DESIGN THINKING – PERFECT TOOL TO PUT YOUR PLAN INTO ACTIONS

Is your planning technique effective? 

 

Do you find yourself always exhausted, racing to meet your deadlines at the last minute? Do you plan your life carefully and keep track of time well, but still struggle to get your job done on time? Don’t be surprised if you are, because you are not the only person in this world who fell into the planning fallacy mindset without realizing it. 

 

The Planning Fallacy was first introduced by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979. They proposed that human beings are not very good at estimating time, costs and risk to complete certain tasks, even if we have the right experience in doing such tasks. This results from only focusing on a prediction, based on specific elements of a plan, rather than the distributional data. This leads to tasks not being completed on time because the individual underestimates what is needed for the deadline to be met. Furthermore, we can be overly optimistic about ourselves, in that we believe that we have enough time to complete tasks. Consequently, this means that the individual makes excuses for poor time-keeping. 

Design thinking is one of the most effective ways in which a person can overcome this struggle in planning and executing what has been planned. Design thinking is a human-centric concept to help people design their own solution by digging into the root causes and solving them. It is time to spend your time tailoring your own plan for the new year. 

 

STAGE 1: EMPATHIZE – WHO ARE YOU?

Understanding yourself is easier said than done, but it is time to take a seat, to have a self-talk, to identify your strengths and weaknesses as well as to clarify your short-term and long-term goals. 

There are 4 questions you should ask yourself. Try to answer as honestly and clearly as possible:

  1. What strengths make you proud of yourself? 
  2. What weaknesses make you lose your opportunities? 
  3. Now, what do you want to change? 
  4. What is your dream for the future? 

 

Do not answer in general like “I want to improve my English level” instead, make it specific and measurable like “I want to achieve IELTS 6.5 in the next 6 months”. The more details you give, the deeper you will understand yourself. Such types of answers will make your plan more practical and more suitable to yourself, therefore making it easier for you to implement the plan. 

 

TIP: Consider asking your parents, your relatives, your co-workers or whoever in this world that you believe understands you, and ask for their opinions. This will help to avoid a subjective understanding about yourself or an illustration of yourself that you created. 

The goal for this stage is to dig into who you are, to learn and to explore more about yourself. 

 

STAGE 2: DEFINE – WHAT DID YOU DO? 

After learning about yourself, your next step is to reflect on what you did last year by answering the following 3 questions: 

 

  1. Which goals/tasks did you complete in the last year? 
  2. Which goals/tasks did you plan but fail? 
  3. Which goals/tasks did you reschedule ?

 

Next steps: List down all of the reasons both subjectively and objectively that you think led to the failure of task completions. This will enable you to find a method that avoids procrastination in implementing the plan in the new year. There are many methods to help solve your procrastination and to reschedule the task completion on time, which may come from internal or external factors. For example, you may feel that if  sharing your plan on social media or with close friends will motivate you to achieve your goals. Or you may challenge yourself with punishments and rewards. Whatever you choose to do, just make sure that it will boost your must-do attitude meaning that no delay or procrastination is allowed. 

STAGE 3: IDEATION – WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS?

In this stage, you should keep calm and relax, let your mind wander to write down your goals: what do you want to improve or what you want to change? Where do you want to travel? How many books or what kinds of books do you want to read this year? Do not forget to think about your dream. Just write them down in your journal or whatever place you feel safe. Don’t worry if it may look a little bit messy on your paper, I will help you arrange it later. 

One important note you should bear in mind is that your techniques should help you to overcome your procrastination, which you have listed in the ‘Stage Two: Define’. Ideation will be the foundation to enable you to implement the method successfully, thus try to make it as precise as possible. 

STAGE 4: PROTOTYPE – PUT YOUR GOALS INTO PLAN 

Design thinking is the solution-orientated and action-orientated step in which you must focus on finding actionable solutions. Thus this stage is the most important in the planning process. In this stage, you will put all your goals and activities into a detailed plan. 

  • Categorize your goals and actions:

The first step is to divide your goals into 3 smaller categories: 

  1. Personal Development: The goals or actions that will help you nurture your personal growth.
  2. Study/Work: The goals and actions that will lead you to your career path.
  3. Family/Friends: The goals and actions that will strengthen your relationships. 

The more correctly categorized and prioritized these goals are, the easier the next steps will be. 

 

  • Strategic plan 

 

These previous parts will be evaluated again in time length and importance in order to categorize them into short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. This step requires a lot of effort and careful thinking so as to avoid mistakes. The following is one technique that I find easy to apply. 

Firstly, start with the axis of abscissas, you put all the goals in this axis. Arrange these goals based on its level of importance and affection to yourself. 

After that, you will use the axis of ordinate to evaluate the difficulty level, time and effort in each goal. The more difficult the goal is, the more time you spend, thus you can move this goal to a higher position. 

For example, if your goal is to achieve IELTS 6.5 in 2020, to me it is a medium difficulty level and it is also important. Thus my graph will be like this:

As you see the strategic plan graph divides into 3 parts:

Part 1 – Short-term and easy goals that you can finish in 3-6 months 

Part 2 – Medium-term and average difficult goals that take longer time about 6-18 months to complete. 

