Final Post

Alas, this is my final blog post for the module. The past 13 weeks of learning how to communicate professionally has been a long but fruitful journey!

One of the most important skill set I had learnt is how to manage working relationships professionally. During the research for the final proposal, my team and I had the opportunity to communicate with individuals from other organizations. Sometimes, I am at a loss how I could reply my addressees' email correspondences. But thank God for Ms Lim, I've learnt how to handle such situations with tact and I am confident should similar instances arises in near future, I would have the ability to handle them.

On the same note, there are instances when I felt I should reply an email in a particular way. However, after consulting with Ms. Lim, she made me see things in another dimension and I'm grateful for that. For example, there was once I sent an email to my professor to request for her permission to mass email her students to help us complete our survey. Somehow, the email was forwarded to the department dean and then the manager of the department replied my request. After all are settled, I decided to move on; but Ms Lim advised me to send a thank you email to the department dean as well. I reasoned with her that I do not have to since I do not have direct correspondence with him. However, Ms. Lim let me understand that it is polite to do so. Further, this gesture could also leave a good impression on my professionalism.

Another skill set which I had picked up from this course is the writing of application letter and resume. Previously, my resume only comprises of a chronological list of the schools I had attended to and the clubs I had joined. This course made me probe further into writing resumes and better market myself as a potential candidate for the workforce.

All in all, I enjoyed the module. However, I enjoyed even more the fun classmates I had. Thank you everyone for the fun interaction we had for the past semester! Good luck for your exams Alex, Andy, Benedict, Bryan, Clarence, Guo Ren, Jay, Jia Lin, Madhu, Wei Xi, Aish, Andrew, Gerard, Jigna, Mufeedha, Si Jie and Wei Li. You guys made my Monday and Thursday fun =)

Catch up soon!

xoxo

Reflection on Oral Presentation

Finally, the ES2007S proposal presentation is over!

PREPARATION

This presentation is one of the most time consuming project I had ever done. I spent the eve of presentation day touching up the slides to make sure the entire presentation transits smoothly. I finished doing up the slides at 3am and continued to rehearse for about 5 to 6 times before retiring to bed. Just before I fall into slumberland, I forced my brain to loop what I am going to present the next day and this continues until I totally lost consciousness.

In the morning of the presentation day, I woke up early and continued rehearsing for another 3 to 4 times. During the course of going through the presentation, I constantly put myself in the shoes of my audience to see if my arguments make sense. I recognized some of the points are not very strong and tried to either rephrase them or to replace them with other stronger evidences.

However, even after many rounds of editing, there are still some points which remained relatively fallible. I am at a dilemma because I can't remove them as they are vital transitional points to the subsequent key points.

For example, during the presentation, I showed a slide with the mean starting pay of graduates and I discussed the slide this way: "Our team has brainstormed several reasons for this disparity (in pay) and one possible reason would be the differences in curriculum." I went on to discuss the differences between the curriculum of the Business School and Faculty of Science.

If somebody had commented about the nature of the industry a graduate from Applied Science enters as a confounding factor besides curriculum, then, we would not be able to show explicitly that Professional Communication is largely responsible for the differences in pay.

I admit this is a big risk. However, given I had already memorized the sequence of my presentation and the lack of time (and I phrased my sentence in that manner), I went ahead with my prior presentation arrangement.

DELIVERY

I had previously wanted to include an array of delivery strategies such as engaging the audience by asking them a question: "Does anyone knows how many percentage of Science students said they are very confident of their communication skills." before showing them the shocking 4% result.

However, I later decided against it because it would be a rhetorical question since they would have already seen the presentation layout. Hence, I decided to stick to statistics to substantiate my claims.

I also considered what my audience wanted to hear and I figured they wanted to hear about the need for this additional module and the benefits they can get from implementing this module. Hence, I phrased my arguments in a persuasive manner to answer these questions.

PRESENTATION SLIDES

My presentation style previously is to put up all my points on the slides and then present by reading off from the slide. As a result, my slides are normally cluttered. (*If you remember my peer teaching slides*)

For this presentation, my team and I spent alot of effort designing our slides and this implies I can't throw all my points on the slides like before. I had to memorize all the information and this makes me feel very nervous as I had to take care of many things in my mind. These are the things going through my mind while I was presenting:

1. Think of what I am going to speak next

2. Be careful not to miss out on key transition words

3. Remember what animation follows the current one

4. Smile

5. Remain enthusiastic

6. Stop my hands from shivering

7. Smile

8. Eye contact
9. Smile

As a result, I ended up speaking a little too fast. I felt that given more practice, things would have improved drastically.

