Knowledge Sharing @ The Engineer’s Guide to Impactful Presentations: Tips, Tricks and Tales - 29 May, 2024

 

🤔 "I don't have time to work on presentations".  Why even bother making your presentations impactful? It's about the work, after all: We are not salesman, right?! 🤔 How to get unstuck when your ideas get rejected because "bosses don't understand" It's their problem, not ours, right?

🤔 Striking the Simplicity balance: Should we make it simple & risk losing important info, or should we show everything? Should we take the approach of "if you can convince them, confuse them"?

🤔 Are public speaking skills important? Can I be an effective presenter if I'm super nervous, introvert, not talented, and/or not spontaneous?

🤔 EQ & "The human touch": How it can make or break your proposal, and how we can better understand this and make little adjustments to be just that bit more convincing. 

🤔 Lessons Learnt in finding the "black swan": Why some technically "correct" and "accurate", or even "obviously profitable" proposals still get rejected

🤔 Addressing Generation gaps - how do we handle people from different generations, i.e. Baby Boomers, Gen-X and Millennials?  

🤔 How do you respond when get told to meet unreasonable demands or deadlines? 

These are among the topics we discussed our recent Knowledge Sharing session on Impactful Presentations.

Alhamdulillah, a very fruitful 3-hours session as we facilitate an interactive 2-way sharing by opening up discussions on the floor for participants to share their experiences and case studies. 

Beyond the "theory" of good presentations, we also shared some behind-the-scenes insight of real experiences of "lessons learnt" of past mistakes and Successes. And sharing also insights from the other perspective: how we feel and what we think when we are the chairperson, or our own subordinates present to us. These are the kind of practical insight I would have loved to learn back when I first started off as a graduate engineer.

Surprisingly, the topic which people found most interesting was about the importance of "tone of voice" (More on that next time 😁) 

 

One insightful takeaway I got from the participants was that presentation is a team effort. Yes, presenter is the face and the voice representing the team - But he/she is only one member of the team: Success or failure is a collective effort, not just the messenger. And we have to remember that when a proposal gets approved or rejected by the decision makers, they also bear some responsibility - success or failure is attributed to them. That helps to put things in perspective. 

I emphasized also that presentations are only a subset of a greater skill that is super important throughout the course of our career: Communication. With this sharing, I hope we successfully planted the seeds towards improving our emotional intelligence, communication, and relationship-building skills.

🏆 Achievement Unlocked! First medal in Archery 🎯

Alhamdulillah, last weekend's Miri Invitation 2024 was the first time I received medal in Archery, at first place for team event. 

This came as a totally unexpected surprise. Mainly because I came in last minute as a standby archer because some team members pulled out. And also because I was just an average skill, ranking #29 among the 59 archers in the individual event: right in the middle of the pack. Never thought I'd actually have a shot at winning a medal. 

But therein lies the beauty of teamwork. 

I got to team up with Athery (from Brunei) and Haron (also from Miri, also last-minute on-standby) 

 Each team member chooses a shooting distance each: either 50m, 40m, or 30m. I played 40m. 

When we combined efforts as a team, playing to our strengths, uplifting each other, covering up each other's shortcomings each round, then all of a sudden, we stood a fighting chance. Although we never really got soaring high scores, we scored consistently well enough to outdo our opposing team, if ever so slightly beating them by a small margin. And that was good enough. The Team game was a really thrilling experience, and in retrospect, perhaps the only way I ever stood a chance at winning a medal: let alone gold 🥇

🏆 Johan: Team Event, Miri Invitation 2024

Masha Allah, pencapaian yang tidak disangka 😅❤️🥳🤲🏼

الحمد لله الذي بنعمته تتم الصالحات

Hari ini menandakan milestone baru bagi saya, kali pertama mendapat hadiah untuk Acara Game memanah, sebagai bidan terjundalam acara berpasukan, bersama dengan Cikgu Athery dari Brunei, serta Abang Haron dari Piasau (juga bidan terjun seperti saya 😁).

Dalam acara berpasukan ini, setiap pemanah menembak 3 arrow, pada 3 jarak yang berbeza: 50m, 40m, 30m. Saya memilih jarak 40m, manakala Cikgu ambil 50m dan top scorer MVP kita abang Haron pegang 30m.

Memang saspen ..  Ketika bertanding, tengok team lawan di sebelah, Kadangkala mereka menang, kadangkala kami pula. Ternyata perlu teamwork yg bagus. Bila kita kantoi, kawan kita tolong cover balik. Paling kurang, sebagai skuad penyokong dan pemberi semangat. 

Round terakhir, mereka meraih team score 16.. Dan kami menang tipis sahaja dengan score 18. Phew.. Close call 😁. 

Alhamdulillah berjaya meraih Johan untuk Acara ini. Tak sangka pula, team yang 2/3 pemain simpanan boleh menang 🥇🏆.. Masha Allah #AchievmentUnlocked.. Allahumma barik 😊

Miri Invitation Series 1 - traditional archery competition, 25 May 2024, padang SK Anchi, Piasau Miri

 

7 arrows, 3 ends, descending distance 50m, 40m, 30m - 2 rounds 

Lane 14 bersama Haji Mazlan (Brunei), Hafiz (Sabah), Shaiful (Berkenu), Nas & Aqif (Miri)

“Book Signing” 20/5/24

Wow, that was unexpected 😅

The team were so happy to receive their book gifts.. One of them asked me to sign the book. Then, another staff caught on the idea. Before long, there was quite a queue 😂. 

Alhamdulillah, was a nice session to share and geek out a bit about what’s awesome about these books 🤭🤓. My hopes is that it helps them continue growing and enriching themselves in their personal and professional lives.

My message to the team, and to everyone else: Don’t feel bad if you’re not into reading (yet). Most of my professional life, I barely read a book, too - until COVID came. But once I cracked the code, found the right techniques, cues, and methods to stay motivated, it became a habit that stuck with me and made a really big impact on my life, and something I genuinely enjoy. 

In other words: It’s not you, it’s just your technique. And technique can always be learnt, revised, and improved. 

All the best in your learning journey! 📚

📚🤓 “Leaders are Readers”

 

Gifting these books to my team of engineers in our upcoming dept meeting this week. 

These are among some of my favorite books which have shaped, inspired and influenced my way of thinking, outlook in life, etiquettes at the workplace, interacting with people, as well as my approach in managing and leading the team. 

I was careful, too, to select books which are enjoyable and “fun read”. In addition to being highly informative and practical, I chose books which I felt are also an engaging and riveting read, and hence I refrained from books that may be informative, but are dry and feels like a chore to read - including the more business-y management or deep psychology stuff. 

The key to encouraging people to build good habit is to make it fun and enjoyable (in fact, that’s pretty much the whole theme of one of these books - “Feel Good Productivity”!). Don’t just read because “you have to” (that’s why many of us fail in starting good habits. Looking at you, too, Exercise)

For me, personally, reading wasn’t a habit that I’ve had all along. It was only a habit I developed in recent years (during COVID, to be exact). Before that, I had a terrible habit of buying books, but never actually reading them (beyond page 20 🤣). 

The key was in finding the right reading medium (e-books), setting a short window of uninterrupted time every day, sharing what I’ve read, and implementing what I learnt.

I hope that in my own small way, I get to spark more interest and drive to develop the reading habit - an increasingly tougher challenge as we sink deeper into the age of digital distractions of social media, streaming services and games. 

Harry Truman, 33rd President of US once said, “not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers”.

Read any of these books? Any favorites? Any other awesome ones you recommend out there?

Do share 🤓