Freshly graduated from University Science Malaysia, Penang, she was brimming with theories, equations, and the belief that a strong voice and confident presence were enough to lead.
She thought great engineers were those who gave instructions quickly, explained problems in detail, and filled every silence with technical answers. In her mind, “dead air” meant lost respect.
One night, during a shutdown, the boiler pressure started to fluctuate. The control room was tense.
Her instinct was to speak fast — to issue rapid instructions to the operators, to explain every number on the screen. But then she remembered something she had learned at a Toastmasters session she attended back in Penang — from watching a speech by Ramona J. Smith.
Ramona’s pauses were deliberate, her movements calculated. And Aina thought: Could silence work… even here? In a refinery?
She decided to try.
She stepped forward, eyes on the operators, and simply… paused.
The room went quiet.
Then, with a calm tone, she said,
“Check steam traps at station three.”
One short instruction. Then she stopped again, letting the weight of the words settle before giving the next step.
The operators moved with purpose — not because she shouted, but because her timing gave clarity.
Over the next months, Aina began to notice something else — not just the value of silence, but the power of intentional movement.
She studied how her senior engineer, Encik Harun, walked the plant floor.
He didn’t rush.
He moved to where he needed to be — and stayed still when he wanted people to really listen.
She began to copy that. When discussing a safety concern at the clarifier tank, she didn’t pace aimlessly. She planted her feet, looked her technicians in the eye, and let her stillness underscore the seriousness of her words.
At first, this new style felt strange. Aina had to fight the urge to fill every gap with more explanations. But she trained herself — even taking two deep breaths before speaking.
And something changed.
Her operators started leaning in when she spoke.
They nodded more.
In meetings, they didn’t interrupt — they waited, because they wanted to hear what came next.
After a toolbox talk one morning, the maintenance foreman came up to her and said,
“Engineer, the way you stop and look at us before giving instructions — it makes us really focus. It’s different… and it works.”
That’s when Aina realized: in a refinery, just like on a stage, silence isn’t a gap between words.
It’s a tool.
A way to make instructions clearer.
A way to give your message weight.
Now, whenever a young engineer joins her team, Aina shares the same advice:
“Don’t rush. Breathe. Move with purpose. Let your pauses carry the message.
Because sometimes… what you don’t say is what truly speaks.”
End.
No comments:
Post a Comment