Thinking Points for Aspiring Leaders (KCLB)

To: Aspiring Leaders of Tomorrow,

It is election season. Some of you have found your resolve to step up. Some of you are still thinking about it. Some of you wonder if you are up for the task. No matter who you are, I wish to tell you, your thoughts and hopes are all valid. In this letter to you, I wish to convey some thinking pointers you as an aspiring leader might wish to consider in your pitch to lead the team to greater heights. When you sign up for the jobs in the team, you are signing up to be a custodian of very important concepts for your team and the next generation. There are three things I hope you consider — Our Identity, A Community of Love, Betterment through Exploration.

Our Origins and Identity

As many of you have realised. KCLB was designed to be an evolving creature. What it was 3 years ago, 2 years ago, and now, each iteration has been created to fit the purpose of the time. With its soul being its vision that is guided by the the four core values — HOES. This is what we stand for and what we continue to build on.

KCL Blockchain was built upon a single idea — every student can participate in economic life in the direction that they desire in a supportive and nurturing environment. This has led some of our alumni to pursue jobs in good blockchain tech firms and develop deeper resolve for their path.

We have chosen this ideology because we recognise that modern structures perpetuate winner take all models. From corporate enterprises to small student societies, all power tends to be centralized and all glory tends to accrue to the paramount leader. This ideology is an acknowledgement of Kantian ethics in his Categorical Imperative — “So act that you treat humanity in your own person and in the person of everyone else always at the same time as an end and never merely as means.” We endeavour to not see our team members as mere tools to further our own ambitions. If we do so, it is unlikely we will achieve great things for people will quickly realise they are being used and leave the team.

Why is ideology important?

It is easy for a leader to directly manage 5–20 people. However, to move and shake an industry, motivate anything beyond 50, requires a tougher glue. Further, to build a legacy and transfer it across generations, you need something even stronger. We have developed our ideology not as a case of arrogance. It is based on observation of successful movements. Taking the Abrahamic religions as a case study. A general abbreviation of their ideology is that — God, an almighty being, who loves people so, God shall allow those who believe to enter heaven in the afterlife in return for people surrender to its love. This single idea has led to thousands of years of devotion by many. Persecution, suffering and enduring commitment in spite of that. A simple count recognise 3.8 billion believers. Ideology is the glue that helps societies transcend generations.

As Royce explains, when one is loyal to their loyalty — in the form of a cause to a community that is bigger than self; We create motivation on the personal level and inclusion on the community. Even if something is very hard and we want to give up, this loyalty will be the wellspring from which you derive strength to continue to struggle. As a leader, you will undoubtedly face struggle. If you are not, your team is probably stagnating or you’re detached. Loyalty to your loyalty is the way to find moral value in actions. When you have moral value — I believe that when you see the value of your actions and find self-actualization, and fulfil the highest need on the maslow hierarchy of needs. Life at King’s would be very cool for you.

The four guiding values are what informs our decision making and how we should assess tradeoffs. It creates consistency in decision making in an ever growing and evolving institution.

Hustle: Team members believe that they can create. The team will support all those who desire to contribute. The desire to hustle should come from the self. No one can be whipped into hustling. Our people are all hustlers. Amateur or Pro, the team hustles together. The strong teach the weak, the weak become strong, they support the next generation. Our people are teachers of knowledge. Teachers of love.

Openness: Our doors are always open to those who wish to learn and hustle. We are collaborative and work with teams. We are willing to explore different areas of thought and adapt them with the goal to make us better.

Equal Stake: Each member feels like an owner of the project. They are not afraid to raise suggestions or pursue connections for the team. They see a path of progression in their career with the team. They believe they have a voice.

Success Oriented: We aim to be focused on delivering our vision. As part of that, we assess how successful we are on two levels. On the macro level, we assess how well our initiatives have done. E.g. Has our syllabus enabled our members to start writing better? On the micro level, we ask ourselves have we enabled our members to pursue their interests? Have they been enabled by our structure to be the best they can?

Taken together and cognisant of changing demands and demographics, the team has to evolve, the structure of the team can change. The initiatives can change. But the ideology and values should always remain and be passed down the generations.

What we desire in the end is a cult like culture. A place where we fervently implement initiatives to deliver our ideology so that in every aspect of our team, people can feel our burning desire to deliver positive impact on our community.

A Community Of Love

When you are running for this job, there is a fixation by the community on the run up on it. But, what you are getting into is a long term relationship. So, what you should be focused on maintaining the survival of the leadership. To be accepted by the team and loved. As Alain de Botton says — Love and Relationships require Hard Work. At the heart of love is connection. The quality of our connections can determine the levels of our happiness.

