HR Talk for GSM5500 July 2012

The new rule of the Graduate School of Management has required a practitioner to be called in for a talk every trimester. I am thrilled by this of course. Personally, any efforts to bridge the industry and the academic are always welcomed and appreciated. This trimester, the speaker was En Ramli Atan from Petronas Leadership Centre. It had been a good session that attracted interesting questions from the audience. In terms of the Centre, I am very grateful for their commitment up to a point that three speakers actually came instead of one. Wow! Thank you also to En Mohamed Rosli Abd Hamid and En Mohd Fuad Ahmad for the information shared. As for the students, thank you for making the time to come. I hope you gained a lot from the talk.

Latest Initiative by CWAM

Message from the President

CWAM was established in 1986 after some members from the first few workshops on case writing felt that there was a need for such an association. They valued the skills that had been imparted by the trainer and felt strongly the need for an organized movement to generate and enhance the use of local management cases.

Trainers and educationists in management who use cases for their choice of pedagogy see the need for good and effective cases. They also know that to use cases from text books which in most cases are foreign, are not an ideal situation. Translating them into a local scenario would not be easy and appropriate either. However, many use it as the last resort.

Since its establishment, our main objective is still to increase the number of Malaysian cases to be used for education and training. This is done through conducting workshops and seminars on case writing and related activities so as to increase the number of skilled case-writers. With an increased number and the right incentives, we feel that they can then start on a journey to write cases that are relevant to their needs.

It also took quite a while for the local academic institutions to recognize case writing as an academic exercise. But slowly and surely, most university authorities have finally acknowledged and have given it due recognition. Today cases are found in many management journals and there are some journals which solely cater for cases.

CWAM has been conducting Case writing workshops regularly through its public programmes or upon institutional requests. Our drive to increase memberships through graduates from such workshops will continue and hopefully will assist in making the overall objective a success. We also invite writers/trainers to submit written cases and if they are approved, they will be included in our list for sharing with potential users. The details are in our 'publication and services' icon of this website. Publication of case texts in the form of a book or a journal will be considered in our next phase of development.

Source: http://www.cwam.org.my/

The latest CWAM initiative is a Case writing Workshop 2012 to be held in September and October. If you are a person who like to combine academic writing and short story writing, then perhaps you should consider attending this workshop. Kindly cut and paste this link https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BzSx6-3BKR2yS2NMU1BGLUxNUmM for the registration form.

The Srory of Sugar and Salt

I was in a middle of training yesterday when suddenly the conversation I had with the participants reminded me of a story told by my father. All these years, that story still continues to have an impression on me although I doubt it was written anywhere. I guess it was just a story that my father conjured up in his mind. He is good at those...inventing stories. I thought it is nice to finally share the story. According to my father, ‘Long ago there was a girl that lives in a village. One day, her father gave her two similar bowls with two equal amounts of coins for a simple task to buy sugar and salt. While making her way to the shop, she suddenly realized that she was not sure of which coin was meant to buy the sugar, and which coin was for the salt. She then ran home and asked her father about it. Her father said 'You can use either one my child. They are the same.' Satisfied, she started to walk back to the shop. Along the way, she again became confused on which bowl she would need to put the sugar and which bowl was for the salt. Again, she went home and asked her father. And again her father said,’ You can use either one my child. They are the same.' Feeling comforted by the father's assurance, she made her way back to the shop. On her way, another thought suddenly dawned on her. She did not know which hand should she used to hold the bowl of sugar, and which hand should she used to hold the bowl of salt. For the third time she ran back to the house. Her father told her once again, 'You can use either one my child. They are the same.' Only after that she managed to finally arrive at the shop and made her purchases. What is the morale of this story? Well, for me it is about being confident and independent in making decisions. But of course you might think differently. All I can say is that the story has been with me for a long time. Although it is not famous, it still has a very deep meaning to me. Thank you abah…for sharing with me the story.

Be Seeing You.

At the end of every semester, I will always feel a bit blue, saddened by the end of my classes, saddened by not seeing the familiar faces of my students. Well, time moves on. Next semester will be another adventure. To all my students, I hope success will always be yours one day. No matter how bad the situations are, please remember that the true hero is and always be within you. Believe in yourself and you will be able to fly.

There's a hero, If you look inside your heart, You don't have to be afraid, Of what you are, There's an answer, If you reach into your soul, And the sorrow that you know, Will melt away. And then a hero comes along, With the strength to carry on, And you cast your fears aside, And you know you can survive, So when you feel like hope is gone, Look inside you and be strong, And you'll finally see the truth, That a hero lies in you."

Hero by Mariah Carey.

A Teacher at Heart.

Tuan Haji Yaakob Ibrahim started his journey with UPM in 1981. Since then, he has been friends, teachers and mentors to many. His passion in teaching and learning is what drives him to contribute to this university for more than 30 years. As for me, he is a living example of what knowledge sharing is all about. He is a people-oriented leader by heart and that is what makes his teaching in Human Resource and Organizational Behavior believable and real. Thank you Tuan Haji for your selfless efforts all these years although in truth, no words would be enough to express my appreciation.

"If we fail to get something that we want, don't look back and regret." Tn Hj Yaakob, 08 May 2012.