilly. We all know that what motivates us and what makes sense is the substance of ideas, not the number of ideas. So let us stop chasing numbers. If we chase the substance of innovation and quality, the numbers will come on their own.

Leadership

14 It takes a lot of drive, energy, creativity and commitment to keep exploring new spaces and new ways of doing things, and then to see these ideas through to completion. The challenge for leadership at every level in every ministry and agency is to be able to focus attention on the real targets - the tangible and intangible benefits which the Suggestions Scheme and WITS can bring to our work and to the people we serve. The commitment to what we want to accomplish as an organisation, a branch or unit, should drive SSS and WITS activity rather than top-driven targets for "x" number of ideas or "y" number of projects. Let's not fret over the numbers. Let the computers do the counting. Let numbers follow us, not drive us.

15 Our people should be spending their time doing things that make a difference. And supervisors must keep creating the opportunities for people to learn, explore and contribute new value. Kill a good idea and it goes somewhere else to the credit of someone else who sees the opportunity and acts on it. Nourish the human spirit, and vision and passion will launch great ideas to the credit and gain of all involved. Our need is not SSS numbers or WIT numbers. Our need is leadership: Encourage, motivate, support, co-create, set the example. The numbers will follow.

16 Unfortunately, some managers and supervisors take the approach which says "Just give me the numbers, I don't care how you do it". Such an attitude discredits the entire ExCEL movement and reduces the system to a numbers game. This is wrong. Indeed, the perception that there is a "numbers game' is a manifestation of poverty in leadership and communication. I urge the top management of ministries and agencies to counsel such managers and supervisors, as they may not realize they are dampening spirits and giving the wrong signals on what WITS and SSS are all about.

17 But please do not mistake my words against "the numbers game" to mean we should not be measuring what we are doing. It is often said that "what gets measured gets done". We need some measures to tell us how well WITS and SSS are doing in the public sector, so that we can have some sense of whether we are making progress or regressing over time. The tracking of these figures also sends the message to managers and supervisors at all levels that they have to be open to new ideas, encourage the enthusiastic, help those who need help, promote initiatives from the ground. It is their duty to do so. It is their privilege to do so. It is the measure of their leadership.

18 There is nothing wrong in tracking data. I have not heard anyone argue that people are holding back their contributions because we are collecting data, and that if we do stop collecting data, we will get even more active participation and better ideas. But we can, and should, actively debate what data to collect so that it makes the most sense, and best reflects the outcomes we seek. We must always ask ourselves whether we are measuring the right thing. The numbers must mean what they appear to mean. They have to reflect what is real.

Opportunity for Excellence

19 Let us be reminded again about the point of this Convention. It is about ExCEL - Excellence through Continuous Enterprise and Learning. We live in a cyber age with few barriers except human ones. If you get an idea, you could be in Moscow or a far-flung outpost, but you can e-mail someone in HQ about it, and if you work in an organisation that's got it right, you get a reply and fair process. Fair process ought to be the entitlement of every officer who contributes an idea. What is fair process? It's giving people the chance to shine. "Fair" is a word laden with emotion. "Fair process" wins hearts. The "process" involves being curious and brave about strange, weird and possibly wonderful propositions; sharing the excitement and passion of colleagues who want to initiate and execute great things; being honest enough to admit that someone else has a better idea; catching people doing something right; honoring hard work; giving access to information and resources and helping to create connections across the organisation. It is the kind of organisation we want our people in the public service to be working in.

20 What makes our work meaningful? What makes a great place to work? It's the opportunity to make a difference. Small difference, big difference. It doesn't matter. It all counts. It all adds up to the big picture, on our journey of excellence in the Public Service. Ladies and gentlemen, what will you and I do today to make things excellent?