Chief Change Officer - From Parliament to Parenthood: Tin Pei Ling On Balancing Change and Leadership

Episode Date: December 22, 2024

In this episode, Tin Pei Ling from Singapore unpacks her remarkable journey as a young parliamentarian, MBA graduate, and mother. She shares how the three-stage change model—unfreeze, adapt, refreeze—became her blueprint for navigating personal and professional transitions. With candid reflections on balancing leadership and life, she highlights the trade-offs and support systems that made it all possible. From advocating for women’s empowerment to tackling mental health and aging population challenges, Tin’s work embodies resilience and action. Drawing inspiration from Lee Kuan Yew’s leadership principles and her own belief in the power of regret as a driver for growth, she emphasizes the importance of stories, books, and meaningful connections in shaping a better future. Key Highlights of Our Interview: The Three-Stage Change Model “Change begins with unfreezing—understanding the need and motivation to move forward. But it’s in the second stage, where you think like a social psychologist, that you navigate the hardest part: adapting yourself and your environment. And finally, in refreezing, you solidify the new behaviors and build a foundation for sustainable growth.” The Power of an MBA Journey “Pursuing an MBA at a young age gave me a platform to learn from peers with diverse experiences. It wasn’t just the coursework, but the exposure to different perspectives that built the momentum for lifelong learning and growth.” Advocating for Women’s Aspirations “Balancing multiple roles isn’t easy, especially for women. My journey as a working mother has inspired me to advocate for better support systems, so women can pursue their dreams without sacrificing their personal or professional growth.” Balancing Leadership and Motherhood “There’s no such thing as perfect balance—there are always trade-offs. As a mother, an elected member of parliament, and a full-time professional, I’ve faced moments of guilt, like missing my son’s rapid growth during a general election. But with an ecosystem of support, I’ve managed to fulfill my roles and give back to my community.” _________________________ Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Tin Pei Ling ______________________ Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. Experiential Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives Global Top 3% Podcast on Listen Notes World's #1 Career Podcast on Apple Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI, JP 3+ Millions Downloads 80+ Countries

Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human I'll show it is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. In our last episode, we looked at how Pei Ling overcame the darkest period in her life, transforming from being a psychology major into winning the general election as the youngest elected parliamentarian. She discussed how phasing biases related to age and gender has made her more resilient, both in terms of stamina and ability. A happy ending story for sure, but is that it? Of course not, that's why

we have part 2. Before we dive in, let me share with you one golden rule of success in driving and sustaining change. Whatever change you try to make, lose weight, launch a new product, or even trying to stage a large-scale transformation project at your first. This rule applies. This is a three-stage model of change proposed by the founding father of social psychology, Kurt Lewin. According to him, in order to change, we need to, first, unfreeze, a stage where we understand the need and find the motivation to change. Second, change. The stage where you move towards a different behavior.

Third, refreeze. A stage where you solidify the change and establish that new behavior as the norm. In Peiling's case, in the first stage, unfreeze. If you recall in part one of our interview, I asked her specifically about the why, about the need and motivation to change from psychology to business consulting, from private individual to public officer. So the need and the motivation to change. Figure it out. This stage is very personal. It's about you.

You may not get 100% of the why yet. 80, 90% that's already very good. Because in the next stage when you're going through the process of change you will get to know more about yourself. So you'll figure out more but you do need to start with a good chunk of understanding of your need and the motivation to change at the early stage as in Peiling's case. The second stage, change, is the hardest part. We start with thinking of yourself, but then in the second stage you have to be go beyond yourself, go above yourself. You need to think like a social psychologist.

psychologist. Change behavior is a function of a person and a situation. In the first days you figure out yourself, the person, but what about the situation? What in that environment that helps you drive and sustain the change. What factors affect your behavior? What are some of the negative reinforcement factors? Well, in Peiling's case, for example, attacks in person and social media. What are the positive reinforcement factors? In Peiling's case, she got the support from the political party. In your case, you work in a big firm, you got support from your boss, from the CEO, from the board of directors. You are entrepreneur, you got support from your investors. Good for you. But that's only one piece of the situation. In Peing's case, she went out there, exposed herself, faced the people,

faced the challenges, trying to turn this trust into trust, to win the hearts and minds of people, get the buy-in in order to fit in. On top of that, she went for an MBA degree. She tried to build up her knowledge base to become more business savvy. But it's not just the body of knowledge or the fame of the degree. A lot of people thinking of getting an MBA degree miss the point. It's the situation you got yourself in that makes a difference in your life and career. In Peiling's case, she was younger, had less business experiences, let alone international experiences. But then, in those two years, she caught direct exposure, direct interaction with people from all around the world, classmates who

are more mature, more experienced from all walks of life, and plus the professors, they have deep knowledge in a lot of areas. Within two years, she built up not just the momentum of her growth, but this solid foundation for her to keep going on and on and on. So that's the value of an MBA degree in her situation. Not to mention about a very important ecosystem of support she has nurtured over time. When she refreezes as a confident woman leader to fight for the interests of her people. She got all of those elements in place. It's about her, but it's also about her.

