leadership, authority, gen Z

Hello all! 

Today I’d like to share great food for thought from an article, 'An Exploration of Innovation: An Organization's Only Insurance Against Irrelevance’ by Dawn Bailey ka.

Several key points from the book summarized by summary.com are:

-          The most effective individuals are constantly striving to maximize their ratio of accomplishment over authority…….the reverse is more often seen in the rachakarn community?

-          I like what has been tabled out to answer these questions ka: ‘What is the work of leadership today? How do you conduct yourself as a leader day in and day out to keep yourself and your team moving with the times?

A short course in 21st century leadership would probe the following:

• Are you learning as fast as the world is changing? The imperative today is to remain open and hungry when it comes to discovering and experimenting with new ideas and new methods—to cultivate a first-person experience with the future.
• Do you ask more questions than you give answers? This is a good one for anyone in a position of authority—parents and leaders alike. Questions offer up a powerful advantage in a world of expanding complexity and intense change—they help you attract more possibilities, surface more perspectives, and enlist more support to your cause. It’s not easy to get in the habit of asking questions in a world that values knowledge and mastery. If you’re having trouble, take your lead from a toddler and start asking: Why? Why not? What if?
• Are you unreasonable enough? Turns out that all change is against the rules. Creativity is fundamentally subversive in nature. It’s the leader’s job to develop a contrarian point of view, invite dissent, and take an activist role in questioning and devising alternatives to the status quo. The most productive rebels aren’t out to make trouble—but to make genuine progress in the world.

In addition, I also read a short article on, ''Who are you calling 'Boring'?'' on Fortune by Dan Lyons, March 1, 2017 and this requires leadership to think and act differently too.

The problem is that millennials tend to think that the old corporates aren't as attractive as triple-A (Amazon, Alphabet, Apple) so right now, GE starts having a popular TV ad campaign (and in French and Chinese too) why younger techies should think twice before leaving this choice out. IBM created vdo's showing hipsters talking about working there while another company created a role called, 'talent branding specialist'.

Well-established world known companies can never sit still to strengthen their brands, their understanding, and their creativity to search for the talents worldwide ka.

What about our leadership and branding in our rachakarn circle and our education community la ka?

building a culture of learning

Dear all, I skimmed through another book, ' Building a Learning Culture in America' by Kevin P. Chavous and wish to share what I've highlighted ka.

• The politics of education has been the single biggest barrier to substantive change in education. Leadership does matter. ...one of the best ways to get the politics out of education is for our political leaders to show leadership in doing so.....not to debate education issues, but rather agree to sit down together in a bipartisan way to build a unified policy.
• With each passing year, we were continuing to lose children because of the bureaucracies' internal resistance to change.
• .....the power of learning is an individual undertaking that doesn't have to be dictated by a system or group-think. Our children's education doesn't just belong to educators.
• ....where there is greater transparency for parents, there is a greater likelihood that the local school district will become more responsive to student needs.
• (when trying to work on education reform)...one of the challenges was bringing together people who normally don't work with each other on many issues
• in far too many cases, the individual needs of children are practically subservient to the interests of the system.
• Our laser focus on schools and making them better has blinded us to what should be the real focus of our attention: the people.
• ....the values and aspirations linked to student learning have to be instilled early and that an environment promotive of learning must be supported by families in a society concerned with the well-being of all of its members.
• We need to change from an education culture which is focused on process, rules, systems, and politics to a learning culture focused on lifelong learning and the personal and national pride associated with that learning.
• All children can learn. But all children cannot learn in the same way. ....having the very best teachers in our most troubled schools.

Several success stories showed leadership as key to achieve learning they wished to see in their students. Cases raised mentioned about passion, commitment, and implementation with the leaders having their strong belief in the culture of learning, the culture of achievement that will promote high student achievement. The leaders had to be the role models as learners, keep their words to accommodate requests by their teachers, and encourage them to work together.

As we're going through and have been through reforms, this book is so relevant to give us some thoughts to ponder. Leadership at ministries and departments need to think hard how bureaucracy can impact the reform process hard while we all need to remind ourselves repeatedly that whatever reform it is, it is for our students, not the curriculum, infrastructure, or the administrative positions ka.

Keep our fingers crossed for the next reform na ka.

Future or future-less

Happy Monday na ka.

I've got a few great articles that make me wonder what can fit our kids and country ka.

This is one of the articles I'd like to share today, which is written by Betsy Miket from inc.com ka. She wrote about what Mark Cuban (Billionaire investor) thought of the most sought-after job skill. Even when people are going after computer science degree programs and learn-to-code bootcamps, he argues that they may not be as hot in 5-10 years time since the next wave of innovation would be 'the automation of automation',  seeing software writing itself with much less need for humans.

This ignited my curiosity to read on to see what should be the right fields to study. It turned out that he was talking about those liberal arts majors because their creativity and critical thinking, though for these few years, they may be 'starved' ka.

