The Power of Communication

Sow (third row, fifth from left) with the participants

The Centre for Extension Education (CEE) organised a talk titled “What is it with Communication?” on 16 October 2018 at Sungai Long Campus.

The invited speaker was Quantum-Plus Evolution Sdn Bhd Founder and Principle Coach Sow Chorng Chun. With more than 15 years of experience in human behavioural science and executive development, he acts as a corporate coach and business consultant in the Malaysian business world, assisting corporates in achieving breakthroughs in human capital.

Before the talk began, CEE Head of Business Development and Administration & Operation Unit Joleena Chong presented a token of appreciation to Sow.

“Let us cross our hands together and see which side of your thumb is on the top. If your left thumb is on the top, it means you are intelligent; but if your right thumb is on the top, do not worry, it means you have the wisdom,” said Sow.

Sow during the talk

He then shared the top two challenges faced by organisations these days, “According to the statistics poll done in the year 2009, 65% of the challenges comes from personnel and communication, and the other 35% comes from technology and finance. These are the top two challenges faced by organisations. Hence, it is very normal if these problems occurred in an organisation because when there are people, these problems will eventually take place.”

“Many people agreed that EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient) plays an important part in our communication, but how many organisations actually provide EQ training for their staff? According to the statistics, only 33% of the organisations fully provide EQ training for the staff,” said Sow.

He then continued, “In an organisation, the person who should have the highest EQ level is the manager because a manager has to deal with the management from the upper level to the bottom level. They have to enlarge their social circle in order to get things done and achieve their goal. The moment you deal with people, you will begin to improve your EQ.”

“According to State of the Heart (SOH) 2018 Asia Pacific, people with higher EQ levels are 10.2 times more likely to achieve high outcomes. In other words, EQ is strongly linked to increasing performance outcome sources which include effectiveness, relationship, wellbeing and quality of life,” said Sow.

Participants listening attentively to the speaker

On top of that, he also talked about the factors that affect the quality of communication, what is the differences between talking and communication, how does human get results from behavioural perspective and how do we learn to behave the way we behave. He also shared some observations and illustrations of case study with the audience to relate with communication in reality. “The most effective communication is to communicate face to face. There are circumstances when people listen to you, but not necessarily listen to you. For instance, when our subconscious mind is unable to deal with a negative request—when you tell not to do something, they keep doing it. Also, when people only accept good news and not the bad news. Besides, our subconscious mind consists of pain and pleasure. As a human being, we all like pleasure and not the pain, however, human need pain motivation in order to do something. So what you can do is always emphasise the benefit first,” said Sow.

Sow concluded his talk by projecting a video that showed the power of words. The video showed a woman helping a blind man to fill his cup with money. She changed the original words written by the blind man— “I’m blind. Please help.” to “It’s a beautiful day and I can’t see it.” “Words are powerful and amazing. Sometimes, we just need to change the words to change the world, just like how the woman in the video changed the world of the blind man,” said Sow.

The talk then ended with an interactive Q&A session, followed by a group photo session.

Joleena Chong (right) presenting a token of appreciation to Sow