Three distinguished panelists were invited to join in the 6th time of the Global Mentors event. They were HRD from Cooper (China); GM, Integrated System, Asia Pacific from Ingersoll Rand, and former CFO from Kodak. A good combination of HR, GM and Finance, three panelists shared similar background and experiences of being working with colleagues and managed by bosses from different cultures, or directly report to overseas headquarters. Participants this time most are middle level managers with IT background, HR managers, and company Chief Rep with head office overseas. They have come together with a common aim of improving the upward managing skills, to communicate effectively with overseas headquarters and/or work with bosses from different cultures.
Global Mentors
“Refreshing Your Leadership Best Practices- Share the Learning from Harvard Business School ” ( April 18, 2008, 2008, Hong Kong Plaza )
Global Mentors event in April shared something special among participants. In March 2008, Ms. Dana Chan, MD of GTDC, has joined Leadership Best Practices program in Harvard Business School, together with 86 other participants (chairman, CEO, board of directors….) from 17 other countries. The program was focused on values, ethics, purpose, passion, or what is usually referred to as the “soft” stuff. Dana has shared her experiences and learning from this program during this time’s Global Mentors event.
Dana went trough the learning by different professors on this program, along with many interesting stories and real cases. The sharing contains formula for sustained business success, bad leadership and followership, high performance leadership, and most specially, Prof. John Kotter’s ideology and practical cases on leading change. Over 30 participants from diversified industrial background joined this event, they have shown tremendous interests to the learning, and GTDC has provided recommended book list from this sharing. Again, value, passion, mission, meaning of life, influencing others, were key issues which dominate this time’s sharing, as summarized by Dana at the end
(Please refer to News - Experiencing Harvard Executive Education – part 1 Hard and Soft Side of Business management, April 01, 2008, for more information about the program)
Global Mentors
“Retention - Challenges and Solutions” ( February 28, 2008, Hong Kong Plaza )
The fourth time of Global Mentors was again well received by all participants, with the theme of “Retention - Challenges and Solutions”, which was a very popular topic among senior executives, division heads and HR related managers. Almost 30 participants were attended to the event.
Ms. Dana Chan, MD of GTDC started the event by introducing valuable data according to 2008 HR challenges that China facing. She mentioned Global Mentors event is a platform of sharing on current issues, challenges, participants felt free to bring out any suggestions.
Three guest panelists this time were CEO from Electrolux (China) Home Appliances, China General Manager from Ingersoll Rand Industrial Technologies, and Managing Director of the US company Caliper in China. Three executives shared their valuable insights and diversified experiences on retention issues.
Many challenges were submitted from participants before the events, shown that they were very keen on the issues of retention. Dana sorted the challenges into categories which are: Retention by level, Company specific, Retention practices, Training and development, in order for each panelist to express her/his views and answer each question. In the end, each panelist added their finishing words. Dana quickly summarized the words appeared the most are for retention issues: “trust”, “relationship”, “care”, “commitment”, “love your people”, she said, “the stories shared and everything learnt tonight came to life, we feel proud to have the 3 leaders exchange their insights and truth.”
