Mock Mediation at the 8th National Employment Law Conference 2012

Wong Lu Peen giving an excellent presentation on Mediation

The Role Players

Role Play in progress

One of the hardworking people behind the scene, Amirah from MySeminars

I just got back from doing a role play (mock Mediation) dealing with sexual harassment at the 8^th National Employment Law Conference 2012 held at the Swiss Garden Hotel & Residences (27^th June 2012). The conference was held at the new wing of the Swiss Garden Residences which looked really nice and classy. The conference was organized by MySeminars. The organizing team was headed by Amirah Alkaff (I do apologize as I have forgotten to take a photo of her for the blog!) who had done a splendid job in getting more than 100 participants.

I was there rather early as I wanted to give the morning traffic a miss and it could also be a real challenge to find a parking space at Swiss Garden. Being early, I decided to go for the buffet breakfast at Level 6 of the Swiss Garden Residences. If you ever have the chance of having breakfast there, I would strongly recommend their “nasi lemak”, especially the “sambal” which is close to excellent. They also served pretty good coffee at the buffet breakfast. As for their egg station, I must comment that their omelette is one of the smallest omelette I have ever seen. I think they should use more eggs and add more ingredients!

The morning started with a presentation by my fellow Mediator and a good friend, Wong Lu Peen. She did a great job in introducing Mediation and talking about conflict management in the workplace. Lu Peen also took the opportunity to promote the Malaysian Mediation Centre and my book, “Mediation Skills and Techniques” at the Conference. Thank you, Lu Peen.

Immediately after Lu Peen’s presentation, we did the role play or “mock Mediation” called “Way to go, baby”. I played the role of Harry, the alleged sexual harasser while my other fellow mediators, Sumathi Murugiah played Sally, the victim and Tejindar Kaur played the role of the Mediator. Even though, we had the script but we made up our lines as we go along. Apart from making the role play educational, we also wanted it to be entertaining as well. There were a few laughs coming from the participants. I believe the participants enjoyed the role play. As this role play dealt with sexual harassment, I wanted to conduct a small test to see if the participants could trigger if I slipped in an innuendo or two. At the end of the role play, I told Sally (Sumathi Murugiah), “We have worked very well “hand in hand” with each other for the last 15 years”. Immediately when the participants heard “hand in hand”, there was laughter as those words immediately triggered the participants’ imagination.

The Conference was a good one and well attended. Congratulations to Amirah Alkaff, the other Amirah (whom unfortunately I did not get the rest of her name) and all the other team members in organizing a splendid Conference!

KL Marathon 2012 - Some photos and short write-up

Some of the participants in the KL Marathon 2012

A really fit and tough runner!

A tired but happy runner!

The Japanese runner with his 12kg tuba!

Notice the adverts sticking at the back!

The hardworking volunteers at the water station

The volunteers looking happy even though tired

Good Morning! It is now 10.00 am on a Sunday (24th June 2012) and I just returned from the KL Marathon 2012. No, I did not run. I was there to take some photographs of the participants. It was like a fun run. Tired but happy. I moved around the route and chatted with the organisers and a few runners. One of the runners asked me whether I am with one of the sports news reporting agency! Most of them were sporting enough to pose for the camera and joked about me taking photographs of them.

There were quite a number of characters in the Marathon. There was a Japanese runner who carried a tuba weighing 12kg (according to him) throughout the whole marathon! What a guy! However, he had a motive, though. He was advertising his services and there was another guy running next to him who was spreading the word of God. An amazing group of wonderful runners!

Kudos have to go to the hardworking volunteers who guided the runners and handing out drinks and sponges at the water station. A few of them even shouted words of encouragement and cheering them on. A wonderful sight to make up a wonderful Sunday!

Risk Management Workshop 2012 - "Communication: Connecting People"

I was amazed with this wonderful group of people!

Here is Betty, the lady with the big smile (far right)

Almost full house!

Kudos go to Mysahra Shawkat Ali 

I gave a talk on “Communication: Connecting People” which was one of the sessions in the Risk Management Workshop held at the Bar Council Auditorium on 21st June 2012. The workshop was very well attended, as a matter a fact, almost full capacity. The organisers mentioned that they have to turn down a number of people as they could not accomodate anymore due to logistic issues. The Risk Management Workshop was very well organised by Mysahra Shawkat Ali and her team.


