Happiness in Relationships

Social is one of the eight dimensions of The Happiness DNA. True happiness is altruistic and it is about bringing happiness to people around us. Political scientist James Fowler of UC San Diego and sociologist Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School found that on average, a person’s happiness rises by 9 percent for every happy friend and it decreases by 7 percent for every unhappy friend in his social network. They also found that the happiness of a close contact increases the chance of being happy by 15%. The happiness of a 2nd-degree contact (e.g. friend's spouse) increases it by 10% and the happiness of a 3rd-degree contact (e.g. friend of a friend of a friend) by 6%. Happiness is contagious, therefore, cultivating positive relationships with family members, relatives, colleagues and friends boosts happiness. To find, improve and sustain happiness, think sameness, see goodness and do sweetness.

 

The Customer Happiness DNA at the Office of Estate & Development

Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin designed and facilitated a 1-day workshop on "The Customer Happiness DNA" for the Office of Estate & Development at the National University of Singapore. Five sessions of the workshop were held on 22, 23, 26, 28 and 29 August 2013. The workshop was attended by 160 staff members from the department. 

The workshop focused on the concept of the Customer Happiness DNA, which is a holistic approach for delivering happiness to employees, customers and the community through happy mind, happy heart, happy habits and happy culture. 

The need for a customer happiness strategy

Planning customer happiness for a process

Understanding the internal-external customer happiness effect

Learning how to meditate

AUN-QA Assessors Training Workshop for Vietnam National University - Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM)

The “AUN-QA Assessors Training Workshop” was organised for senior leaders and senior members of the Quality Assurance Offices of VNU-HCM by the AUN Secretariat. The 3-day workshop was held from 31 July - 2 August 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The workshop aims to equip participants with the essential competencies of becoming an AUN-QA assessor. At the end of the workshop, participants learn to: 

• Apply the PDCA approach in quality assessment; 
• Make preparation for a quality assessment; 
• Conduct a desktop assessment for a programme; 
• Conduct a site assessment including stakeholders’ interviews, site tour and documentation review; 
• Write assessment feedback, presentation and report; and
• Apply strategic change management

The workshop was designed and facilitated by Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin, AUN-QA Expert (Singapore) and attended by 16 participants from VNU-HCM. 

Participants sharing the past, present and future trends of higher education

Participants sharing the past, present and future trends of higher education

Participants sharing the past, present and future trends of higher education

Experiential learning of strategic change management

AUN-QA Quality Assessment at VNU-HCM Review Conference

The Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM) organised a conference on 26 July 2013 to review and share its experience on the AUN-QA quality assessment of educational programmes from 2009-2013. 

Associate Professor Dr. Nantana Gajaseni, Executive Director of ASEAN University Network (AUN) and Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin (AUN-QA Expert) were invited to speak at the conference. The conference was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Education & Testing (MOET), VNU-HCM member universities and  other universities in South Vietnam.

Mr. Johnson Ong Chee Bin shared with the audience about "How to have a good preparation for AUN actual quality assessment" and "Conditions to implement quality assessment at programme level" at the Talkshow and Discussion session.

More information about the conference can be found at http://www.vnuhcm.edu.vn/?ArticleId=2197165b-3f94-498f-be49-803a3847e0b1

Source: VNU-HCM

Source: VNU-HCM

Source: VNU-HCM

          

The Customer Happiness DNA (3rd Run)

In the emerging happiness economy, leading happiness-centric organisations have espoused values in nurturing a culture in delivering happiness to their employees, customers and the community. 

How can an organisation go about delivering happiness to its employees, customers and the community? This question was discussed and answered at the 3rd run of "The Customer Happiness DNA" workshop held at the National University of Singapore for non-academic staff on 22-23 July 2013. The workshop focused on the concept of the customer happiness DNA, which is a holistic approach for aligning and internalising individual’s attitude, emotions and habits to deliver happiness in customer experience. 

At the workshop, participants learn to:

• Appreciate the raising importance of customer happiness in an experience-centric economy; 
• Understand the types and dimensions of customer happiness; 
• Understand the impact of attitude on customer happiness; 
• Understand, manage and add emotional value to customer happiness; and 
• Apply the customer happiness DNA to deliver happiness in customer experience

Participants mapping their emotional experience after a mystery service audit

Participants mapping their emotional experience after a mystery service audit

Participants mapping their emotional experience after a mystery service audit

Participants mapping their emotional experience after a mystery service audit

A Total Quality Management (TQM) Model for Educational Programme (6Ps Model)

The 6Ps Model provides a holistic and integrated approach to manage the quality of educational programme in higher education.  It begins with the environmental scanning of external factors, an analysis of stakeholders' needs and internal capabilities and resources of the university with the objective of determining the “Purpose” in satisfying stakeholders satisfaction and outcomes.

The facilitators and learners are the “People” at the centre of the process. The facilitators comprises both content and context experts. The content experts need to consider the characteristics of the learners so that relevant programme and place can be created for effective teaching and learning. While the context experts provide services to support the teaching and learning.

The “Programme” needs to be developed with the “purpose” and “people” in mind. Learning outcomes, curriculum, teaching and learning strategies and assessment have to be constructively aligned for effective learning and the achievement of the learning outcomes.

The “Place” provides the relevant learning space (physical and virtual), learning environment (social and psychological) and learning resources (materials, technology, etc.) to facilitate effective teaching and learning.

The “Process” encompasses internal and external quality assurance, evaluation and feedback, benchmarking, continuous improvement and review.

The last "P" is "Promotion" which involves the marketing, branding, pricing and advertising of a programme.

Bridging Strategic Management and Change Management

Change is a pervasive and constant feature of modern business life. It can be said to be the single most important element of successful business management today. Ignoring or trivialising a changing trend can be costly. To remain relevant in increasingly aggressive markets, organisations and individuals have to embrace and adopt a positive attitude to change. In all business environments, managers and employees are required to identify, lead and undergo unprecedented levels of change in order to sustain advantage in an increasingly competitive and inter-connected world.

The imperative to change the way organisations do business may be great but the success rate of change management isn't great. About 75 percent of all organisational change programmes failed, largely because employees felt left out of the process and end up lacking the motivation, skills and knowledge to adopt the new systems and procedures.(1) A global survey of 500 companies by PricewaterhouseCoopers showed nine out of ten obstacles to corporate change were linked to the capabilities, attitudes or behaviours of people.(2) The same survey also found that the top ten success factors for change placed emphasis on people. Therefore, the barriers to successful change are usually people related.

This calls for a holistic approach to plan strategically and to manage change successfully in dealing with both internal and external changes. Strategic management and change management have to be an integral part of the organisation’s strategy, people, system and culture. This requires executives to know and understand their organisation’s mission, core competencies, and capabilities. They should be able to identify the external factors and their impacts on their organisation, and be able to develop strategies and implement them through a systematic framework of sustaining change. The iterative process for strategic change management is illustrated below.

(1) Herding Cats: Human Change Management”, Mark J. Dawson and Mark L. Jones,  PricewaterhouseCoopers.

(2) “PwC: People are the Key in Change Management”, Business Times, 20 May 2004.