Part 3 – Long-term and difficult goals but not urgent goals which you can finish in 2-3 years. 

Put your goals into these 3 sections and the goals, which are in the Part 1 area, are prioritized in your detailed plan. 

 

  • A Detailed Plan

The detailed plan includes 2 important numbers: deadline and key result.

  • Key results: A plan is nothing without clear and measurable outcomes because they help you estimate the desired results and avoid giving up in the middle. 
  • Deadline: Give yourself specific time of completion in the goals. There are many apps which can assist you as the reminder like: Evenote, Wunderlist, Calendar,… These apps will help you stick to your goals and complete them on time. 

In terms of the medium-term and long-term goals, you can break them into smaller activities and put them into your detailed plan. This action will make sure that you are following what you have planned and start doing it from now. 

STAGE 5: TEST – CONTINUOUS PLAN IMPROVEMENT

The plan is just what you write down on paper. That’s why to make this plan come true, you need to invest your time, money and effort. There is no perfect plan in the world and you should test, do, learn and test again, as to which method fits with your style. You might not be able to change your goals but you can change the way you take action in order to achieve your goals. Be flexible and be prepared because there will be uncontrollable factors coming from the external environment, as well as from yourself, that may cause failure in implementing your plan.

 

I hope that you can stay focused on what you are about to do, always believe in yourself and always try your best to be a better you. Remember that if you plan it on just paper, next year you will be in the same state as you are right now but you’ll be one year older. Be strong and brave, take action, and challenge yourself! 

I hope all your plans come true as you expected.

LIFE CHANGING OPPORTUNITY: LEAD THE CHANGE 2020 EXCHANGE TRIP

Lead The Change Exchange Trip – overseas youth leadership programs that equip the youth with a necessary skill set for the 21st century, international mentorship, corporate insights and network for young leaders aged 18-25. This is a platform for young talents to connect, engage, discuss and learn concerning social issues and eventually drives them to collectively solve problems by actual projects and become tomorrow’s change-makers.

The program timeline in 2020:

Thailand (15/06/2020 – 20/06/2020)
Singapore (06/07/2020 – 11/07/2020)
Taiwan (02/08/2020 – 08/08/2020)
Korea (27/09/2020 – 03/10/2020)
Singapore (16/11/2020 – 21/11/2020)

The program is supported by NUS Enterprise, Facebook HQ, Google HQ, NUS Chua Thian Poh Community Leadership Center, NUS Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship & Philanthropy, LEVEL3/ Unilever Foundry, Padang & Co, Kris Lab – Singapore Airline, Singapore Business Federation, United Overseas Bank, Omron, Yahoo, Amazon Web Service, Enterprise Singapore, The Edge Learning Center, Bangchak Corporation, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), Siam Cement Group (SCG), Dhurakij Pundit University (DPU – CIBA), …

Young leaders will interact with expert facilitators, dedicated mentors, and inspirational speakers working in Multinational Corporations. Our training topics related to:

  • Innovation through Design Thinking
  •  Emotional Intelligence
  •  Critical & Logical Thinking
  •  Cross-Cultural Communication & Collaboration
  •  Interpersonal Skills
  •  Public Speaking
  • Explore yourself

A chance to meet the impossible:

  •  Visit top leading MNCs from all around the world
  •  Volunteer at Local organization
  •  Leaded by a team of experienced and dedicated mentors.
  •  Release your energy by attending Amazing Race activities
  •  Break the program challenge – Shining at Gala night by pitching your presentation
  •  Receive the certificate after graduation
  •  Access to young leadership network – who never stop:

CHANGE TO LEAD – LEAD TO CHANGE

To become official young leader of Lead The Change 2020 Exchange Trip, you have to complete 6 steps:

  1.  Research about the program
  2.  Fill in the registration form https://forms.gle/nPmgw9Yo2RY7SoxX7
  3.  Online interview via phone (Organizing committee will contact you after 3-5 days of registration)
  4.  Interview with Program Manager
  5.  Receive your interview results
  6.  Submit required documents and sign the contract

Please kindly click Interested/Going to update more information about the amazing trip on Facebook

 Contact:
Hotline: +84 933 574 688
Email: hello@leadthechange.asia
Website: https://leadthechange.asia/

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Lead The Change 2019 Exchange Trip in Singapore

LEAD THE CHANGE 2019 EXCHANGE TRIP IS COMING BACK
Lead The Change 2019 Exchange trip in Singapore

18th – 23th, November 2019

About program

Lead The Change 2019 Exchange trip is a six-day program in Singapore held by Lead The Change Community.

Throwback – Lead The Change 2019 Exchange Trip in Singapore

The program is supported by NUS Enterprise, Action Community for Entrepreneurship, Facebook, The Edge Learning Center, NUS Chu Thian Poh Community Leadership Center, NUS Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship & Philanthropy, LEVEL3/ Unilever,
Singapore Business Federation, UOB : United Overseas Bank…

Program theme:  Key Competencies for Industry 4.0

We believe that next generation of leaders need new competencies and skills fitting for the 21st century to be successful and to tackle the complex challenges.