This presentation has been a different delivery experience for me and I hope it has been an enjoyable one for you too! Thank you for reading my entry and I'll be back with the final entry next week!

Evaluating Intercultural Behavior

This incident took place 4 years ago when my manager and I went down to a Middle East Shipping company for a meeting. Despite being scheduled to meet at 10am, the person in charge arrived 30 minutes late. However being a Singaporean has it's perks. I am quite used to people turning up late for appointments. So, I was cool with the wait. My manager, who is a Swiss was however rather irritated.

Like many other Singaporeans, I offered a warm handshake when my clients entered the room. However to my surprise, both of them (both men), gave me a cheek kiss after that firm, business handshake. I almost squicked! Why did they kissed me? Why didn't they kiss my manager? I always thought Middle East people are supposed to be conservative and only French does cheek kissing.

As such, the introduction was very awkward for me initially. However, they were very cordial and I decided to brush off this incident as a difference in culture. (My manager later told me cheek kissing among Middle East men is common and is a way Arabians show hospitality - I wonder this is true till date?)

Throughout the meeting, the room door was open and the secretary was walking in and out, interrupting our session occasionally. This must be contrasted with how meetings are conducted by Singaporeans. Normally, we would shut ourselves in a room and focus on the meeting agenda till the session is over. Hence, I am quite distracted by the frequent walking in of the secretary. However, I think it is a norm for Arabs to multi-task because these businessmen seemed very good at it. They were able to focus back to the meeting as soon as they had resolved the short interruption.

Finally, towards the end of the meeting, these businessmen invited us out for a coffee session after working hours. Feeling uneasy with their warm reception, I declined their invitation. However, they were insistent and because my manager was around, I agreed to their request.

I have since maintained good friendships with them. From this friendship, I understood that the differences in culture could result in potential conflicts. When communicating with a person from another cultural group, our non-verbal cues such as facial expression and tone plays an integral part. In particular, we should not express outright disgust or disagreement in the event we do not agree with what people are doing.

A thumb rule we should follow when engaging folks from other cultural background: A smile a day when we speak keeps everyone happy for the rest of the day =)

Application Letter Critique

This is the advertisement of my dream job:


This is my application letter..

Jimmy Koh
Block 33 #33-133

Orchard Tower
Singapore 633333
Mobile Number: +65 9999 888

Residential Phone: +65 9955 555

Email Address: jimkoh@liberte.sg

5th February 2010

Ms. Tammy Tham
Human Resource Manager
CapitaLand Limited
168 Robinson Road
Singapore 068912

Dear Ms. Tammy

I am interested in applying for the Fund Analyst position recently advertised on your corporate website. The skills I have developed from my work experience, my academic background and passion in financial analysis support my candidacy for the announced position.

Having graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a first class honours with a specialization in finance and business statistics has equipped me with the necessary skills to perform the role of a fund analyst. In particular, my strong foundation in the financial mathematics modules have enabled me to design, model and make informed decisions about investment related decisions. In addition, I am also proficient in using financial modeling softwares such as SPSS, SAS and R to analyze the financial market.

Besides the academic, I was also active in the extra curriculum activities in school. In 2009, I served as the treasurer for the NUS Quantitative Finance Club. I was responsible for preparing the annual budget for the club and organizing investment related seminars. In the same year, I was also the Publicity and Marketing Director for NUS Cultural Activity Club (CAC) Voices. I was involved in leading a team of 10 to market an annual concert production and the liasing with sponsors for the event. After 6 months of organizing and hard work, our team's hardwork was paid off and we earned a profit of SGD$2,000.

Talking about my past working experience, I had previous spent one year doing internship as a fund analyst in China, Beijing. The company I worked for, International Enterprise Singapore Beijing Overseas Centre has provided an opportunity for me to identify new investment prospects, create financial models and to perform cash flow analysis.

In addition, I had previously worked for an events company, A Team Promotions Pte Ltd. During the course of my job, I had to meet tight schedules, liase closely with the various vendors, made pitches and presentations to my clients and have successfully organized several big events such as the Singapore Changi Prison Official Opening and Jurong Point Shopping Mall Christmas Shows.

I would very much like an opportunity to discuss your specific requirements and my overall qualifications regarding the announced position. I will be contacting you at your office next Monday. Also, you can reach me at +65 9999 888. Thank you for considering me for this position.

