Keep Your Perspective 

Sometimes, the relationship with the other person is more important than the negotiation. It can often be a case of ā€˜win the negotiation ā€“ lose the relationshipā€™. When negotiating, be careful not to negotiate yourself out of a job! You will always negotiate better after you know the other person and build a relationship with them. So, it might be better to take the job for now and save the tough negotiation for later. ā€Æ 

Be Prepared To Prove Yourself 

Have proof of what you have achieved and are currently achieving. Talk about your plans for improvements in the future. If you want to be different: offer to take a slightly lesser amount than they are prepared to offer for a probationary period (say, three-six months) on the understanding that your remuneration will increase once you have proven yourself. This is a classic win-win outcome. They get greater certainty with less exposure, and you get the job ā€“ and a better long term financial outcome. Best of all, you have shown yourself to be innovative and flexible. 

Speak Their Language 

In an interview, try to ascertain their priorities. Are they task or relationship-focused? Are they more interested in how you will do the job or fit into the team? Determine this and give them what they want to hear. ā€Æ 

This can also extend to matching ā€“ or ā€˜mirroringā€™ their body language. Research done by Dr William Maddux showed that when posture matching was done by one of the negotiating parties, negotiations had a 67% success rate. It works. 

Think In Terms of Interest And Not Position 

When entering into a negotiation, often there is a tendency to negotiate for a position/salary. The danger is, we become locked into this Position, rather than remembering what we are trying to achieve. It is better to be flexible in your negotiations for better benefits, for example, career advancement, financial security, flexibility in working conditions, paid holidays, memberships or additional benefits.ā€Æ 

Choose Your Timing 

If you are re-negotiating yourĀ Position, and it is other than at your annual review, choose your timing carefully. Be very aware of the current circumstances of the organisation and any other factors that might impact the circumstances. ā€ÆĀ 

Sell Yourself 

Be prepared to sell the tangible (increased profits or efficiency) and intangible (confidence, teamwork, communication) benefits you bring to the organisation. Share your experiences and how they can benefit from your experience.ā€Æ 

Do Your Research 

In negotiation, knowledge is power. Do your research and know about your (potential) employer as it will give you greater confidence in negotiating with them. ā€Æ 

The article is contributed by Mr Kevin Ryan, an Associate Trainer at the Management Development & Consultancy, 51±¬ĮĻā€™ Corporate Training Arm.ā€Æ 

1. “I’m not interesting enough.”

Most people ā€“ unless you’re a Kardashian ā€“ underestimate their ability to interest others. Alfred Hitchcock said, “Movies are just life with the boring bits left out”. Everyone has at least one great movie in them. The trick is to identify the bits to leave out. 

We all have at least one awful storytelling experience. You see people’s eyes glaze over; they’re looking over your shoulder to see if there’s anything else more interesting going on. Or, worse still, you are interrupted halfway through a story ā€“ and nobody asks you to finish it! We remember these experiences, and they negatively impact our storytelling confidence when it could simply be just the wrong story and/or time.

Most story failures are the result of the wrong intent:

• Story Intent 1: To share some insight or perspective from your experience that the listener(s) might find interesting
• Story Intent 2: To create a connector that allows you to talk about your achievement(s) or a clever retort you gave.

If you stick to the first one, you can be confident of avoiding the boring bits.

• “My story is not unique.”

The fact that others have had similar experiences does not make your story less unique. Instead, it will often make your story more vivid for them. Your originality comes from your unique viewpoint and your willingness to share.

• “This will hurt my professional image.”

Often, the best stories are about mistakes. Many professionals believe that it will tarnish their personal brand if they talk about their mistakes. On the contrary, it’s the opposite. Nowadays, people are more likely to trust those who are authentic and willing to accept their vulnerabilities. Any personal brand built on trust will survive the sharing of an anecdote.

Rather than presenting a ‘perfect’ story, I am more likely to trust someone who admits their mistakes and learns from them or helps me learn from them. When you are prepared to share the learning from your mistakes with me, you are giving me a great gift.

• “It’s too recent.”

While you might be more comfortable talking about a mistake you made ten years ago, it is more confronting to talk about the same experience if it only happened last week. This adds so much to a story’s credibility and the storyteller’s impression of confidence. In today’s fast-moving world, the more recent an event is, the more relevant it is. Only someone confident in themselves would be prepared to talk about a recent mistake.

