Youth as global multicultural influencers

 Hello all. As some of you may know, I've just become a member of the John F. Kennedy Board in Thailand. Several days ago, we had an event to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the JFK Foundation at the JFK Library, Prince of Songkla University, Pattani campus.

Besides the professional setup of the exhibition and the trendy clips, there was a panel discussion on, 'Youth as global multicultural influencers'. The panelists consisted of Ajarn Diyaporn-Nok, a Fulbright alum teaching at Thaksin U; Ajarn Fuadi Pitsuwan (Khun Surin's son) who's a visiting fellow at Chiang Mai U; and Mr. Muhammad Maseng, President of the PSU Pattani student club; moderated by Dr. Bordin Wealateh, Vice President for Student Development, Pattani Campus.

I'd like to share some of the key points I got from the discussion ka.

- The discussion was managed with the very capable moderator to capture key points and make follow-on questions (with a fine sense of humor too ka!).

- Ajarn Fuadi asked the meeting to prioritize individual identity from race/ethnicity, religion, language , nation, gender, jobs, online self. It turned out the top 3 were race/ethnicity, religion, language ka. The result could be different depending on the nature of the audience. 

I myself was surprised not to think about race/ethnicity much at all even I'm of Chinese descent. Anyway, I thought about it after a short while and it got into my 4th priority ka. What about yours ka?

- Respect for diversity and open-mindedness have been high on the sharing from the three. By being so, everyone learns much more for more harmonious coexistence. After all, respect others as human beings.

- Some terms like nationalism vs patriotism, language proficiency vs idea excellence were raised for definitions, trend projections, and self improvement.

- Going out into the world through reading, volunteering, and courage to get out of the comfort zone is encouraged to expand perceptions and understand real-life issues. This could help all feel more empathized, have more friends regardless of age and differences, etc.

- Everyone could be an influencer and all can start from doing some little things that would mean a lot to the communities.

- Skills needed are: privilege awareness (knowing that each of us has some privileges in life over others like access to higher education), public responsibility, professionalism, provocative mindset, dare to mingle in the real world, ability to appreciate people, open-mindedness to lessen bias, flexibility.

I heard often about 'No man is an island.' but I never knew it's a poem by John Donne. It's so touching to teach us about empathy as one kind human being ka....  death of anyone, known or unknown, brings sorrow to our hearts.

This was one wonderful session to enhance us as quality human beings for a better multicultural world of ours loei ka.

Advice from 'How Leaders Learn'

 Monday morning hello ka, everyone!

Earlier, I shared with you my first book review, 'The Diary of a CEO' for the Learn Plern Plern podcast. It went a little longer than expected from 2 to 3 episodes ka. Timing was kind of right as the author, Steven Bartlett, came to Thailand for Woody's event....5555! it didn't have any influence on the book review kraaa!

Anyway, I worked on my second (and last for now) one favorite book entitled,'How Leaders Learn' by David Novak and Lari Bishop. As I'm his podcast fan to listen to quite a few interviews of world leaders, this book has given me more stories and advice to pick up. This book goes for 4 episodes for my podcast and I had to delete several things I wanted to include. So I choose to share them with you along with several other key messages ka.

Here they are na ka:

-- David Novak coins the term 'active learner' (not avid learners) for leaders to mean those who not only are curious and enjoy learning, but they put what they've learned into practice ka.

Many of us tend to be only avid learners.....learned and done mai ka?

-- David stresses for us to simplify our efforts in 3 areas: 'simplify your strategy, purpose, or mission; simplify your communication; and simplify the situation, circumstances, or approach down to the essentials of success.'

The author wrote this book using simple language with lots of great stories ka. Sanuk mak!

-- Learning has to be fun and joyful! When he reflects on views from world leaders, this is what he found ka: 'Learning is their mindset, their differentiating skill, and their approach to life and the world.' 

He shares the 3 essential building blocks or behaviors:

1. They learn from anybody and any experience that has something new, interesting, or valuable to offer.

2. They learn to maintain an open, curious mind and positive relationships, and 

3. They learn by doing the things that need doing or that will make the biggest difference.

I wish our higher education system would focus on nurturing learning mindset, opening up the world, and enhancing reflection habits, keeping these building blocks in mind ka.

-- What is most important is people and his strong belief is 'Taking people with you!', meaning that give (good and capable) people's matters a higher priority over profits and rankings. His actions include recognition as culture, deep listening to understand situations and build trust, caring and giving, etc. 

Lots to share and if you're interested to hear fun and touching stories, please listen to the Learn Plern Plern podcast episodes to start tomorrow ka.

I'm done with two book reviews as intended and I think it'll be a longer while to do it again for several reasons ka: get the books I really enjoy reading, and have some time to think back and synthesize from the big picture for key messages of my preference.

Learning from Transformation Game

Good day ka! I attended a 2-day workshop on 'Transformation Game' this past weekend.