Before my session started, I was pleasantly surprised when a fairly mature and pleasant lady participant walked up to me to introduce herself. She mentioned that she met me almost ten years ago and is a classmate of Jennifer’s aunty. She remembered meeting me and my family almost a decade ago. We had a nice chat, catching up with each other’s life. Her name is Betty and has been working with Tommy Thomas (a senior lawyer) for many years.


I enjoyed interacting with this group of wonderful participants. It is always a real joy to speak at a workshop where you can see so many smiling faces. I spoke about handling internal, external and electronic communications in the Company. I also shared with the participants some of the techniques that they can use to deal with challenging clients and also I went through a list of DOs and DON’Ts.


At the end of the workshop, a short video clip of my book launch was shown. Again, I was pleasantly surprised when a thunderous round of applause was given at the end of the video clip which also signalled the end my session. Mysahra, thank you for making it a memorable day for me! Let’s hope I get some good reviews from the participants!

Malaysian Labour Law Conference 2012

Sumitra Penesar with the guys!

The beautiful ladies from Crimson Logic!

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to participate in a conference called “Malaysian Labour Law Conference - A Union between Employments, Labour & Human Resources” organised by Crimson Logic Pte Ltd held at the Impiana Resort Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. I was invited to participate as a member of a Panel discussing about Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR), a topic called “Industrial Disputes: A Critical Analysis of the Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism”. Besides me, the members of the Panel were Steven Thiru (as the Moderator), Muhendaran, Vickneswaran and Y.A Tuan Rajendran Nayagam (Chairman, Industrial Court Malaysia). Steven, Muhendran and Vicky are well known Industrial Court lawyers. Muhendran and Vicky have regularly represented trade unions in industrial relation matters. The Panel Discussion went on really well with each Panel Member giving their respective views on ADR, specifically on Mediation and Conciliation.

The Industrial Court Chairman spoke about Mediation in the Industrial Court while Muhendran touched on certain parts of legislation that dealt with Mediation and Conciliation. Vicky enlighted us with his views on the British model in resolving industrial disputes and Steven, in his usual style moderated the discussion skillfully. He had to,  as he is  our current Bar Council Treasurer and when it comes to the Malaysian Bar’s coffer, he definitely has a sharp eye! As for me, I spoke about my experience in Mediation and some practical mediating skills. From the tone of the discussion from the Panel, I felt Members in the Panel (except for the Industrial Court Chairman and myself) were not so keen on Mediation when it comes to employment disputes. As one of the Panel Members mentioned that most of the time if the dispute is settled out of Court, it was due to private discussion between Counsels who are representing their respective clients and not so much to do with the Mediator. Well, like mentioned in my book, the number one objective in any Mediation is to get parties to communicate. Therefore, if the parties are able to communicate with each other without the Mediator, then they are in good footing in getting the dispute resolved. If the Mediator comes in, it would be just to facilitate to get things moving in a much more efficient way.

All in all, the Conference was a good one. It was conducted in a professional manner by my good friend, Primila Edward and superbly organised by Sumitra Penesar and her team. I must also add that the buffet lunch at Impiana Resort Hotel was very good. My only complaint is that the parking at the hotel is rather narrow and cramp. If you are driving a big car, you need to be extra careful when negotiating the corners. Other than that, good job, ladies!

"Mediation Skills and Techniques" book launch - The Video

If you missed the "Mediation Skills and Techniques" book launch on 14th May 2012. You 

can watch it here. It is only 5 minutes long. Enjoy! Please leave your comment(s). Thanks.

My first Anime Convention!

I attended my first anime convention at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) in Kuala Lumpur recently. For those who are not familiar with anime, it literally means “animation” in Japanese. I was surprised to find that it has a very large (I mean real HUGE!) following in Malaysia. A number of fans literally dressed up in their favourite characters at the convention. Remember, in Mediation, we talked about “associating”’? Well, here you can see these people were literally “associating” themselves with the characters. As a matter a fact, many of them got that extra boost when people started taking photographs of them which a big grin and satisfaction for all their hard work!

