Leg~sercises

Hmmm.... you must be saying "Leg~sercises?", what is that? Well I'm not claiming I'm a body builder nor am I a gym instructor. I just coined the word to share with you one of my routines at the office gym where I got to exercise my leg's front and back muscles. With age catching up on me, I'm experiencing mid-life challenges such as knee and back pains, so the routines are some sort of a physiotherapy for me. As I'm also planning to perform my umrah in two weeks time, these are also my preparation to perform the physical activities at two of the three holy sites of Islam i.e. Madinah and Makkah. However, none of my preparation will be complete without full dependence to Allah swt.



I hope and pray to receive an opportunity to experience His empowerment and absolute strength with abundance of mercy to his creation at the holy sites. Ever since I return from Hajj in 2006, I have gone through several tribulations on my faith and my daily ritual. I hope Allah swt will once again provide me, my family, relatives and friends the opportunity to perform the umrah with ease and calmness. Grace upon us His mercy and grant all of us the return of the forgiven and steadfast servants. Amin.

Listening, expectation and decision

This week I had three feedback sessions with my subordinates. One was a planned monthly session but the other two were impromptu (refer to my earlier posting on types of feedback dated 24 August 2008 Self awareness a key to self improvement and success and 27 October 2008 Resignation and Attrition.)

In the sessions, the common theme we discussed was about listening. The expectation from my subordinates is for me to listen to them and to accept their ideas. However the focus that I brought to the discussion on the real issue was communication, a lot wider than just listening. Communication is a two way process. Signals from the communicator to the listener may mean differently depending on the clarity, intonation and precision of the communication. For example "We lost" is different in interpretation than "We did not win". The former is a general statement on defeat that may mean an acceptance of the outcome. The latter with some intonation may mean that there were a lot more passion in the effort and struggle, but the eventual outcome result in victory that did not materialise. Hence, it is important to choose for the right precision and intonation in carrying out communication process to derive to a clear understanding and desired outcome.

Accepting ideas is a decision process. Decision may be made due to several reasons. Ideally, decision should be made so that the decision is not only popular, but it is the right decision, the latter a lot more important than the former. However decision maybe confined due to sphere of control especially when authorities at higher levels make decision. Accepting a decision in this case shows respect to the level of authority. The ability to adjust a decision is not the most important achievement in most of the situation; instead the ability to arrive together to a successful outcome is one of the elements in a successful teamwork, regardless on who made the decision.

Indoor Games Committee

When I first started working about twenty years ago, I used to spend eight hours working at my desk and the rest of the day at the office sports club. It then took me only a couple of months to know almost everyone at the office regardless of whether they are from my department or not. Nowadays, I notice that people spend less time socialising with their office mates after work. Everybody seems to be rushing to go back. Even if ever they socialise, they will stick to their own cliques.

Realising this, I now lead a small team of 8 committee members that we aptly called "Work Hard Play Hard" team to organise indoor games as part of teambuilding across the different units of the department I work with. We will organise four different indoor games i.e. pool, carom, darts and ping pong to cater to over two hundred employees.

We had our first meeting at Nasi Lemak Tanglin where we strategised our plan and activities (see photo). I shall share more later.

Forthnightly Shared Learning Session

I have a big team of 37 staff in my unit. 6 of them report directly to me. I have 3 Team Leads, 2 Subject Matter Experts and a Relief Service Advisor. The 3 Team Leads supervises an average of 10 staff each.

I manage my team partly via a weekly meeting with my 3 Team Leads and 2 Subject Matter Experts. I have a separate weekly meeting with my Relief Service Advisor. During these meetings, we discuss on 3 P's: Portfolio, Performance and People. Portfolio is about the current status of activities or projects handled by the team, Performance is about the team's operational dashboard and KPI while People is about welfare and discipline. The 3 Team Leads in turn have a weekly team meeting of their own. I also organise forthnightly shared learning session where the whole team will get together to learn about operational news or about activities to enhance their performance.

