Happy start of 2024 with 'Excellence'

 Happy New Year ka, everyone! Hope this year has started nicely for you and your loved ones ka.

As you may notice from the subject when the word 'Excellence' is with a capital 'E'! It's the title of the book I read written by Kevin and Rosie Duncan ka.

It's an easy read and I'd like to share a few from my highlights:

- Like this quote by Will Durant, historian, after Aristotle which reads, 'We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.' 

- ....we are happier, more productive human beings if we are working in line with our values. This confirms how important 'values' are to our lives and it made me go back to review my values table and they stay the same whcih are learning, caring and sharing, and gratitude. Yours la ka?

- One story that hit me hard is about a British poet, Simon Armitage who returned to his hometown to a second-hand bookshop. There, he found his own book with his own handwriting that reads, 'To Mum and Dad'. This chapter was discussing, 'No one else is interested'. 

What pops up in your mind ka? Could be quite a few reasons but it sure tells us not to think too much when we're being judged. In fact, I was thinking that it also tells us not to judge too fast as well mai ka?

- Memories and experiences over materials that make us happy. Experiences offer us a long lasting memory and create deeper bond.! We could offer more pleasant experiences ka.

- Stress (proper level, I think) could be healthy too ka. It could be the best friend of progress and forward motion.

- I like these two simple questions to ask ourselves once in a while ka, 'are we doing too much or too little? and 'would it help?', reminding us to be more aware of issues, our approaches, and our state of mind na ka.

- Interesting stats ka: Many adults with children estimate that about 70-80% of their children's dialogues were made up of questions while among the adults, the estimate was 15-25%.....need to ask many more na ka!

- Learn to embrace uncertainty and choose to follow the power of acceptance sometimes. 

Anything you like in particular mai ka?

May your 2024 continue with excellence as your happy habit ka.

Bye bye to 2023

 Dear all, how do you feel this is the last week of 2023 ka? Any of you is like me mai ka, feeling it's gone by so very fast?

The other day, I attended a workshop on, 'The Flow of Life', which led us to look at each phase of our life from 0-21 (phase of 'Who Am I?'  to 21-42 (stage of 'I will become') and 42-63 (phase of 'I am here' ....5555! for me it's over 63 kraaa!) It told me that my life mission is education and support those in the circle.

I sure confirm how reflection has helped us learn more about our own selves and our 'mission' in life ka.

When I looked back, the following are my learning and feelings ka:

- It has been one productive year with many activities, both work and personal ka. I feel grateful to stay quite healthy to be with my family and friends from near and far, to observe how our faculties have been exceling using edPEx. I'm also thankful for being invited to share my experiences, moderate sessions, and conduct some workshops. In particular, this year, my little group and I found that our designed workshop could be helpful for individuals and group members to know more about themselves and their colleagues, their own and organization's values, and their mindsets. We'll continue to improve the activities to make the session more useful ka.

- About my podcast mission, it goes on smoothly and regularly with topics that may ignite some interest ka....still have very little ambition to get more 'likes' and 'shares' and I plan to do it as long as I feel happy about the process with my wonderful network's support. 

- I managed to learn quite a bit from online courses, youtube clips,  podcasts and reading ka. It's again confirmed my keen interest in leadership, feeling so sanuk every time I hear some leaders' stories.

On the whole,2023 is one of the years I feel great ka.

For this passing year, what have you done and how do you feel about it ka? 

Have a very happy year-end celebration and fun reflection with more energy and healthy self to enjoy life in 2024 na ka.

Happy holidays ka.

Small and meaningful story

 Hello all! Are you in the festive mood....and looking forward to many parties and gift exchanges mai ka?

 

Have a story to share ka.

It started with a desk calendar I can spare so I thought of giving it to a cab driver as some may not have got any yet.

I was hoping to offer to those who love Nailuang to appreciate it even better. Didn't think it was the right person maak ka

Through the Robinhood platform, I got a cab driver (about late 40's) yesterday. He told me to look at his meter which had a 20-baht note with King Rama 9 attached to it. I didn't think much about it but his actions were beyond expectations. 

He said he was teary to see the calendar pix. What was more was that at each traffic light which happened to be more red than green, he started reading out loud all the descriptions on the calendar. 

