My Sharings After The PEMANJU Camp

First and foremost, I would like to congratulate the organising committee for this successful inaugural PEMANJU camp. I think a camp should be rate not based on how many days it is held but rather how much inputs its participants can grab from it. With that, I had given a ‘6’ out of 5 in the evaluation form. When you can stay in a good room with TV, play exciting games plus the energetic and friendly facilitators, what else could you ask for? Haha !

Ok, back to the main business. I would like to share with you all what I have learnt from the experience and observation throughout this short yet memorable camp.

1. Leadership Part 1 – Motivating & Creating Teamwork Spirit

When people ask me, “what is leadership?” It is a really subjective thing and I believe everyone has his or her very own definition for it. Well, the latest element I have added into my definition for ‘Leadership’ is the ability to motivate the team members and creating a strong teamwork spirits that bond the members together in achieving a common goal. As a leader, I reckon this as an important acumen every top leader should possess. Thus, I volunteer myself as the team leader of Sailormoon Group. I took it as a challenge and learning experience to experiment how can I build a motivated team. I am not sure whether had I done a good job to inspire my team, at least I have tried my best and will keep learning and improving. Leading the ‘Sailormoons’ is a great opportunity for me to prepare myself for leading new teams or organisations in my campus when the new semester starts.

As a reminder to myself as well as my humble piece of advice for my friends who will be team leader in whatever organisation you involved, whenever you find that your team members are not working hard enough, procrastinating or fail to deliver what you expect, just before you are frustrated, please ask yourself the following questions :

“ Have I done well enough to motivate my members?” and

“Have I taken initiatives to create a strong team spirit?”

Do not simply blame or complain your members. As a leader, it is our responsibility.

2. Leadership Part 2 – Solo King vs Delegation

When I looked back, there are a few serious mistakes I have made as a team leader. There were a few occasions of which I contributed 70% of the overall task as leader. That time I thought I was too capable, like a Superman because I could did a lot and did it well. I could single handedly finished the whole paperworks, did the plannings and so on. May be I was a perfectionist and did not give enough trust to my members, I always felt that they just could not perform the task well and failed to meet my expectation. The lousy phrase that often played in mind was, “Aiya, they were hopeless. They just fail to meet what I expect from that. Fine, I do it my own!”

Hooo….. how silly I was. That was the most critical mistake I ever made as a leader.

When a leader becomes a Solo King despite having many members under him, it is a failure to the leader himself. An excellent leader knows how to delegate jobs to his members, discuss with them when problems arise, and have faith in them. Also delegation is not just about dividing the task equally among the members. More importantly, how you put a person in a position that can allow him to perform to the maximum level. In addition, a leader should not hesitate to brainstorm or communicate more with his assistants because two brains are always better than one.

3. Goal Setting

The greatest surprise to me during the camp was the “智益游戏” session. The game was challenging and the lesson behind the game is a good teacher to me. The game taught us to set a goal for our task and as we crave for more and more, never being carried away or distracted from our plan and goal. Sometimes things could be simple but we have complicated it with our knowledge. I think it was one of the best games I have ever played because the lessons it offer are important to our lives. I will always remember that. Thanks to the committee for introducing this game.

About the game itself, my heart really beating fast whether or not to take risk. Play it safe and you will lose but at the same time, a droplet of spilt water from the cup means K.O. The risk at that moment is more risky than what I experience in stock market.

Bravo !!

4. The Two Sides of the Table

This was the first time I play the Parliament Simulation game. What an experience and fun! At my side of the table was the ruling party, opposite us was the opposition party and the third side sit the individual parliament members. From TV and Youtube, I saw how dumb the BN guys in answering the questions and how heroic the Pakatan guys in questioning the ministers. However, yesterday sitting as ‘Pagor’ (I was Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassan, Deputy PM), I experienced the difficulty and the pressure to defend the act we propose. In reality, nothing proposed is an absolute perfect. Hopefully both the ruling party and opposition party in our real Malaysia Parliament could debate professionally and discuss rationally to come out with the best solution or policy that could benefit all the Rakyat and the country. To pave way for the World Class Parliament, they must avoid behaving like in Pasar or Circus Parliament which is fueled by words like Bodoh, Monyet, Big Foot………

Critic and complain are easy, but SOLUTION to those problems is the most important !

With that, I end my sharing here. If you have any comments or feedback regarding my sharing, do feel free to leave it here yea.

Finally, a big THANK YOU from me to the organising units, all committee members and my new met friends in the camp. I believe PEMANJU 2012 would be even better !

青年迈进， 大马前进 ！

FOONG HAN YANG （冯瀚阳）