Stronger foundation into the future through University 4.0?

Swasdee kaaaaa! I just got back from a seminar on 'University 4.0', where 3 participating universities (Chiang Mai U/CMU, Khon Kaen U/KKU, and Prince of Songkla U/PSU) gave their final presentations of the months' efforts using foresight to look into the future of their universities.

The three universities have come up with their own preferable futures to be implemented one way or another according to their contexts and readiness, which could be quite detailed to share so let me highlight some of the issues plus my own thinking as usual ka!

Foresight exercises lead us to think more transformational and it seems time and efforts are needed to be more bold and imaginative even some have emerged for us to see like one university aimed to go from .edu to .org, .com. and .biz  while one looked more closely into the subregion with China as the dominant player for GMS. The other one stressed the forms of physical to virtual campuses with a variety of program choices and DIY.

On the whole, things will be changing and universities must be agile to keep up with the changes, if not ahead of it in some aspects. Still it was pointed out and I can't agree more that our universities love to stand alone when synergy is seriously needed for us, our higher education/ our country to stay stronger. 

What makes them think and behave so, I really am not sure ka!

On generational issues, I like it when Ajarn Mor+ Avudh Srisukri said for the more senior to simply share their experiences for the junior to get started and let the latter pursue their thinking and build their world with the most updated knowledge the senior can't possibly catch up!

Khun Veerathai, former Bank of Thailand's governor, gave sharp comments focusing first on values propositions of the universities, turning out to be subsequent lively and productive discussions.

Time to recheck our own values propositions from the national to university/ faculty/departmental levels ka. 

Several other key questions were, 'What to do when education seems to be torn apart in pieces?', 'How could we take advantage of our being trusted by the society to prepare our next generations for their unknown future?', 'Have we thought of how to maximize sharing economy platforms?'.

Any issue to get started as a sandbox with the least rules yet risks contained to a certain level and success can be scalable (similar to the one kids play quite freely yet, with some to help monitor?)

Again and again, the term, 'mindset' popped up ka. 

I think we must move further away from 'top up', which may be outdated so the notion of seniors, leaders, and faculty ' know better with experiences’ to be more about student engagement for them to co-design what’s likely to be relevant and dynamic for constant change.

Self awareness must be integral as part of the education processes and outcomes and perhaps start from older generations to identify effective ways to guide the younger and for the younger to explore themselves more readily.

Trust in the universities can be highlighted to help coach our younger ones on self awareness and can be joint lessons for all involved la ka! 

Hope the more seniors can serve as favorable role models of future-oriented citizens too ka.

One missing link as always since people tend to take internationalization/IZN too lightly,  human-to-human relationship building, intra-university/international collaborative networks,  and shared platforms have yet to be heard!

Any comments mai ka?

Courageous Culture and Leadership

 Finally, I have a summary I listened to that I really love to share ka! 

The title is, 'Courageous Cultures' by Karin Hurt and David Dye, 2020.

In our 'traditional' Thai working culture, we still get lots of safe silence as the default over consistent contribution and that's why I think this summary fits so much for 'sort of older/more classic leaders and organizations ka.....sorry if I offend some people na ka.

The authors give the following 5 reasons for the silence, which we may know well mai ka?

1. People don’t think leadership wants their ideas.
2. No one asks.
3. They lack confidence to share.
4. They lack the skills to share effectively. 

5. People don’t think anything will happen, so they don’t bother.

Only these five items make me think of how hard to create a favorable environment for individual and organizational development laew na ka. This isn't to blame leaders ka.....it's everyone's responsibility to reach for shared organizational goals plus one's own accountability to their learning and sharing. 

However, leaders can also help nurture courageous cultures by: 

1. Show a bit of their own vulnerability to build trust ....  no one knows all so show it loei ka!
2. Manage performance by offering consistent performance feedback and raise issues directly 
3. Advocate for your team to show that you can influence others
4. Experiment to show your boldness to try new ideas and fix it when it doesn't work
5. Make timely decisions .... quite a few of our leaders 'buy time' by delaying their decisions, worsening the situations especially in our speedy world of changes na ka.