Wish to share with you the following ka:

1. Transformation Game (TG) is a board game developed and used to help us know ourselves better from our ways of life to our potential, relationship, and pain healing. 

It started from my niece who was interested and asked me if I'd join in. I agreed without delay though at first I was hesitant as I thought it would involve some board game skills (I sure lack them almost completely ka.) The thing is this game only needs us to bring our true self to the session and the facilitator will lead us to complete the mission ka.

2. The TG requires that we set our two specific aims (one to get and one to give) so as to proceed with the game having one aim to achieve for a better focus and learning ka.

As one board game allows up to 4 players to occupy each corner, it is kind of special to share in a smaller circle. We had 3 in our group with the fourth as our facilitator ka. It was really helpful as we were reminded to look back at our aim, especially the 'get' one when moving forward after rolling the dice with some specific instructions, both for individuals and the whole team.

3. Prayers and celebrations happened along the way, making me feel that life needs mindfulness, recognition, and support in one form or another na ka.

4. I love that the group had our angel guardian which was 'responsibility' and individual angel guardians.....mine were 'awakening' and 'simplicity'. I noticed that the angels each player got seemed to fit them perfectly loei la ka.

We also ended the game with one more pick for our 'pocket angel' who will go with us anywhere and mine is 'Adventure', which I interpreted as 'I'll continue to have my work and life journey with some new and unknown projects coming their way' ka.

5. With the facilitator, the game proceeded smoothly and I couldn't help admiring her ka. This is a real complicated board game and she sure managed it very well ka.

6. I learned about myself and from others that:

       - As humans, we all are vulnerable so accept it, live with it, and so we need to forgive ourselves and others when doing something wrong too.

       - We should offer our help when others need it, meaning that when we want to do it, ask the other if he/she wants to take it up ka.

       - Bias is when we judge, using our own 'scale' that may not meet with the background story and contexts of others.

       - When one is very systematic, there's a tendency to be distant from using our intuition or other emotional/mental/spiritual strengths to cope with issues.

       - 'Fear' and 'Guilt' are natural. It could be regarded as positive for both could have 'love' in it ka.

7. Reflection has been an integral component that enables us to look into ourselves, our stories, and our aims while offering our perspectives about other players to add to their consideration about their own selves ka.

8. I also learned how to craft good questions like, 'What is your understanding about this card?', 'How does it link with your aim and with any story to share?', 'How do you think you would solve it?', and 'What if....?

It's another workshop that opened my mind to different sets of learning ka.

Me a book reviewer, possible?

These days when I was planning on what to do next for my podcast shows, I was advised to do book reviews since I finished reading two recently (after a long while of reading only magazines articles and more on listening/watching youtube ka)

So, let me share with you what I've done with the first book, 'The Diary of a CEO' by Steven Bartlett ka.

In brief, I like the book because of the fun stories shared. I also like the design to read more easily: short chapters,  bolded sentences, one page with handwritten keywords, and hand-drawn pictures ka.

For the key learnings, here they are ka:

- Self-story is ours, not others!

Self-story must be from our own self search, not from what others tell us about us or what the society expects from us.

One sentence can be so negatively powerful ka. The author said when he was learning to swim at the age of 8, one boy said to him, 'Did you know Black people can't swim.' Took him 18 years after that to get over it and know how to ka!

- Think bolding and differently

The author started his marketing career in his early 20's and invested lots on his office, especially a huge slider to go down to a ball pool from the mezzanine instead of stairs. It was a blast!

- Little things mean a lot

One barber made his last check walking around his client's head with his 'final trim'. Even when he cuts nothing (more often than not), the client would be pleased to feel that the barber takes very good care of the haircut.

- Three levels of learning

 Yogi Bhajan is quoted which read, ‘If you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it.’ 

- Be a rebel:))!.... my own term ka!

The author shares ideas that go against what we know and do. For example, don't have a backup plan (so we're truly focused lae ka!) or you must be an inconsistent leader (to treat people according to their potential), or you must never disagree (to tackle the issues together not to fight against each other)

- Pressure and stress

He quotes a response of Billie Jean King, world known tennis champion how she handled people's expectations of her. She said, ‘Pressure is a privilege—it only comes to those that earn it.’

Lots more from the book and I could come up with 3 episodes ka. 

What I wrote here is drawn from a few points I gathered for the podcast ka. Only one is on and two others will follow. Let me share the first with you in case you wish to listen to na ka: 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/22wRUnCwZFTZEuQfHAv6x7?si=1e171135a13c49dc

Happy long weekend ka.

Happy conference with substantive outputs

 Swasdee kaa, everyone.

The past Thursday and Friday, our little team and I had an opportunity to conduct our designed sessions and workshops in an event organized by Prince of Songkla University, hosted for the annual conference of Council of University Presidents of Thailand (CUPT) and Council of Rector of Indonesian State University (CRISU).

