Last week I was drinking kopi with my former boss—retired local SME titan, multi-millionaire, the kind who drive S-Class to wet market to buy fish. I was venting to him about some corporate headaches, and he just looked at me, took a slow sip of his Kopi O Kosong, and dropped this absolute bombshell on me:
“Young man, in business, there is no such thing as black and white. Everything is grey. The sooner you learn to navigate the grey, the richer you become.”
It hit me like a ton of bricks, but honestly? It’s 100% the reality of running a company here.
Look at my current setup. I have directors under me, managers under them, supervisors below them, and so on. Every tier, every vendor deal, every single procurement contract. Do you all really think it’s 100% clean? You think no one is taking advantage or trying to earn some sneaky kickback? Ang bao during CNY from suppliers, “free” expensive dinners, overseas “fact-finding” trips, or just giving tenders to their own brother-in-law’s sub-con company?
Please lah, don’t be so naive.
I know all these things are happening. But I don’t expose them. Why? Very simple: don’t break what is not broken.
In Singapore corporate culture, everybody loves to talk about “compliance” and “zero tolerance”, but in actual practice, the cost of enforcing 100% purity is insane. The chance of completely preventing this is practically 0%. If I go full investigation mode, catch one manager, fire him, waste time and money to recruit and train a new guy… is there a guarantee the new guy won’t do the exact same thing three months down the road? No guarantee at all.
So what do I do? Close one eye, open one eye.
End of the day, as long as my company is profiteering, the margins are met, and the work gets delivered on time, I am OK. I let them eat a bit of “fat” as long as they bring in the meat.
The secret sauce is managing the balance. Once in a while, I will show some “might” to my staff just to keep them in check—fire a warning shot, audit one minor expense claim randomly, or drop a subtle comment during a meeting so they know I’m not blind.
This is the classic Chinese saying: 看破不说破 (See Through But Don’t Expose).
You let them think they are being clever, but you hold the leash. The moment their greed hurts my bottom line, that’s when the hammer falls. Until then? Welcome to the grey zone.
Anyone else running a business or managing senior teams in SG realized this already, or are you guys still trying to play police officer every day? Discuss.