Communication skill: Why it matters(the most!)

If you have been to interviews, you are more than likely going to face a situation like this: Oh I should have phrased it like this just now; Why did I not make reference to this; I must have stuttered a lot, will the interviewer think bad of me? Because let's face it, the first time anyone going to an interview will always be a hard blow to the stomach. It all boils down to a single issue, not the fact that you have an impressive lists of accolades or have presented your physical self with the appropriate decorum, but communication skill. You can have straight As, extraordinary co-curricular track records, qualification papers from world renowned universities. So what? Be mindful that once you are shortlisted for interviews, these grandiloquent achievements no longer play a decisive role, since you have to compete with the other shortlisted candidates who are just as impressive as you are in these aspects. What can we learn from each bygone interview? Communication skill.

It is not surprising that most of us hate interviews, especially if they are conducted in a less favourable setting such as in another language that we are less versed in. I have known of people who turn down a golden, coveted and life-changing opportunity solely because an interview is required as a rite of passage. There are a lot of generic and trite advices that promise to help you ace that interview, whether it is establishing a mutual friendly relationship with the interview, answering the questions thrown to you with specific and novel details, etc. The overarching idea is that communication skill has to be honed to succeed in an interview.

I have been to a number of interviews during the application season for scholarships and universities. Before any interview, I would spend hours preparing scripts, points and researching on the interviewing parties. And never have I once been satisfied with my performances on the interviews, I could easily nit-pick on countless flaws that could have upended the interviewers' impressions on me. There was one particularly noteworthy instance. This interview was conducted through Skype by a university, one of those interviews that I thought "hmm, I don't have to be present physically, maybe I could make myself comfortable by picking the coziest place in my house to sit throughout the interview." My delusion was brutally shattered. Aside from the intermittent static interruptions due to lags(kudos to my ISP), a substantial part of my interview consisted of "Huh", "Sorry could you repeat the question", "I beg your pardon" and "Err". A terrible show of communication skill adding up to an already abysmal internet connection. Needless to say I did not obtain the desired outcome from the interview, I did get a place in the university, just not the munificient scholarship.

Aside from the issue on interviews, the significance of communication skill spans across the spheres of life. Celebrities, sport personalities and politicians do not get to where they are solely from their talents and efforts. These are merely prerequisites to even get a foothold in the industry. What plunges them to the height of stardom is none other than communication skill. These people are either extroverts or introverts-turn extroverts. Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Cristiano Ronaldo remain as the world most popular sportpersons for their outspoken personalities that serve to engorge their planetary hubris. Manny Pacquiao is popular even among non boxing fans for being vocal in the realms of sports and politics. Can you recount any memories of a prime minister/president who does not express himself well? No. Being a communication skill expert entails innumerable perks, to wit: it has propelled the controversial Donald Trump to the status of a presidential candidate because of his countless audacious remarks that make him a popular demagogue, despite having no prior experience of holding offices in the politics. Can we trust the world to such a bogey figure? It remains contentious. The idea is that we love kitsch, albeit knowing that some of them are merely glib shenanigans that appeal to popularist taste, which is more fallacious than rational.

That communication skill is important is not without a biological basis. Our neocortex in the brain is much larger than many other organisms' including our close neighbour primates' relatively to the brain size. This part of the brain is responsible for processing of communications and social cognitions in general, thus wiring us to be the most sophisticated organism whose behaviours still baffle the neural scientists. Unfortunately, having the potential of storing an arsenal of social skills also causes us to take more time to develop the necessary toolkits that prepare us for interactions with the surrounding. This makes us susceptible to failure(often perceived) in day-to-day interactions, for instance the aforementioned interviews. And the way to work around it? Go for more interviews! Develop that communication skill to improve your stock value!

Rash Journalism: An Unintended Mistake or An Obsession?

