Photos courtesy of Winston Tan.

Yesterday, We had the pleasure of having the Group CEO of Telekom Malaysia Bhd. (TM Bhd.), YBhg Dato’ Abdul Wahid Omar, to have a talk on leadership and success in our university.

Studying in a TM-owned university, students of MMU naturally think that the CEO of TM group is a huge icon and many turned up excitedly for the talk, hoping to learn some important stuff from the famous CEO himself.

Furthermore, the Student Affairs and Sports Division (STAD) of MMU has announced that each club was to bring at least 10 members to attend the talk; so for our club, we went in a group of 10 people, including David, who was asked to come with us during the last minute!

The talk was scheduled to start at 8PM, but since a VIP was coming, we arrived a bit early, at 7.45PM.

We got a nice seat at the upper level of the hall; in fact, I think we got the best place in the entire grand hall! It was high up, so we could see everything happening in the hall, and it is not too front, where it would be almost impossible if we ever wanted to, you know, sleep or leave early.

After more than 1 hour of chatting and taking pointless photos with Winston’s Camera – at 9PM, the CEO arrived! Yay! Finally!

Through some video clips, we got to know a brief history of Telekom Malaysia Bhd. and it’s advancement in the Telecommunications industry in Asia.

We also got to know Mr. Abdul Wahid Omar as the CEO who guided the company through tough, tumultuous times to revolutions and outstanding achievements.

After the introductions, Mr. Omar started his speech on leadership, in which he outlined qualities of leaders and shared his own experience as the leader of one of the country’s biggest companies.

Everyone was intently listening to every word the CEO was saying.

Oh yes we were really listening… I was taking notes, for once!

(From my notes)

Qualities of a leader:

1. High level of language proficiency, both oral and written.
2. High self confidence.
3. Sense of urgency.
4. Willing to learn and improve continuously.
5. Has the strong desire to succeed.
6. Capable of working hard and working smart.

Quite interesting…

An hour later, I looked at my watch, it was getting late, and slightly boring. It was like a lecture session by an extremely qualified and experienced lecturer… but a lecture nonetheless. And lectures are typically boring!

And it was getting cold, very cold… One of the air-conditioning vents was directly above us…

But Mr. Omar just went on and on…

In the end, some just couldn’t help it… It was really understandable… Zzz…

The whole thing ended at 11 something… With us leaving the hall frozen solid, it was really soooo cold!

Anyway, it was really inspiring to meet someone like Mr. Omar, who started off his career with pure effort and no advantages at all, patiently climbed the corporate ladder with hard work and determination, and finally ended up being one of the greatest corporate leaders in the country.

Will any of us be as successful as him? Hmm..

3 days ago, 7th July 2007, also conveniently written as 07/07/07 – was the commencement date of my first ever small business!

Founded by me and my friend, Heng, while financially and physically assisted by a group of good friends; it’s a small food business offering alternative snacks and drinks for students from the ever-typical food variety in campus.

Anyway, our business is never a big one, at least not yet. In fact, it’s not even located in a shop lot! Our business is currently just a kiosk and a rather spacious D-shape enclosed area, in which we prepare and serve our products.

We’re starting off with a few popular drinks, and very soon we’ll increase our variety of snacks and drinks to stuff like waffles, ice-cream, sweet corn, sandwiches, mixed ice, and so on. We hope to transform this corner of the campus to a place for students to chill out between classes!

Thanks to the support of our friends and also those who happened to pass by and bought from us, our business is doing rather good thus far!

Yesterday, some guy from a small university unit that I never knew existed – the Utility Audit and Asset Management Unit (UAAM) – came to our stall and, in a serious tone, told us that we were in ‘big trouble’ because we didn’t inform their unit about the commencement of our business, and that their ‘boss was angry’ so we’d have to send in a letter clarifying the matter (he was literally banging the table while he spoke); After which they would ‘reconsider‘ whether or not our business is allowed to continue…

After the guy had left, we were like, WTF?! We’ve already had contractual approval from the Business Unit (BU) of MMU – which is the authority for all in-campus businesses – backed with recommendations from the Director himself, of Student Affairs and Sports Division (STAD), the Dean of Faculty of Management, and numerous individual lecturers!

We’ve also got a registered company name from SSM and official business license from MP Sepang; We’ve done nothing wrong! But yet we were being threatened of having to close down because we didn’t tell a unit that we didn’t even know existed, about our opening!

Shouldn’t all relevant parties be notified internally before permission is granted for us to commence our business? Sigh, I guess it’s bureaucracy as we all know…

It was a really dark moment. Since we didn’t have much experience dealing with stuff like this, we were, at that time, really scared that our humble little business was going have to close-up on the second day of its opening!

Anyway, we consulted Business Unit about this matter, and even they were surprised by what UAAM was doing! So we drafted a solemn but strong clarification letter this morning, accompanied with official documents and signed remarks from both STAD and BU, and sent it directly to the manager of UAAM.

Later in the afternoon , the manager called us and, probably slightly taken aback by how severe this issue had turned out to be, asked:

“Hi, …, what did my staff say to you ah?”

LOL! Apparently it was the first UAAM guy’s overexaggerated tone and behavior, which inaccurately implied to us the severity of the problem that caused a misunderstanding! In reality, the UAAM was merely inquiring and checking on the legality of our business (it is their job) and not threatening to ‘reconsider’ the permission for our business!

Haha, how frightening misunderstandings could sometimes be!

Anyway, thank God now our business is back and running! I humbly hope that it can work out successfully for as long as it possibly can! We’ve worked really hard for this business to happen, and we’d really like to see it operate successfully while we’re still students!

The club registration week has ended, and our Tourism Club has got its new batch of members!

It appeared that many people who visited out booth were attracted by the sight of the 2 marvelous paper coconut trees designed by Shobita!

We had two, towering coconut trees made mostly of paper standing on either sides of the booth’s table. They may look weird and unstable, and had twice crashed on our neighboring booth’s table, but it really took a lot of people’s hard work to create it!

Being a year younger than most people of my batch, it’s quite delightful to meet new students who are actually of the same age as me! I even met a few people who were in the same secondary school as me and they also recognised me!

Most students who join the Tourism Club join in groups. And that’s not too enjoyable because we’d be very free at one moment and extremely busy the next moment promoting, writing receipts, and laminating member cards for a large group of friends, making them standing around and waiting…

I must say, Wei Shean, the Director of this event, has done a respectable job with the preparation and execution of this programme. Many committee members turned up to help out as well, and we’re really grateful!

I’m not being racist, but I somehow realised that a great majority of members, and almost all of the committee members in our club, are Chinese!

There are a handful of Malays, Indians, and International Students, but then again if you look at our previous Redang Island Trip, out of the 80 participants, 78 are Chinese! Why is that?

Maybe it’s due to group influence, friends will ask their own friends to go on a trip with them, and people typically have more friends of the same race than others. I guess that’s why…

Some other clubs and societies have performances in the middle of the hall. Although I was not there to watch all the other performances, I particularly enjoyed the Teakwondo demonstration, which was so great and powerful that it caused me to suspect more strongly that the wooden planks that they so easily break apart actually have tiny slits on them.

Hmm… Is it true? Or maybe they’re just really skilled. Who knows? I never really asked a Taekwondo member, but I guess I’ll ask one of my friends who’s a Taekwondo club member, next week.

Lots of other clubs were having great exhibitions as well, and as always, we really have a lot to learn from others.