I recently watched a video with a group of professionals, taken in 2016, featuring Kristen Pressner, Global HR Head of Roche Diagnostics. She talks about a mistake she made that made her aware of an unconscious bias against female employees. All of us agreed that her story was more compelling because it was more recent and enhanced Kristen’s image as a true professional.

Business communications today is laden with mundane marketing terms, slick slogans and forgettable one-liners; those who can communicate with credibility in a compelling way will create the cut-through that makes them stand out. Choose wisely, and your stories will make you more credible and confident. They will even improve your charisma.

Article contributed by Mr Kelvin Ryan, an Associate Trainer at the , 51±¬ĮĻ’ corporate training arm.

These seven essential skills can help you to survive the challenges of the future.

1.    Research and Analytical Skills

It is critical to make use of intelligence from the data collected to achieve competitive advantages. Making sense from unstructured information to draw vital clues for business survival is paramount to success.

2.    Social Networking

It is about who we know and who knows us. Business networking is still relevant, but we need social networking to follow up. It is an excellent source of learning and gives a sense of the trend in our society.

3.    Multi-disciplinary Specialisation

It is no longer enough to be specialised in just one area or only to serve a micro-niche. Today, we need to combine different disciplines and knowledge domains to satisfy more demanding customers.

4.    Personal Branding

Strictly speaking, this is not a skill but a strategy in life to beat the competition and to be uniquely positioned for mindshare and credibility. Personal branding enables a person to be seen, heard, perceived in their respective career. It is the de-facto X Factor in self-promotion.

5.    Diversity Competence

Since we are globally connected, we need cultural sensitivity and diversity knowledge to work with people from all over the world. Different ideas and ways of life can enrich our understanding of the world and diverse customers in different regions.

6.    Learnability

The discipline to keep learning something new every week is essential to the success of any working professional. The objective to learn from different sources is not to simply gain knowledge but to accumulate wisdom to venture into new relationships and possibilities for development.

7.    Design Thinking

Functionalities are no longer the main selling points of product and services. The aesthetics, together with the ergonomics of products add to the brand essence and identity. Functionalities are essential, but product design is critical.

Skills and knowledge alone is not life-altering in the long term. Attitude, on the other hand, is a key driver in the long term. Be a learner for life. One effective way to internalise new skills and knowledge is to impart this knowledge to others soon after youā€™ve gained it. The more naturally you can do this on a daily basis, the more relevant you will be for the future economy.

Article contributed by Mr Andrew Chow, an Associate Trainer at the Management Development & Consultancy, 51±¬ĮĻā€™ Corporate Training Arm.

To stand out from the intense competition, organisations have to understand how digital marketing works and what can make your products and services rank as the top ten searches in the Search Engine. The answer to it, ā€œKeyword Research and Planningā€.

Keyword research and planning entails the mapping of a list of keywords to the customer buying experience from Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. Keywords are fundamental to an online unique selling proposition.

Keyword Research is about a systematic approach to words or phrases that you want to be associated with what people search for online. Keywords will always be broad and general in the beginning. They branch out to niche phrases and a consequential long tail to serve the entire buyer persona that a brand has formulated.

Here is a short introduction to keyword research and planning:

1. Keywords in Search Engine Optimisation will become the AdWords for Display Advertising or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) on Google Display Network. Keywords form what is essential to your online exposure and AdWords determine if you wish to compete directly with your strongest competitors or serve a niche market that no one else is focusing on.
   
2. A comprehensive Content Marketing strategy can evolve from Keyword research and planning. The broad and general keywords, which consist of no more than three words, can become categories of content you should be creating. The content format can also be in infographics, which are suitable to explain processes. Content in picture format is more suitable for motivation and visual impact. The long-tail keywords can be topics for a series of blog posts.
   
3. Keyword research and planning helps to anchor main points or concept in copywriting. Your advertising copy for direct mailing and print advertisement can resonate with more prospects if the keywords used are adapted from meticulous research and planning. The right phrases used in the copywriting can trigger the right emotions leading to a purchase decision.
   
4. Keyword research and planning can be adapted to create new hashtags. Keywords are an excellent inspiration for popular hashtagging if they are memorable, concise, and relevant to the brand essence. The popularity of these hashtags may not be proportional to the search volumes on Google. Hashtags on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter or Google Plus are the new keywords in the social media sphere.
   
5. Keyword research and planning gives life to your images for optimisation in the form of anchor texts. Image optimisation is one of the most neglected areas in Search Engine Optimisation. There are at least five opportunities for any image to optimise under the right keywords. They are filename, alt text, description, title and caption with the first three words used on search engine and the last two used on people.
   