As a leader, you can have the best ideas and deliver solid success for the team and yet people find fault in you. There are times when you will feel aggrieved, why is there no recognition? Why are people not repaying your love with theirs. This happens when people do not feel that you are invested in them as people.

As smart individuals, many of us believe we can do anything. There is a belief of self-righteousness that we as young people have. Until we have been fucked, conduct self reflection and recognise we suck at what we do. But, yet, how many of us have led an 80-man team? How many of us are actually good leaders? Truthfully, most of us are deeply flawed. Hence, we need to be humble. To recognize that we do not have all the answers and love is how we find the patience to work with our team mates.

One of the things I have observed is that with the people we are in teams with. We tend to be less sensitive and more aggressive. So, when something wrong happens, our first response tends to show how the other side is stupid. But a team is like family, you can’t exactly quit them. You are put together with people who you didn’t choose and have to work with them for something. So when negativity is built up, and people can’t quit, a shitty environment emerges.

This is why we have to practice love. To be patient with our team mates and learn about them. We need candour with each other, to point out each other’s faults, with the spirit of improving the other person. To not be paternalistic by imposing what we believe is always best, but to listen to what the other needs and be patient to provide that. To be slower to attack and behave with each other as though our team mates are clients. With professionalism, we tend to be our best behaviour. When we are encouraging and patient, we convert our outcomes better.

The next thing is that our team has grown tremendously in size. In our previous Christmas celebration, we invested money to have a party but many of our members did not come. This time, we have many people at our party. The challenge here though, is that pockets and cliques have emerged. This is natural. As a team grows, it is normal that some people group together. We cannot force people to mix but as a leader, you have a responsibility to encourage people to learn more about their team mates. To have an open heart to improve others. To bring new members into the fold and keep up with existing ones.

As a leader in the core circle, people will look to you to deliver. Everything from- is there enough food at our parties, how can we provide more mercg, can people get to venues, to the actual operational plan to execute partnerships. Building this love will involve the mundane and thinking for things that some people might think as frivolous. If you are a president, director, sponsorship and admin officers, your responsibilities are greater because your roles dictate the allocation of resources. Having an active discussion with your team mates on how to bring love will help find the blind spots and also ensure your mental health is guarded.

As a leader from a stream, your goal is to bring love from your space to the other streams. By mixing and sharing, you multiply the connection between peoples and make more love. This makes parties bubblier and pizza taste better. Be invested in your people by asking them what their aspirations are, check on them, support them in your words and deeds. They will repay your love with theirs.

I lament that there is no more community director/socials officer. In the absence of this vital person, I hope you as a leader, work with the Admin officer to figure out how to come up with good socials for the team. The best teams always has the best parties and that takes time to plan.

On a practical side — we should be proactive to engage with alumni and I recommend soliciting their financial support and connections. Through their sponsorship, the team can gain greater autonomy and be less dependent on external sponsorship money. By having a community of love, we become stronger between generations and the result becomes something more than a student society, but a legitimate institution whereby our branding can help create tender connections wherever our members might meet again in the commercial world.

Make love the foundation of the community. Practice it and our identity will strengthen.

Betterment Through Exploration

One thing you will start to realize is that big teams tend to reach the innovator’s dilemma, which is the continued execution of the same activities that made them successful and the refusal to engage in new ventures for the perceived low value that it brings in comparison.

As we solidify — we will have more and more flagship events. While these are good, we must not be satisfied purely executing those as we would be stagnate. How we prevent ourselves from lapsing into satisfaction is by focusing on our value of hustle. By ensuring that we are committed to supporting our members to discover new paths, we ensure that constant innovation is happening big or small.

Naturally, when you explore how to evolve and facilitate the hustle, I recommend you take the process of radical self appraisal -> get materials and find models on how to improve -> implement piecemeal. I derive this process from Jared Diamond.

We can take the Meiji Restoration as an example. Step 1: They realise that they were no match to the west. What they did was to acknowledge that they had problems and their current state. They then envisioned their desired future state. Step 2: They sent their people abroad on the Iwakura mission to the best to learn and adopt best practices for their circumstances. For their military, instead of using one country’s model for everything. They adopted bits and pieces from the best. So, they modelled their army from the Germans and the navy from the British. Step 3: Change is always hard to bring. People tend to resist change. Therefore, implementing piecemeal and adopting non-threatening language is key. When we control the frame, we can manage the level of fear as well. So, when the Meiji leaders were implementing their innovations, they often claimed that they were implementing nothing new at all. Example — ‘when the Meiji emperor promulgated Japan’s first constitution, based heavily on the German constitution, they did so with many rituals claimed to be timeless old court rituals. On a macro level, when they pushed their blue print, they went step by step -> national army, income stream (to support the army) -> nationalised education (raise productivity) -> abolish feudalism (generate money to pay off daimyos) -> constitution….

