Soft Skills vs. Hard Skills.

"It's interesting that hard skills are considered better than soft, but when people go into management, it's the soft skills that ... make the difference in career success." C. Thomas Howard, director of the M.B.A. program at the University of Denver, explaining in a New York Times story (23 Feb. 1997).

Many students in my school seem to view the Communication module, which I facilitate, as an optional and unimportant module. So don't even begin to talk about the Culture module.

However, recently I got an MSN message from one ex student who is now working as a early childhood trainee teacher. She said something to the effect of "Mr Chen, you were right. Communications is more than just talking. I'm glad I took the course from you. Working life has so much politics."

That made my day.

Froh! Froh!

Glad, as His suns fly
Through the Heaven's glorious design,
Run, brothers, your race,
Joyful, as a hero to victory
[Schiller, from Ode to Joy]

Last night's SSO performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony must surely be the best SSO concert I have ever attended, and I am talking about almost 2 decades of being a regular of the orchestra.

I am glad I managed to win the tickets from 92.4 FM as it was completely sold out as early as a month and a half before the concert date.

Although the tenor took the Alla Turca section a tad too fast and the flute accompaniment got carried away and played a too loudly, it did not diminish my enjoyment of it. Somebody in the audience really did not like the 2nd movement and hissed at the end of it. True, it was a bit dodgy at times, but I honestly did not find it that bad. And the bass singer (I was astounded how young he is) at only 32 did not have as rich a voice as an older singer might have, but he was good! And one thing is confirmed...Asian singers seem to always produce a 'flat', tinny sound instead of the rich timbre of European singers.

However, despite these flaws, never before has the SSO succeeded in moving me so; at times nearly bringing tears to my eyes with the delicate lyrical section by the double basses and celli and at other times sending my heart racing by the rousing tutti. The choir, despite the high As did not sound like they were screaming as I had feared and the overall effect was astounding and majestic. My heart soared with the choir

Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
Freude, schöner Götterfunken
Tochter aus Elysium,
Freude, schöner Götterfunken

It was music making at its best.

Did you know?

There is no synonym for the word synonym? Hahah!

"Noises"

Today's lesson on communication noises was interesting.

My students pointed out how Psychological Noise (which include Cultural and Religious bias) can be a problem even with a simple thing like a Zebra crossing. To us in Singapore, a zebra crossing is a zebra crossing, for crossing the road. In Africa, zebra crossing may mean an actual herd running past you.

The word 'malu' means 'shame' in Malay. 'ma lu' in Chinese means 'road'. So the Road to Shame must surely be the Malu Ma lu.

Likewise, dog is 'anjing' in Malay, but 'an jing' is 'peace' in Chinese. So is a quiet dog an 'anjing an jing'?

What took the cake must be the response from the class when I told them how my late mentor Dr Douglas once remarked that exclamation marks should never be used 'unless it is an actual ejaculation.' I pointed out to the class that the Biggles books, written during the early part of the 20th century for boys were full of 'ejaculations' of the verbal type.

Din, my student pointed out that is must surely be a 'semen-tic' noise.

Very punny.

Unbelievable!

As usual there was a long queue for bus 902, the shuttle to RP. Sure enough some kid would saunter up to their friend already in line, strike up a conversation, and then neatly inch his or her way into the queue. If the queue jumper is near enough, I usually reprimand them and they would slink to the back in shame and join the queue at the back.

Today one girl cut into the queue right in front of me and started talking to the person immediately ahead of me.

"Excuse me, are you trying to jump queue?" I asked sternly.
"No, my friend here was queuing for me!" she replied defensively.
"Got such thing, ah?" I exclaimed, flabbergasted.
"Yah wat!" the recalcitrant individual had the audacity to reply, and continued with the line to board the bus.

I was at a loss for words!

When s**t hits the fan

It's a basic principle. When things go wrong and someone tells you about it, that person wants:

1) help
2) reassurance/encouragement
3) comfort/sympathy

They are NOT asking for advice on how to solve the problem. That can come later.

It's amazing how often people forget that.

Be Positive: Don't Say Don't

My friend Rita suggested that instructions should be given in the positive as opposed to the negative ones which are so common around us. Don't smoke, don't litter, don't jaywalk.

She claimed that when a negative statement is issued, the listener tends to focus on the action rather than the prohibition. So when told not to litter, the listener will hear "litter" rather than "do not."

I kind of concur with her. Whenever I see a "Wet Paint! Don't touch" sign, I am inexplicably drawn to touch to check if the paint is wet.

I shared this observation at a workshop organised by RP a few days ago and a colleague, Orla, shared that in the field of sports, this is indeed a mantra that athletes are trained with. Research in sports shows that when a sports person is told "Don't look down" they will invariably look down. When the instruction is switched over to "Look straight ahead" the sports person then remembers what he or she has to do rather than what he or she is NOT supposed to do.

I have started to apply this to my teaching. Instead of telling my students what not to do, I have started to tell them what to do. Time will tell if this will yield any positive results.

Meanwhile, looking around, it is heartening to see some public announcements have become more positive too. Instead of "don't block the MRT exit" they now have "Let me come out first" although it is still preceded by PCK's trademark "Don't play play." (You win some, you lose some.) Again, it would be interesting to see how effective this new campaign will be.