2015年12月31日 星期四

李國章掌港大校委會


李國章掌港大校委會

【明報專訊】行政會議成員李國章獲特首梁振英委任為香港大學校務委員會主席,任期3年,明年1月1日生效。教育局長吳克儉歡迎李出任主席,港大校友關注組、香港大學教師及職員會則發表聯合聲明,對梁委任李國章感非常憤怒,今天會公布行動。本報翻查校委會《指引及行為守則》,校委會主席權力頗大,如可召開特別會議、自行處理緊急事項,及領導負責提名部分校委的委員會。李國章秘書昨晚稱李不在港,截稿前未有回應。

憲報外泄 政府提早凌晨公布

政府原定今清晨刊憲公布委任李國章,但有網民發現政府網站漏洞,提早於昨晚發放憲報截圖及連結(見另稿),港府終在今日凌晨公布委任李的消息。

教育局長吳克儉歡迎李出任主席,指他在大學教育界有廣泛教學、管理和發展經驗,在公共服務崗位上盡心盡力,為所服務機構爭取最大利益,是有擔當的社會領袖,深信他必能帶領港大再創佳績。

石禮謙恭賀 柯天銘﹕突顯制度不足

校委石禮謙聽聞李國章當主席後表示「恭喜佢呀」,稱十分開心,因為終於有適合的人出任。他認為李為人真誠坦白,「佢相信嘅事情就會講出來」,且處事公道、有遠見。就不少師生反對李的任命,石禮謙說不應抱偏見,又指以李的資歷和在學術界的地位,做校委會主席對港大是好事。港大校董鍾樹根亦稱,政治歸政治,認為李在能力上是擔任主席的合適人選,他明白社會有不同聲音,寄望李上任後多與港大生溝通,為人也可隨和些。

一直反對李國章掌校委會的港大學生會會長馮敬恩表示,為求讓行動達至最佳效果,短期內未可公布下一步計劃。政治及公共行政學系教授、新上任校委陳祖為表示,對特首委任李國章十分失望及難以理解,期望李以大學利益為重,他會在校委會內監察各方面損害學術自由及院校自主的行為並發聲,另會推動校委會檢討其運作。

文學院院長、新上任教員校委Timothy E. O'Leary(柯天銘)發聲明稱,近期已有多人表達李不是能解決港大現有危機的人,梁振英仍執意委任,正好突顯制度不足之處。柯天銘認為校委會需獨立及全面檢視其架構及運作。

校委會《指引及行為守則》訂明,教務長負責準備校委會議程、文件及會議紀錄等,都要直接向校委會主席報告;若有緊急及重要事項,主席可召開特別會議討論,也可自己採取行動處理,但僅適用於延遲處理有關事項會對大學不利的情况。有熟悉校委會運作的人說,今年10月會議錄音流出時,相信時任校委會主席梁智鴻是根據此條文自行決定申請禁制令。

主席可決定哪些資料須保密

另校委會奉行保密原則,守則列明由主席酌情決定哪些資料須保密,有需要公開校委會決定時,一般都由主席作為發言人來公開,其他校委若想公開內容,須得到大會或主席同意。校委會有6個席位由校委會推薦社會人士出任,而提名新委員的提名委員會,也由主席領導。

港大校友關注組聯同教師及職員會昨發聲明,批評梁振英通過李國章把政治鬥爭帶進港大,卻令港大人空前團結,更齊心捍衛院校自主,絕不容李國章在校委會為所欲為。






李國章在爭議聲中獲委任為港大校委會主席,港大校園昨晚十分寧靜,民主牆則仍貼有反對李國章的大字報。海報列出各院校沒博士學位的大學副校長,再為李設計對白「全部炒得」,以諷刺李以陳文敏沒博士學位為由反對他出任副校長