In case you are wondering why did I attend the convention? Well, my children are big fans of Naruto and Pokemon. Therefore, being parents, my wife and I just tag along. We are learning something new everyday.

The French Connection

Veronique's husband, Veronique and Jennifer

Veronique, Jennifer and their spouses

Look at their body language! "Mirroring"

Me and Jean-Marc

Last Saturday, Jennifer and I were invited to a farewell party by our French neighbour, Veronique and her family. Veronique and her family will be going home to Marseilles after living in Malaysia for five years. While in Malaysia, Veronique, though very French in nature, has experienced what every normal person would have experienced in their lifetime in Malaysia. She has eaten all types of food ranging from nasi lemak, roti canai, nasi kandar to chicken rice, her family and her have been to many exotic places in Malaysia and she can even tell you where in Kuala Lumpur you can get some good bargains! Veronique will surely be missed when her family and her leave for France this July 2012.

The condominium that we are living in is like little France or “mini Paris”. The majority of the residents here are French people. Therefore, it was not a major surprise when we attended the farewell party and found that we were one of the very few Asians in the party. It was very nice seeing the French people enjoying themselves in that party. One of our other neighbour, Jean-Marc came up and had a chat with us. Jean apologized to us if we felt that we were ignored. I replied, “Of course not. Why we would feel that way?” Jean said that the French people are embarrassed because of their command of the English Language, therefore, they felt shy to communicate in that language. Well, like we have said in many of our Mediation classes, communication can be both verbal and non-verbal (eg: body language and facial expression). Therefore, communication should never be an issue if you want to convey your message to another party.

Anyway, it was a very pleasant experience for us, eating new food and meeting new people. So, to Veronique and her family, “Au revoir” and “bonne chance”!

Dealing with queues

Inspite of the growing crowd, only 2 counters were opened!

It would be nice if more counters were opened 

Passengers patiently queuing up

A few weeks ago, my family and I visited Sydney. As some of you know, Sydney will be our new home this coming December. For this particular trip, we took Malaysia Airlines (MAS), our national carrier. I must say it has been years since I flew with MAS. With so many airlines to choose from, consumers tend to have an upper hand here. For me and my family, it is purely economics. We will fly with whichever airline that can give us the best deal. It so happened that MAS has got the best deal, so MAS it was.

When we arrived in KLIA, we found ourselves in a sea of crowd. You see, MAS has got a common check-in counter. Unlike Air Asia, where you go to the specific counter (based on your destination) for check-in, everyone has to queue in a common line in order to check-in with MAS. What made it even more challenging was there were only 2 counters opened at that time. I thought they would open more counters to cater the growing crowd. It took us close to an hour before we could checked in and that was after MAS decided to open a couple more counters. However, I must add that the counter lady was very polite and patient. Even though she was a ground staff, she definitely represented MAS in a positive light, a lady with the “golden smile”.

The plane that took us to Sydney was a Boeing 747-400 or commonly known as a “jumbo jet” which at one time was the prime airship. I have not flown in a Boeing 747-400 for ages, so can you imagine when we took our seats. The seat I was assigned to was wobbly and you could see that the plane had aged quite a bit. However, to make up for that rather unfortunate experience, again I must say that the cabin crew (though most of them were fairly mature which in my opinion was a good thing) had provided “golden service” throughout the flight. 

When we arrived in Sydney International Airport at about 8.00am Sydney time, we were once again faced with large crowd of people queueing up at the Immigration Counters. It was time like this that many of the foreigners in the queue wished they were holding Australian passports! The line at the Immigration Counter for Australian passport holders was a breeze. Inspite of the long queue, I was rather surprised that the line moved rather quickly. From my observation, it took an average of less than 2 minutes to check and stamped the foreign passenger’s passport PROVIDED that the passenger does not chat and crack silly jokes with the Immigration officers. How did the Immigration deal so quickly with the queue? Simple! Open more counters. As a matter a fact, at one time, the Counter that was handling Australian passport holders even chipped in to deal with the increasing foreign passengers.

Personally, I think our national carrier, MAS should spent a little bit of time to find effective methods to deal with long queues. Passengers would love to have something wonderful to remember about their trips and it wouldn’t be pleasant if all they remembered were waiting and queueing and waiting and queueing.............