A Very Cool Video - tafsir of surah al kahf but in a cool way

Beautiful Sinners

MGT2010: Watch This Video for Motivation

MGT2010 - Class on Wednesday 6th November will be postponed

Dear MGT2010 students. Due to a meeting that I cannot escape from, I have to postpone our class on Wednesday 6th November. Please spread the word.

Introduction to Leadership in a Complex World

This activity was conducted with final year students at IIUM Gombak campus on 24th October 2013. The purpose of the workshop was to get students to experience a chaotic system (in this case, a supply chain). There were three kinds of systems: one week delay, two weeks delay and three weeks delay.

Thinking globally

Mid Term for MGT2010: Monday 28 October 2013

Dear all : spread the word. Mid Term for MGT2010: Monday 28 October 2013

Feedback to my MGT2010 and MGT6600 students

Every week, you should learn something new that is not related to the content of the course but related to the process of planning and executing a project. Every week, you should ask yourself: "If I had to do this again, what would I do differently?" If you would do everything the same, you are not learning. If you would do things different but you don't write down these ideas on a separate piece of paper, you will forget them.Happy learning :)

A Good Example to Follow: Sebelah Sayap

I did some market testing yesterday. I sat with a few students and we watched several videos. They gave me their feedback on what worked, what didn't and why. The best video was Mat Luthfi's "sebelah sayap". The reason: many videos tell about how to solve a problem (i.e. somebody talking all the time). However, people prefer to watch somebody solve a problem. For example, in the video, there are scenes with no dialogue but you see Mat Lufthi emptying beer bottles in the sink and replacing it with apple juice. Clearly, Mat Lufthi is a very experiences video maker so I don't expect you guys to do what he does. However, the idea that 'showing' is better than 'telling' should influence the way you make videos this semester.

Strategic Management from an Islamic perspective

If anybody wants to buy this book at a discount, please come to my office. I have purchased 50 copies at the author's price and I am willing to re-sell them at that price. The book focuses on strategic management failure rates of 90% ++. This means that what you learn in most conventional strategic management textbooks fail 90% of the time. In particular, a reliance on riba (which is never questioned by Western authors) and many conflicts of interests lead organizational leaders to do the wrong thing. The Islamic perspective proposes a useful alternative that focuses on several things: sustainability, social justice, shariah-compliance and systems thinking. Enjoy :)

Making YouTube videos: MGT2010, MGT4820 and MGT6600

Starting in September, there should be close to 200 students (MGT2010, MGT4820 and MGT6600) making videos for the Productive Teens project. My students can learn from the following videos: MIP 6 (good story, good narration but process of transformation not clear), MIP 22 (powerful story, good audio but could have been done differently), MIP 32 (good story, good video, good audio, 3rd person - excellent) and M.I.P. 35 (excellent story, explains the process of transformation in detail - only problem: it is a talking head video). +++++++ Learn from your peers and find your own style :)

Down-time

Over the next few weeks, I will do very few postings as my students are 'on holiday'. Nonetheless, my work is on-going. I am more and more interested in how certain processes - like dyslexia - affects Muslims. My understanding is that there are hundreds of thousands of Malays who are dyslexic and don't know about it. A really cool website is "The Dyslexic Advantage". Anyway, dyslexic is not a problem but it does have to be managed. Whether or not you are successful / happy / grateful to Allah depends on your ability to understand yourself (including the way your mind processes information) well enough to turn apparent disablities into strengths.

Giving hope to people without hope

Earlier today, I meet a trainer. He has to organize a 4 hour workshop for about 100 teenagers in trouble. These teenagers have been 'rejected' by their parents and their teachers. They are involved in pretty much every social problem you can think of. He asked me whether he could show some of the videos that MGT4110 / MGT4820 / MGT6610 students made......Hopefully, these videos will give hope to those without hope....

MIP 18

Excellent videos to be inspired

This video was done by Dr Naail's students in MGT4820. It's excellent (although it is not in Malay and therefore cannot be used for Productive Teens project. I think this style works really well. Here is another one

This video was forwarded by one of my students in MGT4110. I like it because the fact that he forwarded to me a video he thought was useful for all means that this blog is not my blog, but it is our blog. Enjoy :)

An incredible analysis of Islamic education and why it worked so well in the past, why it is not working today and how it could work in the future ....

Video on Al Qadar

The video on Al Qadar was posted on this blog on 24 March 2012. It's called "Dawah during Dester Storm" by Dr Bilal Philips. Enjoy :)

MGT6610 Jan 2013 to April 2013

What does it feel like when you go for your first interview .......

