Hello all. I just got back from a workshop/learning session held for International Relations Officers (IROs) by CUPT (Council of Thai University Presidents)in Pattaya. I had a role in jointly designing the whole event with my little 'TPop Plus' team and representatives of CUPT, i.e. Vice Presidents/Assistant to the Presidents for international relations from Mahidol, Mae Fah Luang, and Prince of Songkla universities.
The one and a half day event covered two big pictures on national policies, internationalization (IZN), and three separate workshops on the first day discussing three themes on, 'Now', 'Next', and 'New'....for IROs to share their thoughts on what they've been doing, next steps of improvement, and transformative actions as future-ready missions. The three groups were blended to form another three groups to share learnings and work on the final outcomes to present to three senior leaders-turn-commentators for comments and additions.
My session was to integrate what they learned and the steps forward, including world trends, relationships with bosses, and networking approaches.
Naturally, the participants were mixed in terms of years of experiences, goals and directions of universities, and their own capabilities. In any case, my general observations and learnings are:
- Gaps between senior leaders and IRO teams persist, creating misunderstanding, pain, and motivation to work toward the same goals. It also means generational mindsets are different and haven't been well-taken up.
- A good number of IROs have various and diverse talents that their senior management hasn't realized....even IROs themselves have yet to reflect and excel.
- Top down approaches are still (far too)common while bottom-up initiatives need to be empowered.
- Quite a few stay passive or reactive (out of fear as well), partly because of the institutional environments and because of their own less curious selves.
- Some ideas on what they wanted to learn after this event includes relationship building with bosses, communication and networking, geopolitics and global mindset, meaningful IROs and recognition, work and time management, to mention but a few.
If IROs are empowered and they themselves try to reach their highest potential by being future-ready, our universities sure will thrive with hope and prosperity.
Any comments popped up to share with me mai ka?
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