港大學生會大樓的玻璃門外,同樣貼有反對李國章任校委會主席的便條。






Flag Counter






2015年12月30日 星期三

校委否決陳文敏 馮敬恩申覆核


校委否決陳文敏 馮敬恩申覆核




馮敬恩(右)及李峰琦(左)昨分別於高院提出司法覆核申請,要求高院頒令指校委會否決陳文敏的任命是非法及程序不公。馮稱他們的申請理據充分,不擔心遭人質疑濫用司法程序 。(楊柏賢攝)


【明報專訊】港大學生會會長馮敬恩及外務副會長李峰琦昨於高院提出司法覆核申請,要求高院就港大校委會否決陳文敏的任命頒令,指決定是非法及程序不公。馮在庭外稱,他們的申請理據充分,不擔心遭人質疑濫用司法程序,現階段暫不評估勝算,一切交律師處理。

馮敬恩及李峰琦昨由資深大律師李志喜、大律師黃瑞紅及譚俊傑代表,協助他們兩人分別向高院提出申請。馮的申請書指出,校委會沒有給予陳文敏機會,解釋校委會對他的指控,程序不公;另外,校委會在討論任命時考慮不相關的觀點,例如質疑陳有政治立場及沒有「問候」其他校委會成員,這類不相關的觀點均影響陳的任命決定,對陳不公。

指沒讓陳文敏解釋 程序不公

李峰琦的申請書則指出,校委會內容雖屬保密,但基於公眾有知情權,校委會要解釋否決原因,解釋時大可不用披露當中細節。申請書又表示,校委會過往從未否決遴選委員會推薦的人選,今次有違「常規」,更要向公眾解釋原因。

馮敬恩在庭外稱,李峰琦以本科生身分申請,自己則以本科生代表身分申請,兩人以不同身分申請,是因為他屬校委會當中一員,知道討論內容,若由他要求公開校委會內容,並不合適。馮又稱,暫不評估申請成功的機會有多大,一切交由律師處理,期望法庭頒令指校委會決定是程序不公。

馮:反對李國章任主席立場鮮明

另外,有消息稱本月底將公布由李國章接任港大校委會主席,馮敬恩表示,暫時未收到通知,但他強調,港大學生及校友已多次在投票或其他場合表達對李國章的不滿,反對他擔任校委會主席的立場已十分鮮明。

【案件編號:HCAL262、263/15】









Flag Counter






2015年12月28日 星期一

The 37 best websites for learning a new skill





The 37 best websites for learning a new skill



Follow Business Insider: 

Forget overpriced schools, long days in a crowded classroom, and pitifully poor results.
These websites and apps cover myriads of science, art, and technology topics.
They will teach you practically anything, from making hummus to building apps in node.js, most of them for free.
There is absolutely no excuse for you not to master a new skill, expand your knowledge, or eventually boost your career.
You can learn interactively at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home. It’s hard to imagine how much easier it can possibly be.
Honestly, what are you waiting for?

Take an online course

edX— Take online courses from the world’s best universities.
Coursera — Take the world’s best courses, online, for free.
Coursmos — Take a micro-course anytime you want, on any device.
Highbrow — Get bite-sized daily courses to your inbox.
Skillshare — Online classes and projects that unlock your creativity.
Curious — Grow your skills with online video lessons.
lynda.com — Learn technology, creative and business skills.
CreativeLive — Take free creative classes from the world’s top experts.
Udemy — Learn real world skills online.

Learn how to code

Codecademy — Learn to code interactively, for free.
Stuk.io — Learn how to code from scratch.
Udacity — Earn a Nanodegree recognized by industry leaders.
Platzi — Live streaming classes on design, marketing and code.
Learnable — The best way to learn web development.
Code School — Learn to code by doing.
Thinkful — Advance your career with 1-on-1 mentorship.
Code.org — Start learning today with easy tutorials.
BaseRails — Master Ruby on Rails and other web technologies.
Treehouse — Learn HTML, CSS, iPhone apps & more.
One Month — Learn to code and build web applications in one month.
Dash — Learn to make awesome websites.

