With regards to the goals I have set from the start of the course, I have barely managed to improve my interpersonal skills. A slight improvement is still an improvement nonetheless. Previously I had set out on a journey to have more awareness. Awareness in three aspects namely: self-awareness, emotional awareness of others’ feelings and the environmental context that influences thoughts beyond the body language.

Awareness could be seen as a complex analysis of human behaviour. Humans are complex after all. From a personal perspective, we can never truly understand another’s plight, but we can try empathise to the best that we can. Asking questions is the only method that I know of understanding another person. But what happens when these critical questions aren’t answer with complete honesty? Should I pick a better time? Should I rephrase my questions? Or perhaps I have failed to build trust in a relationship to begin with. The notion of building trust is the foundation to every inter-human relationship. It can be very difficult to build and very easy to fall apart. In times of stressful and fast paced lifestyle in Singapore, it can be difficult to keep track of maintaining a healthy relationship.

As mentioned in the skills on wheels, one of the topics touched on building relationships. The SEED approach interested me. It breaks down a personal level interaction into four stages. The first stage is about being observant and careful. I have overlooked this stage in real life, as I tend to speak freely with friends, forgetting that we should remember certain key details of each individual. The second stage is about empathy. Empathy can be complex. Showing empathy and receiving empathy requires a lot of energy and sometimes we are all overworked. Due to fatigue, it is easy to overlook someone else’s thoughts. No matter how tired you might be, we should always stay positive and radiate positive thoughts. Which is what the third stage is about: engagement. Engaging with genuine enthusiasm. For example, I have been going at issues concerning a certain project with genuine thoughts of progression. However, it has appeared to be misunderstood as destructive criticism. It is easy to be genuine but perhaps it is hard for me to display them positively. This has never crossed my mind until I have had to face these misunderstandings myself. The last stage is about disclosure. The act of sharing some personal experience which is of relevance. This goes back to the fundamental idea of trust. Without trust, it is impossible to achieve this. One thing I learnt is that I need to be able to switch between my casual, free and fun self, into a serious, composted and critical self. And I need to be able to display that to those around me.

To conclude, I have been placed in many stressful scenarios in real life. Despite stressful conditions, I have noticed an improved awareness. However, identifying the problem is only half the journey. I still must work on how to deal with problematic situations. The solution to problems, otherwise known as the approach is my next challenge to face.

A conflict either ends with it being a healthy disagreement or a destructive conversation. Human beings tend to let our emotions cloud the judgement. In the heat of the moment, harsh words and powerful tones project out of our mouths without even realizing.

I remember having one of these heated moments with a fellow friend and colleagues during my army days. So we were a brunch of NSFs instructors for a course in the army, we had to discuss who to select for a posting for the trainees. Let me elaborate further, the duration for the course was about 9 weeks, and after that each trainee will have a designated posting that they will go to for the rest of their national service term which is about another 1 and a half year. There was a particular posting which required trainees to report to a base camp in Brunei. That meant that they will not be able to come back to Singapore as often. Hence, the initial approach to selecting these individuals based on voluntary terms. We asked interested individuals to submit a letter of approval written by their parents to state that they are ok with such an arrangement. Thereafter it would depend on the supply or demand of manpower needed to go to Brunei to govern who we select to go there. So each of the instructors would handle affairs of a group of trainees. One of my trainees submitted a letter of interest, we shall address his as Michel instead of his real name. In a few weeks later, he decided he didn’t want to go with the decision of going to Brunei anymore. Which was not a problem at that point of time.

So, toward the end of the course, we had to make decisions who to send there. This was where the conflict began. There was a last minute change in demand because one other trainee was unable to go due to certain personal family commitment. Then I had to put in Michel’s name instead in which he was not too happy with. As his instructor, I tried to help his situation by voicing out his concerns to the committee. Before the final decision was made. The group of 9 instructors sat down to discuss this conflict. In order to fill in the last spot, the discussion boiled down to choosing between Michel and one other trainee who was under the instructor named Haiqal. So me and Haiqal had quite a fight over who should fill up the last spot. It got heated that we raised our voices and yelled at each other. Since the role of an instructor was to personally take care of the group of trainees designed. We debated as if we were trying to protect each of our own trainees’ welfare.

