Final Reflections in Learning - ES2007S

This course has definitely helped me become more aware and patient when communicating professionally or socially, especially in intercultural communication. Of the many lessons, the one on personal branding struck and stuck by me. I had always thought that personal branding was something done to bring benefit to yourself (as you get recognized and remembered). However, Dr Radhika's lesson on USPs and how we can use it to positively impact our bosses and colleagues with our USPs opened my mind to the impact on others. Part of personal branding, brand promise was also something that I did not consider beforehand. All along, I thought that personal branding stopped at the job interview. Once you get shortlisted and passed the interview, yadda, you're safe and you're done with "personal branding"! It's done! How wrong was I to think of it as something so simplistic!

        In addition, the personal feedbacks given to us for our application letter was extremely useful! Prior to this, I roughly knew the outline and necessary information that I had to include when writing one. However, none of those prepared me for the actual moment when I had to write one! Despite submitting a white paper and having a red one back, the multiple detailed corrections really helped me a lot in pin-pointing the things I often miss out; such as basic yet crucial skills like paragraphing and substantiation.

    Although most things in this course ran smoothly for me, I found intercultural communication the most challenging. Being one who is used to getting things done fast and efficiently, I found it most challenging when I had to work with someone from a different culture and background. All along, I preferred working with locals as having someone from a similar educational and cultural background greatly facilitated the development and progression of ideas. For ES2007S, when we had to work with foreign students, much time has to be spent on explaining things that we thought were common knowledge. Although the process was frustrating initially, it taught me to be more appreciate and aware of my own culture and nation. In particular, what Singapore has to offer in relation to other countries like China and Korea.

         Discussing about Singapore from a more macro aspect, such as its social and transport policies has also made me appreciate Singapore a lot more. Being small, having a good geographical location and a decisive government have really allowed us to enjoy rapid progress and a high standard of living as a whole. Other countries might not have this luxury that we enjoy. The many things that we take for granted, such as good infrastructure and transport, are actually considered a luxury to many others. Although these might seem like menial things, being aware of these little things that we commonly take for granted, allowed me to communicate better cross-culturally, as I am more patient and understanding of differences as a whole. Of course, the process of explaining everything from scratch to others had definitely groomed me in this aspect too.

     Besides one-to-one intercultural communication, my one-to-many communication was continually polished by the numerous presentations that we have. Together, these soft skills and awareness about others and myself have definitely made me a more grounded and confident communicator as my mind has opened up.

Reflections of our Group Project

During the course of my project work, it was my first time working with foreign students whose grasps of English were weak. It was definitely challenging because of the language barrier and we could not understand each other’s ideas and wants clearly. Our styles of communication were also different. I am used to being indirect and instead of directly challenging another person’s views or making an outright request for something to be changed, I would pose it in form of a question. Usually, one would realize what I was getting at and correct the problem at hand. This ranged from basic things like getting on the same page of things during a group discussion, to more tricky issues like trying to explain to someone how his work was not up to standard. However, I soon realized that the subtlety is lost if one’s language skills is weak, because they would only get the superficial meaning of what I asked. Soon, I found it more effective to pose direct requests and things speeded up from there, as we understood each other much better.

Patience is also key, especially when working with someone from a different cultural background. Often much easier said than done, it is unfair to one if s/he is disadvantaged because of his/her weak language skills. It is not one’s fault if English is not one’s native tongue (and it’s such a culturally imperialistic mindset to think otherwise). So as stronger speakers, we should always empathize, be more encouraging and always give positive recognition for every small effort or improvement. Doing so really went a long way in boosting my teammate’s confidence. This also proved to be the critical point, as productivity really spiked when I was more patient and I could see him putting in more effort to speak English too. Indeed, constant encouragement is key in motivating someone to speak regularly in a foreign tongue.

Besides linguistic challenges, another huge obstacle was that our project was based on a local problem. Naturally, as a foreigner who has been in Singapore for only half a year, his would not have as much depth of the insight into things as what locals have. In light of this, I initially allocated him more tasks that were either simpler or at most design-related, as that was his forte. I had the wrong mindset that this project is language-intensive and would be out of his reach. However, this proved to be counter-intuitive because he felt that I did not trust enough and thus, did not put in much effort too. However, this changed 360 degrees when I delegated significant responsibilities to him, like report writing and data analyses. It was after that that I could really see his interest and drive to excel spike.

Therefore, when managing people, while it is natural for us to feel insecure delegating responsibilities to people, I leant how to rein in my insecurity and be more trusting. This includes listening to someone else’s ideas more, even if they were poorly expressed, and let someone take on greater responsibility right from the start. This trust is critical in forming good working relationships and this recognition and indirect affirmation of someone’s abilities is often what kick starts in one the drive to perform and excel.

However, whilst recognizing this, I also have to be realistic about the task’s demands and deadlines. We were lucky to be given six weeks to work on a project and this gave us ample time to figure out what we wanted, consultatively. It also gave us allowance and space to experiment with some ideas, even if it might not be the best ones. In the workplace, deadlines would be much tighter and if one’s language or communication skills are weak, people would have no patience for you nor would they trust you with responsibilities since you cannot even prove yourself linguistically. Therefore, it is important that we communicate well.

Thus, knowing that our workplace would be globalized in the future, this experience has definitely taught me how to empathize better and communicate in ways that respects and not undermine, regardless of one’s cultural background.