Talent Management and Development in the Singapore Armed Forces
Toh Boon Kwan
Author’s Note: This opinion piece was submitted as an entry for the 10th Chief of Army Essay Competition in September 2008.
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Talent Management and Development in the Singapore Armed Forces
Toh Boon Kwan
The Singapore Armed Forces’ (SAF) operational capabilities and manpower policies have come under recent scrutiny in academic circles1 and the local media.2 In particular, the selection, training and promotion process for SAF officers, as well as the relative youth of its officers, have been singled out for criticism.3 The SAF’s mandatory early retirement policies and special educational opportunities for its officers, it is argued, have led to the creation of an organisation that “has an extremely young and operationally inexperienced leadership”.4 A promotion system that emphasises education and scholarships rather than proven competence has reduced the effectiveness and military professionalism of the SAF.5
This essay aims to dispel criticism of the SAF’s manpower policies by using talent management and development perspectives to explain the rationale behind these policies and identify areas for further improvement.
Singapore’s sudden attainment of independence in 1965 necessitated the rapid build-up of local defence forces. The cultural bias of Singapore’s Sean P. Walsh, “The Roar of the Lion City: Ethnicity, Gender, and Culture in the Singapore Armed Forces”, Armed Forces & Society, 33, 2 (January 2007), pp. 265-285. 2 “US soldier takes potshots at SAF”, Today, 12 March 2007, pp. 1-3; “Time for greater Malay representation in our armed forces”, Today, 14 March 2007, p. 32. 3 Walsh, “The Roar of the Lion City”, pp. 267-270. 4 Ibid., p. 267. 5 Ibid., p. 265. 1
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SAF Talent Management and Development
Chinese-majority society against professional soldiering led to the political leadership’s decision to raise the status of soldiering by awarding prestigious government scholarships – SAF Overseas Scholarships (SAFOS) – to the best and brightest of every “A” level cohort who is subsequently commissioned as officers. Scholarship holders are sent to top universities overseas.6 Upon their graduation, they are systematically trained, developed and groomed to assume key command and staff appointments in the SAF.7
The rapid rise and promotion of SAFOS recipients have invariably drawn criticism. All SAF officers are subjected to a performance appraisal system that includes an assessment of potential to determine the rate of an officer’s promotion through the ranks. The greater the potential, the higher the officer will rise. Since the SAFOS is essentially a high-potential programme to induct top talent into the SAF and identify officers with the aptitude to serve in senior management positions, SAFOS recipients generally score well on potential.8 As is usual with high-potential programmes, SAFOS recipients are quickly rotated through the different functional areas of the SAF to gain exposure that will stand them in good stead when they eventually rise to senior management positions. However, the promotion of “younger, less operationally experienced” SAFOS recipients over older, more experienced non-scholars has led to invidious comparisons between the two groups of
Tan Tai Yong, “Singapore: Civil-Military Fusion”, in Muthiah Alagappa ed., Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2001), p. 291. 7 See the Public Service Commission website, http://www.pscscholarships.gov.sg/SCHOLARSHIPS/SAF_Scholarship.htm 8 The world’s first high-potential programme was introduced in the United States in 1926. See Peter Cappelli, Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty (Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Press, 2008), p. 35. 6
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officers, amidst alleged discrimination on the pedigree of an individual’s education background.9
In a performance driven organisation, discrimination exists to differentiate the able from the incompetent. For the SAF, if discrimination exists, it is a bias towards merit – suitability for the position and performance on the job. Whether a soldier is a scholar or non-scholar, and even if he or she is a participant in a high-potential programme, they cannot avoid the test of merit and performance. Lives are at stake and there is no room for incompetent officers. Poor performers will be weeded out and scholars found wanting will be allowed to drop out of the system.
Criticism that the SAF promotes “officers based on their educational achievements instead of their operational experience and time leading soldiers” misses the critical aspect of performance appraisal.10 Potential must be grounded in actual performance. Poor performance on the job would naturally lead to the downgrading of potential. Potential and performance, therefore, goes hand in hand and provides a robust performance appraisal framework.
The criticism of the SAF officer corps’ youthfulness is not valid. Wartime British Army experience advocated the appointment of young men to command combat units in the belief that they are better able to cope with the
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The quotation is from Walsh, “The Roar of the Lion City”, p. 270; Derek da Cunha, “Sociological Aspects of the Singapore Armed Forces”, Armed Forces & Society, 25, 3 (Spring 1999), p. 467. 10 The quote is from Walsh, “The Roar of the Lion City”, p. 269. 4
SAF Talent Management and Development
rigours of armoured warfare.11 Young officers with robust physical constitutions are more liable to withstand and manage the intensity of round the clock modern combat operations.