Recently, during the Forthnightly Shared Learning session, I organised a small party at the end of the session. This is my way of expressing my appreciation to the team for the support they had rendered to me as their Team Manager. We had a big chocolate cake, satey, noodles and kuehs.
Me and two of my three Team Leads.
The team enjoying their meals.

Petrosains family tour @ KLCC

I have completed my materials for the talk

I am all set. Insyaallah on 25 April I am conducting a talk to the school prefects of a school near my home on Creative Thinking, refer to my post I now have a company 15 April 2009. Alhamdulillah.

THANK YOU NOTE FROM ME...

I was browsing my old emails and found this thank you note in my inbox, buried among other old emails.

From: Mohd Yusoff, Siti Khadijah
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 6:29 PM
To: Mohd-Nor, Abd-Malek
Subject: THANK YOU NOTE FROM ME...

Dear En Malek,

As today is my last day working under your supervision, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all the guidance and knowledge that you have provided to me during my past 5 months working with you. I enjoyed very much working with this team although in a very short period.

Not forgotten, thank you for renewing my contract and I believe this is all because of the good recommendation that given by you. I will give my full cooperation in the new jobs that offered to me and please pray for my successfull with this new job.

Thank you very much....

I had interviewed Siti which was featured in my posting on 11 August 2008 entitled, Interview for Quality Assurance Analyst. Due to a change in my department's Quality Assurance structure earlier this year, I had to demobilise the Quality Assurance unit under me, there were two Analysts reporting to me then. I broke the news to them more than a month before the dateline during which I informed them to be prepared and plan within the following two scenarios

1. They explore job opportunities outside of the company we work with
2. They are willing to be transferred out of my department into another department

I brought both of them out for lunch when I broke the news and they obviously did not enjoy the food. Seing this I told them, work comes and go, the most important think in live is to have a career because a career is made up of various work and jobs, some may be via employment and some may even be via self-employment. Instead of employment, employees need to think of employability and loyalty to their knowledge, skills and attitude. So, employees need to harness the following qualities:

1. knowledge - learn as much as possible in the shortest period of time at any opportunity
2. skills - utilise the knowledge to build abundance of skills as skills come with practicality of knowledge
3. attitude - always have positive attitude that everything can be done and completed via smart planning, organising and planning

Indeed I have helped both of them to get other jobs, Siti in another department and her colleague who is now working in one of the three units under me as I can see in them semblance of the three qualities I mentioned above. Certainly, good luck to both of them.

I now have a company

I have been planning for a long time for this. Now I have a company AMZZAH NASEEHAH RESOURCES, Human Capital Management and Consulting Services, alhamdulillah. I am excited, really excited.

Though I have conducted a few trainings and consultancy services previously, this time around I feel different as I had been doing those on free lance basis. Insyaallah on 25 April I am conducting a talk to the school prefects of a school near my home on Creative Thinking. This will be my first work out of the new company. I have just received the invitation letter today.

I have my business card as well. I am really excited. Pray for my success.

email from my ex Setapak High School mate

hmmm... it has been a while since my last posting. Sorry, as my schedule was packed, I did not even have time to check my emails. Interestingly when I check my emails this morning, I saw an email from my ex Setapak High School mate.

From: Ganesan Streamyx xxx???@streamyx.com
Subject: Setapak High School
To: amzzah_naseehah@ymail.com
Date: Thursday, 2 April, 2009, 1:01 PM

Hi ,
I was checking out a key word search on Setapak High School....just felt a bit nostalgic and guess what I found your blogspot....Great huh,
The class picture takes me back...I can vaguly remember some of our friends ....Anyway this is Ganesan Krishnan
Do not know wether you recognise me but I sure the hell can't.
Anyway get in touch.....I still keep in touch with Zaid Kuda Shah .
Thanks for the memories
Ganesan (Gani)

this was the posting that Gani pointed to Badminton game at Setapak High School 20 Dec 2008 (26 years after I had left it). I am going to meet him later tonight, insyaallah.