The recent headlines in the local Malay newspaper Berita Harian came into the limelight after being alleged by its readers as being derisive and inappropriate when it audaciously claimed that the Malaysian badminton mixed duo "sekadar meraih pingat perak"(settled for winning silver medal). While the intention of the editor is not made known, it is a polemical blunder that strikes at the heart of the already precarious social fabric of our multi-racial society(Harmony not guaranteed!). On the outset, the headline seems as innocuous as it gets, perhaps the editorial will not have anticipated a ripple this great. To be fair, anyone who had watched the game would have agreed that Chan/Goh had not have a good game, eventually falling to a weak 2-0 defeat against the Indonesian duo after a lacklustre display. Never seemed to have adapted to the flow of the game, they were forced to defend against a barrage of smashes after smashes and inevitably succumbing to offensive pressure, hardly what we would have expected of a finalist pair. Their facial expressions and body languages told as much. Therefore, it will not be too farfetched for the local news media to question their commitments to make history by winning our first ever Gold medal.

Yet racism must to come into play. If Azizul, a Bumiputra Malaysian athlete representing the cycling event, was to settle for a Bronze, why not portray the same image for his Chinese counterparts? Egos will not be hurt, pride will be saved, truly a veritable win-win solution. Consider this, the main readers and target audience of BH are composed of the Malays(quite a shame since it is a phenomenon contrary to the utopic endgame of the exalted "1 Malaysia" ideals). Downplaying the Chinese achievements in part comes from the pragmatic need to increase patronage by placating the readers and feeding the right things and possibly to a less overt extent, political pressure.

Just recently, another controversy had made its way to the national headline, pertinent to the prize-giving ceremony for the local film industry. Several indigenous directors and associations had threatened to boycott the event after the criteria for "Best Film" had been modified to accommodate "non-local films" through repealing the 70-percent-of-the-movie-dialogue-must-be-in-Bahasa-Malaysia requirement. In a last-ditch attempt to save the grace, the committee made concessions and introduced a new category, "Best Picture in the National Language" for the "local films". Before anyone starts proposing implications, the committee specifically states that this award trumps its predecessor, that is, "Best Picture in the National Language" is the highest ranked and most prestigious accolade amongst the others. If you cannot deduce the crux of it, it simply means that films with heavy Malay conversations are more superior than those of other languages, in terms of recognitions. Truly a dubious and invidious attempt to maximise the feel-good factor of the mass. So much for the proverbial adage "Greatest happiness for the greatest numbers".

In hindsight, Chan/Goh duo is hardly among the favourites to win medals for Malaysia whereas Azizul is poised to win at least a Bronze, as accordance to the expectation meted out by the Olympic Council of Malaysia. This is aptly captured when the Minister of Youth and Sports Khairy Jamaluddin acknowledged the duo's feat as being "inspirational" in his Twitter page after they had exceeded expectation, starkly juxtaposed by the brusque headline "hampakan jutaan rakyat Malaysia"(Let millions of Malaysians down) in yet another local Malay newspaper Kosmo!. Exercising the rights of freedom of press is one thing, but ensuring a degree of political correctness is equally paramount to avoid estrangement of skin colours. In the grand scheme of things, journalism has to be intertwined with tactfulness towards political correctness especially where race is concerned.

This type of incident is no stranger to us, in fact rather a tip of the iceberg, potentially a harbinger of the anti-Bumiputra sentiments buried but waiting to be uncovered. The question then, becomes whether non-Bumis are simply being priggish towards Malay establishments. A well-informed mass will hold nothing back to carp at the slightest innuendos, having long been repressed by the inundation of national policies which are not fully intended to be partial but have been indeed in reality towards any races. And when racial pride is at stake here, the ramification is far greater. The magnification and amplification of the ramifications evoked by the newspaper could have been attributed to the interminable efforts by the non-Bumis to seek psychological one-upmanship against their Bumi counterparts, essentially disseminating the message that "we don't need a headstart and will still fare better than you ". When the two badminton pairs Chan/Goh and later Tan Wee Kiong/Goh V Shem received their silver medals, one could not help but wonder at this juncture, are the Chinese viewers proud to be Chinese Malaysians or Malaysian Chinese?

Perhaps it is a careless and guileless blunder of the Berita Harian and Kosmo! editorial to spur such hapless backlash, nevertheless it palpably embodies the invisible but impermissible barrier between the races(You hardly see any Chinese on the street these days buying Malay papers and vice-versa). It is a matter of time to determine if the barrier will prevail or be supered.