Learn to work with data

DataCamp — Online R tutorials and data science courses.
DataQuest— Learn data science in your browser.
DataMonkey— Develop your analytical skills in a simple, yet fun way.

Learn new languages

Duolingo — Learn a language for free.
Lingvist — Learn a language in 200 hours.
Busuu — The free language learning community.
Memrise — Use flashcards to learn vocabulary.

Expand your knowledge

TED-Ed — Find carefully curated educational videos
Khan Academy— Access an extensive library of interactive content.
Guides.co — Search the largest collection of online guides.
Squareknot — Browse beautiful, step-by-step guides.
Learnist — Learn from expertly curated web, print and video content.
Prismatic — Learn interesting things based on social recommendation.

Bonus

Chesscademy — Learn how to play chess for free.
Pianu — A new way to learn piano online, interactively.
Yousician— Your personal guitar tutor for the digital age.
Written by @kristynazdot, founder and CEO of maqtoob.com  —  app discovery platform for inspiring entrepreneurs. At the moment, it features 1,500+ handpicked tools for startups, small businesses, and freelancers.
Read the original article on Medium. Copyright 2015. Follow Medium on Twitter.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-37-best-websites-for-learning-a-new-skill-2015-8?utm_content=buffercd378&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer








Flag Counter




2015年12月20日 星期日

馬斐森港大校董會發言全文




馬斐森港大校董會發言全文





香港大學前天(12月17日)舉行一年一度的校董會,校長馬斐森在發言時特別提到,社會誤解港大學生是製造麻煩、反叛的搞事者,但其實大部分學生都勤奮尊師,而且學生運動並非香港獨有,年輕人有熱誠和理想,關心將由他們接棒的世界,即使我們可能不認同他們部分手法,但應與他們合作和理解他們,幫助他們成為可以化解各種挑戰的成年人。

馬斐森又提出,港大仍然擁有良好的學術自由,但作為接受公帑資助的大學,沒有也不可期待有完全的自主,因為大學要對公眾負責,政府按社會需要,接觸、衡量及調整(access, justify and adjust)大學活動是適當的。

馬斐森發言全文如下:


This is the speech of the President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Mathieson to the Court (December 17, 2015).

First, I want to personally thank all the staff, students, alumni and friends of the University for all their support and for all their hard work in advancing the best interests of Hong Kong U. The twelve months since last year's meeting of Court has been a very challenging period for everyone associated with this great University. There has been intense public and media scrutiny of decision-making in the University Council, there have been controversies around many issues and there have been challenges to the core values of the University. Throughout this period, I and the senior management team have stuck to our principles, remained politically neutral and continued to be driven by our commitment to maintain and enhance the high standards of excellence in teaching, research and knowledge exchange which characterize and define Hong Kong U and must continue to do so. The senior management team has been joined by 4 new members in 2015: together with the rest of the team and in consultation with the Faculty Deans, we have initiated bold reforming steps to address the University's future. The draft document that has been provided to Court members for today's meeting describes our current thinking on a high-level vision of the way forward. A previous version of the document has already been shared with Council and at that meeting I appealed to members to contribute to the vision and then to unite around its delivery. I make the same appeal to all members of the University today. I acknowledge that there will be a debate on some contentious issues later in today's meeting; we may have differences of opinion on the priorities or on how to address them: that is healthy, let's have a debate and reach a conclusion and then move on. Let's not have conflict and confrontation. It is time to put divisions behind us, to be unified by our shared passion for Hong Kong U and to move forward. In my opinion there has been far too much focus on individuals: who the Chancellor is and how he is selected, who will be the next Chair of Council, who is awarded honorary degrees, who is appointed to a vice-president post, who the President is and how long he will last etc, and not enough focus on the University as a whole. We must all remember that we are transient in the history of the University of Hong Kong. In another hundred years this University will still be here striving for excellence. Our job is to nurture and protect the legacy of the University, its current activities and its future strategic development. We should shift the focus from individuals and get it back onto the University. The new strategic plan, and the major capital campaign that we propose to mount alongside it, can be the catalysts for a new positive energy, so that we can achieve the aim of making the University of Hong Kong Asia's global university and one of the world's greatest universities.

