Talent Management and Development in the Singapore Armed Forces

Toh Boon Kwan

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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

1 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.

SAF Talent Management and Development

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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

6 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.

Toh Boon Kwan

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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

9 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.

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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 non-

scholar 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.

11 David French, Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War against Germany 1919-

1945 (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.

Toh Boon Kwan

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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.

13 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.

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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

14 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.

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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).