What can PUB learn from Star trek – The Kobayashi Maru Complex

The Youth Olympic Games – Why it makes sense to support it!

(To enlarge the font in this essay – hold down the Ctrl key and keep pressing +) Do Singaporeans really expect perfection from the government of the day? Well to be perfectly honest with all of you. I really dunno.

But that’s what that old battle horse LKY seems to think.

Recently, true to the art of managing conflict in Singapore; he rolled himself out and began chiding many for expecting perfection from the government when they pelted rotten tomatoes at Submarine Yacob  – LKY went on to quip rather sardonically, it was unreasonable to expect a flood free Singapore as this would require us to convert the ECP and PIE into Monsoon drains yada, yada, yada, yada.

But I don’t think the nub for public outrage has anything to do with the question of whether these “expectations” are reasonable or just plain unrealistic. Or even whether the “failure” was due to what PUB could have done or not under a given set of weather conditions. If anything those issues are merely vignettes – sidedishes even – as the crux of the matter is really only about one thing: managing perception.

What we may have here is what I call the BP, Toyota and most recently Apple’s nutty antennae syndrome. In all three cases, all these firms like PUB managed the perception of dealing with a sticky situation with as much intellectual quotient as a man checking a gas leak with a lighted match – wonder no more why they all ended up wrestling with a public relations nightmare.

And how did it all start? Well if you take the trouble to sieve through the carnage of the BP, Toyota and Apple fiasco – a pattern begins to emerge – for starters the chronological events are all strikingly similar – it all starts rather innocuously as a perfectly explainable phenomenon – just as how BP once termed the Deep Horizon event as just a “technical” well leak. Or how Toyota once defined their dodgy brakes, as an “implausible software conflict” – now superimpose this on how the government  reacted to the first flash flood that inundated Orchard Road – it was passed off as a freak occurrence – a one in a 50 year event compounded by probably people like me who regularly litter. So naturally, like many of the fishermen in the gulf of Mexico who were told by BP, this was just a kink – most of us just slunk back into our easy chairs.

Besides BP has top kill, the mother of all well head superglues and we have the Marina Barrage – a high tech sea wall – so what is there to really worry about? What subsequently happens of course is all those assumptions that accounted for that highly improbable once in the 50 year old event just like the psycho well head proves to be overly simplistic, optimistic and wrong – by this time of course the problem has taken a life of its own – the media has picked up on the scent – it’s whipped up into a maelstrom and gathers speed – to exacerbate matters the solution is nowhere in sight.. Meanwhile somewhere in the corporate bunker – most of the decision makers are already in fire fighting mode in earnest. By this time the realization gradually seeps into the public consciousness something is amiss and everyone is left wondering whether something may be fundamentally wrong here.

I am going to press the pause button here. Because for you the perceptive reader to understand why it is impossibly difficult to change public opinion from this point onwards requires you to buy into a new concept – gamers call – the Kobayashi Maru complex.

In a nutshell what has happened by this stage of the end game is the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already believe to be the “real” cause of the flash floods, busted well head, nutty brakes and dodgy antennae and what was previously forwarded as an explanation of the cause by the institution has begun to diverge. This can only heighten the dissonance and lead to two possible reactions from the public.

Firstly, if the public is called upon to learn something new which contradicts what they already think they know – they are likely to resist it tooth and nail. In some cases even confecting their own version of an explanation to fit the scenario they already believe.

Secondly, counter-intuitively, perhaps—if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating – the public is less likely to concede what they may believe (real and imagined) may actually be useless. And again they will fight you tooth and nail.

Now you know why it’s game over. In my next post, I hope to share with all of you how to beat the Kobayashi Maru scenario. Some say it’s impossible; but I’ve been working on some game theory equations – and I believe there is hope yet.

Meanwhile stay tuned.

Darkness 2010

Darkness: “Let me understand what you ninkompops are saying…..you’re telling me that we spent 185 million Imperial Shekelians on a state of the art force field that is supposed to interdict incoming projectiles from outer space, and. Bc someone fucked up in the math; all we have instead is a glorified green house that cannot even repel a meteorite the size of a tennis ball…is that what you idiots are telling me?”

4th class Engineering officer “It’s not our fault Darkness…our calculations for the kinetic dome was spot on..it all screwed up when the game master brought their own people in to help us…I believe that was your suggestion, sir!”

Darkness: “Shaddap! Do you hear that Singaporedaddy, we are all dun for…we are all going to die….because when the Council finds out about this we’ve all be sent to the saltmines….and they are personally going to hang me by my guli’s for this fuck up! Those roaches have been looking for a chance to hang me since I came here and now this idiot has given them my guli’s on a silver platter. I am finished. kaput. Do you hear me Singaporedaddy?”

Singaporedaddy: “Calm down Darkness. Tell me Engineer can you put in coconut trees, pristine sugary sands, beaches, waterfalls and a tropical climate…perhaps even a jungle with a mountain biking trail under this…what do you call it?”

4th class Engineering officer: “Kinetic dome Sir…Yes, of course comrade, we already have terra forming programs to even replicate waves – each press of the button produces a wave exactly as the last. We can even do the same for clouds. But I dont see your point 1st officer comrade…this was supposed to be part of our space defense shield, not a water theme park.”

Singaporedaddy: “Yes, I understand 4th Engineer. But surely even you must understand how delicate our current position is. Tell me, do you want to end up in some saltmine in some unknown moon on an asteroid belt?”

4th Engineering Officer: “I don’t understand sir, are you asking me to change the plans from a  space defense shield to a water theme park?”

Singaporedaddy: “Don’t be silly, why would I even need you to change anything! What space defense shield would that be 4th officer? I have no recollection of such a brief. We were all under the distinct impression the reason why you were specifically choosen for this project was due to your extensive expertise in terra-forming – that if I understand was your metier and as I understand it the only reason why we selected you to construct a water theme park on this space station. I believe that was your original brief, was it not 4th officer? Do you agree Darkness?”

Darkness: “Absolutely Singaporedaddy, that was why you were given the men and material 4th officer…to build a water theme park so that we can all have a slice of earth in space etc etc etc…and so far from what little I have seen…all of you seem to be doing a capital job….keep up the good work…carry on and cheerio!”

A conversation in Primus Aldentes Prime – captured by an auto-bot crawler – archived under the proceedings of The People’s Great Parks – The Chronicler – The Brotherhood Press 2010.