6. Keyword research and planning form the basis for authentic social media conversation. The sales and customer service conversation can revolve around some critical centralised ideas – interest level and high desire to purchase. The phrases which are designated to be the Unique Selling Proposition of the brand can be monitored easily using tools like socialmention.com.
   
7. Keyword research and planning enables corporate communications professionals to craft a press release and alert. Public Relations communication targeted to traditional media is generated in alignment with the key message of the brand online. Using the same phrases create a perception of congruency and consistency. All online and offline press release will eventually affect or skew the way news is reported by the press.
   
8. Keyword research and planning help influencers to internalise your brand message and create amazing posts. Many influencer marketing programs end up in disaster when the influencers provide very little information about the brand. Apart from the usual press release, influencers should give a list of your keywords and hashtag. They will form part of the co-created content from the influencers and the social media follow-up actions subsequently.

Generating keywords from research and eventually planning how to use them in the right places is a significant challenge for many digital marketers today. It requires both strategically thinking like a customer and linking them to the brand uniqueness.

In summary, Search Engine Optimisation is about matching the brand’s unique selling proposition to the People’s Universal Search Phases. Simply put, Information meet Intention is the key to success for digital marketing strategy.

This article is written by Mr Andrew Chow, an Associate Trainer at the Management Development & Consultancy, 51±¬ĮĻā€™ corporate training arm.

Or, have you ever wished you could chop and change bits between courses, to have a course more aligned to further develop your employeesā€™ skills?

If your answer is ā€œYESā€ then, customised training is something you should be looking at.

ā€˜Customisedā€™, commonly known as ā€˜In-houseā€™ is the tailoring of a programme to suit your staff/companyā€™s needs. The term ā€˜trainingā€™ refers to the course of imparting work-related skills and knowledge to participants with the objective of improving the quality and efficiency of their scope and by extension, the company holistically. 

Customised training has other benefits such as

• Better value for money compared to outsourcing individual employee for training
• Flexibility on the training schedule
• Ability to perform on-the-job training
• Employees are able to co-relate to inter-department troubleshooting
• Improves internal communication within the company
• Fosters better working relationships

At MDC, we have a team  of accredited, highly-experienced and inspiring trainers, facilitators and coaches who possess a potent combination of management experience, practitioner knowledge and industry know-how in their respective fields of profession, to deliver active learning programmes to serve training needs across all industries. With our customised training, delivery of best practices to your company may be more affordable than you might think! 

We have an emotional mind that often bypasses our rational mind and operates subconsciously based on our experiences and our feelings. Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage our feelings and the feelings of others to positively mold this instinctive thought and behavior process.

Commonly termed as EQ, this ability is widely rated as one of the most important transcending workplace skills as well as a dominant predictor of our success in life. A person with an average IQ but high EQ will be more productive than a brilliant person who cannot relate well with others.

The good news is that our human brain possesses a high degree of plasticity malleable to EQ development. EQ can be developed and dramatically improved. Besides success in career, people with good EQ will enjoy better relationships, be healthy, happier and have a more fulfilling life.

There are two components of EQ and four core skills:

Intra-personal Intelligence

Self-Awareness

Self-Management

Inter-personal Intelligence

Social Awareness

Relationship Management

Intra-personal intelligence starts with raising self-awareness and developing self-management skills to achieve personal mastery. Inter-personal intelligence is about becoming a people person, winning friends and influencing people positively.

The key to developing emotional intelligence is to be more conscious of our own emotions and to develop empathy for the emotions of others. Refrain from reacting immediately in response to your instinctive feelings, and exercise your power of choice to process consequential thinking, reframing perspectives, regaining rationality and responding appropriately.

Developing higher self-awareness requires practice and intentionality. By understanding our emotions and constantly evaluating it with our rational mind, we will be in a better position to choose the most appropriate responses and course of action.

EQ development does not mean the eradication of all negative emotions. This may not be possible or even desirable. Emotional pain is a by-product of us as imperfect people living in an imperfect world. Accepting it will not eliminate but will render it less powerful.

EQ is about striking a balance, to our advantage, and using our rational mind to teach the emotional mind. It is a continuous process with constant self-reflection, and the progress we can make is limited only by our own motivation.

Do not conform to the limiting patterns of the past; put off the old man & put on the NEW one.

