Rebuilding SMRT from the inside out

Yesterday the Straits Times ran a column entitled "Lessons to be learnt from SMRT's leadership woes". It reminded me of the earlier Oct 16 article "Flooding in MRT tunnel preventable, says Khaw" where Desmond admitted that there are “deep-seated cultural issues” within the company that have contributed to the major disruptions since 2011.

I sincerely believe culture continues to be the operator’s greatest leadership challenge that remains at the root of its many problems - a missed opportunity considering five year ago, I wrote a letter to the then new CEO Desmond Kuek to address this very issue. I did not get a reply.

Excerpts from the original letter dated 18 Feb 2013. While I wrote in the capacity of my organization, the views expressed in the letter (and this article) are completely of my own:

"Dear Sir,

RE: REBUILDING SMRT FROM THE INSIDE OUT

SMRT is undergoing a difficult time in its history, not unlike another great institution that successfully navigated a major crisis. In 1993 Lou Gerstner took over as the first outsider to ever lead IBM, turning around the troubled company that everyone said needed to be broken up and performed one of the greatest turnarounds in corporate history. How did Gerstner change IBM from a “big iron” builder of mainframes to a revitalized company that led the way for the world to embrace E-business as a new world order – the answer lay in his efforts in determining the type of leader who could help transform the company’s failed culture. In the process, Gerstner reversed US$7.7 billion of losses and regained the confidence of customers and employees to become great once more.

On reflecting, the key lesson Gerstner learned in his time with IBM was the importance of culture: “I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game.” Going for the big strategy shift in a time like this is the instinctive thing to do. However, after investing great effort in the direction setting exercise, CEOs are then left with an elegant plan that needs to be executed by an organization and people better suited to execute on the old strategy. More importantly, a culture misaligned to the new strategy that once served as a powerful enabler has become itself the inertia that needs to be overcome.

"....Because change is stressful for people and organizations are essentially a collection of people rallying around a shared purpose, the secret to effective change starts with engaging people and then equipping them to do their best... tackle the change problem beginning with the top, not strategy formulation per se but first with helping the top team come together to create the leadership conditions and climate of trust necessary for creating real change. We then involve the whole organization to participate in the change process. We believe management doesn’t change the culture; it invites the organization to change itself. And because we also believe that change is not an end state but a continuous process – in fact a valuable skill – the ability of the leadership and employees to embrace this competency is vital for a sustainable future."

?

I still hope for the opportunity to do some great transformation work for a Singaporean institution that has lost its way. All these challenges of late shouldn’t erase the earlier 25 years comprising an excellent track record of valuable contributions towards nation building with the provision of critical services to the public and tourists alike.

It would be a privilege to partner the management in charting a better way forward. Unfortunately, many leaders over estimate what technology/hardware investments, process improvements and financial rewards can do and instinctively reach out for these tangible strategies. The “softer” aspects of organizational change... often ignored until it becomes all too obvious it is the right way to pursue change meaningfully.