2-3-4 Friday: Good is not good enough - 4 Jan

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

I wanted to start today’s newsletter with a post from Li Hongyi, who leads Singapore’s Open Government Products.

A question I often get when I tell people what I do is “I thought Singapore already has great government. Isn’t it good enough?”.

MSF just released their review panel’s findings for the government’s handling of Megan Khung’s case. I would encourage everyone to read through the full report. The thing that strikes me is how absolutely mundane the failures are. Handoff not done properly, no data sharing between agencies, just clunky processes that lead to us doing just a bit too little a bit too late. As OGP officers I bet as you read through you can find at least half a dozen ways we could have done better with tools we already have.

That is why I do this. I think it is unconscionable that your Grab orders are tracked down to the minute while a child abuse case gets dropped because someone got reassigned. I think it is insane that TikTok has a detailed profile of your every interest, but we didn’t share information of whole body bruising and caretakers being drug addicts.

I know that Singapore has a lot of success, but that just makes these failures all the more unacceptable. A place which spends billions on IT consultants every year should not have social workers underpaid and overworked to the point of failure. We have the resources and ability now to solve problems we previously thought unsolvable and help people whose pain seemed inevitable. Our prosperity is not a permission to rest, it is a responsibility to act.

I know this is hard. You will make more money selling crypto systems. You will have less stress settling into the bureaucracy. If you choose those paths no one will blame you. But if you ever wonder why the work we do is worth doing, read through the report and ask yourself: Does this sound like a government that is good enough?

Recently, in the office, I overheard a person who’d just joined remark to her colleague, “Wah, next time I want to be like you, can work here for ten years!” It was worrying to hear that, because it demonstrated a lack of ambition to move, to do better.

Work long enough in the social services and you’d realise that people who work here are often working here because they “want to do good”, or because they have not many other better choices available to them.

But what makes some stay (too) long is that they finally realize that their pace of work no longer fits the outside world. It’s like a bubble.

What Hongyi shares is an important perspective, because he argues that good, is not good enough. Just saying “I want to do good”, and that I will just do “good enough” frankly, doesn’t cut it.

Because the stakes here are high. They are real. We deal with the worst off in society, who need the most highly skilled people to make indelible, long term change. It’s why average (or those who prize work life balance) doctors become GPs, and the most highly skilled are found in neurosurgery.

1 talk

Just because you’re paid below average, doesn’t mean you can have low standards.

1 tip

When I first started in social work, I went all the way to make long-term changes in my clients’ lives. I had no boundaries. I kept reading on new theories, attending conferences, just so that I could be good enough to serve these complex needs.

I even filmed my client sessions, picking apart details that I could improve on. The opening question. The question that would peel back the hurt. The closing summary.

I tried to be a stable, anchoring influence in their lives, amidst the difficult changes that were happening.

There was once a client who I spent half a day with, helping her to take care of her kids whilst she brought one to the doctor, and then following them for dinner, whilst juggling the one with ADHD. He was climbing on top of my neck, sitting on my shoulders, and trying to treat me like his personal horse.

In the end, we got credible outcomes. 5 of the kids, who’d never been in preschool because of their learning needs, were emplaced despite the 1-year long waiting list. We found the father a better job. We stabilized the family’s income so that they could find a long-term housing solution.

My supervisor said I should limit myself, and try not to get too involved. But I look back at my career, and I wonder where I learnt this from.

It was early on in 2016, when I saw a fellow volunteer working with the intellectually disabled. He had volunteered for 13 years, and was still going strong. One afternoon, I was fooling around with the clients, just playing and I tossed a ball at a client, hoping he would catch it.

I went a little too far, and the volunteer started shouting at me.

John, what are you doing?!

I was pissed, and quickly walked away, for fear that I would punch him.

The volunteer later came to apologise. But that was a milestone incident, because it taught me this idea:

that even if you’re doing good, you should have standards.

Even if you’re doing charity, you should have standards.

Just because you’ve a low pay doesn’t mean you can have low standards.

This season, if you’re working in the public or third sector, ask yourself,

Are you giving excuses for yourself, just because you’re paid less?

Good enough is not good enough.

A spirit of excellence is.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love