Lim siong guan speech outline

In 1898 former cabin boy Morgan Robertson published ‘Futility’, a novel about a vessel so huge it was deemed indestructible.

And a lot of the time the people responsible for delivery are the people with the most immediate knowledge of what the challenges are, and what issues there are”.

Singapore is in one of the most challenging times in its history; a voyage beset by uncertain conditions; changing resources; volatile storms and an ever-changing destination.

A nation may not be able to spot all of the icebergs.

“That the public doesn't do. “If you lump on the day-to-day operator the responsibility to think about the future, the future will never get solved because he'll always be focusing his mind on the urgent”.

Agencies need “at least two teams, if not more than two teams. So how can they prepare for what is to come?

That's why they elect you into office,” says Lim.

For a government to prepare, it should “worry a lot about the culture”, not about predicting what lies ahead, Lim says. What are we going to do in that kind of situation?’”

Lim adds that agencies should take responsibility for this, rather than having a centralised unit in the Prime Minister’s Office thinking it all through.

You could be a CEO of a multi-national corporation, a stay-at-home mother, an emergency room nurse, or a secondary school student. They're going to leave you alone because it is in their national interest to leave you alone. “You tell people leave me alone, but they're not going to leave you alone simply because it's a nice moral thing to do.

Civil servants were encouraged to think deeply about their nation and develop broader values that help them innovate.

"What I require is a group of people with the ability to respond, to adjust, to be aware of what's going on, always trying to understand and half the time understanding you got it wrong,” Lim says.

He has been the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence (1981–1994), the Public Service Division of the Prime Minister’s Office (1994 –1998), the Ministry of Education (1997–1999) and the Ministry of Finance (1999 –2006). And there's another team, which says: ‘Well, what does all this thing look like? The nation is caught between the US and China as their relations worsen; it is a trade-reliant nation in a world of closing borders; and it’s an island on a planet where sea levels are rising.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has written in the latest Foreign Affairs magazine that “the troubled U.S.-Chinese relationship raises profound questions about Asia’s future and the shape of the emerging international order.

“It took us a little time to appreciate that Covid-19 has a good number of asymptomatic cases, which was not the case with SARS at all,” Lim says.

A crucial difference between SARS and Covid-19 is that SARS was eliminated from Singapore within half a year, but Covid-19 appears to require a vaccine before it goes away.

The book provides insights into Siong Guan’s past, his thoughts on the present, and his perspectives on the future, particularly on surviving and thriving in a world of “unknown unknowns”.

It is his desire that reading this book will help you be the best that you can be!

LIM Siong Guan is Emeritus Professor at the National University of Singapore and a Distinguished Practitioner Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, where he teaches leadership, governance, future readiness, organisational excellence, and change management.

He served as Group President of GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, from 2007 to 2016, and then as Advisor to its Group Executive Committee from 2017 to 2019.

You just say ‘he is hemorrhaging, and I better stop the bleeding, otherwise he'll enter into shock, and he'll die’. This is the world of Covid-19.

To Lim, it demonstrates why culture is so important to a civil service.

must avoid being caught in the middle or forced into invidious choices.”

A further challenge for Singapore is the decline of the international system, with reduced funding to the United Nations, and a reduced respect for international legal rulings such as the United Nations Law of the Sea.

“International laws, or international precedences, are very important for small countries”, Lim notes, and Singapore values organisations such as the UN.

It’s an open question, and a challenge for the nation, whether other countries will continue to support funding the UN. “The question is whether there's enough enlightened self interest to say: ‘What's beneficial to me is to maintain this bigger structure, is to maintain a framework. He has also been awarded the Institution of Engineers Lifetime Engineering Achievement Award in 2025, the Distinguished Fellow of The EDB Society Award in 2020, the University of Adelaide Distinguished Alumni Award in 2012, and the National Trades Union Congress Medal of Commendation in 2003.

He also chaired the Singapore Economic Development Board from 2006 to 2009.

Siong Guan was the first Principal Private Secretary to Singapore’s founding Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, and was the Head of the Singapore Civil Service from 1999 to 2005. And these are people who need to believe your word. During her time at Princeton, Joanne was awarded the President’s Prize and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society for outstanding academic excellence.