This article is contributed by Dr Tan Buck Chye, an Associate Trainer at the , 51±¬ĮĻā€™ corporate training arm.

51±¬ĮĻ alumnus, Alicia Ho, currently a professional dance instructor, conducted a Girls Style dance workshop exclusively for 51±¬ĮĻ Dance Club members in Nov 2018.

The high energy session was both fun and enriching as the dance club members learned from one of the best. At the end of the workshop, Alicia shared her learning journey, challenges and achievements upon entering the workforce.

51±¬ĮĻ Alumni Family Day

51±¬ĮĻ Alumni Family Day witnessed over 40 alumnus and their families at Adventure Cove Sentosa on 22 Dec 2018. Alumnus reconnected with their ex-classmates and enjoyed an afternoon of splashing good fun with their families.

If you are thinking of learning or improving your copywriting skills, why not join our Essentials of Copywriting course! Ultimately, a good advertisement will draw a prospective customerā€™s attention towards your product, which is the ultimate aim of every business.

Click here to apply now.

In fact, jobs like business analysts and HR analysts are in great demand. These are people churning out statistics and trends for the organisation. Whether you are in Human Resource (HR) or in a revenue-generating role, numbers do tell a story.

Join us for our upcoming Analytics classes that teaches you how to get the right data to make business decisions, or why your organisation is facing extremely high turnover in recent years.

This is an intermediate level course (two days) that is designed to provide a more comprehensive conceptual overview of HR analytics. Participants will learn the design principles of HR metrics, understand the application of important analysis frameworks, techniques and statistical concepts, data visualisation and storytelling techniques.

Facilitated by Mr Derrick Yuen, a seasoned practitioner and consultant who has helped several organisations understand issues such as preferred product or solve underlying problems of high turnover.

Link to the programme:

On this note, MDC works very closely with government officials and embassies from various countries who are keen to learn more about the infrastructure, growth and development of Singaporeā€™s economy.

51±¬ĮĻ has 10 specialised Schools ā€“ School of Business, School of Tourism & Hospitality, School of Media and Communication, School of Engineering, School of Fashion and Design, School of Health and Life Sciences, School of Nursing, School of Technology, School of Psychology and School of languages offering various academic programmes for local and overseas students.

Our team works very closely with organizations globally, from all industry sectors to design customised executive training specifically for their needs. These programmes include:

ā€¢ Healthcare Management
ā€¢ Destination and Tourism Marketing
ā€¢ Public Administration and Management
ā€¢ e-Government and ICT
ā€¢ Management and Supervisory
ā€¢ Leadership Development
ā€¢ Entrepreneurship Development
ā€¢ Human Resources Management
ā€¢ Banking and Finance
ā€¢ Sales and Marketing
ā€¢ Communications
ā€¢ Creativity and Innovation
ā€¢ Service Excellence

Apart from the offering of training programmes, MDC organises site visits to its campus and respective Schools where participants can learn about the development and growth of a particular sector, such as biomedical sciences etc., Also, included in the agenda is an optional 2-day recreational component where delegates can visit some of Singaporeā€™s most popular attractions and bask in the local culture.

Over the years, we have undertaken training assignments for countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Maldives, Hong Kong, Timor Leste, Mauritius, Vietnam, Indonesia, The Republic of China, Central Asia, Middle East and many more are in the pipeline. We have also participated in international projects from the United Nations (UNDP), the World Bank, The French Development Agencies (FDA), and other Funding Agencies including Government Agencies.

Some of our successful projects include:

ā€¢ Banking and Finance ā€“ Central Asia
ā€¢ Data Validation of Personnel Records ā€“ Government of Timor Leste
ā€¢ Leadership and Management Programme ā€“ Timor Leste
ā€¢ Study Visit and Workshops for Public Administration Reform (PAR) Secretariat of Vietnam ā€“ To formulate and develop the Ministryā€™s PAR Action Plan (2006-2010).
ā€¢ Capacity Building and Management Development Programmes ā€“ Developing Countries
ā€¢ Leadership and Management programmes ā€“ Foreign Embassies and Foreign Ministries
ā€¢ Agribusiness, Result-Driven Advisory Services and Skills Development Training – Nigeria
ā€¢ Singapore Experience on Public Management and Policy – Maldives

Our team also frequently hosts foreign students of different age groups for language immersion programmes. Many of our students have found this a very refreshing experience as it breaks the norm from their usual school routine, allowing them to improve their language proficiency and make new friends from overseas.