no it won't go all the way it should but i know that the heart of life is good

Sir

Thank you for encouraging us to share our views with you. I apologise for the long lag in sending these views in, and hope that they prove useful and interesting.

1 Learning vs "Applied Learning"

While "learning", in terms of the acquisition of knowledge and training hours, is an important concept in our organisation, "applied learning" is less so. I feel that much of this learning does not show up in terms of improved approaches to problems, and regulatory processes. Part of this is due to the hierarchial public service culture. This sometimes over-centralises decision-making and hinders questioning of existing assumptions. The other is the "silo-ed" nature of our organisation, which prevents lateral thinking. For the long haul, shifting culture and breaking down silos will be necessary in improving the application of learning. There should also be an appreciation among management that many officers are passionate about improving the organisation's business beyond their immediate job scope.

1(a) Case / Business Plan Competition

On this note, I would like to suggest a case / business plan competition, which is widely used in business schools. Participation could even count for credit towards the Academy. Under this initiative, officers from different departments can work together on projects, and then present their proposals to their peers and / or management. They should also be prepared to implement their proposals if needed. Officers can either initiate their own projects, or pick up ones suggested by various departments. The scope of ideas should not be limited to narrow work issues, but could extend to broad policy approaches and organisational issues (e.g. HR). This would utilise the pool of knowledge currently untapped among many of our younger officers.

2 Career Development

Many young officers in the organisation (myself included) are concerned about the absence of a clearly defined career development path for young officers. Especially at the junior staff level, job scopes are highly specialised and many people are unclear about how the skills acquired would be useful in the long run, both within and outside xxx.

While the Academy provides for a standardised body of technical knowledge, it would be useful to know that after a period of time, the officer should be prepared to assume certain levels of responsibility, and to possess certain managerial skills. There should also be a clear rotation system in place to cater to officers who wish to assume leadership responsibilities and obtain a wide range of experiences.

3 Community Involvement

Beyond work and the occasional RecClub event, running community involvement events would be useful in promoting bonding and "emotional involvement" among staff. Besides one-off service events, we could also form an ongoing relationship with a charitable organisation, nursing home, etc.

Once again, thanks for allowing us to share our views with you. Your openness is much appreciated.

Regards,
xxx
x9125

when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth

it's been... a month? the previous post was written towards the tail end of the trip. the trip was good. meeting people and catching up is always good. as written before, it is good to be able to finally be able to let go. preposterously, life has managed to carry on without my presence there, and possibly, that phase of life and the work associated with it is finished.

did the CFA Level 2 exam last week. freaked out a lot less about it than the level 1 exam. perhaps it's resignation. but it did cause me to question the nature of my calling and ambitions. i find that as life progresses, your capacity to control things increase (e.g. increased experience, financial resources), but the stuff you're dealing with becomes that much bigger, so its a wash and you're just as helpless as before.

there are many roads to truth, but only one direction.

after the false illusion of fulfilment brought about by the busy-ness, time to fight the battle against ennui once more.

like financial transactions, there are two models of relationships - the bespoke one (one person, disparate counterparties, individually neogtiated transactions) versus the clearing house model (in a group / centralised market).

bespoke: one to many. higher transaction costs (e.g. hard to jio ppl out to do stuff). however, greater payoff (intimacy) and risk in the relationship. you are also able to get into more complex instruments, and its more customisable to your risk profile.

clearing house: the "group" identity serves as a central counterparty and common risk-sharing mechanism. however, you also have to pay membership dues. the transaction cost is lower as there is a more liquid pool of transaction (activity) partners. however, the really good deals aren't here.

the good investor, of course, does not prefer one over the other but is always well diversified. i need a fellow portfolio manager too. what kind of market to explore? ;)

i realise that now being summer, a lot of ppl in my "blogrings" are writing deep introspective things to pass the time. but i'm a shallow dude, so you gotta live with the vapid, inches-deep stuff on these pages, nyeh nyeh.

currently reading: The Black Swan, Nassim Taleb
interesting stuff. not all i agree with, but gels with a lot of axioms. finance and philosophy, who would have thought?