Final Reflection

Looking back over this past semester, I would like to highlight two main lessons that I have taken away from this module. But before I go into that, I will first go back to my first blog post as required by this blog post topic. I have to say that my views on communication still have not changed from the beginning of the course. I still feel that first impressions count a lot and communication is meant to help you achieve what you want. However, I can now safely say that I have learnt how to better use communication to present a better first image and to attain what I want through the two lessons that I would be highlighting.

The first lesson is to be courteous at all times when communicating professionally. I have to admit that I have always been a very critical person and it is really difficult to earn my praises. That was why my first comment made on Jay’s blog was so crude. However, over this course, I have seen how useful praises have been to me and how much it has affected others too. I am glad to have learnt this simple yet important lesson.

The second lesson builds on the first. Nowadays, emails are really the main form of professional communication and would many times be your first impression to others. I am grateful that this course has taught me to be courteous and concise in my emails. I’ve already used this skill in many of my emails and it has reaped dividends.

As this course comes to a close, I would like to thank everyone in my class for the friendships that I have made. I would especially like to thank my group members, Ryan and Shu Ting, for helping me to learn more about myself. Finally, I would like to thank Ms Happy Goh for being a role model and a source of inspiration for all of us.

Though the workload of this module is immense, we could all learn from this simple quote of John Alves: “The hard way is the right way.”

Open Topic: Other Communication Issues

I initially did not know what topic to do for this blog, but after reading ShuTing’s blog on the intensity of backstabbing and rumour-spreading in her girls’ school; it crossed me that this module has not been dealing much with an important intercultural problem that has never been solved.

This inter-planetary problem is none other than ‘women’. (Please make it clear that it is not a ‘gender difference’ problem. Males are usually not the problem though we are consistently being wrongly accused of being so.) Since I have to focus on writing something related to Professionalism, I’ve decided to deal with the issue of “Female Bosses”.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that female bosses are not as good as male bosses. They usually are, but men are mostly better. Yes, I know this sounds confusing, but female bosses usually do too, just that they don’t know that. But I’m not one who’ll make sweeping comments about normal people in general.

Anyway, I digress. Since I have to discuss about communication, I’ll focus on “how to communicate with female bosses”. I’m not much of an expert, but neither is anyone. Therefore, I’ve tried searching through websites and forums on female bosses and have arrived at two conclusions. Firstly, female bosses are sensitive and use the soft approach in leading. Secondly, they are emotional and have mood swings.

Knowing this, we can try to come up with tactics so as to communicate with them. I came up with two rules. First rule: Do not start the conversation with work. Begin instead, with a gossip or two. (As shown in ShuTing's story, girls love to spread rumours. But like I said, I don’t generalise.) Second rule: Approach her at the right time. This, however, does not mean that if you caught her in the right mood, all is well. There is still a 50-50 % chance that she’ll have changed mood a couple of times by the end of the conversation. If it even ends at all.

As you can tell by now, it will take much more than a military strategist (since they are usually males) to really understand and communicate with them. According to some reports, females themselves also prefer to work under men. What more can I say? If you could, please enlighten me on how else to deal with them.

And girls, when you give your comments, please don’t generalise.

Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour

This happened in Primary School, but I’ve never forgotten about it. My classmate was sitting at his desk in preparation for the next lesson to begin. I walked up to him looking for a between class chat.

It was a harmless, friendly touch. His head was also conveniently located since he was sitting down. But the way he violently pushed my hand away and shouted at me have been etched in my memory. I did not understand. Why such violent reaction? How can a gentle pat on the head evoke such a reaction? For years after, I still did not understand. I did not understand that it was because he was a Thai.

Looking back, I should have been grateful that he did not retaliate and throw me a punch. I was fat (still is), but he was taller and better built. I would have lost a fight to him.

Till now, Thais still hold high regard for their head and still considers feet the dirtiest part of the body. This was demonstrated rather recently, when Thai protesters threw shoes at their ex-PM, Somchai Wongsawat, in a display of their insult towards him.

What can I comment about this? All I can say is that a simple wrong action could lead to intercultural conflict. What have I learn then? I have learnt never to touch a Thai’s head. Not even when I’m a tourist in Thailand and there are many cute Thai kids’ heads to pat. I have to refrain from performing a simple action that is seen as affectionate in my culture.

I’ve understood.

Business Correspondence Critique

Hi everyone,

I’ve decided to do the critique on two emails instead as they are both short emails on the same issue. Comparisons could then be made between them so as to further aid our learning.

Here’s a short background on the two emails. The first email is from Straits Times and the other is from TODAY newspaper. Both are rejection emails to decline publishing a letter of mine. (This was not a complain letter as some of you might be inclined to think.) I supposed they did not publish the letter because I sent the letter to them days after the issue had settled down. If you would like to read this letter of mine which I felt was well written, you can request from me directly. Names (other than mine) in the below emails have been changed.


From: Noor Farizah on behalf of STForum
To: Goh Glenn
Subject: Re: Serangoon Gardens controversy - recommendations

Thank you for writing to us. We do appreciate your making the effort.

