Last week, I was lucky enough to get the chance to return to Indonesia - a place a fell in love with when I was there in 2010 as part of my Asian Public Intellectuals program. Maybe it was because the weather, traffic seemed so much like home or the fact that Filipinos and Indonesians use the same terms for the most important words - mahal and mura :-) But really, its the warmth and hospitality of the Indonesian people that makes it feel like a second home.
This time around, my visit wasn't for research but for training. Dr. Bopeep Franco and I ran our certificate program in Organization Development for faculty of psychology of University of Indonesia and selected HR practitioners. It was a challenging experience primarily because we were working with a compressed design. But I was also conscious about language and cultural differences and wondered whether I'd be able to reach my participants as I am able to do in my home country. Yet as the days went by, my fears were put to rest and as I often do in training programs, I began to enjoy myself and learned as much from our participants as well. More importantly, I came away appreciating not only the cultural differences but also realizing that there is also much we share - a readiness to serve, the value for people, the struggles to transform organizations and the dream of making a difference.
This time around, my visit wasn't for research but for training. Dr. Bopeep Franco and I ran our certificate program in Organization Development for faculty of psychology of University of Indonesia and selected HR practitioners. It was a challenging experience primarily because we were working with a compressed design. But I was also conscious about language and cultural differences and wondered whether I'd be able to reach my participants as I am able to do in my home country. Yet as the days went by, my fears were put to rest and as I often do in training programs, I began to enjoy myself and learned as much from our participants as well. More importantly, I came away appreciating not only the cultural differences but also realizing that there is also much we share - a readiness to serve, the value for people, the struggles to transform organizations and the dream of making a difference.