Collaboration, trust, and leadership

 Hope the weekend allowed you to relax and that you all are ready for Monday ka.

I have some little life experience of a senior leader to share with you ka.

Last week, I had a chance to have dinner with one senior leader-good friend from ASEAN and his experience collaborating with a western university. I got the following from our conversation and my further thoughts ka:

• Trust and respect are the keys to enter a longer term of collaboration......read MOU carefully.
• The two sides must  have an equal share in funding, and in any case, definitely not one-sided.
• Understand the local culture so as not to impose one's own onto the partner.
• Younger gens are influenced by social media and world trends. They too need to have some orientations of local contexts and values.
• End the collaboration before it gets far too long and more serious to manage.
• Ranking doesn't mean that much to the development of our higher education institutions (so don't go crazy about it!).
• The government and ministries concerned must envision the changing world trends and required skills to prepare universities and people well in advance and play a key role to direct and support them.
• It's a must for faculty members to enhance knowledge and skills in what the trends require......internships for faculty could be one best way ka.
• In crisis, leaders have to stay focused, look into the future, and weigh the best options for their key stakeholders. This includes management of expectations of our younger gens.
• ASEAN has increased its significant role in the world scene. We must strengthen our relationships to work as one ASEAN team with our ASEAN Values intact.
• Before then, it's time for our Thai higher education institutions to be one same team on one shared future for our kids, people, country, and ASEAN ka.....sorry to say it's so frustrating to see our universities compete against one another and hesitant to share their key learnings. It's more painful when some welcome foreign institutions, especially the West  and selected East, with open arms.

Any comments mai ka?