We receive up to 70 letters each day. Limited space means we can publish only about a dozen every weekday.
This means having to make often-difficult editorial judgments on which letters to publish.

We regret we are unable to publish your letter.

If your letter relates to a matter under the purview of a government department, you may want to visit www.sgdi.gov.sg for a list of officials to contact.

Yours sincerely

Ms Noor Farizah
for Forum Editor
The Straits Times


From: Janice Tan on behalf of NEWS
To: Goh Glenn
Subject: RE: Serangoon Gardens Controversy - Recommendations

Dear Glenn

Thank you for your contribution to our VOICES section, but unfortunately, we will not be able to use your letter at this time.

However, please continue to send your views to TODAY. We try to use as many letters as possible, space permitting.

Once again, thank you for your interest in TODAY.

Best Regards

Janice Tan TODAY did 6234 5678 fax 6876 5432MediaCorp Press 24 Raffles Place #28-01/06 Clifford Centre Singapore 048621 Visit us at www.todayonline.com Mainline: 6236 4886 NewsDesk 1800 236 4888 Advertising and Sales 6359 7959 Distributions 1800 698 6329
Save our planet. Please don't print this e-mail and/or attachments unless you really need to. Thank you.


Critique:

An obvious error from Straits Times (ST) was the failure to use a salutation. It could be a template rejection email, but a simple “Dear Glenn” shows standard courtesy. Other than that, both are courteous emails. They expressed appreciation to the writer for penning the letter and gave simple and general explanations for the letter’s rejection. ST even went a step further by providing another avenue for the writer to voice his/her concerns.

Both emails show high levels of correctness, using formal English and no bad punctuation or spelling errors. They emails are also so short it is difficult to say that they are not concise. Though I felt that the use of ‘thank you’ repetitively in the TODAY email, was a bit redundant.

The emails also show clarity in what they are trying to communicate as they both stated clearly that they are unable to publish the letter, which was the main intention of the emails.

What I do find lacking in the emails are coherence and cohesion, which I felt was sacrificed for more concise replies. The ST email had many short sentences which could have been connected using conjunctions and transitional words. I also felt that TODAY’s second paragraph was a bit abrupt. It could be changed to, “We seek to publish as many letters as space permits, so please continue to send your views to TODAY.”

The ST email shows signs of concreteness by including specific information like “70 letters each day”. The TODAY email was less so. Its explanation, “not be able to use your letter at this time”, does not really convey anything substantial.

Finally, the ST email should have provided contact information at the end of the email like the TODAY email did. This might give added convenience to the addressee.

I apologize for such a long blog post that exceeded the word limit. There were really a lot of things to comment on. Thanks for reading.

Regards,
Glenn

Straits Times online forum letter

Hi everyone,

I've recently wrote in a complain letter to the ST forum and it got published online. So I would like to share on this blog. Since it can be considered communication with the public. Its found here: http://comment.straitstimes.com/showthread.php?t=16841 If you like, you might want to comment on it there or on my blog post here.

I would also like to highlight one of the comments made on that online letter. A person actually insulted Singaporeans in one of the comments, so I replied in a very harsh manner. If some of you thought that my comment on Jay's first blog post was harsh, you might like to take a look at how I replied in the ST forum. I felt like it was a work of art. Anyway, you might like to copy some of my phrases so that you can keep it for future use. Haha. This can be considered an example of interpersonal conflict.

Anyway, try to read it soon as I've already reported the insulting comment to Straits Times Forum, so they might take it down.

Cheers,
Glenn

Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts

You are the boss of an event organising company. Your company, EVENTS, have been in this business for a number of years already and you have a desire to further establish your company. EVENTS have undertaken numerous projects with many companies. One of these companies, MINOR, is a regular client of yours.

MINOR, being very satisfied with your company’s services, have informed you that they have recommended your company, EVENTS, to their partner company, MAJOR, for their upcoming key project. MAJOR is a very established and reputable company and by doing a key project for them, your company’s reputation and portfolio would be greatly enhanced. You were told by MINOR to wait for MAJOR to contact you.

Here is the problem. You have been waiting for almost two weeks for MAJOR to contact you but the company has not done so. You also found out that the head of the company, MAJOR, is a close friend of your former boy/girlfriend, back in the secondary school days. You are worried that he/she might still carry a grudge against you for that bad break up you had with his/her close friend. You fear that this could be the reason why MAJOR has not contacted you.

Do take note that you specialise in that type of projects and the few competitors you have out there are not as good as your company. You really want to do this project as on top of the reputation boost, there would also be huge profits for your company.

What should you do?

Posting of comments

I apologize to everyone who had tried posting comments on my blog. I did not know it was not working. For awhile I was quite upset and disappointed that I did not see any posts up (I'm a sensitive new age guy), so I assumed it was due to chinese new year. But thanks to Ben who informed me that it did not work, (and God who I was praying very hard to that it would work), I've managed to fix the problem. So please, please, post your comments again! Thanks alot! Happy Niu Year!