Good Day and Salam Sejahtera,
Last week me went to Genting Highlands for OUM & METEOR Executive Retreat 2008 aka OUM-Awana Green Campus. It was a 3D and 2N retreat held at Awana Genting. A total of 50 (I believe it was 50) participants from OUM and Meteor were selected to join the retreat. We arrived around 10.00AM and Dr. Selvaraj was already there waiting to commence the Ice-Breaking session. We barely knew each other and this session was a good start. Weird huh? We are working in the same building. We don’t even say “Hello!” to each other. So, the Ice-Breaking Session was definitely a good start.
After being grouped into 6 smaller groups, Dr. Zoraini began her presentation on Understanding Open Distance Learning in Open University Malaysia. Then we proceed to Lunch Break and Room Check In. Apparently, that is best part of any events, seminars and conferences. We had buffet that day. After that, Prof. Dr. Mansor, Senior Vice President OUM officiated the OUM-Awana Green Campus 2008, marking our days as the students of the Green Campus.
In the evening, Mr. Puniamurthi, deputy Registrar UM began his talk on Working Culture and Attitude. He emphasized on team work and was ready to demonstrate the importance of Team Work by providing each group with 1 small potato. Each group would have to cook this potato by any means necessary within 30 minutes. All 6 groups with their creativity began to cook the potato. It was funny, very funny. How to cook a potato without water and stove and container? One group had their potato became complete carbon. My group cooked the potato by placing the potato in the hole and burn it from top. Well, a failed attempt. Later on, Mr. Puniamurthi began to explain the best way to cook the potato and his class on Working Culture and Attitude started.
Then around 7.00PM we stopped for dinner. Again my favourite part. I had mutton, plenty of them and middle-east cuisine. Of the 3 days I was there, not a single rice was taken. Why should I as could always take them everyday. This was buffet, so rice a definitely no no.
After that we had Stephen Corneilius, Dean of Sedaya College talked on Quality and Accountability in the Workplace. A very long talk. I could see some of the participants yawning due to late hours. But he quoted us a very good quote from Zig Ziglar “You are what you are by what goes into your mind“. In laymen terms, this phrase simply means “We are what we think we are”. If we think bad then bad we will be and vice-versa. Alas at 11.15PM his talk was finally over. Imagine from 10.00AM – 11.15PM marathon. A very long day for me and the rest of the participants.
A day after, we had Tony Hayman talking about Thinking Ouside the Box. He basically described how to think analytically and effectively. There’s must be a way of doing something he told. By thinking outside the box men are able to create many inventions that were impossible before. Computers, Refrigerator, Car and many others. These inventions were the result of thinking outside the box.
Then we continued our training with Working Performance & Etiquettes by Puan Faizah Mohamed, Senior Manager (Human Resource Dept.). Many seemed enthusiastic with Bonus and Benefits with OUM as most of the time were spent on answering questions related to performance appraisal, pay and bonus.
After Lunch Break, we had Michael Reyes, CEO of Money Tree Asia Pacific to talk about Interpersonal Relationship : Quality & Professional Attitude. Perhaps the best session as many seemed to be interested with the topic and many laughter and interactions. He explained that most conflict originated from within ourselves. If we could deal with our intrinsic desire to burn the other party we could avoid conflict. He stressed that, it is easier to deal with ourselves than the other party when resolving a conflict. Which is very true.
Lastly, Prof. Dr. Latifah give a talk on Understanding Student Issues. A discussion to understand the problem faced by students doing Open and Distance Learning in OUM. She then asked each group to discuss the problem faced by these students from the Staff perspective. How would we see the problem. Well, we did explain various problems faced by them.
That was all the training we went through for the entire 2 days. For the day after we would have the opportunity to shoot some head and butts of the participants in PaintBall Session. That would be in the next post.
Take Care all.