You have finished your studies and you are looking for a job. What is it like? One of my ex-student send me the email below sharing his experience as a first-time job hunter. Assalamualaikum Dr. Thank you for your advice earlier last week regarding to my job interviews. So, i hv attended both the interviews and writing to share some of my experience in the session. for maybank, the interview that i hv attended is the 1st lvl interview for the posotion in global maybank apprentice program(GMAP). basically, the purpose is to get to know me face to face, to assess my personality and communication skills.(at least this is what i think). for the session, i hv been placed in a discussion room with two panels for 30-45 minutes. all i hv to do is talk n talk. the session is more to a chit chat, and i feel no pressure (maybe bcoz the room is very tranquil and look relaxing). Alhamdulillah, i hv passed their 1st lvl and will proceed to the next lvl on coming 30th Apr. the nest process is called as The Assessment Center. from their email, i understand that, there will be Individual Presentation, Facts-Finding and Group Discussion (based on the business case study given). this process will take about half a-day from 8.30am -3.30pm. i hope i also can make it this time. As for petronas, the SI is like the common interview. during the session, they gave me three situations and asked for as much solutions as possible. it quite tough coz both panels are good in making people pressured, and always questioned my answer. anyway, i really hope it went very well. i will get their answer maybe within next week or next two weeks. that all for now. wish me all the best. thank you for everything sir. May Allah bless you and ur family

Three pictures tell three thousand words

I was checking out Aiman Azlan's facebook. I found three pictures that (I think) symbolizes what OB is all about for me ..... First: Know what is your purpose in life Second: Make the proper effort Third: Forget the past

Videos completed by your peers

The students of MGT6610 have finished their videos - you can find them on youtube (mip5, mip 6, mip 7 and mip8). There is also a video in Thai (mip_Thai). Here is mip 6. I hope this motivates you ....

Feedback on mid-term: Delay between cause and effect

I was marking the script of one sister. She normally sleeps late and then experimented with sleeping early. Not seeing any difference, she decided to go back to sleeping late again. The question is whether one expects a change in behaviour to have an immediate effect or a delayed effect. Very often, there is a delayed effect. We have to patiently continue with the right behaviour until we see in improvement in our performance.

Feedback on the Mid Semester Exam for MGT4110

Salam to all MGT 4110 brothers and sisters. I am currently marking question 2. I just want to share an example. This brother has major cognitive dissonance. Out of 10 forms, I filled out 9 as cognitive dissonance. That cognitive dissonance can be seen in many ways. In particular, he claims that his base line is 12.30 am but actually, he normally sleeps between 2 am and 3 am every day. Other things are also contradictory - for example, his action plan is "I will not fail last minutes" but his red light was "I have quiz the next day and I haven't studied anything." However, when writing his answer, this brother was very honest and very systematic in his answer. I thus gave him a 10/10 for his answer. My rule is always the same: My job is to help you think, I am not here to tell you what to think. On a personal note, I believe that data do not lie - whatever excuses you make, the data in front of me speaks more than a million words ......

A definition of Hapiness by Sheikh Hamza Yusuf

Sheikh Hamza Yusuf proposes the following definition of Happiness: To be satisfied with the Qadar of Allah by serving others

Counting your blessings: The key to believing in Al Qadar?

Most people have problems with the last question on the assignment on Al Qadar. Counting your blessings means - literally - trying to count all those things that Allah has given you .... and realizing that many things are things that we take for granted. In the end, we forget that they are blessings. Here are two videos to make you think: Here is another one

Automatic thoughts

OB mindmaps

My MGT6610 students developed 4 different mindmaps to see the big picture in OB. Any student wishing to be a great student needs to do this kind of thing so that the details can be inserted into a general frameowkr

1st step: Develop story boards

Story boards allow everybody to know who is going to say / do what and when. A good story board will show: location, speech, background and shooting angle (e.g. face only, half body, full body ....)

Extra marks for extra effort

Extra marks are available for groups who analyze this website http://www.psikologihadith.com/

210 students shooting vidoes

Learning from the experience of last semester, I now have 210 students (MGT6610, MGT4110 and MGT4820) shooting videos. These videos will be linked to the productiveteens.com website (which will be totally re-vamped thanks to the help of En. Fazrul Ismail at Total Success Sdn Bhd). Hopefully, in 2014, problematic teenagers in selected schools will surf the Internet under the supervision and coaching of one of their teachers. They will go through the productive teens videos one by one (which will, insya Allah, combine Islamic content and everyday self-management skills)as the school year progresses. These weekly discussions will focus around the content of the video and include group discussions and appropriate role-play. As the school year progresses, these problematic teenagers should (insya Allah) be able to changer their behaviour (first) and then change their perception of themselves (later). We hope that a few successful pilots would help persuade schools that using productive teens is an effective way to help some of their under-performing students. We hope that the students would become happy and productive Muslims at the outcome of this project. I don't (by the way) blame these students for their current situations. Many teenagers are exposed to mixed and confusing messages from their peers, their parents and their teachers. We simply want to show these kids practical steps to change their lives for the better.

Welcome to new students

To all MGT4110 and MGT4820 students, welcome. As you will see, we will be using the Internet / You tube a lot this semester. To get you a taste of what can happen in this course, just view this excellent video called "The Lost Generation"