From the third party perspective, it seem as if we were fighting for real. Interestingly at the back of our minds, we both knew it was purely professional. Me and Haiqal are good friends even up till today. We often teased each other and debated on things that don’t really matter for fun. Well in the end Michel had to go to Brunei since he submitted the letter of interest in the first place. Perhaps he never knew about how hard I fought for him and most probably blaming me partially. I knew I did my best and had a meaningful disagreement with a fellow friend. Despite the heat of the moment we were both able to resolve conflict without accelerating the conflict further because we understood each other’s emoticons by displaying them outrageously. It was one of the rare yet meaning moments in life that I got to see how I personally managed my own emotions in a heated argument. The personality of the other individual plays a part. Hence it is important to understand the way other people think in order to have a better conflict management.

So apparently I am supposed to observe an interaction between two people..which I happen to do so over the Chinese new year visiting this week. It was Tuesday and I was visiting one of my distant relative’s house. So I was just sitting at the couch and I observed a rather funny interaction that involved some body language reading. I witness my uncle and another relative conversing about some health-related topic. I was sited pretty far back so I couldn’t hear much but I saw my relative unconsciously scratching his ears after my uncle mention some health advice. Which was funny cause it seem as if he was scratching his ears like he felt that the advice was nonsense. My uncle on the other hand was rather overweight. So that might have been one of the reasons. Of course there were various other body language cues that hinted similar messages. Such as his upper body facing another direction while his head was facing my uncle. As well as sitting down midway through the conversion while the other person speaking was still standing. He also seem like he was acting as if he is paying attention but not actually paying attention.

This little observation was kinda interesting because we all have at some point been in a similar spot before. To be part of a conversion that we don’t really want to be in. maybe the topic was uninteresting or the person speaking was not convincing enough. Well here’s what I think. You’re either in the conversation or out of it. If the conversion is boring, there’s no need to act like you’re listening. You either find a way to walk away or you make it interesting yourself.  If the person is not convincing, then perhaps ask some critical questions to clear your doubts.

To be convincing is not easy. Most of the time you need to be in some position of power. Meaning you need to be higher in the hierarchy with regards to the subject at hand. For example, to preach about health, you got to look healthy yourself. But what happens when you are on the lower end of the hierarchy but you wish to speak up? I think that the main challenge. I guess we need to figure the right time and place and mood of the person on the receiving end to say the right message. There’s just too much to consider. I think its best to just put yourself out there and speak up instead of being afraid to make mistakes as mistakes will shape you into a better individual.

Well, Language has never been my strongest subject and I was never quite the out-spoken individual. But of course, as I grew up, I was exposed to many situations which forced me to get out of my comfort zone. At some point, I realised I had to open up, even as an introverted person. So I started to be more expressive and speaking my thoughts out loud.  This of course took years of experience only to show some improvement, which is nice but it is never enough.

I not a 100% aware of the feelings of people around me all the time, perhaps only at times when I am alert? Which is ok, I mean It would be tiring to be alert all the time. I guess what is important is to be emotionally aware at vital times. Such as moments or events that might trigger a change of emotion.

Other than awareness, I think in recent years, I can be rather straightforward at times. This could have been developed due to falling into undesirable situations when I don’t speak up. It is not easy to speak up. In speaking up, it is very much associated with power. And power is associated with hierarchy. Sometimes speaking up puts you in a better situation and in other times, things can get ugly. Still it better to speak up especially when it matters to you. Fear might hold you back, but courage to speak up could potentially teach you valuable lessons whether you said the right or wrong thing.

In communicating to a person or a group regarding a complex issue. I like to tear things down in order to understand every bit of the problem in order to see the larger picture. I tend to take a more logical approach most of the time. I think its vital to question critically, understanding the question before answering it. I think what I need is constant feedback because I have received feedback from time to time from different people. And it is certainly interesting to see how different people see me so differently in different situations. It is wonderful and interesting to see how my perception of myself matches or differs from the perception of others on me. I get to catch a glimpse of how my personality and character unfold and develop with time.

commented one Afifa, Ameila and Andrianus

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton