Chief Change Officer
#114 From Parliament to Parenthood: Tin Pei Ling On Balancing Change and Leadership
Sun, 22 Dec 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-- Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself. Open a World of Deep Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives, Visionary Underdogs, Transformation Gurus & Bold Hearts. 6 Million+ All-Time Downloads. Reaching 80+ Countries Daily. Global Top 3% Podcast. Top 10 US Business. Top 1 US Careers. >>>100,000+ subscribers are outgrowing. Act Today.<<< --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.20 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1% Podcast.Top 5 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>180,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the journey of Tin Pei Ling as a young parliamentarian?
Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. In her last episode, we look 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 facing 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 two. 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 firm, this rule applies. This is a three-stage model of change proposed by the founding father of social psychology, Kurt Lewin.
Chapter 2: How does the three-stage change model work?
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, re-freeze, a stage where you solidify the change and establish that new behavior as the norm. In Poehling'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 the 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 Pei Ling'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 go beyond yourself, go above yourself. You need to think like a social 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 Pei Ling's case, for example, attacks in person and social media. What are the positive reinforcement factors? In Pei Ling's case, she got the support from the political party. In your case, you work in a big firm. You got support from a boss, from a CEO, from a board of directors.
You are an entrepreneur. You got support from your investors. Good for you. But that's only one piece of the situation. In Painting's case, she went out there, exposed herself, faced the people, faced the challenges, trying to turn distrust 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 missed the point. It's the situation you got yourself in that makes a difference in your life and career. In Pei Ling's case, she was younger, had less business experiences, let alone international experiences.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of pursuing an MBA for personal growth?
But then, in those two years, she got 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. the deep knowledge in a lot of areas. Within two years, she built up not just the momentum of her growth, but the 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 the 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.
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, 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 Pei Ling'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?
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Chapter 4: What challenges do women face in balancing multiple roles?
I think it was wonderful. Fantastic. I really enjoyed my time at Chicago Booth. I meet a lot of different people from different walks of life. I learn from them and make great friends, including you, Vince. Of course, of course. Of course. 10 years and counting. Yes, yes. Yeah, so... Okay, first of all, I like meeting people, but I also love learning.
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.
Chapter 5: How does Tin Pei Ling manage her responsibilities as a mother and a leader?
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. Oh, yeah. Yeah, 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 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. 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 started 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, or part of your growth process. You are always on call as an elected member of the parliament. Always community works, always on. And then you finish your MBA education, you move back to the real world. You got your private 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 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
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