Our framework designed by advanced study program and training of experts coming from Multinational Corporation which help young leaders to have adequate views about importance of skills in reality life and work. From that, they will apply these skills effectively into reality situations.

Activities

Young leaders will interact with expert facilitators, dedicated mentors, and inspirational speakers working in Multinational Corporations.

Our training topics relate to Design thinking, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, Entrepreneur thinking, Social Innovation, Social Entrepreneur, etc.

It will also include field visits to local cultural sites, as well as group projects that will culminate in presentations.

Lead The Change 2019 Exchange Trip in Singapore Memories Stay

Program Agenda

Agenda program

Watching 6 days of Lead The Change 2019 Exchange Trip in Singapore – July’s journey

Lead The Change 2019 Exchange Trip July’s journey in Singapore

Eligibility Criteria

  • Young leaders: Aged 18-25 years
  • Interested in exchanging the global culture
  • Seek a better understanding of the ASEAN region
  • Seek to widen their perspectives
  • Passionate in making the impact to the social
  • Fluent in English

Selecting process

How to be a young leader of Lead The Change 2019 Exchange Trip
  • Step 1: Complete registration form
  • Step 2: Complete Application form (Organizers will send you after 3-5 days)
  • Step 3: Interview
  • Step 4: Information day
  • Step 5: Become young leader of the program
What did parent of participant think about Lead The Change Exchange Trip?

To be a young leader of Lead The Change 2019 Exchange Trip in Singapore – November!

  • Register here: Information form
  • Duration: November 18th- November 23th, 2019
  • Location: Singapore

For more information, please contact:

About Lead The Change Community

Lead The Change Community whose precursor is UEH Connected Community – the global community for the youth and startups.

Our vision: The number one place to introduce young talents to the entrepreneurial community, MNCs and startup community in Asia.

Our mission: 

  • Improve the mindset, necessary skills  of young generation in the changing world
  • Create a supportive entrepreneurial community
  • Collect comprehensive data on the excellent talents, mentors, trainers and speakers
  • Bring awareness and inspiration to the audience about startup culture and innovation

FIRST CROWDPITCH VIETNAM 2019: TRAVEL STARTUPS ARISE, WHILE ENVIRONMENTAL ONE DRAW MORE ATTENTION

I reposted the content of some events that my company ran in order to spread the message further.  In the 1st CrowdPitch Vietnam 2019, 5 Vietnamese startups had presented their ideas, learned from expert mentors in the ecosystem and gained exposure, as well as built and engaged with the community.

Mr. Thang Huynh – CEO & Co-Founder Innovation Lab

Most-voted: Saving environment solution

Vietnam is one of the worst polluters of ocean plastic waste in Asia and the globe, with 13 million tonnes of waste released to the ocean every year. Fortunately, Vietnamese starts to get aware of this massive pollution and therefore, green initiatives emerge. Obviously, eco-minded entrepreneurs in Vietnam are not out of the picture.

Ms. Linh Le – Founder & CEO AYACUP

Startup AYA – REUSABLE CUP with the plastic waste solution was the most-voted idea in 1st CrowdPitch Vietnam 2019. AYA REUSABLE CUPS creates convenience idea for users which enable them to use and return the cup rather than throwing single-use plastic cup.  More specifically, with AYA you can request an eco-friendly cup at any participating coffee shop or smoothie bar with your ID code. With the so-called “Life Time Membership Pass”, you also can drop the AYACUP at any participating locations. AYA has achieved 85 vendors, 135 locations and 5,495 plastic cups saved.

Linh Le, Founder of AYA Reusable cups shared that she was very surprised and happy when people were very interested in her project and concerned about the environment. It is a good sign that more people want to change their habits to protect the environment.

According to the report 2018 by UN Environment, one million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute around the world; up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used worldwide every year. In total, half of all plastic produced is designed to be used only once – and then thrown away.

Mr. Tuan Tran – Founder Airiot VietNam

With the same mission to save the environment; startup Airiot VietNam provides solutions to save energy for Airbnb hosts by a self-designed device. With IOT device working based on Bluetooth low energy 4.0, Airiot helps Airbnb hosts to turn off the air-conditioner automatically when people are not in the accommodation.

Travel tech – Top trendy startups in Vietnam

According to a report recently released by Topica Founder Institute (TFI), eight major travel tech deals worth $64 million were signed last year. The travel tech market is full of potential as increasing numbers of Vietnamese seek to travel and enjoy life.

The trend was well demonstrated in May section of CrowdPitch Vietnam as 3 out of 5 start-up ideas is technology-based travel startups including LandedVibe, Gody.vn and CheepCheep.

Mr. Le Duy Hoang – Founder LandedVibe

Becoming the winner chosen by judges, LandedVibe offers a platform for diversified offline skill-sharing and entertainment activities. They build a network where anyone can turn shareable values of their profession, skill or hobby into payable activities for locals, expats and travelers alike to book, via a sharing-economy platform.