A common lament by older, more operationally experienced nonscholar officers is the perceived lower emphasis given to field experience in the SAF. Although technically proficient and more street-wise, their perceived lack of education pedigree, relatively poor written and oral communication skills has stunted their career in the SAF. The notion that you need to be a good paper pusher to get ahead needs addressing and deserves to be placed in proper context.
In the unforgiving combat environment, a soldier who’s a superb tactician and a master of the operational art will achieve consistent battlefield success. This does not mean, however, that victory in war will follow. During the Second World War, the German Army exhibited strong tactical competency and was well-versed in the operational art. These strengths, however, were negated by their “fundamental inability to make sound strategic judgements”.12 Being a solid tactician and master of the operational art is not good enough. One must also be a grand strategist who can skilfully navigate the treacherous waters of high strategy. An officer corps that takes pride in its mastery of the operational art to the neglect of strategy is positively dangerous to the organisation that it serves.
David French, Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War against Germany 19191945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 79. 12 Quoted in Geoffrey P. Megargee, Inside Hitler’s High Command (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2000), pp. 232-233. 11
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The success and survival of any military organisation is dependant on its effectiveness in recruiting and developing a constant supply of astute strategists who can fill the key command and staff appointments in the organisation. The senior leaders of a military organisation must exhibit strategic flair. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces during World War Two, had negligible field command experience, if any. But he was a renowned soldier-statesman who reconciled differences and maintained the strained strategic relationships between the different partners in the Allied coalition against Nazi Germany. The British Army, though operationally inferior to the German Army, was led by generals who had great strategic acumen.
The Anglo-American example, however, remains less than ideal. Battlefield reverses due to operational inexperience incurred sharp losses but it could be shrugged off due to the vast pool of manpower available to the Allied armies. This is a luxury that the manpower deficient SAF does not have. A strategist without sufficient operational experience may also prove detrimental. Lieutenant-General A. E. Percival, for instance, was one of the most thoroughly educated senior officer in the British Army but he failed on the battlefield in Malaya.13 The British War Office had earlier attempted to address Percival’s operational weakness by assigning the experienced Lieutenant-General Sir Lewis Heath to Malaya Command. But this arrangement did not work out and a humiliating military disaster ensued.
David French, “Colonel Blimp and the British Army: British Divisional Commanders in the War against Germany, 1939-1945”, The English Historical Review, 111, 444 (November 1996), p. 1188. 13
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How can the SAF avoid the mistake that our British predecessors committed in Malaya?
We must provide a robust and realistic military education for our officers. Experienced officers must learn skills that will develop their strategic acumen. Having brawn is insufficient. They must also have brains. Greater access to graduate and post-graduate training opportunities to acquire learning and thinking skills will help to address some of the present shortcomings.
Our SAFOS recipients, with existing strengths in strategic planning, should be given greater operational exposure. A stint in active combat environments like Iraq and Afghanistan will go far in honing their operational skills. We also need to inculcate greater resilience in our scholarship recipients. Then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s comment on Singaporean scholarship applicants is telling: “Singaporeans came across as more sheltered and less street-wise. When asked about setbacks in life, almost without exception they cited below-expectation exam results.”14 There is a latent danger in selecting over-achievers with high expectations for scholarships. As Pulitzer Prize winning American historian David McCullough has highlighted, “The star performer who has never failed, never fallen flat on his face or been humiliated publicly, may not have what it takes when the going gets rough.”15
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Speech by Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, at The Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum 2002, 30 September 2002. 15 Bronwyn Fryer, “Timeless Leadership: The great leadership lessons don’t change. A Conversation with David McCullough”, Harvard Business Review, March 2008, pp. 46-47. 7
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The ability to combine mastery of the operational art and strategic flair in one person with a high adversity quotient is the epitome of the ideal officer. This is an achievable stretch target. British Field Marshal William Joseph Slim, who arrived on our shores to accept the Japanese surrender in City Hall at the end of the Second World War, is an example par excellence. Slim was consistently left staring defeat in the face during the early years of the Second World War. But he bounced back at every turn, learnt from his mistakes and eventually became a master exponent of operational art. Slim was also an astute observer and maker of strategy. He was keenly aware of the lowly position that his theatre of war commanded in the grand scheme of things and realistically recognised that the promised deliveries of men and equipment would never come on time. While strategic planners in Washington and London dithered over the next course of action to take in the Far East, Slim maximised his military effectiveness by leveraging on manoeuvre warfare to comprehensively defeat the Imperial Japanese Army in Burma, thereby stamping his imprint on Allied strategy.16
Slim’s sterling example of military professionalism is worthy of emulation by the SAF officer corps. Notwithstanding the areas for improvement highlighted in this essay, having maintained peace and Singapore’s national sovereignty for the last 40 odd years without firing a single shot, the SAF can be proud of its achievements. To win without fighting is the epitome of soldiering. 16
For the argument that Slim was the most successful British general of the Second World War, see Raymond Callahan, Churchill and His Generals (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2007). 8