Name
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Damodaran Sheila
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Address
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Singapore:
3 Tai Keng Terrace
Singapore 535235
Botswana:
P O Box 3274, Main Mall
Gaborone
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Contact
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+65-9479 0526 (Mobile contact in Singapore)
+267-393 1518 (Home Office in Botswana)
+267-7478 0886 (Mobile contact in Botswana)
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Email
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sheilasingapore@gmail.com or sheila@lopn.net
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Nationality
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Singapore
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Year of Birth
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1964 (currently in my late forties)
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Educational
Qualification
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Postgraduate Diploma on "Leaders for Learning" offered by Civil Service College
by Dr Daniel H. Kim (1999-2000)
Bachelor of Business Administration (1984-1987) National University of Singapore
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Work
Experience
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Jan 2009 - present (3 years); Consultancy in the area: (16 years)
Learning Organization Practitioners' Network
September 2002 — Present (6 years)
Coordinates and designs spaces for practitioners of Learning Organizations
(public / private / NGO sectors) within the country / region learn and practices
the disciplines of this work. More details at http://www.lopn.net
- Assistant Director (Learning Organization) /Internal Consultant
Planning and Organization Department
Police Headquarters
Singapore Police Force
August 1999 — December 2008 (9 years 4 months)
Have oversight of the planning, training and coordination of Learning
Organization (as espoused by Peter Senge) capacity building efforts and
projects for junior, middle and senior police management positions.
- Criminal Intelligence Strategic Planning and Training
Singapore Police Force
July 1995 — August 1999 (4 years 2 months)
- Head Criminal Intelligence Analysis
Singapore Immigration
January 1993 — July 1994 (1 year 7 months)
- Head Crime Statistics and Analysis
Singapore Police Force
August 1989 — December 1992 (3 years 5 months)
Superior Developers
October 1987 — July 1989 (1 year 10 months)
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Specialization
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Understanding and managing complexity, Creating Productive Conversations
(Chris Argyris and facilitation), Designing sustainable interventions, Large-scale
organizational and social complexity interventions, Organizational Learning
(disciplines as espoused by Dr Peter Senge),
My journey today is in uncovering "systemic structures" that govern the
sustainability and growth of organizations and social systems (such as issues
ranging from inability to meet the organisation's mission, attrition, mounting costs,
declining productivity, poverty, traffic woes, natural disasters, rising health
concerns, HIV/AIDs epidemic, prostitution, corruption and global warming) and
pass the skills on to teams so they can use it to create results that matter for
them.
I look forward to working with organizations and countries who care to
understand the five disciplines of Learning Organizations as Peter Senge has
defined. This takes the shape of training and consultancy works that help carry
the (leadership) teams from theory to practice. It culminates with uncovering
systemic structures for their organization and learning to turn these into leverage
action plans towards sustainable organizational successes. Members can also
expect to build an internal capacity for their organization in the three core
processes of this work helping the organization learn to create results that matter.
The work happening for me include:
- Been in this field since 1996 (as part of a local public organization), I use the
philosophy and the methodology by Dr Peter Senge in his publication: The Art
and Practice of Learning Organizations. In particular, these include:
- Creating the capacities for systemic thinking (Systems Thinking),
- Learning to shift defensive conversations to productive and generative
ones and;
- Learning to build and lead inspiring teams that produce outcomes that
matter.
- My mentoring in the works was led by the likes of Dr Daniel H. Kim, Diane
Cory, Michael Goodman, Chris Argyris, Sandra Seagal, Bob Putnam, Phil
MacArthur and Dr Deanna Berg began as far back as 1996, and I maintain
regular contacts with Dr Peter Senge himself.
- Public Sector Organizations: An ongoing consultant to the Office of the
President of Botswana in teaching the five disciplines of Learning
Organization to their Permanent Secretaries and Directorate staff (the
equivalent of corporate CEOs) and facilitating each Ministry develop their
reinforcing loops of success (engines of growth that considers goals of the
whole system – shared visions).