6. Share credit .....this is really needed in our culture too ka....some leaders take it for granted, noting that it's their team's responsibility. I think leaders need to be more aware that their teams do yearn for more positive energy and encouragement from occasional recognition na ka. 

Before it gets too long, let me just add one more component about 'Respond with Regard' ka. This is to build momentum when we get ideas and react to show our respect while improving our team's strategic thinking to generate more ideas.

Simply put in my own words na ka... it's for the leaders to show their thankfulness, let the team know what the process would be, and then welcome them to do it again and more often ka.

In fact, we can turn the statements around into boxes for leaders to tick and check themselves too na ka nia.

Elon Musk's thinking

It's Saturday already na ka.....so fast ka!  

These days, I'm really hooked following news of 'Mission to the Moon' on Facebook ka.  On Oct 12, they shared Elon Musk's thinking which I found very interesting....so interesting that I had to go to 'Medium' to get to read the full article ka. 

I watched several interviews about him before and to me, Elon Musk is extremely intelligent/genius....a man who doesn't like to sleep and wishes he could have many more hours to work!. Um! doesn't sound right to me on this aspect ka.He's known for his extensive reading and working with top-level thinkers as well. 

Read and mingle with deep thinkers!

 

He is CEO of deep tech companies like Tesla and SpaceX. We're familiar with the names and some products like its electric cars. I don't have much knowledge about satellites but saw the numbers a while ago.  From my search, it's now around 775 satellites for internet access/Starlink sent from SpaceX and I think the news I listened to related to this effort of his too ka.

Thomas Oppong wrote 'Elon Musk's Rule for learning Anything Smarter and Faster' on Sept 29....a 4-minute read! Time spent even on reading means more these days as there're lots to digest. Something I have to improve about my egroup messages too ka so I have bolded under each main paragraph this time na ka!)

Be concise with key learnings to share! 

As for his two rules: here they are ka:

Rule #1 make sure you're building a tree of knowledge!

Identify the different parts of the tree with the trunk as strongest to understand the fundamental principles, e.g. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or else there is nothing for them to hang on to.

'Rule #2 you can't remember what you can't connect!

Whatever he works on, he's super ambitious like setting up SpaceX to go to the Moon/Mars. Before then, he needed more funding and so he tried to identify connections of this project with the rest of all the companies he set up to finally sort out his funding challenges. 

Like any new system, get a solid hold of the foundation and link it properly, it'll grow exponentially!

 

This Facebook news program quoted Henry Ford''s statement which reads, 'If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.'

Then, the key anchor, Khun Rawit Hanutsaha (Srichand CEO) added on Elon Musk's'"first principle thinking", giving an example that it was like building a rocket which must not be based on NASA's investments. Rather, Elon would ask how to build one, what components did it need? How much would each component cost? He doesn't care to see what others have done which ends up having his own products much cheaper than NASA. 

First principle thinking to think anew as if we were the first to do it could be powerful!

How do you like his thinking ka? what lessons have you learned mai ka?

Happy weekend ka. 

Values check exercise

 Hello all. Time flies fast especially when I feel quite busy ka....anyone shares this feeling mai ka?

For this weekend, I have a little exercise for you all to think and do ka. This is what I drew from a book summary I listened to entitled, 'The Blueprint' by Douglas R. Conant and Amy Federman, 2020 ka. There's one section the authors mentioned about one's values and I think this is a very good way to learn more about our own selves by ourselves and from our close circle ka. 

Here's how you can do it following these steps I created na ka:

Personal	Professional	History

1. Fill in the blanks with 2 names under each column..... the persons who you consider are your idols/role models. 

- Personal and Professional.....leading the life/ways /work you admire ...only for the History are those already passed ka. 

2. Identify common qualities under each column and then across the columns

3. See what qualities/values stand out

4. Share with your close circle without giving your own analysis and ask them what they think from 2-3 ka.

5. Collect all to come up with your own complete version as wished ka.

I did it and amazingly I learned about myself how I care for gender balance, futuristic leadership, selfless leaders, and simple ways of life ka. Yesterday, my former colleague who knew my list said it seemed to be 'servant leadership'.....I got one more to add and sure will ask around to get more ka.

Hope you'll try na ka.

Happy Friday ka.