A lesson in people management

I had a moment of enlightenment last Friday evening.

I was at class and feeling restless. Firstly, it had been an extremely long day at work. Secondly, it WAS a Friday evening. Thirdly and most importantly, my lecturer was droning about mean, median, mode and asking us to compute the mean for the sample of scores shown in the frequency distribution table he had drawn up on the board.

He might as well have been speaking Greek as far as I was concerned. Looking at the clock, it was barely 8pm...... could I last till 10pm in my exhausted state? It also didn't help that my buddy sitting next to me was equally fidgety. We contemplated leaving the class during break for we knew our attention span was maxed out that evening. We rehearsed several plausible excuses and how to say them convincingly without violating the rules or offending our lecturer.

During break, I approached him about my research paper topic and asked for his opinions. I then sheepishly asked if we (my course mate & I) could leave earlier? Before I could say anything further, Dr Woo smiled his usual benevolent smile and said "Sure, go ahead. If you need to go, it's OK with me."

Huh, really? I was stumped as all the excuses died in my throat. He was so understanding and magnanimous that I almost regretted my decision to cut his class. I was tempted to stay on. Although he is as typical a lecturer as you could find..... a distinguished gentleman in his 60s who is unfortunately not very animated during lectures, he has taught me a lesson in management style that night.

I learned that we do not always have to probe for reasons and justifications in people's decisions or actions. I learned that a quiet steadfastness sometimes works better that a full-on power struggle when managing people. I learned that Dr Woo's magnanimity has hit me with a stronger impact than if he had insisted on a reason for us leaving his class. I also learned that I have resolved to pay even greater attention henceforth!

This would be the first and last time I cut his class.

A treasured bookmark

A beautiful bookmark from a friend has set me thinking.

It makes me think about emotional memory and how we are affected by it, possibly for a life time because emotions and memories are intricately and inexorably connected. Emotional memory is the memory for events that evoke strong feelings or emotions stored in our long term memory which may or may not fade with time. We are more likely to remember emotionally charged images than neutral ones, particularly if they personally traumatic memories.

Imagine this scenario. Back in the 70s when Boat Quay was still a bustling hub for cargo and warehouses, a young child would visit her father's shipping office everyday after school. Situated just along the waterfront where a hip bistro-pub now stands, his office was like a creche where she spent a good part of the afternoon doodling, playing five-stones or paper dolls. She also loved to sit by the busy river banks listening to the whir and drone of Singapore's busiest waterways brimming with buzz and activity. She relished the sight of her father's Chinese tongkongs and sampans dotting the river with their merchandise for import and export dealings with the rest of the world.

In evening, they would be driven by the family driver back to their Chinatown home. The short journey home was usually a non-event because the little girl would be too engrossed in her paper dolls to pay particular attention to anything else..........until one day when their routine was grossly disrupted on the way home.

Three burly men accosted their car at a small lane along Upper Cross Street and forced the girl's father out. They pushed him against the wall and roughed him up while shouting in jargon only adults understood. It was only years later that she realised her father had been accused of winning over the aggressors' business. He had been a diligent and astute businessman but was often blamed for monopolizing a big slice of the industry's pie.

The little girl might have travelled along that small land a hundred times before but nothing about it struck her until that fateful day. Although she was not physically hurt, the incident has forever altered her feelings about venturing into that Upper Cross Street lane.

At the tender age of six, she would not have understood the implications of emotional memory but she knew that the small lane elicited an unconscious but powerful physiological reaction every time she had to go near it. She would begin to shudder involuntarily and experience an overwhelming sense of fear and helplessness especially at the spot where her father was attacked.

Permanently etched onto her memory, she can recall in vivid detail every expression and nuance uttered by the aggressors, the way her father was pushed around and the fear spreading across his face when he realised what was happening. Now, some decades later she can still recall the patch of fungi growth on the wall where he was left crouching against.