He was interviewed about the world's advanced technology as well. At the moment, he's been using sensors for many purposes. It not only is able to have  anonymous facial recognition but will soon have personalized sensors to tell us about our conditions and what needs to be done.

He was then looking into the far future when

• blood could reveal many more things about each individual
• personalized medicine would become real (and over-the-counter drug purchase turn 'barbaric') as there would be personalized medicine
• we turned to be 'genetically modified humans'
• progressive evolution in terms of the climate change could be decoded and we could calculate the impacts to change the dynamics and paths of the evolution.

While I still have several articles to share, I find this one very interesting and worrying in many ways ka:

• we can't escape from  the advanced science and technology, no doubt about it and it's really scary kaaa!
• yet, can we live up to it? The Thailand 4.0 seems to be a driving force and the urge to promote STEM Education is loud......but the focus on the reality of our human capability and capacity doesn't seem to be so balanced?
• while encouraging STEM Education, have we forgotten to give priority to our social and human sciences?
• how could our younger generations survive in this world with fast big moves? are we on the right tracks?
• Have our universities been doing the right job for their young and older learners alike? What should be the favorable role of the Office of Higher Education Commission to enhance learning for the future, moving away from being a regulator?

I'm now getting extremely worried for our younger ones, especially those who have much less opportunity to get quality learning and to be able to challenge their capabilities with support and increased confidence. Have our universities felt threatened enough to look much further into the future, take serious thoughts and drastic actions to reform their education delivery? 

asking our own selves more questions

Hello all! I have several short articles to share and two are about the question, 'Why' ka.

The first is  from a speed review by summary.com entitled, 'A More Beautiful Question' by Warren Berger  and I quote the key sentences below na ka:

"While Why questions are pure inquiry, What If questions, Berger writes, are questions that lead to possible solutions.

......when you’ve asked all the Whys, considered the What Ifs…and must now figure out, How do I actually get this done?”

The second is, 'Science of Selling' by David Hoffeld ka. At the first glance, I planned to skip it but after I read it, it was good to get a science-based methodology that may be used in other situations as well ka.

Hoffeld conducted his own research over six years that combined a thorough review of the academic evidence with extensive study of sales calls based on six “why” questions: Why change? Why now? Why your industry solution? (The lesson here: Competitors may not come from your industry.) Why you and your company? Why your product and service? Why spend the money?

We may not consider ourselves in the business of selling but we actually are na ka, agree? We sell education services to our students, parents, and stakeholders so it may be helpful to keep asking why's to convince our 'potential clients' to think more about their own preferences in terms of discipline, institution, their planned future, and even value for money enrolling in our university.

It's also great to ask our own selves these questions when investing in new technologies/services.

The last one is, 'Long View' by Brian FetherstonhaughIf. The book is about skills needed for a successful career.

The author points out that 'there are three types of fuel essential to a successful career:

1. Transportable Skills, i.e. the basic skills that will make people successful in every job they have. These include such skills as problem-solving, effective communication, getting things done, knowing how to give and ask for help, and emotional intelligence.

2. Meaningful Experiences especially during the first 15 years of a career in which a series of diverse experiences should be accumulated.  

3. Enduring Relationships with key people which are perhaps the most potent and long-lasting fuel.

Have to come back to our university community to ask whether we've been helping our students sharpen the skills needed, offering them platforms to gain diverse and meaningful experiences while guiding them to be able to endure relationships from their college days to their professional paths. Before then, we need to assess ourselves whether we have those qualities and know how to share kaaa!

Lots to read, think, and learn ka.

what to engage employees

Dear all, I'd like to share a speed review by summary.com of a book entitled, 'Payoff' by Dan Ariely ka. At first I didn't feel it was attractive but there were little things that led me to think a lot further ka.

The key question is, 'What would be the right motivation to engage employees?'

The author writes that employees work for money and 'money plays a role, but it is only one of a number of factors that contribute to motivation. Achievement, happiness, purpose, a sense of progress, relationships with your colleagues, concerns about your legacy, pride, even the number of young children at home will all play a part in one’s motivation'. This reminds me of a TedTalk vdo, stressing that decades of research show that healthy relationship makes our lives much happier.

Several research experiments this author conducted to offer different incentives at the beginning of each day to increase more productivity were interesting ka. Each group was given incentives differently from cash to vouchers for pizza, a note of thanks from the CEO, and nothing. I was thinking that I can't be sure if a note of thanks from the CEO can be applicable to our Thai context that much ka. What about you ka?

Of the three days, the bonus cash that came in last and pizza came first. It was surprising to find that the CEO's compliments worked well too ka. The group with no incentives performed better even. The author points out that the cash bonus only increases costs, not productivity.

What counts most is to nurture the sense of accomplishment — of having “built” or “created” something — which is a major motivator for people.

The author has proved that it’s time to recognize the payoff that comes when we stop thinking in terms of trade-offs.