- This is in their quest to address the complex challenges facing the country
(the country has among the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDs incidents in the
world) and eventually determine ways the works happening across Ministries
are aligned and determine leverage intervention actions. We are now seeing
systemic structures that plague most government policies that get in the way
of their successes. The lessons learned are used to rethink strategies on
their key issues. The work is captured here: http://www.lopn.
net/ST_Casestudy25_ANationGrowing.html.
- Private Sector Organizations: Companies in realty and insurance industries
who have agents working for them. I teach the five disciplines to senior
management team members of the organizations to help them understand
systemically the challenges they face in their industry as well as at
organizational levels. They have recognized this helps them not turn the
anger they feel as individuals on each other which otherwise often leads to
conflicts and attrition among their staff. The organizations are ringing in more
sales and are focused on developing capacities to shift their attention from
individual faults to learning to watch issues more systemically.
- Civic Groups: Member of an NGO group across several parts of Asia
(Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia) learn the tools to help them understand a
range of social issues (corruption, spate of natural disasters, traffic
congestion woes, Cambodia-Vietnam relations) that plague citizens in their
country. Members notice a growing systemic awareness of the issues that
has turned their attention (and anger) away from activism to learning to pick
up skills work that would allow stakeholders to think together and then work
together.
- I have been doing these both at professional and personal capacities and
span the region from Taiwan, Vietnam Cambodia, Indonesia, India and Africa.
I would like to see more of that happen for me. Be happy to explore and
develop the work further both locally and in the region.
- Extending support in all of these areas with organisations such as the
Supreme Court, Singapore Polytechnic, Temasek Polytechnic, MENDAKI,
schools in Singapore, Changi Women’s Prison, National Community
Leadership Institute, Defence Management Group, UNIFEM, Singapore
Powers, Singapore General Hospital, Wild Wild West Real Estate, Manulife
Insurance Team, Singapore Pools, Kranji Turf Club and recently as an
adjunct researcher with a public health research institution in Singapore.
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Leads or
founding of
regional and
international
network
(Discussion
Groups) of
Learning
Organization
practitioners
|
International: LinkedIn LOPN
Singapore: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/LOPN/
Botswana: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/BotswanaLO/
India: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaLO/
Vietnam: http://groups.google.com/group/lopnvietnam
Asia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsianLearningOrganizationPractitioners/
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Papers
presented at
Conferences /
led significant
group
facilitation
efforts
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"Facilitating Learning Organization", 2005, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Facilitated "System of how a nation works together" 2005/ 2007, Cabinet
Botswana
Facilitated "Systemic implications of child-sex tourism" 2005, UNIFEM
Facilitated World Cafe Café Asia! "Shaping Livable Futures for Our Children" at
the Quest for Global Healing Conference 2006 Bali, Indonesia
"Understanding the Systemic Nature of Complexity" at Systems Thinking in Action
Conference, 2006 Boston, MA
Facilitated "Understanding corruption", 2007 Vietnam
"Learning to Facilitate World Cafe", Large-group Intervention Fiesta 2007,
Singapore
Facilitated "Cambodia-Vietnam Dialogue" 2007, Vietnam
Facilitated "Understanding the systemic nature of natural disasters in Indonesia"
2007, Indonesia
"Managing Defensive Conversations" at Asia Facilitator Conference 2007, Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia
"Dealing with Defensive Conversations" at Singapore Facilitator Conference
2007, SIngapore
Facilitated "Understanding HIV/AIDs phenomena" 2007 Botswana
Facilitated "Traffic congestion woes" 2008, Vietnam
Upcoming:
"Deconstructing Complexity" at Systems Thinking in Action Conference by
Pegasus Communications, Boston, USA (proposal
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Group
Affiliations
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SoL (Society for Organizational Learning) Global Coordinator (Singapore)
http://www.solonline.org/working_groups/GlobalCoordinators/members
Consultant member Society for Organizational (SoL) Learning (Global)
http://www.solonline.org
Asia's Regional Steward for World Cafe http://www.theworldcafe.com/hubs.htm
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