Emotional memory also refers to how an object, event or person can make us feel by triggering an existing memory that has emotional significance. I have a particular fondness for iced-coffee because it signifies my 'coming-of-age'. Due to its high caffeine content, my mother had always forbidden us from drinking coffee. However, she relented somewhat when I was in junior college as I was clocking in eight to nine hours at school and needed the extra boost particularly for afternoon lectures. The first time I bought a packet of iced-coffee from the vending machine, I felt so grown up. Since then, iced-coffee has become my 'comfort beverage' when I am down or in need of a spritz of energy!

So what are our emotional memories? Are they happy ones, 'spritzy' ones or are there past hurts, disappointments and shame locked deep within the recesses of our subconsciousness? The little girl is not me but I have my fair share of strong emotional memories and the harrowing experiences of being trapped by things that happened in the past. Should we leave them to ferment and dredge up all kinds of psychological reactions or should we scrub the decks of our emotional memory and leave them in God's good hands?

I don't think my friend knows the impact a simple bookmark she picked up from church has on my reflections but this is just the way God works.......... through trivial everyday matters. While the bookmark has an aesthetic drawing of Christ's profile, the beauty I could see is not only in its illustration but in a precious prayer it bears:

Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit, guide me to go back into my memory as I sleep. I ask you to heal every hurt that has ever been done to me. I ask you to heal every hurt that I have caused to another person. For all the relationships that have been damaged in my whole life that I am not aware of, I ask you to heal those relationships. Lord, if there is anything I need to do or I need to go to a person because they are still suffering from my hand, bring to my awareness that person. I choose to forgive and I ask to be forgiven. Remove whatever bitterness may be in my heart, Lord and fill the empty spaces with your love. Amen.

With faith and confidence, we should have the courage to walk through the small lane again.

What national day parade means to me...

We celebrated our 44th national day today. I should be feeling patriotic or at least excited by the parade on TV , a yearly display of our nation's most dramatic showmanship and fireworks; not to mention a trip down memory lane on how far we've come as a nation.

But because I had to crank out an assignment due on Tuesday, I only caught the remaining half of the show by the time I managed to tear myself from my laptop to turn on the TV. Somehow, the spirit was different. As I sat there toggling between the impact of parental involvement on a child's literacy and the visual feast unraveling on the screen, it dawned on me that all those drama, singing and special effects had er...... no effect on me.

The cameras zoomed back and forth on our leaders and captured them singing our national songs and waving their hand-held hearts in unison with the people. Looking at these familiar faces who have done so much for this island-state, a single thought flashed through my mind. Were they impressed by the show or did they think it the same year after year save for brighter lights, louder music and better effects? Being leaders of such a progressive country, they must have seen it all. Can they see beyond the pyrotechnics and colourful displays into the core of our nation?

I'm sure a lot of effort and logistics had gone into putting the parade together. As Singapore progressed over the years, our celebrations also evolved with the focus on high-tech entertainment put together by theatrically trained parade directors and awesome military spectacles. Almost Mardi Gras, if I may say so. Now, I'm no parade-detractor but I feel that as a nation, we've become the way our parades are turning out.....showmanship, bright effects, festivities and complacence.

Where is the quiet strength and fortitude? Although much more intelligent than we ever were as kids, our children today complain when they have to walk under the sun, they prefer to hop onto a cab wherever they go, they refuse to eat at hawker centres but choose instead, restaurants or bistros. And why is there such a debate on giving up seats to those who need it on public transport? Isn't it inherently our duty to do so, to take care of the young, old and weak in our society?

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned. I prefer to keep solemn things solemn and the Hollywood effects to the theatrics. Growing up in the 70s, national day parades were always a high point for us kids because the focus then was on the march-pass and on things that really mattered, our flag, our national anthem and our pledge. Our country.

However, something in this year's parade touched me. In an excerpt of PM Lee's speech, he made mention of the national day parade held in 1968. There was no fanfare; just marching of contingents and a couple of lion dances. When it started to rain, nobody ran for cover. Soaked to their skins and shivering in the cold, the participants stood their ground because they were proud of their parade. These were the people who were determined to make it, not just at the parade but for their country.

This is the spirit of NDP we need. And this is the spirit Singapore needs.