Explained about the decision, Mr. Bobby Liu – CrowdPitch Vietnam judge and Co-director of Topica Founder Institute said: “LandedVibe will change the way of travel a lot. It is about the experience, about travelers getting and sharing their own experience. It could be popular with young travelers. Because of that, LandedVibe has development potential and will attract investors.”

Mr. Pham Viet Anh – CEO & Founder CheepCheep

Ms. Ngoc Anh – Founder Gody.vn

Other startups are CheepCheep, an online platform to book attraction tickets through a hundred places in Vietnam, and Gody.vn, a social travel platform to personalize trips based on AI’s recommendations.

2019 CrowdPitch Vietnam is an initiative for startups to raise their brand awareness, identify their market, attract potential investors and engage actively with future customers.

5 startups chosen to pitch each month will receive 1.000USD AWS credits, technical support, and free online training besides the voting cash by audiences’ entrance tickets.

Mr. Bobby Liu emphasized the prominence of CrowdPitch to startups in the ecosystem because of its benefit and recalled himself as a winner of this kind of crowdpitch five years ago.

From the participant’s perspective, Founder of AYA, Linh Le claimed that pitching in CrowdPitch was a valuable opportunity for early-stage startups to validate their idea and cheer them up. “It is also a good place for them to interact with other startups and investors,” Linh said and personally, CrowdPitch made her more confident, gave her great feedback from other entrepreneurs, and connected her with the community.

The 2nd CrowdPitch Vietnam 2019 is going to present on June, 26th 2019.

The CrowdPitch Vietnam is powered by Innovation Lab.

OPEN INNOVATION IN VIETNAM – OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

Open innovation is quite a new definition in Vietnam which provides both opportunities and challenges. While many Vietnamese companies have apparent views about open innovation to embrace competition, they are finding a way to involve it effectively.

Over 50 experts and startups in Vietnam as well as other countries had attended to “Open Innovation” workshop hosted by Innovation Lab on April 11th, 2019. As open innovation allows companies to look beyond their internal resources to have a wider network in which to co-create and leverage fresh expertise, the “Open Innovation” workshop provides them an apparent view about generating new ideas to embrace competition.

Mr. Pham Hong Quat – General Director, National Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship & Commercialization (NATEC) started the workshop by sharing about innovation in Vietnam. By his experience and observation, he added that many countries in Southeast Asia had angel networks supporting startups which Vietnam was currently lack of and needed to expand. Furthermore, the government played an important role in motivating startups through their supporting policies.

Mr.  Pham Hong Quat – General Director, National Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship & Commercialization (NATEC)

Last but not least, he emphasized that building innovation ecosystems was very potential and important not only in Vietnam but also in all over the world.

Following was “Open Innovation – Why and How” presentation of Mr. Laurent Levan – President of Universal Robina Corporation (URC) giving attendees much valuable knowledge about the importance of innovation and methods to apply it in companies with real examples.

Mr. Laurent Levan – President of Universal Robina Corporation (URC)

As his sharing, the common thread for the company from “ground zero to success” were building new ventures and partnership. Besides, “Do not be afraid to fail, test and learn” attitude was a crucial characteristic that he focused on to develop a new company.

Taking Vietnam as an example of a particular country with an unprecedented pace in developing innovation recent years, he shared industry 4.0 helped Vietnam to look at the supply chain, procurement from materials to distribution goods, and use technology to change management. For example, Vietnam develops Blockchain and IoT to make the distribution process easier and save money for companies in the next years.

To sum up, Mr. Laurent shared “tips” to be a (big) company with the agility and the mindset of an innovative startup. Innovation should be implemented every day, with one team – one goal, with products, with partners and with innovative attitude for industry 4.0.

After that, a final panel discussion on “Building the culture of innovation” created spaces for experts and executives talking about real innovation case study in their companies.

With the question from Mr. Thang Huynh – Co-Founder of Innovation Lab, Moderator of the panel, about involving in open innovation in companies, Mr. Hareesha Narayana Shirankallu- Head of Engineering at Bosch, Vietnam, shared that Bosch applied open innovation by contacting to universities via creating hackathon and innovation campaign such as last year tool events at Sihub supporting  students in universities to incubate.

Mr. Hareesha Narayana Shirankallu- Head of Engineering at Bosch, Vietnam

Meanwhile, Mr. Chris Elkin – InnoLab Design Thinker”/Doodle Brands provided solutions through design thinking to position brand and Ms. Nguyen Lan Yen – Marketing Senior Manager of Sparkling Brands, Coca-Cola Indochina admitted that Coca-Cola’s success was based on open innovation as they realized they could not do alone and look forward to innovating of products and industry like e-commerce.

Mr. Chris Elkin – InnoLab Design Thinker”/Doodle Brands

And of course, they had many challenges to face. In Bosch, they faced to customer insights problems and realized that customer interview was very important to get new ideas. On the other hand, Coca-Cola was willing to accept 95% failure of innovation, so they can adapt how to balance between long-term and short-term goals.

