More Rice Raised from the Walk this year

Asian Counseling and Referral Services’ annual fundraiser “Walk for Rice” went into its 20th year on June 19, 2010. And this year’s NAAAP-Seattle team raised more than three times compared to last year’s year, with $1166.50. ACRS raised a total of $184,245.

Walk for Rice raises money for the ACRS Food Bank. Over 1,000 community members come to walk or run the 2.5-mile trail at Seward Park while raising money and awareness about hunger in King County. Among them were ten NAAAP-Seattle walkers, including Student Relations Chair Amy Duong, Professional Development Chair Hang-Ping Chen, and President Gil Gido.

NAAAP-Seattle did not just walk the trail. They also came out at 7am to help with the setup of the event, direct traffic and parking, and provide information for participants.

Nartia Ghumman, the development coordinator for ACRS, shared with Community Service Chair David Eam:

“We greatly appreciate NAAAP’s continued support for the event. Your organization has shown great leadership and support of APA community events, year after year. The enthusiasm from NAAAP volunteers at 7:00 a.m. at Walk for Rice is certainly inspiring! Rain or shine, we know that we can count on, thank you and your members for their support their local community fight against hunger.”

Because “every grain counts,” you can still visit ACRS website to make a donation.

Photo: NAAAP-Seattle member and volunteer Tai P. Chainarong holds a sign to direct Walkers.

Where are they now? Li Tan, NAAAP Seattle President 2005 - 2006

Hello, my name is Li Tan. I served on the NAAAP Seattle Board of Directors for four years: two as treasurer and two as President. During my term as President, we hosted the NAAAP National Convention. The time and effort that we put into planning and fundraising for the convention was equivalent to a full time job, but it was worth it in the end. Our co-chairs, Joneil Custodio, Janet Ung and Charles Wu did a great job of taking charge and ensuring that the convention was a huge success. By now, most of us have currently moved on to other boards. This year, I became the President of the Asian Counseling and Referral Services board (ACRS) and am serving my second term on it, and Charles (full disclosure: he is my husband) is currently the President of the International Community Health Services (ICHS) Foundation. Without the experience and relationships that I had developed while being involved with NAAAP, I don’t think that I would have the opportunities that I have today.

One of the great challenges of being involved in NAAAP is working with people from many cultural backgrounds. When I refer to culture, I am not limiting myself to ethnicity but am including work experiences, types of jobs people hold, and where we grow up. I think that all of these things contribute to who we are and how we behave. In my profession, I work with many like-minded individuals, so it was nice to be in an environment with many different types of thinkers which is what NAAAP provided. This type of environment allowed me to further develop my leadership skills and appreciate how hard work and collaboration can significantly pay off. The best example that I can use for this is the convention. We had 3 co-chairs, while Asian on the outside, came with differing perspectives. I brought these three individuals together and discussed with them their interests and strengths and used this discussion to determine what types of responsibilities and subcommittees they would lead. With this structure, we were able to meet our fundraising goals and offer two days of relevant programming to our participants and sponsors. The feedback that I received from one of the co-chairs was that she appreciated that I did not micromanage and allowed her to take the lead for her subcommittee.

As a result of my experience with NAAAP, how did I end up on the ACRS Board? One of our convention volunteers was a former Development Director for ACRS who nominated me to serve on their Board. Without the opportunities to use and further develop my leadership skills outside of my profession and the relationships that I developed, I wouldn’t have had the exposure to the Asian and Asian American community and the honor of serving on another board. I highly encourage Asians and Asian Americans to become fully engaged with NAAAP. Don’t expect that you will magically be presented with opportunities when you join. As my story shows, these opportunities were presented to me through hard work and dedication.

Regards,
Li Tan
NAAAP Seattle
President 2005 -2006

Your values

I happened to be at ACRS at the EDI Leadership Conference where Chee Chew, an engineering director at Google gave the opening keynote. At Google, Chee leads a team of 300+ engineers. I never met Chee, but he came out in a blue sweater and jeans and gym shoes. "So what," you say? Well read on as what he wears says something about his values.

He started off with showing us pictures and asking us which we related to most.

Picture series A

Blue sky bridge vs a Sunset (Blue)

Timex vs Rolex (Functionality)

Hooded sweatshirt vs Tuxedo (Functionality)

Grand Piano vs Electronic Piano (Maintenance)

Washington DC vs Rome (New adventurous places)

Key: Chee's picks (Chee's Values)

I picked the sunset, rolex, hooded sweatshirt, grand piano, and Washington dc. I am sure other folks picked something else. As it relates to Chee, he chose the Blue sky, the timex , the hooded sweatshirt , the Electric piano , and then Rome .

He later described why he picked the pictures he chose, an indication of his values. He chose the Blue sky picture for blue; the timex for functionality; the hooded sweatshirt for functionality; the Electric piano for its easy maintenance, and then Rome for his love of adventurous places.

He then showed us another picture series and asked us to pick the pictures he would choose based on his given values. Which ones do you think he picked?

Picture series B

Red Acura vs Blue Honda (Blue)

ChoiceDek Recycled vs Wood Deck (Maintenance)

Knife vs utility knife (Functionality)

Gym Shoe vs Dress Shoe (Functionality)

Africa vs Seattle (New adventurous places)

Key: Chee's picks (Chee's Values)

I admit, I struggled a bit as some of my values got in the way. Knowing his values, it was a bit easier for me to pick the pictures that would he would pick.

Chee then dialogued about meetings he attended for his group and watched the decision making process. In the earlier part of his career as he grew into management roles, he admitted that he was more hands on yet the bigger his team got, this management style didn't work for his worklife balance as he spent a lot of time fixing issues and he had to be in the room to make decisions.  He realized that this process didn't scale as his team globally grew. He had to state his values to his team so that they could speak to what Chee would decide if he wasn't there.  (The exercise above demonstrates this.)

The lesson to be learned with Chee is to be open about your values and to be self aware of your management style meaning are you hands on or are you consistently sharing your values to help your team make decisions?

Regards,

Gil Gido
NAAAP Seattle
President

Additional Links:

○ Google, Inc.: http://www.google.com/

○ Executive Development Institute: http://www.ediorg.org/

○ Asian Counseling and Referral Service: http://www.acrs.org/

○ Authentic Leadership by Bill George: http://bit.ly/ddNOmG