Secrets of Interpersonal Communication presented by Wekie Tay, DTM

I was given a brilliant opportunity to attend a workshop organised by District 80, Division A on 27^th Aug 2017. The workshop was titled “Secrets of Interpersonal Communication” and it was conducted by DTM, Wekie Tay. I didn’t have any expectations from this workshop, except to learn something new.

Thanks to our club president for promoting this workshop and providing a $10 subsidy for our club members to attend this workshop. I personally felt that this was a good idea by the club to encourage the members to continue their learning journey and sharpen their oratorical axe.

It was drizzling lightly and I was literally running from Outram Park MRT station and making my way to Academia (which is located near SGH) where the workshop was held. The venue was very quiet and conducive for the workshop. There were around 20 plus enthusiastic participants which included members from various toastmaster clubs as well as non-toastmasters. The workshop started formally with the TMD Sarfraz, who introduced the speaker DTM, Wekie Tay and handed over to Sue Fong, the Division A Director for her opening address. Following that, she passed on the stage to Wekie Tay for his presentation.

Wekie had structured his presentation into 3 segments:

1.       7 Secrets to impactful communication with people

2.       10 Things people must know to deeply relate with you

3.       Art of Active listening

Wekie started his session by introducing the “Power of Praise” to the audience. He asked the audience to share the praises they received on that day. He also taught the audience on how to praise others by being more specific. For instance, instead of saying “your dress is nice”, he recommended to say “this dress suits you very well”. Similarly he also mentioned that when you praise a person by telling “your smile always makes me feel better”, the person will remember that praise. Whenever the person sees you in future, he/she will immediately smile at you, however bad state of mind he/she is in. Wekie conducted an exercise for the audience to start practicing on how to praise the person sitting next to him/her.  Personally, I felt it was really helpful to immediately apply the technique we learnt.

Next, Wekie presented about the “Power Greeting with 1-2 lines mini story”. When somebody asks you, “how are you?”, and if you reply “I am fine” the communication stops there as both the parties don’t know how to communicate further. To overcome this problem, Wekie suggested to reply with one or two lines mini story. For example, instead of replying “I am fine”, you can say “I feel so happy as I met my old friend today”. This in turn will give a choice for the other party to continue the communication, by asking “when was the last time you met this friend of yours?”. In this way the communication will keep rolling on. Isn’t this idea really cool? The audience had an opportunity to do a role play by doing a power greeting with the fellow participants.

Wekie also strongly advised the participants to stop using the 3 words which we always over use in our daily conversations, as they are not very specific. Guess, what they are? The words are:

• Good
• Nice
• Fine 

He suggested a few words to remember and use in power greeting. They are:

• Great
• Wonderful
• Excited
• Fantastic
• Terrific
• Delighted
• Awesome

Wekie introduced the acronym FLIP and 5W1H, which will keep our communication fluent

F		L			I		P
Family		Location			Interests		Profession
The above acronym will remind us to ask a few questions during our communication with another person about their family, the location where they live, the hobbies they have, the profession they are in, etc.
W	W		W	W		W		H
Who	What		When	Where		Why		How
We can ask questions like who did you meet?, what did you do over the weekend?, when was the last time you watched a movie?, where do you plan to go for a vacation? etc.						Why and How cannot usually be used in our earlier stage of communication. Try to use these cautiously only when you are engaged in a deeper communication, as it may turn to be more of an interrogation.

Wekie explained to the participants what is considered as “Values” and also mentioned that it is good to know the Values of the person whom we are communicating with.

 In Summary, the 7 things you must know to have impactful communication are:

1.       Know their Name

2.       Know their Interests

3.       Know their Values

4.       Know their Personality

5.       Know their Language

6.       Know what makes them Tick

7.       Know what’s Common between the both of you

The 10 things people must know to deeply relate with you are:

1.       They must know both of you have things in common

2.       Know that you are valuable in their eyes

3.       Know that you have the knowledge and information they need

4.       Know that you are credible in character

5.       Know that they can trust you and share secrets with you

6.       Know that you are consistent

7.       Know that you are on their side and can stand by them

8.       Know that you are in their inner circle (share emotions, events and experiences)

9.       Know that they prefer to remember you rather then forget you

10.   Know that they want you

Wekie provided some tips to the participants for Active Listening

I	Interested body posture. Choices are nod, snap, punch and pat on the heart
R	Repeat Key Phrases
A	Ask questions. For e.g. what do you think?, do you enjoy the show? etc
S	Summarize the main points.

Wekie also explained the importance of Communication as it helps in forming Relationships.

Wekie finally gave us a bonus, which was his website www.wekie.com. It has more than 400 articles on various topics, which are very helpful for our development as a public speaker. I strongly encourage all of you to go through his website for additional learning.

Wekie was outstanding in his delivery, in engaging the participants and in his vocal variety. It was a feast to my ears for 3 hours and I felt that the time spent over the weekend was extremely meaningful, enlightening and educational. I do hope our members choose to attend more workshops as the opportunities to learn something new is endless, and so should our will to seek knowledge.

Once again I take this opportunity to thank the organising chair, our Area A1 Director, Debananda Patro for organising a very useful workshop, Wekie Tay for his extraordinary coaching and Salma, our beloved president for encouraging me to attend.

Eagerly looking forward to more presentations from Wekie Tay.....

Written By:

Valliappan Selvamani, CC