In my speech to Court a year ago, I commented on the need for greater strategic coordination. You will have seen that the new plan centres around 3+1 Is: Internationalisation, Innovation and Interdisciplinarity, all converging on Impact. With each of the new vice-presidents leading on a key area, we have started work under these headings. A major part of the work that our Vice-President for Teaching and Learning, Ian Holliday, has completed this year was around the assessment visits by the Quality Assurance Council (QAC) which last visited HKU in 2009. Ian and many colleagues did an enormous amount of work preparing the submission documents and interacting with the visiting team, which included local and international experts. We do not yet have their full report but the initial comments were generally very positive. Our Academic Development Proposal 2016-2019 was submitted to the UGC in February and included bold commitments to provide opportunities in the Mainland and overseas to 50% of our undergraduate students by 2019 and 100% by 2022 and to double our number of joint or dual degrees with highly selected overseas partner universities. These are important planks of the first of the Is, Internationalization, which is an essential component of enhancing our standing in the world. We believe that there are sound educational reasons for ensuring that our students have international experience and that this will help us to ensure that our graduates are equipped to be global citizens. The new opportunities that we will create don't all have to be study exchanges or joint degrees. Living in diverse geographical and cultural settings, working in schools, charities or social enterprises, or doing internships or research attachments can all make massive contributions to personal development. We believe it will be good for our students to get outside their comfort zones, experience adversity, take calculated risks and test themselves in challenging situations. Thus it is that the future global leaders will be born. 

However, that is not enough: internationalization must also start at home here on campus. We have a truly international staff and a diverse student body. We have a constant stream of international conferences and symposia in the University, numerous distinguished international professors visiting under our various schemes, huge numbers of international collaborations in research and teaching. We must ensure that we have an international approach to all that we do, bench-marking ourselves against international best practices and aspiring to achieve characteristics which define the world's greatest universities.

The second I is innovation: in teaching and learning, we are actively developing our electronic learning capability, led by Associate VP Ricky Kwok, including the development of MOOCs (massive open online courses) but also SPOCs (small private online courses), 'flipped classrooms' where students study teaching materials electronically before the classes and then use the class time with the teachers to debate and understand the materials. As we come to the end of the first four year undergraduate cohort, we will evaluate our core curriculum and our general education provision, learning lessons, innovating where necessary to ensure that we provide exactly what our students need.

We must also innovate in research: our work here is being led by our new Vice-President for Research Andy Hor, a Hong Konger with many years of experience in Singapore where innovation and tech transfer are stronger than in Hong Kong. There is a real mood in Hong Kong now for innovation to be the key to the city's future. We have already played a leading role in this. Our Dreamcatchers event in May brought together some of the region's most successful entrepreneurs including Pony Ma with over 1000 students, staff, alumni and friends of Hong Kong U. The event highlighted ways forward that we are following up: the creation of an Entrepreneurship Academy and working with the government, Cyberport and the Science Park to ensure that our students and staff have access to all the opportunities created by the new drive to support Innovation.

The third I is Interdisciplinarity: we prize this in all that we do. We have numerous examples of interdisciplinary teaching and research already, for example the Social Sciences Faculty working with Law on aspects of public policy, the Architecture Faculty working with Medicine and with Dentistry on the public health implications of urban design etc, but we want more: we are creating budget incentives to favour even greater interdisciplinary working, between departments, across Faculties and with outside parties.

These three intersecting Is, internationalisation, innovation and interdisciplinarity, all converge on the fourth I, impact. Impact is the aim of everything that we do: we have a social and moral responsibility to ensure that this is the case. All of us want our efforts to make a difference: to our subject area, to society and to our own personal and professional development. By assessing impact, we justify the investment of public money in our activities, as well as the massive investment of time and energy that a modern university demands and expects from its members.

