Ken Tung Nguyen

On Leadership

• To become a good leader: Say what you mean(clarity) and mean what you say ( integrity)
• To do well in leadership: Work really really hard. When you see someone winning at the court, with a small folder of documents, it is just the tip of the iceberg. He has spent tons and tons and tons of effort in researching the case, and that's the iceberg that no one sees.
• We are living in this world, where everyone is the same or looks the same. It is alarming that some of us are concentrating too much on grades/achievements, and not having fun. It is really important to be truly yourself, and have more fun

3 keys to thinking, writing and speaking effectively:

• Good Judgement - It should answer the right questions.
• Conciseness - If you can't simplify it, you don't understand it.
• Clarity - There should be a central governing thought that leads to a simple structure to follow.

Giving Quality Feedback

A quality feed back should be :

• Timely: A feedback should be given as soon as possible. A feed back is less useful if it is given too late, where the receiver might forget what he did, or what was the exact context. Our perceptions of the past might differ from reality by having distorted memories.
• Specific: A feedback should be very specific to a certain aspect, whether it is the tone of voice, or body languages, it should be said with concrete and detailed examples.
• Observable: A feedback should be objective instead of subjective. It means that it should contain at least one observable behavior and the perceived impact on you or others.

Example:

I observe that the body was stiff at the beginning of the talk and was more natural towards the end. That made me feel uncomfortable at the beginning, and normal towards the end. The implication is: the speaker was nervous at the beginning and was more confident at the end. The learning point is: to try to use hand gestures to express your thoughts, even when you are nervous.