Mr. Thang Huynh – Co-Founder of Innovation Lab & Ms. Nguyen Lan Yen – Sparkling Marketing Manager CocaCola Indochina

Sharing about key factors that corporations need to foster innovation, Ms. Yen said Coca-Cola always focused on finding solutions in different issues like customer, packaging or digital platform; right strategies and infrastructure; and built innovation cultures to boost innovation mindset. Coca-Cola and many companies usually find solutions from startups which are sustainable and practical in every issue from these companies. Besides, Bosch was focusing on negotiation; encourage; and doing step by step.

Innovation Lab’s vision is to create an innovative collaboration platform where all stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem meet, collaborate and succeed together. The First Innovation Vietnam 2019 was co-hosted by Natec, Magic, Enterprise Singapore, Enterprise Ireland, La French Tech, MBAN, Bansea, Vietnam Angel Network, Saigon Innovation Hub.

This article was based on the first Open Innovation Vietnam 2019

Listen with empathy to be the leader

Let’s emphasize straightforwardly in this case.

What do people react when receiving information in both working environment and social relationship?

They prefer to be a passive hearer or an active listener. That’s your choice. It is clear that hearing is simply a natural ability of human, while listening is definitely a learned skill in order to transform information into meaningful messages. Someone has rightly said that “Hearing is through ears, but listening is through the mind”.

Why is it important to possess good listening skills?

Let me tell you a story about two energetic staffs. When being assigned the same task, they perform in two different ways which embody two different types of the level of listening ability. Candace always shows her comprehensive listening skills. As I saw that she always concentrates and pays attention to whenever we have a meeting for our next campaign. She prepares to actively listen and learn, and then thinking about this topic critically. She takes note carefully the key point after meeting and carries out effectively. Moreover, information selection is one of her strengths. Mainly because she thinks that the key concepts are much more important than the whole of argument in the meeting to answer the questions of What, Who, When, Where, Why and How.

On the other hand, Simon is quite different from Candace. He is a kind of passive listener. An active listener is the one that receives message from speakers, then analyses and responds to strengthen the mutual understanding. A passive one is different because he receives information without analysing, and stops at receiving information but keeping asking many times. It is reasonable that asking questions is a measure to make sure the instructions are understood and be clear,however, without taking note drives him to be difficult to remember the guidance delivered before.

Conversation with Consul General of France Vincent Floreani

When it comes to listening skills in social relationship, there are two ways that people are going to react when their friends tell them a story on a day hanging out. One of which is that people tend to dig deep into the storytelling to figure out the problem when their friend is confronting. They analyse the issue together and help the friend overcome feelings of pressure. Otherwise, people are not interested in that story, as a result, they show their no inspiration to continue the conversation. Somehow they still respect their friend’s story, but they do not react or do not respond anything, just only “Oh!”, “Really?”,  “Seriously?” for example.

Derived from two situations conveyed above, who do you think that they possess a good listening skills? So to review how to be a comprehensive listener, I am going to list these levels of listening to enhance your skills effectively and efficiently. There are five levels of listening that need to be considered.

Ignoring

Ignoring is the lowest stage of listening – not listening at all. It means that people usually interject a remark into the conversation with someone when they are speaking to others. They do not listen to at all with this person, then starting a new conversation with other one.

Pretend Listening

Pretend listening is easily explained in face-to-face talk. People may nod their head or other gesture to portray that they are listening, but they are not giving their full attention to the conversation. They are able to hear what others say but they do not show their impression.

Selective Listening

This stage is a beginning level of an active listener. People tend to pay attention to the speakers when they discuss about aspects that they are interested in; however, not all. They are probably the one that says “So, what’s your point?”. They are more likely to go straightforward to the thing that is important to them and interrupt the conservation when they realize that thing is not amusing anymore.

Attentive Listening

An attentive listener spend their time and attention on listening to other people. They have a tendency to respond according to their own experience. Instead of putting themselves in others’ situation, they listen and explain with their own perspective.

Empathic Listening

This is the top level of listening because those who are empathic listening are more likely to pay their full attention to gain the information and respond to develop the understanding in a conservation. It can be referred as the hardest to accomplish this level. However, to give a truly listening is not complicated.

Regarding to Clinical psychologist Kevin Gilliland, to practice to be a skilled listeners, people should following suggests:

Be curious: you’re more favor in listening to what the other says, rather than formulating your response.

Ask good questions: avoid asking yes/no type questions, which are closed-ended. You need to concentrate on questions that invite people to elaborate.

Don’t jump into a conversation too quickly: you should consider easing into the conversation when speaking to someone.

Anchor yourself to the subject and don’t get distracted: you should avoid unrelated topics to distract from the subject.

Stop making up stories: a  lot of information which is missing is not a good idea for those who want to listen to your stories.

Don’t make a big deal out of being wrong: If you’re good at admitting fault, this should be a fairly easy tip for you.

Dalai Lama once said:

“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.”