So how are we doing? I recently presented to the Senior Management Team and subsequently to Council some analysis of the major international league tables over the last 11 years. I won't reiterate now my views on rankings, which are well-known and on the public record, except to say that I stand by my assertion that we will never set institutional strategy to meet the criteria of any particular league table. However, rankings are here to stay and we all know that they are widely used as a short cut: by prospective students, parents, governments and media. They are a surrogate for a university's international reputation.

The first point to make is that Hong Kong U's position now is quite similar to its position in the first rankings which were published 11 years ago jointly by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THE) and the Quacquerelli-Symonds (QS). We were ranked number 39 in 2004, compared to 30 and 44 in the most recent 2015 rankings from the QS and THE respectively. In the 11 intervening years, there has been quite a lot of fluctuation, some of it undoubtedly explained by the frequent methodological changes which provide one reason why rankings are so controversial and open to various interpretations. Hong Kong U's peak position was eight years ago in 2007 when HKU was ranked number 18 in the world. Stanford that year was number 19, so you can make up your own mind about whether that high point flattered HKU or not. The very next year, 2008, HKU dropped 8 places to number 26 (Stanford rose slightly to 17). In 2010, the two rankings agencies split and used slightly different methodologies but since then both of them show a definite slow downward trend for HKU, starting in 2011 in the QS and in 2010 in the Times Higher. There are various possible contributors to this: student-staff ratios influence the rankings and the 334 transition adversely affected these because the increased number of students was not accompanied by a commensurate increase in staffing. The fact that Chinese U and Hong Kong UST showed similar trends in this time period supports this as a contributor. Hong Kong U also had the possible impact on its reputation of the 818 incident in 2011. The fact that HKUST jumped above HKU in one of the rankings this year (the QS) has caused a lot of comment: in fact QS themselves said that this was largely explicable by a change in methodology, where an adjustment was made for the presence or absence of a medical school because having a medical school was deemed to give an unfair advantage via an effect on citations and other prestige indicators. Accordingly, HKU dropped by 2 places and CUHK by 5 places (it is noteworthy that Yale also dropped by 5 places), with HKUST rising by 12 places: sudden changes like this in rankings usually reflect methodological changes because reputations don't usually change overnight. It is worth noting that in the other major league table, the Times Higher, between 2014 and 2015, HKU actually did the best of the three local universities, dropping by 1 place compared to a drop of 8 places for HKUST and 9 places for CUHK.

Of course we have no way of knowing what effect recent events in Hong Kong will have on next year's and the year after's rankings: we will just have to wait and see. However, there is clear evidence that Hong Kong U's position has deteriorated slowly but steadily for the last 4 or 5 years. We need to turn it around by enhancing the University's international reputation: that is one reason why internationalization is so prominent in our plans. The other, better reason, is of course that internationalization will enhance the quality of our teaching and our research.

I am on record as saying that the ranking that matters the most to me is the fact that Hong Kong's brightest and best students continue to vote with their feet and want to come to Hong Kong U as their first choice for their university studies. The 2015 admissions results from the Hong Kong DSE, which accounts for about 75% of our undergraduate intake, were truly spectacular. There was a total of 12 students that scored perfect results, 5** in seven subjects: all 12 of these students were admitted to Hong Kong U. Even more impressively, of the 689 students in the top scoring bracket, nearly 60% were admitted to Hong Kong U, ie only 40% went to all other universities combined. Of those wanting to study Medicine, 82% chose Hong Kong U. Of those wanting to study Law, an incredible 98% (102 out of 104) chose to come to Hong Kong U's Law Faculty rather than the other Law Schools available to them in Hong Kong. This was an outstanding vote of confidence in the educational provision offered by our University. I am proud of the fact that we don't just admit students from privileged backgrounds: our First in Family scheme for all subjects and the Springboard scholarships offered by the Faculty of Medicine are examples of ways in which we ensure that Hong Kong U is accessible to the brightest and best students irrespective of their backgrounds or their family's wealth.

