Farewell lunch for Roha

One of my subordinates, Roha got a transfer cum promotion to Labuan, Sabah starting 1st August. Her team organised a farewell lunch at Tenji Japanese Buffet Restaurant, SohoKL, Sri Hartamas. The restaurant's ambience was beautiful and they have a big spread buffet. The price is okay but the food there was so~so.

Good luck and all the best to Roha.

Farewell to a friend

Nordin Ayob was a colleague once upon a time. Then he was a subordinate before he moved to another department. All the while we were friends, and indeed we are still friends up till now as we share the same interest, i.e. Hajj, Umrah, Mecca and Madinah. Both of us had gone to Mecca and Madinah thrice, two for Umrah and one for Hajj. We went for Umrah together in June this year, something we had planned righ after I came back from Hajj in 2005.

Two weeks after we came back from Umrah, his employment contract came to an end without an extension. I did not know about it as he had kept it to himself. He then told me that he was really looking forward to it.

A few days before his last date in office, we (accompanied by my former Admin Assistant) went out for lunch at the best Nasi Padang restaurant in Gombak. Both Nordin and I had been at this restaurant for lunch a couple of times previously. Then I brought both of them to the best cendol in Gombak.

Good luck Din and all the best.

Eric Fan:Setapak High School - 1980 - SRP and 1982 SPM

What beauty we can savour from cyber space. I had not updated my blog since May due to business commitment and travelling, then came this email during my inactive period. Beautiful indeed. Thanks Eric.

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From: Eric Fan
Subject: Setapak High School - 1980 - SRP and 1982 SPM
To: amzzah_naseehah@ymail.com
Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 3:10 PM

Dear Mr. Naseehah,

I saw your blog and brought back many years of memories. My name is Tuck Seng, Fan and I attended Setapak High School until 1982 SPM. Mr Chakravarthy - Principal at that time, and Mr. Rudolph was my soccer coach during 1980 and 1982 Soccer High School team.

In fact, I had two cane strokes on my buttocks from Mr. Chakravarthy for riding motorcycle without a license caught by the local police officer back then. It was the game before playing St Johns Institute 1982.

Anyhow I attended Setapak High School and Form 5 Arts 2. Since then I attended TAR College for my STPM 1984, went overseas in 1986 and migrated to USA since then. I graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1989 (Undergraduate School), and National University in San Jose, California for my graduate school in 1999. My parents are still in Setapak, Kuala Lumpur in the area of Taman Air Panas (Hot Spring Garden) now flats area.

I visited home every two years and I am planning a trip end of this year with my son. During my visit to Kuala Lumpur, I drove by Setapak High School and cannot recognized the school sometimes. The soccer field we trained our P.E. is now a building on top of it.

One year I went home for a visit 1997, I met Mr. Tan our PE teacher and we drank teh tarik at the school canteen.

Speaking about badminton, I watched your video clips and brought a tear in my eye. I used to play badminton there and the gym looks the same except it has aged since then. Currently I still play badminton in Northern California competitively at my age level against teenage players. I am hoping to make it at the Setapak High School reunion one day since my travel will be 24 hours flight and a few days of jet lag. Perhaps when I schedule my visit with my parents we can meet and have a few "Teh Tarik" and talk about the good old days or Badminton at the gym will be fun.

Thank you for reading my e-mail.

Regards,


Eric (Tuck) S. Fan
San Francisco, CA

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.