How does this translate to an example relevant to us. Most of you will find it odd we have three presidents and January elections. We have borrowed these practices from Singapore’s model of governance.

Step 1 — Honest Self-appraisal.

The creation of three presidents was deliberate to prevent the emergence of a ‘despot’. A singular leader who would bias towards a single stream or ambition and neglect the others. A single point of failure. Hence, the presidents were created for each stream to be guardians of their subject matter but also ensure that mixing will always be encouraged. The second point is that as the leadership is elected, this means that the core circle is vulnerable to tyranny of the masses, whereby the masses elect a leader that the core circle does not acknowledge quickly as the paramount leader. When a leader is imposed on you, performance suffers as there is no immediate rapport or love. To protect against that, we have three presidents to choose from, and from among them the real leader emerges. This practice, while it has received criticism from the current generation of leaders, has demonstrated that it works. As evidenced, we are all aware that from among the three, one of them emerged as the paramount leader on the administrative side of things. We see his influence in the new structure that has evolved. He has borrowed practices from a subject most familiar to him. That is not to say the other two did not impose themselves, they have, and they have delivered spectacularly. There are different types of leaders. Some are more focused on business development and output. Some are more concerned with community. The paramount leader among the three is most concerned with operations and the process.

Step 2 — Get materials and find models

Our model of succession and leadership is derived from the Singaporean model of governance. I have read different types of models and determined that this was the best suited for us.

As former Prime Minister of Singapore Mr. Goh Chok Tong said in his book, ‘Tall Order’— in the Singapore leadership team, The person chosen to lead would be primus inter pares. He would lead and the rest would support him. He is chosen by them and so there is no in-fighting. There is trust and camaraderie. Everyone was motivated by duty. The way his generation chose him as their leader was through tea and cake. On December 30, the ministers of the generation gathered on their own at Mr. Tony Tan’s house and had a discussion and the result was for Mr. Goh to lead them. This was contrary to the preceding leader’s preferences, but that was not the priority. The main goal is for the team to acknowledge their own leader. Someone they trusted within their core circle. The result is stability within the team which has enabled them to bring Singapore to where it is now, in the fourth generation. Their leadership practice continues.

January elections is another adaption of Singaporean governance. One of the main successes of this governing model is its renewal process based on mentorship. Leadership is hard, and throwing someone inexperienced in the deep end is a potential recipe for disaster. So January elections ensure that there is always a semester of overlap, whereby the current seniors can guide the new team on the best practices and introduce them to the connections. This ensures that whichever team inherits the project does not drop the ball.

Step 3 — Implementation

Once we realised what would work, we have implemented this process into the team and have continued to educate everyone on the rationale.

It is great that the existing leadership created the first year reps. Building upon the existing framework, this creates more opportunities for people to learn about our way of life and how we operate, preparing would-be leaders with valuable experience and inculcation of our values.

You never want someone who comes from the outside to stroll in and claim leadership. Based on research by Collins and Porras, in 1700 years of combined history, only four individuals cases of an outsider who parachuted into a company made it a success. What this tells us is that home grown management should always be preferred as they deeply understand the ideology, internal processes and the intrinsic needs of the organisation.

With our community of people from different backgrounds, we can be confident that we are sufficiently diversified and well placed to source for best practices from various fields and adapt them for our purposes. This ensures we are always poised for excellence.

Concluding remarks

Ultimately, succession is one of the most important decisions that make or break teams. It is not quality leadership that makes a team. It is continued quality leadership across generations that builds an institutions. All leaders must end their term, and as custodian you pass on the ideology, processes and values that have determined this team so that new generations can benefit others.

With layers upon layers of best practices intertwined, it is very difficult for another team to replicate our success and catch up. What a leader has to do, is to continue to uphold the ideology, practice love in the community and facilitate betterment through exploration, to ensure we remain relevant in generations to come.

I hope this letter finds some use in your thinking as you consider to run for the core circle. If you are still deliberating whether to run, I encourage you to go for it. You have everything to gain. There is no more fertile training ground for management training than a student society that enables you to lead many people and allows for mistakes. For you to grow into a better person who creates impact.

And should you lose the election, fret not. The society was designed with Openness in mind, such that every valuable person who is willing to contribute can do so at partner level or find their own way to do it. There will be a role if you desire to invent it. Hustle.

Help those who want to effect change to make a difference.

I wish you the best,

Jun

Materials:

Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

Peh Shing Huei, Tall Order — The Goh Chok Tong Story

Jared Diamond, Upheaval

Clayton Christensen, the Innovator’s Dilemma

Alain de Botton, On Love: A Novel