Our researchers have also had an excellent year: numerous high-level publications in the world's top journals, conference presentations at top international events, prizes and awards. To mention just a selected few, the Thomson-Reuters 2015 list of the world's most highly cited researchers included nine academics from Hong Kong U, compared to 5 in the previous year; no other university in Hong Kong had more than 3. Vivian Yam, our Professor of Chemistry was elected Foreign Member of Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe), the only Foreign Member elected in 2015 under the Chemical Sciences Section of the Academy; she also won the 2015 Ludwig Mond award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. Chi-ming Che, also Professor of Chemistry, completed the licensing of two multi-million US dollar patents to Samsung for his work on organic light-emitting diodes, bringing money as well as prestige to Hong Kong U. Vivian and Chi-ming were amongst the 27 founding members of the newly established Hong Kong Academy of Sciences, together with Malik Peiris and KY Yuen (who were both amongst the top 1% highly cited researchers that I mentioned earlier) as well as two distinguished visiting professors to Hong Kong U, one alumnus of ours and three retired members of HKU staff including of course my predecessor Lap-Chee Tsui who is the founding Dean of the new Academy. Thus HKU has a direct claim on 10 of the 27 Founding members, far more than any other university. Just last night, we announced that Professor So Kwok-fai of our Department of Ophthalmology, has been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Most spectacularly of all, Ngai-ming Mok, our Professor of Mathematics, has just been confirmed as a new member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the only Hong Kong scholar to have been elected this year, our first formal academician for 12 years and the first of any kind for 5 years, bringing to 12 the total number of Hong Kong U staff to have held this prestigious honour. My sincere congratulations to Ngai-ming. 

I said last year that we would make progress on our work in the Mainland. One example is the HKU-Shenzhen Hospital: I have worked hard with colleagues here and in Shenzhen to improve the understanding of the aims and methods that will help both HKU and the Shenzhen government to achieve their goals. The first repayment of HKU's financial contribution has now been made by the hospital and a repayment schedule has been set that will see the debt fully repaid as the hospital's activity levels continue to rise and diversify. I am delighted that Hong Kong U medical, nursing and pharmacy students are now regularly benefiting from the teaching opportunities available to them at our hospital in Shenzhen. Research opportunities in Shenzhen are also growing. Our new Vice-President (Global) John Kao is working hard on our partnerships in the Mainland as well as other links all around the world. Our Vice-President (Institutional Advancement Douglas So has produced a new branding and marketing strategy and is working on the more proactive communications approach that I talked about last year. Our Executive Vice-President (Administration) Steve Cannon is addressing some of the issues that I highlighted last year by bringing forward radical reforms of various aspects of human resources policy and practice as well as new approaches to providing equitable access to staff accommodation for as many of our staff as possible. We are making progress on gender equity issues: we have improved our maternity leave provision, we are working on improving facilities for breast-feeding on campus and we are actively planning a nursery for children of staff and students. Our most recent appointment to the senior team, our new Associate Vice-President for Research, is female (Mai Har Sham). We are working with the other UGC-funded institutions to understand why the gender balance at the highest levels of the universities in Hong Kong is so poor. We need culture change across the sector to address this and I will continue to work with the United Nations Women HeForShe initiative to learn from other universities and from corporations across the world about how we can adopt best practices in this domain. UN Women's next meeting on HeForShe will be at the World Economic Forum in Davos next year. I have also been invited to the main Forum in Davos and it will be the first time that Hong Kong U has been represented at this prestigious gathering of thought leaders from politics, business, academia, media and international society. This follows from my attendance at the so-called "summer Davos" meeting of the World Economic Forum in Dalian in September and is a marker of Hong Kong U's international recognition.

