When You Surround Yourself With Too Many Yes-Men

Sycophant - a person who acts obsequiously towards someone important in order to gain advantage. Also known as a bootlicker, flatterer, fawner, kowtower. The yes-man (or woman) is a subset of the 'sycophant' and they are just as annoying. The Asian working culture, for the most part, requires you to be a yes-man.

In Singapore, it can be particularly bad, because many people don't take too kindly to disagreement. "You're either with me or you're against me" and "if you're against me", then I must DESTROY you! I've seen way too many folks being "performance-managed" out for stating valid concerns.

If there's a glimmer of hope, it's that the pettiness hasn't spread to the younger generation of Singaporeans below the age of 40. Or maybe it's one of those diseases that has a long dormant phase before it gets full-blown.

Some examples

New parliament mascot

The title-image is what sparked this post. It's a real thing that was commissioned by parliament and someone reasonably high up must have thought it was decent enough to have it released. Never mind that the idea of a parliament mascot is pretty ridiculous, the graphic design and content of this poster looks like it was created by someone who just discovered PowerPoint 97.

The MDA Rap

A video by our media authority - basically the folks who censor everything. It's really funny how no one told the bosses that maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Naturally, they were laughed at by everyone when they released the video.

Consequences

To speak up or not to speak up? If your organization is into making ridiculous videos that don't align with your values, it's probably better to stay silent, avoid and look for another gig elsewhere. Don't be a hero and live to die another day. If you want to get promoted, then when they ask you to jump, the only correct answer is, "how high?"