In order to be the leader, we not only need a vision to inspire the team but also need the great ears of listening with empathy to feel the pain and recognize what is not shared on the vocal conversation.  

The world will be more peaceful when we stop talking about each other, start listening to each other and collaborate with empathy thanks to listening.

Opening Speech of Final round of Lead the Change 2018 competition

My honor guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is such a pleasure and honor for me to be here and mark the final round of Lead the Change 2018 competition.

As mentioned before, I dream of the Vietnamese young generation with good English and soft skill, great attitude and mindset. UEH Connected was founded with that dream and we have incubation programs and activities that attract not only the Vietnamese but also the foreigners.

Mr Cong-Thang HUYNH, Mr Rick Yvanovich, Mr Eddie Thai, Ms Nguyen Phi Van,Mr Mike Tran, Mr Gaku Echizenya, CG Kyle Nunas & CG Mary Tarnowka –
Lead the Change is the new way of leadership incubation which we used it as a tool to bring the youth abroad. We are proud to share that we brought 32 young Vietnamese to Singapore in July of this year for intensive training
Lead the Change 2018 competition is also a good tool for us to nurture talents with good ideas and potential; and equip them with training, mentorship, networks to open their mindset so that they can lead the change to drive Vietnamese economy.
We have 800 qualified applications this year from more 40 universities and organizations. If someone follows us from the beginning will recognize that it is the big transformative journey for the youth. They came to us with a big dream without necessary skill and right mindset. Through 8 intensive trainings and 8 mentoring sessions covering from business plan, finance to how to make the pitch deck and presentation. They are now totally different and stronger than they were before our competition. You can read hand writing feedback to feel what I meant.
And we can not do it alone without any support. We would like to express our thank you message to
  • Consul General of US Ms Mary Tarnowka  – our good friend
  • US Consulate General
  • Startup Campus from Korean Goverment (Ms Dorothy & Mr Collin),
  • KIMC (Mr Ted Kim),
  • Consulate of Italy,
  • ITP (Information Technology Park) under National University
  • University of Economics Ho Chi Minh city,
  • Arizona State University,
  • RMIT and
  • Ms Nguyen Phi Van – Founder & CEO Retail & Franchise Asia​
  • Mr Rick Yvanovich – Founder & CEO của TRG International​
  • Mr Kyle Nunas – Consul General of Canada
  • Ms Ngo Phuong Thao – Founder  Anbooks
  • Ms Thi Anh Dao – CEO Isobar Vietnam
  • Mr Eddie Thai – Partner 500 Startups​
  • Mr Gaku Echizenya – Chairman of Navigos Group
  • Mr Warren Eng – Leaders create Leaders
, many judges, mentors, trainers of 5 rounds and especially my Lead the change team who spent months for this project and making it happen with me. I know that my thank you message here is never enough for what you have contributed to this community and competition but history will remember you all. 😀
There’s an old African proverb that says “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” But We can not be slow in this 4.0 industrial revolution, we have to go together further quickly.
Thank you for going together with us and making us stronger day after day.
Hope you will have a great day!!!
Thank you,

5 ways to advance your life and enterprise with a growth mindset

Why do people imply staff performance related to mindset?

When I assign the same task to two of my new energetic staff, they perform in two different ways, which embody two different types of mindsets. Vincent’s mindset is about guarantee. He sometimes has no idea dealing with failure and also be afraid to change when receiving feedback from others to improve his performance. He takes it personally and sometimes she is displeased. Vincent requires his benefits before doing something.

Youth training in Botanic Garden, Singapore

On the other hand, Jules expects to receive feedback from the senior when making mistakes. To cope with a failure, she dares to change and improve her ability to accomplish well later on. She perceives challenges as ideal opportunities to fail and to learn. If she encounters something that is quite troublesome, she will endeavor to overcome somehow. After all, you can know that who has the fixed mindset and who possesses the growth mindset in this story.

What is Mindset?

If you refer to someone’s mindset, that means their thoughts and beliefs drive them into habits and the way they commonly think about issues. The mindset orients our disposition or attitudes to handle situations. The mindset has much influence on what people think, how they feel, what they perceive and what should they react. In other explanation, the mindset shapes your belief and your belief shapes your attitudes. People have various mindsets of the same thing due to perceiving in different ways.

The book called Mindset: The new psychology of success written by Carol Dweck, who is a psychology professor at Stanford, is one of the most prominent psychology and individual development books nowadays. The book reminds me vividly of my personal experience.

The Fixed Mindset

People with the fixed mindset believe basic qualities like talents are fixed traits. They view failure as permanent. They are more likely to give up when facing an obstacle. When they feel criticism as a personal attack, they seem to quickly give excuse and explain.

Their behaviors are shaped by innate ability and their priority always is validation and achievement. The insight of people having the fixed mindset is that better performances. They are less likely to take creative risks. They choose easier tasks and put in minimal effort.

The fixed-mindset people don’t allow others be better compared to themselves. If their colleagues try new things and succeed, fixed-mindset people feel threatened. They are afraid that success will put pressure on themselves to do more. Safety is their choice.