I want to finish by saying something about academic freedom and institutional autonomy. These two terms are often confused or used interchangeably and they should not be, because they are different. Academic freedom is the critical underpinning of university life: the freedom to study, research, read, write and/or talk about whatever subjects that we find most interesting, stimulating or important, no matter how controversial they might be or how the findings may challenge dogmas or official viewpoints. In my opinion, academic freedom is alive and well at Hong Kong U. We do not however have complete institutional autonomy and nor can we expect it. We are a publicly funded institution and it is entirely appropriate that we are responsible to the public, and hence to the government that represents them, to assess, justify and adjust our activities according to societal impact and need. Publicly-funded institutions all over the world have similar responsibilities: look at recent events in universities in the UK, the US, Canada and Japan or schools in Korea: none of them have complete institutional autonomy, so no-one in Hong Kong should think that this issue is purely a local matter. We have to work within existing rules, regulations and governance structures to ensure that the University of Hong Kong achieves its potential. It is healthy to have debate about whether any of those structures should be changed, but structural change takes time and the University cannot stand still whilst these debates take place. We are not doing so: as I have illustrated to you, substantial progress is already being made and we have a detailed plan for the strategic direction that we believe is in the best interests of the university going forward.

My last word is on our students. There seems to be a widespread belief in Hong Kong that school and university students, and perhaps Hong Kong U students more than most, are difficult, rebellious, subversive trouble-makers: this is just not true and I need all of you to join me in countering this misinterpretation. The vast majority of Hong Kong students are hard-working, conscientious and respectful of authority. They are talented individuals working to improve themselves and society. No-one in Hong Kong should think that student activism is only a Hong Kong issue. In recent months there have been massive student demonstrations in universities in the United States about issues of race and fossil fuel divestment and in South Africa about issues of tuition fees, closing universities down in some cases. Our young people are passionate and idealistic and they care about the world that they are inheriting. We may disagree with some of their methods, but we should work with them, understand them, help to mould them into a generation of mature adults that can address the challenging issues facing their world. We must ensure that Hong Kong U is a place where complex and sometimes controversial issues can be debated, where differences of opinion can be respected, where diversity is celebrated, and intellectual, personal, professional and political advances can be achieved.

Our strategy document uses the strapline "Asia's global university". I have outlined some of the ways in which we are working to justify that title. Your input will help me and the rest of the senior management team to achieve our vision. Our university is already great: let's make it one of the greatest.

We are on our way: please join us! 

Thank you. 





Flag Counter









2015年12月2日 星期三

What Kind of Thinker Are You?




What Kind of Thinker Are You?
Mark Bonchek & Elisa Steele
NOVEMBER 23, 2015



We all aspire to work better together. Technology is making some of that effort easier. But digital tools are only part of the answer. It’s people who ultimately make the difference.

The problem is that technologies for collaboration are improving faster than people’s ability to learn to use them. What can be done to close that gap? A year ago we set out to find the answer, drawing on the collective experience of dozens of collaborative communities and learning organizations. Here’s what we found.

In most organizations, there’s a standard set of tools we use to form, lead, and manage teams. These include personality tests, skill profiles, and team roles. When you put a team together, you consider people’s personalities: are they an introvert or extrovert, risk-taker or risk-avoider, analytical or intuitive? You consider their skills: What is their specific area of talent, experience, or expertise? And you consider their potential role on the team: What will their contribution be to the team’s purpose?

We normally think of roles as being about what people do, such as team leader, project manager, or researcher. When you need a decision, you go to the team leader. When you want a status update, you go to the project manager. When you need something investigated, you go to the researcher.

But in today’s marketplace, the smartest companies aren’t those that necessarily out-produce the competition. Instead, it’s the organizations that outthink them. And while there are plenty of tools that help us quickly understand what our teammates do, it’s harder to tell how they think. Research shows that it is ultimately how teams think together that most determines their performance.

