Day 4 Reflection: The round pegs in the square holes

Day Four, Chiang Mai. The day begun with us heading to Chiang Mai University for a Lecture. Following the lecture done by the resident professor, the dean of the political science school came in where she gave a short introduction about herself. What stood out the most to me when she introduced herself was when she mentioned that she was working together with the Chiang Mai government to promote entrepreneurship in Chiang Mai. It reminded me of my friend, the Chief Strategist Officer (CSO) at CARE Positioning System in Singapore. CARE Positioning System is a social enterprise designed to help companies and schools make their CSR or volunteering efforts more sustainable. I recalled that he was heading a new initiative under CARE which was to help local SMEs to branch abroad by promoting entrepreneurship to help their branding. With Prof Ora-Orn’s contact, I hope to be able to link both parties up in the hopes of a possible collaboration in Chiang Mai. Hopefully, I would be able to offer my help in anyway should a joint venture come about.

We then went for lunch before heading back to the hotel for the Amazing Race planned by the leadership committee. I found the way the planning of the activity conducted great, especially how the tone was set at the start. The most memorable activity was when we had to pick out traits which we thought resonated most with us before being used to look at those traits to see if they were leadership or management traits. We also had to come up with an interesting quote regarding coffee and together, we thought of using Steve Job’s Crazy Ones quotes- adapted for coffee lovers. Overall, the whole activity allowed me to see more clearly the different aspects of leadership I had read in books such as 21 Laws of Leadership and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. More importantly, it also showed me that there was a very long way ahead of me to becoming a better leader.

“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant”. – Warren Buffett