To recap, three-step model of change. First, unfreeze, where you figure out yourself the need and motivation to change. Second, think like a social psychologist. Figure out your environment. Remember, change behavior is a function of a person and a situation. Figure out the strengthening and the weakening factors. Magnify the positive reinforcement factors. Downplay the negative reinforcement factors. Magnify the positive reinforcement factors, downplay the negative reinforcement factors. In some cases, the situation isn't just right for you, then get out of it, you don't have to get yourself stuck in that. Change your game. Get onto another stage for you to sing, to dance, to perform perform and outperform. Third, solidify all of these change elements. They're self-reinforcing to each other, so you're essentially building yourself a wider

and deeper foundation, taking you from the older self to the future self in a much more sustainable and successful manner. There is no overnight success, that's just a myth. Any success, any sustainable success, always takes patience, effort, and a deep process of change. Now, let's go back to Peiling's story. Let's look at her model of change, how she made her own law of change to play the long game. I met you around 2013 when you started MBA. When I recall the statistics of our class, the average age was 37.

You were among the youngest. What's the logic and psychology behind your decision to pursue an MBA degree after you got into politics? How would you describe your two years experience studying with people who are from different walks of life and most of us are older, have different experience from you? I think it was wonderful, fantastic. I really enjoyed my time at Chicago both. I meet a lot of different people from different walks of life.

I learned from them and made great friends, including you, Vince. That was fun. Of course, of course. Ten years and counting. Yes, yes. Yeah, so, okay, first of all, I, I like meeting people, but I also love learning. I think after I graduated from university,

I realized I do like being a student. I like to challenge myself and stretch my mind. I never really did study business type of subjects when I was in school. And so the MBA helps to put frameworks and theories to what I learned on the job. Business consulting, it is business, but it's not like a formal education. It's on the job kind of training. So going through MBA, I think that was useful. There is a lot of rigor in what Chicago Bulls offer.

I remember, for example, macroeconomics. I asked, yeah, it is. Kina Man, Heisinger, Professor Heisinger. I really liked him. He really drives us. He taught us how to look at trends, try to predict stuff, using formulas. I know that some other, I shall not name the other schools, yeah. But from my understanding,

macroeconomics would be a little bit more intuitive in those causes. But for Chicago Booth, it was all formula driven. And then every week, no, every month we had an exam. And in the week that we were together, every day there's a quiz. In the week that we were together, every day there's a quiz. So it's quite crazy. But I think it really trained us well, placed us very well. I think looking back, it was a great experience. But the question was, why did I choose to do it?

As an elected member of parliament, I should constantly try to grow and learn. As I mentioned earlier, my first term, I quit my job at Ernst & Young to focus on my constituency work. I think it was wonderful. After a while, when we get the hang of things, you build up experience, you establish processes, you establish the team. I start to have capacity. I felt that I needed to build new dimensions.

I felt that I really needed to learn something. When the Chicago Bulls opportunity came, I decided to just latch on and just go. It has been a wonderful two years. Yeah, part of your growth process. You are always on call as a elected member of the parliament. Always, Kamal, he works always on call as an elected member of the parliament, always committed to work, always on.

And then you finish your MBA education, you move back to the real world, you got your prefect sector job, full-time job, you got this public duty, and you're a mother of two, how do you balance, not just balancing your timetables, but also the roles you played? How do you balance all these different responsibilities and duties? Yeah, I get asked this quite a bit, and while we all wish we can balance all these different roles and that and the assumption underlying this would be that we compromise nothing but the reality is

that there will always be trade-off something has to give at some point when we focus on something else so in this case honestly there's always a constant mother's guilt because I feel that being an elected member of parliament is absolutely sacred because so many people place their trust in me. They voted for me. To me, this is absolutely sacred. So I have to continue to do my best to solve the problems, to listen, to represent them

in parliament, to give voice, to do a lot of things. And that takes a lot of time. Professionally, I get paid and I also want to make sure that I continue to grow as a person. I also want to give myself that chance to do so and I need to be a responsible employee. So in the end, I have to sacrifice the family front a little bit more. I remember in my second general election, 2015, two weeks after I gave birth, you know, in Asian culture, there's a one-month confinement. Yeah.

Yeah. So I basically, actually a few days after giving birth, I had to go out and start training my walking because by the sec, but because two weeks later, after I gave birth, I have to start campaigning because general was just around the corner, I had to start campaigning. Because General was just around the corner. I had to start campaigning. And so I recall that my first born, every day he looks different because there's a rapid growth period. And I remember after general election when the dust has settled, I came back.

And I look at him also, oh my God, he has grown so much. I what did I miss out? So I was quite, uh, quite emotional. And then of course now they are a bit older, a little bit more independent in that sense. And, but I must say that in the end, whatever that I could do, I wouldn't have been able to achieve those if not for the great support of many wonderful people. So within the constituency, I have a great team who have stood by me even during the toughest of times, and I'm grateful.