For the context na ka: the theme was on, 'Charting the Path to Sustainable Universities: A Holistic Approach to ESG Integration', which sounded challenging. In fact, what was more challenging during our planning was how to make sure most (Presidents/VPs and deans.....students may have the tendency to be present) would stay on after the opening and how to engage the two sides (Thai and Indonesian Presidents, Deans and Students) to have productive and fun time with actionable results from joint learning and sharing. Each group went to their own breakout rooms and the exercises were similar. Our team had to play by ear once we met with the participants ka. We also had an ambitious plan to capture gists from the three groups, synthesize and crystallize key points into one big picture on a huge 8 wide x3 high m canvas, which we called, 'synergy tank'. 

We were lucky in a few ways ka:

- Fullest-est-est support from PSU, both high level and working teams (esp. key coordinators)

- Highly capable young co-facilitators from a national project of MHESI called, 'WiNS', who were prompt to fill in the gaps seen even when there was no definite division of labor

- The majority of presidents, deans, and their reps were present and most stayed on till the end. Yayyyyyyyy!

Lessons learned from this event:

- Alignment, communication, mindsetting games bring better results!

Nothing could stand on its own from keynote speeches to workshop and conclusion.  The design was crafted to make sure that all sessions were aligned. A slide to communicate the whole picture of the two days including what to expect from both the participants and this conference. 

Communication also included voices from all participants. In addition, we started from having two games for them to play and heard that the two set their minds free with fun, ready for subsequent discussions ka.

- 'Play by ear' and 'expect the unexpected' helped practice our mindfulness and boost our flexibility

As we couldn't really know how many participants in each group would show up plus what key topics voted for before lunch, we were really alert to come up with numbers of subgroups and managed workshop materials as fast as possible. In my president group, we also cut short our planned process since we felt their attention span was already used up ka! Happy to say, though, that their wonderful participation surprised us ka. 

- 'Authority is really something!'

Reflection of our team enhances lots of learning for me ka. I'm reminded that being in different contexts shapes people's thoughts and behaviors. 

            -- For me, being at the ministerial level made me feel quite comfortable to work with university senior leaders as I consider them 'partners' not 'bosses'. I wasn't really aware before that those in the university would have more hesitance when conducting a workshop for their 'bosses'.

           -- From the 'dean' group, to make sure that those who represented their deans could feel comfortable, our team asked them to 'wear invisible dean jackets' for them to participate fully without feeling awkward ka.

           -- Our three groups of presidents, deans, and students clearly showed their focuses according to their roles, namely, presidents leaning more on policies with much fewer activities, deans playing a tough role of accommodating and coordinating with both the senior leaders and students, and students for more activity-led thoughts and actions.

- Stories to share

              -- We had a jigsaw puzzle game which worked effectively. Each small group would be given different numbers of jigsaw pieces and only one question was asked, 'what kind of animal is it?' For my president group, we got a penguin box ka. Just one group got the complete pieces of the penguin head which would be much easier to guess than others. We saw a group intentionally choose the fewest and another chose the opposite. Most of them worked within their own group to guess what could be the answer. We in fact, put the jigsaw box and paper showing the jigsaw picture on the stage where they could see clearly if wished. We were surprised not to see much mobility across any group so our conclusion was a series of questions to them: why no collaboration?, why silo?, why no further info searching like looking around or from the phone? One answer hit me and I think hit them too.....'we were busy and working hard!'.......we didn't have time to discuss this response much but it sure reflected the real situations for many ka. We hope the group learned some key lessons ka.

              -- The students were amazed to know that all the three main groups went through the same games and discussed the same issues as voted. It was a surprise to me to hear it ka. Kids may have thought of being given different things most of the time. This event, it seemed they could feel included with the same assigned tasks. Knowing this makes it easier to think of more effective communication strategies and decide inclusive activities in the future to offer similar activities that could draw various perspectives.

              -- Another story was about students' responses when asking about their learning from the conference. I asked 6-7 Thai kids and most took long to think of an answer....only one classic answer was given, which was 'having new friends'. We do need to have reflection sessions so they can think further and respond faster mai ka. 

Anyway, one CMU student's response made me proud ka. She said it helped her understand the roles in the university more clearly when thinking of university leaders and faculty. For example, When the topic of curriculum development was chosen, she saw no need to discuss it. Yet, after the workshop she asked herself, 'if the faculty and administrators didn't think about it, who would!'

Our team together with several PSU key senior leaders helped capture key points, summarize them according to the three groups' outputs and synthesize all into one big picture to put into our synergy tank....this part did take longer than expected but it turned out to stun the participants for they would have the results about ESG to work on within their own and across universities plus through the CUPT-CRISU platform. PSU announced its initiative to get started.... proactive and timely mak ka.

Hope it sets the new chapter for this partnership to be even more solid with key substance for many actionable projects to come. Can't help but add one more thing ka: we included on the canvas the loop of M-E-L-I for them to make sure that monitoring and evaluation that draw learning must be integrated in the big picture for missions to align and vision to be reached ka.

              

Relieved and relaxed I am laew kaaa!