The Growth Mindset

People with the growth mindset believe new abilities can be developed by practice. They consider challenge which is just an issue need to be faced, resolved, and learned from. It is possible to say that growth-mindset people can all adapt, progress and experience without any fear of being painful.

Most people are not perfect, and they should suffer from losses and hardships to be stronger and more at peace than ever before. The growth mindset doesn’t mind to show their imperfections as they think that weaknesses are not the problem. The problem is just only the person who cannot accept these weaknesses belonging to them. The imperfections should be recovered since that helps people to improve their adequate development.

Personal performance is good, but the process of how to bear the failure is much more important. The growth-mindset people assume that it takes time for development and achievement. They aren’t convinced of being talented. They strongly believe in the determination of learning from time to time, arduous working and toil to get an accomplishment.

How do you know that you are a fixed-mindset person or a growth-mindset person?

Let’s emphasise straightforwardly in this case. What do people react when receiving a course of work? With the fixed mindset, it will be: “People will finish it with no mistakes. People should avoid being a failure. People simply lose interest or temperature when facing challenges. People think about the inputs for themselves rather than the outputs for others.”

In contrast, with the growth mindset, it will be: “People make mistakes, and it’s not a problem. People need to have feedbacks, even constructive criticism. People get ready to undergo current trouble. People are excited to try to do something beyond what they’ve mastered. People make an effort to figure out the measures of solving issues better than they did.”

5 Significant Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset

1. Acknowledge and embrace imperfections

Even if you demonstrate your best traits of a great person, but you hide from your deficiencies, you will never be excellent in most cases. You are unable to overcome the fear of weaknesses. Of course, fear can hold you back. Have you ever thought that fear is an obstacle distract you from building your strengths? Grasp an opportunity to discover yourself, uncover imperfections hidden and deeply understand yourself. This will be a premise to change the weaknesses towards your strengths.

2. View challenges as opportunities

The growth-mindset people consider each challenge is an opportunities to grow stronger. We continuously determine who we are and what we are able to achieve after enduring troublesome issues. In fact, people might not control events that occur to them, but these unanticipated events serve as a big deal to test truly your characteristics. Thus, it is grateful for welcoming opportunities to learn and to improve.

3. Replace “to fail” with “to learn”

Have you ever heard a quote of Samuel Beckett? “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

It’s not a shame to share your failures with each other. When you make a mistake for your goal, you haven’t failed, you are learning. You learn from the bad experience for yourself instead. You shouldn’t think you’re a loser, think that you’re a learner and then an achiever.

4. Redefine “genius”

A genius is a person who suffered from a whole host of challenges, hardships, losses, and toils. You should redefine that the genius is shaped by hard-working, not only natural ability. The fixed-mindset people believe in talent or intelligence. However, the growth-mindset people only recognize improvement and development throughout the experience. You will be a genius if you mobilize your resource and stretch on your way.

5. Learn from others’ mistakes

It is better to combine our mistakes and the mistakes of others to learn. That will be valuable information for you to tackle the problems that push you up. People sometimes share the same weaknesses, which is a chance to empathize and adapt it to your case. It’s not always wise to compare yourself to others. Learn from others’ missteps and travel down on the bumpy road that helps you be more better.

Advancing the youth’s success with 21st century skills

“Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.” — Will Smith

I have been traveling around Asia to share my experience, idea, skills and mentoring many young startup. I have been asked many times which skills need to be developed and how to obtain them. As the world is changing so fast, technology like AI, IoT, robot will soon take over many current jobs. What should the youth prepare?

We clearly foresee that entrepreneurship acts as our central comparative advantage. Nothing else can give us the necessary leverage to remain an economic superpower sustainably. It is undeniable that the need of 4Cs including Critical thinking (and problem-solving), Communication, Collaboration and Creativity is a integral part in the global society.

Critical thinking

In fact, a person cannot learn well without thinking well. As I know, graduates in Vietnam specifically or Asia in general are lacking of autonomous learning whereas researching and marshallings are foundation courses of educational system in international colleges and universities. International schoolchildren learn to filter out unnecessary information and choose the reliable one. Yet Vietnamese youth do not have this important skills because of their lazinesses in exploring and thinking leading to being unable to absorb pertinent knowledge and gain fulfillment after graduation. They complain about the Internet-based references are unreliable and misleading. And the reason is that they do not sift data or even estimate resources they had.

In addition, they figure out a problem with irrelevant questions which make others are fed up due to their insufficient thinking well before asking. The process of making such inquisition helps you to deeply understand to problematic aspects that you endure. You want to exercise critical thinking, let ask the questions whenever you discover or discuss new information. Let start with 5W1H: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. Such questions regulate your decisions. I definitely underestimate those who are not able to making decision. Even it fail or you make a mistake or fall short of a goal, you have not failed, you have learned.

Communication

The ability of communication effectively which means that you communicate what think and feel. You are going to convey clearly a message and inspire someone to do better, good communication helps you to do it. There are several ways to communicate well among individuals throughout face-to-face conversation, digital channels or teamwork. People who get involved in a casual conversation will not grasp your thoughts or ideas properly unless you make an effort to practice communicative skills on a daily basis. In each case, you have to learn how to share information, how to present in public and how to make a request effectively and efficiently.

