A*Star chief manages by 'benign neglect'
The Straits Times
By Erica Tay
Oct 23, 2005
THEY don't make civil servants like Mr Philip Yeo any more. Just ask him.
Throughout his career of over three decades, the irrepressible Mr Yeo has embarked on wildly ambitious endeavours and - to the amazement of naysayers - delivered.
Not cut from the mould of a 'pure bureaucrat', he has run government organisations while at the same time running corporations.
On his watch as chairman, the Economic Development Board attracted foreign investments that created 275,000 jobs for Singaporeans.
Now leading Singapore's push into biomedical sciences, the 59-year-old chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) makes waves wherever he goes - and is not afraid of sparking the odd controversy.
Asked if he feels his style is quite different from that of most public servants, Mr Yeo replies without missing a beat: 'I'm not a public servant. I'm just in government for the fun of it.'
It is a dreary and drizzly day. But the lean and spry Mr Yeo is a picture of sunshine when he strides into the dining room of Infuzi restaurant in Biopolis, the life sciences complex that is his brainchild.
He speaks at a speed that would render most people breathless.
His speech is sprinkled with the odd Singlish phrase, and delivered with blistering candour.
Over the next hour or so, I am to learn three things about Philip Yeo.
First, what stands out about him, more than his larger-than-life persona and razor-sharp intellect, is an overwhelming sense of duty and urgency to help Singapore survive.
'Jobs!' he says crisply when asked what spurs him on every day.
'When people do things not for personal gain, you have strong moral high ground,' he later adds.
Second, despite a hectic schedule, the father of two tries his best to be there for his children, Eugene and Elaine. He is especially close to his son.
Finally, while he may on occasion appear tough on his hand-picked A*Star scholars, he takes extraordinary personal interest and pride in them.
How many head honchos fly halfway around the world to meet his scholars, and can even tell you which of these scholars are dating each other?
Goh Keng Swee shaped his thinking
Mr Yeo has been a go-getter since young, he tells you.
When studying at St Joseph's Institution (SJI), he would galvanise his schoolmates and organise the Catholic Society's affairs.
'I'm not religious,' he says, but he has the ability to organise just about anything if he puts his mind to it.
'If you ask me to run the mafia, I'll run the mafia. What's so difficult?' he quips.
A Colombo Plan engineering graduate and a Harvard MBA holder (Class of '76), Mr Yeo began his career at the Ministry of Defence, rising through the years to become its Permanent Secretary in 1979, a post he held until 1985.
Throughout the years, he credits one man for shaping his thinking and career - former Deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee.
Regarded by many as the architect of Singapore's economy, Dr Goh was the one Cabinet minister Mr Yeo had worked with the longest - and learnt from the most.
'Half of those who worked with him never survived. He has no time for fools. Two persons walk into the room, one comes out dead,' Mr Yeo says of his former boss.
'Very high standards. But if you're good, he gives you freedom.'
And freedom was what Mr Yeo got. He recalls that Dr Goh's only complaint about him was that he was always not around for meetings.
'He gave up,' Mr Yeo says, and chuckles. 'I said, look, you want me to work or you want me to be around?' He got away with disappearing acts, he says, 'because I delivered'.
It was a management ethos that followed him when he headed the National Computer Board in 1981, joined the EDB in 1986, and when he left for the National Science and Technology Board, renamed A*Star, in 2000.
Management philosophy
Management is simple, he said.
'Hire good people. Give them enough space,' he says, believing that capable people don't like bosses breathing down their necks.
'But don't take your eye off them. So I don't bug you but I know what you're doing,' he adds, tucking into a hearty tomato soup.
'I learnt from Dr Goh. He doesn't bug me when I'm doing my work, I don't bug other people,' he adds, terming his philosophy 'benign neglect'.
It is for that reason that he hires only passionate, motivated people.
'People must be driven. I can't stand people waiting for instructions. If you are self-driven, you can do a lot of work. You will also find other self-driven people. I call it the multiplier effect,' he says with a smile.
While at Mindef, Mr Yeo took on a second job - turning around an almost bankrupt company, Chartered Industries of Singapore (CIS), a government ordnance manufacturer.
By 1981, CIS was debt-free and building up cash surpluses.
In later years, while still a civil servant, he helped start the Singapore Technologies (ST) Group, which has since grown into many separate corporations.