Residents have been very kind and understanding, and they continue to place their trust in me, and I'm grateful. At work, my colleagues and my bosses have also been appreciative of my other roles and they gave me the flexibility. I'm grateful. Of course, at home, I've got my family, my parents, my husband, and friends as well who are willing to step in when I have to go out and do my part. So it's a whole ecosystem of support. I recognize that not everyone enjoys the same level of support. And so actually this thing about how can we better support women to achieve their aspirations actually became one of the causes that I've been fighting for or talking about since that second general election, since 2015, since becoming a mother

of a pig. You mentioned about woman empowerment. Tell us a bit more about your work there, perhaps other issues that keep you busy, keep you on your toes. Yeah, I actually am passionate about a range of issues and causes. When I was in my 20s, when I was first fielded, I was very passionate. And I continue to be passionate about elderly issues as well as youth. Because I've always been a youth volunteer and I believe in youth development. Mental health, mental wellness being such a core part of issue that youth are concerned about. So that naturally is something that I'm concerned about as well. And I've always been interested in mental health.

That's why I chose psychology, right? Then seniors, my parents are aging as the only child. I have to think about how I can support them, how I can care for them. And I also start to think about how I would like to live my life when I eventually grow old and become an elderly myself. So that's from the personal point of view, but my constituency, one in three are aged 60 and above. So I have a fairly significant population of seniors that were under my care.

Naturally, issues concerning them would be my concern as well. Ensuring their basic living needs are being taken care of, ensuring that they continue to be socially and mentally engaged. Because I think the biggest threat faced that our elderly face today is isolation. Bread and butter, all these. Some do continue to struggle but overall I think with the government support, with the charities and community partners coming together, we can cover that path. For seniors, because of changing social structure, many are living alone or they are living maybe with only one other person.

Be a spouse, could be a helper. But basically, because of that changing social structure, many seniors are going to be very lonely in their twilight years. And if we don't actively engage them, they can deteriorate very quickly, physically as well as mentally. And then the burden of care will therefore be very heavy. But the biggest thing is about their quality of life. So this is something that I continue to be very focused on. Because women empowerment, as a mother, as a daughter, as a wife, as a whatever,

so many different roles. It's really how can we empower women to create, to build capabilities, to create capacities, to break the ceiling, and help them achieve their aspiration. And now as we move into the digital future, so this is also the other thing that I'm also very big on, is about the digital digital economy, digital society, smart nation, smart government, the whole digital realm, the digital future. This also is something that I'm very interested in. So there's a lot that I can cover, but basically how can we make sure that

Singapore continues to be well-placed for the opportunities within this digital future? How can we continue to ensure that our people are ready for this digital future? And under this portion is how can we empower women so that they are smart ladies for a smart nation? How can we help them unlock the opportunities that a digital future can offer them? For example, when we talk about flexible work arrangement, technology plays a good part in this to enable women to be able to work from home or work remotely so that they can juggle their different roles. By equipping

women with digital skills, according to studies by Accenture, IMF, and various bodies, by helping women to increase in their digital fluency, we can close the gender gap in half the time, for example. Helping women to develop digital capabilities is very important. You mentioned that you are a keen learner. So can you suggest books that have helped you learn, have you grown over time and move forward? Well, I think that there are many possible books. I always think that life experiences, that person-to-person

interaction is most precious. In terms of books, okay, I'm a big fan of our founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. There's a lot of hard truths and very good wisdom that can be found in his book. That's one. Recently, he has many books. I won't pinpoint any, just go read them. I'm still trying to get through to finish the book because I'm so busy. But it's about the power of regret. It's interesting because a lot of people, when they talk about regret, it's like, oh, could have, would have, should have. I think the crux of this is really about how can you view regret from a different perspective that actually drives you to take action,

to solve problems and to be a better person. Every guest, they will suggest some books that have inspired them. So that's why I like to share their collective knowledge, collective inspirations with our audience. So that's the reason why I asked you about your source of inspiration. I'm also a keen reader. I've published two books and I'm writing my third. So that's also a reason why I always like to share knowledge. I also like to learn from each other. Like you said, you like to learn from other people's stories the issues you mentioned mental health

Aging population I can resonate with you more about aging isolation. I'm also only child myself like you said retired people older people either stay with their spouse or Live alone or live with the help perk Mental health, not only for youth, but basically for all ages. Women, 50% of the world population, yet not well represented, under empowered. So next time when you come back,

tell us more about what you learned from stories of people around you, from your stakeholders, older members of the communities, but also members of the youth as well as the women. Despite all these systematic issues, at the same time, lots of opportunities for us to drive change. Tell us more about those changes that you have over time pursued and how you are still in the fight for more changes for your communities.

Happy to, and anytime for you, Vince. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show, leave us top-rated reviews, check out our website, and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.