XLTM Meeting Minutes for January 07, 2007 (by Minghui)

The following members attended the meeting: Len, Liqun, Eric, Jin, Ning, Irene, Lilian, Jenny, Stan, Robin, Cindy, Bing, Mei, Elena, Brick, Cunlin, Josh and Minghui. We had another full house with 3 new guests and 3 returning guests. Welcome, Guests!

Liqun was the Toastmaster of the day. Despite of the schedule change of the new school year, most of the members arrived on time. Liqun started the meeting at 13:15 by sharing his 8-day trip back to China and the great union in shanghai of his big family. There were several occasions when Liqun demonstrated great skill in handling different situations. Liqun has been challenging this role several times recently, and everyone could see his improvement. Practice makes perfect!

Elena gave her thought of the day. She first told her own experience of the early days when she just came to the US, and then emphasized the importance of using proper language (including body language) to make a request. A good way of asking people to raise the temperature of the air conditioner, for instance, could be: “It is freezing, I should have worn my sweater” with body language. Elena also thought it important to understand other people when they are doing the same. There are always smarter ways of communicating with others!

Robin taught us a new word “idiosyncrasy”. It means “A peculiarity of temperament. An individual hyper-sensitiveness, as to a drug or food”, “specific reaction of an individual to a chemical exposure to which most other individuals do not react.“, or “a behavioral attribute that is distinctive and peculiar to an individual”. According to Robin’s daughter, this is normally a neutral word, but could be slightly negative. It was a very useful word, but seemed a little bit difficult. Homework: Think about it, and try to use it next week.

Lilian told another very funny story that everyone could understand: After a family with 5 kids (3 boys and 2 girls) moved from a small house where the kids had to share bedrooms, to a big house where every kid has his own bedroom, the youngest kid was asked how he felt. He said that the new house was so great because all of his brothers and sisters now have their own rooms, and that even he had one. But his Mom, he said, still had to share a bedroom with his Dad. Sometimes, LESS means MORE; SIMPLE results in more acceptance.

Josh delivered his new year Presidential Speech titled “New year for new members”. For the first time, and as part of his new-year resolution, Josh Prepared his speech. Josh first called on us strive harder for another Ribbon of the distinguished club, and then shared his recent experience of recording himself speaking in a company event. He was found paying too much attention to only part of his audience, and felt that there was still a big room for improvement. Josh further indicated that, coming to our club is good for both your career and your life. It was another great Job of Josh as club president! If Josh could actually PREPARE a speech, what can’t we do to make a difference in the new year?

Cunlin talked about “Managing Expectation” including: 1) Your expectations to yourself, 2) your expectations to others, and 3) other people’s expectations to you. His speech focused on 1) How to manage expectation, 2) Important aspects of expectation, 3) Process of managing expectation. In the process part, he suggested 4 steps: 1) Understand yourself, 2) Communicate it to others, and make others have the right expectation, 3) Live up to it, and 4) Learn from what you have done and its result. Cunlin finally called on everyone to apply it in both work and private life.

Great analysis, deep insight and strong leadership!

Len was the 3^rd speaker. He gave a speech from the advanced manual on “Defusing Verbal Criticism”. Len first introduced the 4 methods described in the manual, with funny examples in real life: 1) Choose not to respond, say nothing and leave, 2) Try to rationalize, 3) Counter-attack, and 4) Stay open to listen and try not to defend. What important are trying to find out the real issue, not taking it personally and show respecting to the other party. Len then had a role-play with Brick, followed by a Q&A session. Brick played a really tough client, and reminded us how difficult it could be to defuse verbal criticism.

Will was the table topic master. Everyone knows that Will is a great fan of sports, and his topics were all sports related. It was a little bit hard to understand why he gave all the questions to the Ladies (except Jin), knowing that the ladies, in general, are not as interested as men in this area. But, it was quite interesting to see how the ladies react, which was a good practice with unfamiliar topics. Following members answered the questions: Ning, Jin, Irene, Mei, Cindy, Jenny and Lilian. Here, we see Hong Changqing again.

Minghui was the general evaluator. Stan, Eric and Bing evaluated the speeches of Josh, Cunlin and Len. It may not be an easy task to evaluate the speeches of the club president and former presidents, but all the evaluators gave very constructive feedback without much sugar coating. Irene served as the grammarian again as default. She made it another learning experience for everyone. Jenny, as always, gave another accurate time report.

This was the first meeting of 2007, and it was a really impressive one, not only because of the great speeches, but also because of the great guests. It predicted another year of success.

At the business session, Josh called for an officer meeting before the TM meeting next week.

Liqun concluded the meeting at 2:50 pm.