As the GPS advised him to use the expressway, he told me not to worry because he'd pay the fee for me! He insisted as well ka. He also showed me that each of his car's two sun visors have a 100- baht banknote with Nailuang portrait. I got quite a few wais and thanks from him too.

I couldn't believe that one calendar could bring so much joy to him and definitely me ka.

I did pay him for the expressway and he loved it as it was the older banknote with King Rama 9 image ka.

Future Cultures

 Dear all, I'd like to share key points I've drawn from the most recent book I read, entitled, 'Future Cultures: How to Build a Future-ready Organization through Leadership' by Scott Smith and Susan Cox-Smith ka. 

What I like most are:

1. The model on 'How to Future' consists of framing, sensing, tuning and rethinking strategy, sense-making, scenarios, storytelling, prototyping innovations, and assessing. 

For me,  sensing and sense-making are the two key elements hanging on my mind when thinking about what I got from this book ka. I think if we read, listen, think and discuss enough, sensing the future could be easier ka.

2. Leadership at the top, collective, and individual levels  is needed to create and nurture one's organization. We need to invite and encourage it to shirt practices, rituals, and ways of communication to be more future-oriented ka.

3. We become less afraid of the future if we can 'understand different explanations of and methods for imagining the future'.

4. Identify workforce with these qualities to team up for future-oriented efforts ka...those who are curious, aware of a wider view of the world, open-minded, adaptable, entrepreneurial, empathetic, comfortable with uncertainty, attuned to impacts, and systems thinker.

Which qualities will be hardest to find in our/yourThai context ka?

5.  Besides key people, context, organizational ecosystem, networks, communication, collaboration, actions are crucial to move toward future cultures.

6. Even with quite a number of things to do to keep the momentum going, what I find most essential are: alignment with organizational purpose and values; inclusion, communication in local language, and trial and errors to learn and build on.

7ึ. Four futures of future cultures are 2 for human-centered, i.e. Humans are the loop and Collaborative commons; and 2 for AI-centered, namely, Algorithmic agora, and Digital deliberation.

Each has its strengths and requirements which again depend on contexts, expertise, and directions of the organizations

When mentioning about 'future-ready', Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai just said in the recent Standard Economic Forum that we should call it 'present-ready'......room for discussion ka. In fact for me, when calling it present-ready, we may put efforts to solve current issues with insufficient attention and actions for the future ka.

As a person who loves 'future studies', I hope to see more leaders find this matter crucial to the vision, strategic thinking/directions and sustainability, of the organizations. It can be an integral part of their strategic planning and implementation (and move further from incremental, routine efforts to solve immediate problems). Like many other key issues, before then, leaders would need to 'buy in' to take it seriously to get started ka.

What do you think ka?

Taco Bell Leadership

 Hello everyone! Hope you've started a great Monday ka.

I just listened to one of my favorite podcast programs, 'How Leaders Lead with David Novak', on air since November 30, 2023. It was so interesting that I had to tune in again to jot down some key points ka.

It was an interview with Mark King, CEO of Taco Bell who is retiring at the end of this year ka. Earlier on, he was from the golf and footwear industries.

Let me share some of the things I like ka:

- His passion about Taco Bell is really something ka. At one point, he shaved the Taco Bell logo into the side of his head (stayed with him for months to show he was really 'in' ka!) at a Taco Bell Annual Convention. He said 'if you don't really love the brand, it's hard to lead the brand.'

Not in the Thai context to shave the logo like him?  Possible to see it some time?

- The biggest challenge for him in the food industry is complacency. It occurs when we work on the products that are seen successful for many years so people could simply do what they're doing. In addition, the workforce must be emotionally attached 

Are we complacent or emotionally attached to our work ka?

- Chase for something extraordinary with big aspirations  as we can't possibly go for incremental growth to be on the status quo. 

I couldn't help thinking of our universities when talking about the speedy world changes. Yet, it doesn't seem we get it seriously and run faster enough mai ka?

- Disrupt one's own self before somebody will come in to do it faster and better. His story was to produce white golf drivers when golfers only used to have black!

Daring not to follow the industry norms (after asking around before making the decision) kaa!

- Unlocking the potential of the people is what great leaders do. 

Again, how far can our university leaders take this up ka?

Let me stop here before it's too long ka.