We therefore propose that just as team members today have assigned doing roles, there should also be thinking roles. By knowing how other members of your team and organization think — and by others knowing how you think — everyone can be more energized, more engaged, more creative, and more productive.

One aspect of collaboration is about getting people aligned in what they do. But there is another dimension about getting people aligned in how they think.

So how should you evaluate about how you and your team think? There are frameworks for how you personally think or how you influence others one-on-one. But we didn’t find any simple assessments that would help people connect, communicate, and collaborate based on how they think. So after a lot of co-creation and trial-and-error, we developed a three-step method that delivers practical and meaningful results.

Focus. The first step is to identify the focus of your thinking in a particular context or setting. Do you tend to pay the most attention to ideas, process, action, or relationships? For example, in the morning as you contemplate the day ahead, do you tend to think about the problems you need to solve, the plans you need to make, the actions you need to take, or the people you need to see?

This isn’t about picking one to the exclusion of the other. It’s about where your focus naturally lands. Just like when you consider watching a movie or reading a book, do you tend to go for action, romance, drama, or mystery?

Orientation. The next step is to notice whether your orientation in that setting swings toward the micro or the macro — the big picture or the details. A good way to identify this orientation is by thinking about what tends to bother you in meetings. Are you more likely to complain about getting dragged into the weeds or about things being too general and not specific enough?

These dimensions are complementary to personality, skills, and traditional roles. Some project managers are more inclined to focus on process and others on people. And some extraverts are big picture and others more detail oriented.


The third step is to combine these two dimensions and see the thinking style at work in whatever context or setting you chose.

W151111_BONCHEK_WHATSYOUR


For example, on the big picture or macro orientation:

Explorer thinking is about generating creative ideas.
Planner thinking is about designing effective systems.
Energizer thinking is about mobilizing people into action.
Connector thinking is about building and strengthening relationships.

Across the micro or detail orientation:

Expert thinking is about achieving objectivity and insight.
Optimizer thinking is about improving productivity and efficiency.
Producer thinking is about achieving completion and momentum.
Coach thinking is about cultivating people and potential.

When you know your thinking style, you know what naturally energizes you, why certain types of problems are challenging or boring, and what you can do to improve in areas that are important to reaching your goals.

Once you know your style, it helps to share it with others, and have others share theirs with you. In this way, your thinking style becomes a useful tool — a kind of social currency — for the team. Imagine you put together a team to work on a new initiative. Wouldn’t you like to know who is energized by big-picture strategy discussions and who finds them frustrating? Who likes to work on the details of the execution? And who is energized by managing the team dynamics?

As a real-world demonstration, one company had their entire leadership team identify their thinking styles as managers and leaders. Looking at a heat map of the results, they realized they had a lot of big-picture Explorer thinking and a lot of Action thinking (Energizer and Producer), but very little Process thinking (Planner and Optimizer). The team was strong at coming up with big ideas and mobilizing everyone into action, but weak at working out the details and making things run efficiently.

With this new information in hand, they started giving more voice to those whose detailed thinking often seemed like a buzz kill to the big picture explorers and energizers. They also shifted the culture and recruiting strategies to create a more balanced and diverse thinking style.

At an individual level, one specific leader had always operated in idea-rich environments like consulting and marketing. But by identifying her thinking style, she realized that she was more energized by relationships than ideas. Her orientation was more towards Connector thinking than Explorer thinking. She used ideas to nurture relationships, rather than relationships to nurture ideas. This insight led her to shift the focus of her work toward account management and business development, leading to much higher levels of energy and engagement.

The landscape of business is changing rapidly, and we have to find new and better ways to connect and communicate. We all aspire to work better together; the challenge is actually making it happen. Understanding collaboration through the lens of thinking rather than doing is a practical and powerful step forward.










https://hbr.org/2015/11/what-kind-of-thinker-are-you?utm_campaign=HBR&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

Flag Counter