1. Thankfully, good (rather than common, as common is now just plain bad) sense prevailed. KJS’s proposal for some manipulations on the innovation agencies structure was not endorsed last Monday. (for background, refer the Malaysian Insider report last Friday which depicted a fairly accurate picture, rather peculiarly considering the poor journalistic standards it normally has)
2. My take on the whole proposal was that it was particularly bad and misguided – corporate structuring-type solutions to overcome what are particularly deep-seated defects of the Malaysian innovation landscape. To expand, if the issue on innovation is i) a mediocre education system totally reliant on parents to push the agenda for the brightest and the best students, (ie on tuition, extra-curricular, skill shops etc), universities and SPM-levels purely focused on A’s and paper chase, (ii) a lousy innovation funding whose criteria is more the colour of skin rather than meritocracy of ideas, (iii) a compliant civil service and GLCs who does not value talent, research, innovation; then the solutions are that which address the core and fundamental issues, not the fringe issues. As long as no one stands up to say that the country is going to the dogs, any solution is just plain imperfect. But the worst thing is to say that the whole innovation ecosystem is a greenfield that requires corporate maneouverings to consolidate, and assuming that this can take a life on its own to drive innovation in the country.
3. So, where did KJS go wrong? One, is him not questioning his assumptions, not cross-referencing his ideas / assumptions / solutions and getting the buy-in from his stakeholder constituency – a classic failure of change management. Political will can come in a bit later once he has sufficient social capital to push his ideas through. Failure to identify his allies and come up with strong backing for his proposed solutions saw the proposal’s eventual rejection. We cannot deny that while common sense, brilliant proposals are welcome, but without political backing it just won’t go through. In this case, these were bad proposals, and without backing it’s just no-go from the start.
4. Two, reputationally he was tarnished from the start. He was dismissive of current practitioners. He failed to listen to the little guys. He lied and slimed his way through the initial gatekeepers. In the end, he didn’t need any encouragement from others to be dismissive of his own work. You reap what you sow. You show disrespect to others, others will show disrespect to you.
5. Three, over-reliance on name dropping and political backing. This is the old culture under Mahathir, and Tun M was the detailed micro-planner who would provide aircover for these type of schemes when it makes sense and provide powerful political support to get things going. Plus, he had always superscreened candidates initially so that he would have no qualms and no doubts to push this agenda through, whether this was right or wrong will only be proven much much later. With Najib, you get the sense he is someone who on the whole wants to move quickly, but is hindered when needed to make the difficult decisions – always unsure if he was on the right course. Always too easy to convince, and therefore thought that KJS was easily the best person there is for innovation. Then, when pressed for decisions, he flounders – and KJS is then left on his own. For KJS, it was a classic misstep, thinking that the cavalry was behind him, he had charged recklessly. And now seemingly, being made to look very stupid.
6. Re: No 5 – there is merit for Najib, as much as there are negatives for Tun M’s style. It’s up to others now to adapt to their bosses style. No civil servant can afford to move things this quickly in the present government, especially not for some fringe issue like innovation if we consider greater issues like the Malaysian economy, race relations, corruption, ministerial capabilities etc are being pushed to one side. Najib isn’t a leader like Tun M, indeed he is more aligned in style to Pak Lah.
7. So, all being said, KJS is a goner, unless he now decides to be friendly to others. Otherwise he can just be a BT consultant/ analyst and push his masters proposals to his bosses there. This job in my opinion, is just too big for him.
8. For the innovation space in Malaysia, there needs to be another mover. Or KJS needs to just chug along with lower gears.
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