You sometimes make the same mistakes that you demonstrate excessive information, or you explain ambiguously with unfamiliar words. If you ramble on, your listeners will either tune you out or will be unsure of exactly what you want. A good communication means saying just enough – don’t talk too much or too little. Try to convey your message in as few words as possible. Say what you want clearly and directly.

Collaboration

In 21st century, collaboration is of significant importance among community. We are now living in multi-society where people from different backgrounds, cultures and nationalities. We tend to integrate ourselves into this community to achieve a defined and certain purpose in global society. Therefore, Vietnamese youth should learn collaborative skills in order to work effectively with a particular group of people and lifestyles. You should learn interactive methods and empathy while working in a team to get a higher level of productivity, to share responsibility instead of devolving it to others.
Vietnamese people are woefully inadequate this skills since I assume that they are afraid of taking responsibilities and endeavoring to gain results. They have a preference for being secure and unwilling to take risks. Personally, I properly appreciate those who dare to change and shoulder duties which aim to lead their members and thrive their organization. I consider that they are inspiring leaders, and I always advocate them to become more genius.

Creativity

Creative skills is to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connection between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing.

Of course, critical thinking can support people to master creative skills. If you have ideas but do not act on them, you are imaginative but not creative. However, Vietnamese citizens, particularly young people, are not accustomed to innovation. They might be wounded when they demonstrate different ideas from others and get negative judgement. A judgment is just an opinion of someone else, and you should not mind to limit your ability.

It could be a culture of Vietnamese people as they cannot be accepted if they alter something new. They are able to speak up but they keep silence, they want to debut their products to public but they do not, and then still living in imaginative world instead. It is not alive. It is a glimmer. Get your ambition which means to stretch on your own way and be creative in order to compete internationally.

It’s 4Cs that I want to mention to enlighten those who are still get stuck in common issues in my country. When young generation acknowledge the need of 4Cs and master these skills, we will account for the prosperity of Vietnam to be a worth-living place in the world. Are you contributing to be a pivotal part of this development?

Still procrastinating? Start the new day right with a productive mindset

Do you suffer from the so-called symptoms of procrastination? Here are some things you can do to help improve your workflow

Procrastination is a bad habit. It directly affects the success of your career and your life.

The sages of ancient Greece used one word to talk about the state of hesitating or not being sure whether to act or not. They used the term ‘Akrasia’, which basically means procrastination. One of the biggest reasons that prevent young people from succeeding in any endeavour is Akrasia.

To address this problem, you have to understand that you’re suffering from procrastination. Try to overcome it with specific plans.

Are you a procrastinator?

The common ‘symptoms’ of procrastinators are as follows:

  • Lack of motivation. If you’re not working for your goal, you will find some excuse to get rid of the tasks at hand. Without deadlines for completion, all the things you must do will be delayed.
  • Lack of clear objectives. Procrastinators underestimate the difficulty of their job. One cannot visualise how to solve the work to the extent that the tasks remain stagnant. Such people often do not know how to use effective tools such as to-do lists, notes, and reminders, and tend to avoid all unwanted work. Procrastinators often prefer doing things that offer short-term satisfaction than long-term value.
  • Lack of assertiveness. If you cannot decide what to do, you will simply push back decisions and re-schedule tasks for a later time. Procrastinators are often worry about perfection in the way they work, to the extent that nothing gets accomplished.

Rescue yourself from procrastination

Do you suffer from the so-called symptoms of procrastination? Here are some things you can do to help improve your workflow:

  • Make a plan every day. When you have a plan, you need to stick with it and make sure nothing can slip out of your schedule.
  • Take advantage of tools. Use a “to do list” for example. Note down everything you need to do during the whole day. Or, you can try various apps that help you through reminders and task lists, so you don’t miss the important things.
  • Set priorities. You need to know which things need to be resolved first, so you can avoid delaying something you don’t like.
  • Split your projects into smaller tasks. When you divide tasks into smaller ones, you can more easily create a timetable with specific deadlines. Solving these will be easier than vaguely aiming to finish a big project. This way, you can keep track of accomplishments and then reduce the pressure on yourself when you tick off tasks from the list. Set a time limit for each job — this helps you become more willing to finish each task.
  • Reward yourself. You can kick the procrastination habit by incentivising yourself for achievements. It does not have to be expensive or big-ticket. This can involve eating out with friends, a delicious meal, a satisfying drink, or anything that can make you feel comfortable and satisfied. You will become better-motivated this way, and it helps create joy in your work. Still, reaching your goals is, in itself, a great experience.

Life is a river. It never stands still. It always changes, for better or worse. So every day, we must ask ourselves:

Am I looking forward to this new year?
Am I feeling better, happier and more prosperous than last year?
Had I been a better person today than yesterday?
If the answer is “No”, you might need to do things differently to welcome the new year with better perspectives.