Singapore

Singapore: the vision and the cultural building process

By Giorgia Madonno Marco Polo Consulting

Professor Schein were used to say that cultures needs symbols, heroes, story telling, sharing of meanings, emotions in order to develop. 

For this reason the death of Mr. Lee, the father of Singapore nation, is a moment of great importance for this journey of national culture building. 

The long queue of people paying respect to him is a symbolic evidence of the recognition of success of certain decisions, values and way of doing. And only winning cultures remain and are reinforced.

The repetition of TV programs  showing Mr. Lee speeches are valuable moments of learning and memory of the clear vision behind the decisions of this impressive leader.
As many western people, I was one of those complaining for feeling this country soulless but tonight listening this man talking in TV I understood the deep meaning of this "clinical cleanness".
A better home for all... this has been the vision for the journey that brought Singapore from 3rd world country to 1st world. Many steps have contributed to this achievement:  creating a military system made Singapore able to defend the territory,  having a bilingualism (English + own mother tongue) has been one of the key actions for cultural integration,  giving houses to citizens as a "stake" of the country business ensured the support of citizens to the plan of the government.

In a very pragmatic way Mr Lee said that a house is something stable and that who own a house knows that the value of it depends on the health of the economy. For this reason the citizen ( like stake-holders ) have supported difficult decisions: they wanted to protect the value of their stake.
People in Singapore, before LKY, were leaving in old shop houses, now they are owners of clean and decent houses and they are interested to keep the green and the cleanness of the city in order to maintain a good value for their home.
Recreational activities and better quality of life have been the objectives after the structural consolidation and they have been greatly achieved.

Soon all this will become the soul of Singapore. It is a so young country. Singapore has the opportunity to take it slowly (from a cultural stand point), digest all the big changes and develop the charisma that we cannot feel yet and enrich with a soul the clean and business oriented Singapore of today.
Participating to this emotional event together with Singaporeans, I can feel that this soul is there and emerging and I feel closer to this place where it happen to me to live.