The UnSub

An excerpt from CNA’s “Empathy, diverse viewpoints needed in policy-making”

On hindsight, the LTA could have consulted “a little bit more, whether it’s the commuters or the taxi companies”, said Ms Tan, 32, a Public Service Commission overseas scholar. “That cannot pre-empt all the problems. Hopefully, that would help them get a better sense of what people actually want.”

Mr Lim, also a scholar, said empathy was a “critical” quality for a civil servant, particularly when it comes to policies impacting the needy. In fact, his wife, a lawyer who “is probably one of the biggest critics”, is his perfect sounding board for any policy ideas he has. “If I can’t defend it to her, there would be problems,” Mr Lim, 33, said in jest.

I guess the ability to empathize is not properly measured while selecting these scholars who may have high IQ and necessary “inter-personal” skills for interviews. Perhaps, these people (who are drivers) responsible for endorsing their under-researched policy are those who can never imagine what it is like to take a cab, and possibly been pissed by a taxi driver on the road at some point in time.

Honestly speaking, the outcomes and possibilities of enforcing such policy are not exactly rocket science and anyone with a decent amount of common sense can imagine what can happen. The lack of empathy shows that the system here works more with IQ than EQ. In any case, to make a taxi behave like a bus in the CBD is nothing ingenious or intelligent.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Management, Politics, Singapore. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.