Yours sincerely,
Jimmy Koh
Mobile Number: +65 9999 888
Residential Number: +65 9955 555

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

I am a confrontational and strongly opinionated person. Many times, this combination of traits often land me in many interpersonal conflicts. Just few days ago, another conflict involving me and a colleague (who is also the project manager) arose.

At the meeting table, the project manager presented the quotations for a concert we are working on and most of us at the meeting thought that the figures he shared are absurdly high. Sensing something amiss, I requested for the breakdown of the concert cost and realized he was using vendors who were giving him ridiculous quotes. When questioned about his refusal to engage other more affordable vendors that is of comparable standards, he gave a limp excuse: He is more comfortable working with this current group of vendors.

When I offered to provide him with my vendors who gave lower quotes, he promptly refused without any reasons and abruptly changed the subject of discussion.

In my point of view, both parties have to be reasonable if they wish to resolve any interpersonal conflict. Ignoring a conflict like how this project manager did will not help in solving the problem. It however led me to believe that this project manager has another secret agenda for his actions. In my opinion, this project manager just wanted to use his own contacts to further his own career in this industry and I completely disagree with his work ethics.

What further aggravated me was the fact that this project manager went back on his words. I had engaged him for a private discussion months ago about a possible deficit and he had promised to take up full responsibilities if this happens. However, during the meeting, he blatantly wanted to change the ticket pricing from the previously agreed SGD$15.00 to SGD$20.00 to buffer the additional cost incurred. He dismissed this change as negligible and that the program lineup is justifiable for this hike. To me, this was a mercenary move. To build his own empire, he passed the stint of the absurd quotation to the organizing committee and the preposterous cost to the consumers.

I came to a conclusion that night that not all interpersonal conflicts can be resolved. If the other party is not receptive to the opinions of others and wants things his own way, there is little we can do.

As such, till this project ends, I will continue to follow my project manager's directives. (He is afterall my boss in this project) Personally, I will continue to do what I believe in - Dealing with everyone I meet fairly.

This project manager is still a good friend of mine. However after this incident, it made me realized we'd be better off staying as good friends.

After reading this entry, if you were in my shoe, what would you have done? :P

Also, please don't be intimidated by me. I'm still a harmless, friendly guy! Do add me in Facebook using the link at the right hand side of this blog and anyone wants to do the ES2007S project with me? :D

Effective Communication Skills

Famous Taiwanese host, affectionately known as Small S and America President Barrack Obama both have a common charactertistic - They communicate effectively and people stop to listen when they speak.

However, effective communication is not just meant for the famous or rich. Everyone needs to be able to convey their messages effectively - May it be in a social setting when you want to charm the girl of your dream or to defend yourself in an argument.

For me, there is a pressing need to correspond effectively with the people around me. This is because working in the events planning industry requires me to converse in different manners to different groups of people.

To my superiors, I have to be professional when presenting the progress of my projects. To the contractors, an array of negotiating skills is needed to bring in terms the best quotes and to deliver my client's specifications accurately to them. To my clients, I have to understand their requests and be as accommodating as possible - Sometimes even to their
unreasonable requests.

Recently, I was involved with this project and this particular client from the government service sector wanted to change the entire site layout a day before the actual event despite having signed the contract to confirm the events layout. In such circumstances when I know my contractors will not be able to complete their work in time, I would have to negotiate with my client, while still appearing to be on his side. This is why, I particularly like the tips presented in "Good News and Bad News messages" of this module, as they are practical at minimizing the damage done to this working relationship.

On a side note, while being able to converse with the various groups of people, I don't enjoy talking much. I would choose watching a movie myself than meeting new friends. However, I realized even though talking to people is not my cup of tea, this does not imply I cannot be a good communicator.

On the contrary, because of the benefits of effective communication mentioned above, I am willing to step out of my comfort zone to interact with people. Given time, I know my communication skills will improve. Also, I've realized if I make a conscious effort to identify and change the not-so-good aspects in my verbal and non-verbal communication behaviors, I will soon be able to communicate professionally like Small S or even President Obama.

Till then, I will do my best to apply what I have learnt in this course to myself and I am particularly looking out for the "Building Inter-personal communication skills" and "Mock Job Interview" lessons.

So far, everything in this course has been engaging and fun and I look forward for more of it. =)

My ES2007S Blog is Up!

Hi all,

Welcome to my blog!

I am Jim from NUS ES2007S Tutorial 4. This is my blog and I will be uploading my first entry soon.

Till then, stay tune =)

Cheers,
Jim