'In that sense, I knew the real world,' he says.
'Now, no more. Pure bureaucrats.'
During the years he was helping to run the ST group, he would have a 'clinic' on Saturdays, where he met the conglomerate's staff and worked out any business problems they had.
Tagging along would be his son, then a little boy.
'Every Saturday at Mindef, my son would sit down there, small boy, watch all the guys waiting for his father. Each of them I treat, like a doctor treats a patient.'
Proud father
WHEN Mr Yeo joined the EDB, Eugene would continue to hang out in his office.
'My son is closer to me because from young, every day after school, he sits in my office. Do homework, sit down there and watch,' he recalls.
The child must have learnt a lot from these sessions, for his father will many years later say: 'My son is more like me. My daughter, more like her mother. He wants to take over and run everything.
'What he wants to do is up to him, but he is the same - impatient, wants to do his own thing.'
Mr Yeo happily whips out his children's business cards from his wallet.
Today, 28-year-old Gene Yeo is a postdoctoral researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, having completed his PhD in computational neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year.
Daughter Elaine, 19, is a student at Boston's Brandeis University and is currently doing her summer internship at financial firm Nomura.
Work matters, not money
With one foot in the private sector, has he never felt tempted to take the full plunge and land a plum corporate job that pays squillions?
He laughs it off: 'It's not the pay, it's the work.'
In the corporate sector, all you do is make money, all you deal with is one company's products, he reasons, as he swiftly polishes off his main course of roast lamb.
'That's very boring, you know?'
'My greatest fear is boredom,' Mr Yeo declares, eyes twinkling.
In his current role, there is room for a myriad challenges. And when these are conquered, he creates new ones.
'Money doesn't bother me. I'm not broke, I'm not rich, but I'm happy. So long as the work is fun and you're happy, just do. If it's just money alone, might as well rob a bank.'
But in his younger days, whenever he felt like leaving the job, Dr Goh would persuade him to stay.
'When I want to run away, he would keep me, 'Stay lah, stay lah'. After he left, he said, 'Actually you should have left long ago. You have done enough for the whole of Singapore, man. You should take care of yourself',' Mr Yeo recounts with mock disbelief.
With the same drive with which he notched up foreign investments at the EDB, he now develops Singapore's biomedical science industry.
The difference between the two jobs, he says, is that the former involves asking people to put in their money and results can be seen in the short term.
At A*Star, you put in the country's money, and scientific results can take many years to materialise.
Were there any moments when he felt like giving up?
'I never give up. Why should I give up? Once I decide something, I do it. Now, you stay in the way, block my way. Vroom, I run over you.
'If I got something to do, I'll do it with a sense of purpose. So if you are smart, you stay away from me,' he says with a laugh.
A legacy of people
Over dessert and coffee, he talks about his scholars and his belief in grooming young people.
A*Star aims to groom 1,000 PhD researchers, he says. It currently has 560 in various universities and institutions - all of whom were personally interviewed by him.
When asked what his legacy would be, he answers: 'All the kids. Someday all these guys will grow up and they will lead the place.'
He keeps track of their academic progress, and top performers get their names in press advertisements and on an honour roll hung on the wall in one of Biopolis' lobbies.
It was his maths teacher at SJI who gave him the idea of having an 'honour wall'. The teacher would put the names of the top three boys who aced the weekly maths tests.
Every boy wanted his name to be on that wall - and that year, everyone got an A for maths.
It is a culture Mr Yeo has brought with him to the organisations he has headed.
'I have affected the lives of at least 1,000 people, for good or for bad,' he chuckles.
Singapore can survive
Pondering Singapore's future, he says: 'We cannot just do production. We've got to do things with technology. Create our own know-how.
'Therefore, science becomes a necessity, not a luxury.
'Yet at the same time, we never have enough people. We bring in other talent. Whatever you do, you must really do well, whether it's high-end or low-end. You can survive.'
At an age when most of his peers are playing golf, Mr Yeo banishes thoughts of taking things slowly.
'My greatest worry is boredom, what. What do I do? When people retire early, they die of boredom, very miserable.
'The best way to go is mechanical pump failure. The worst way to go is a very long disease,' he muses.
When lunch is swiftly dealt with, Mr Yeo zips out to give us a speedy tour of the Biopolis.
Walking briskly while surveying the compound, he beams and says: 'See, you need a crazy guy to do all this.'