Bruce Stinson is a widely experienced writer, teacher and developer of personal skills training strategies. As Managing Director of Hong Kong Life Skills training company, ChiLab Limited, he was approached two years ago by the Global Institute of Logistics to develop a program in Relationship Orientation and now holds the additional position of Executive Director, Training and Development, with the Institute.
A Hong Kong resident for fourteen years, Bruce developed and taught a highly successful course in Personal Skills before leaving Australia in 1994. He is a Member of the Australian Institute of Management, qualified as a teacher, and has maintained his pharmacy registration. In Hong Kong he has also been heavily involved in community service for the past 12 years.
“Although I was educated in a branch of the medical field – pharmacy – and practised that profession for some time, my interests always lay in other areas – particularly writing and researching the fascinating area of personal development,” Mr Stinson said.
“In fact, the course I developed and taught at a university in Brisbane was very popular but we were not far into it when I chose to take an exciting offer to come to Hong Kong and work in the media.
“Several years ago I went back to the development work I had done and decided to totally upgrade and re-write it all. What set me on this path was the increasing number of articles and letters in the Hong Kong press bemoaning the lack of creativity and innovation in the Asian workplace. I thought the time was right.”
“For me the challenge is to get people to think smarter and react more wisely to each of their day’s little challenges. That is the essence of creativity – which most people think of as big-picture items only like innovative buildings and art. This “thinking smarter” also involves all of the other areas we cover such as Emotional Intelligence, Communication Skills and Personal Management.
Along with his colleagues at ChiLab, and a high-powered advisory Board, Mr Stinson has developed an eight-module Life Skills course for individuals and companies, as well as a three-month Certificate Program in Relationship Orientation specifically for the logistics industry.
“There is one thing missing from almost all of the material available in this field even the highly regarded and extremely useful work of people like Steven Covey”, Mr. Stinson says.
“People tell you that you must change certain behavior to be more successful in life, but they rarely, if ever, tell you how to make that change. That was my major discovery in all of that research I did years ago. There is a proven method to make changing habits easy. It has become a fundamental part of our work and it underpins all of our Life Skills and Relationship work.
“We have developed this further and call it “The ChiLab Method”. I have taught it to hundreds, if not thousands, of people and they all find it extremely useful. With that understood, a whole new world of possibilities opens up as people realize they can easily make the necessary changes.”
Anastasia Mak is a well-known Hong Kong personality who has made a lifetime commitment to the study of personal skills and lifestyle issues. Highly regarded as a educator, she has taught at both Hong Kong University and Chinese University in the Special Administrative Region of China.
Her abiding interest in, and knowledge of, food and wine is legendary and many Hong Kong bon vivants value Anastasia’s advice not only on which wines to serve with which food, but also on matters such as wine cellar planning, where her creative skills really come to the fore.
A lifetime student of creativity and innovation, Anastasia has a razor-sharp mind which will often come up with the ideal solution to a challenge before anyone else even has time to react. As a teacher, she has the unique ability to hold an audience and ensure best possible results.
“Perhaps it’s my mixed heritage (her grandfather was French), but I know I think differently to most people and this has been very helpful, not only in broadening my own outlook, but also in my teaching where a different approach can often lead to vastly better outcomes,” Anastasia says.
“I am really enjoying working with the ChiLab team and being involved in their partnership with the Global Institute of Logistics on the relationship work.
“This is something I have studied all of my life and we have certainly found ways to educate logistics practitioners in the elements of Relationship Orientation which are unique and innovative.
“What I especially like is that we have a great team – we employ the exact strategies that we teach, with the result that it is a wonderful atmosphere to work in and we get results for our clients. Almost everyone could learn from the way our team interacts and supports each other. It is innovative leadership at work.”
Not one to let the grass grow under her feet, Anastasia has worked in a vineyard in Veneto, Italy and successfully completed a cordon bleu sommelier cooking course in the United States in her search to further her knowledge on two of her passions.
“Wine and food will always be part of my life, and I am doing further education in that area now, but I am totally committed to the Life Skills training we are doing at present and to the relationship work with the Global Institute of Logistics.
“On the recent Logistics Study Mission to Germany we saw some wonderful grand-scale innovation at places like Airbus in Hamburg and the DHL Innovation Centre near Bonn, but I feel I get most satisfaction out of showing one individual how to handle day-to-day situations in a better way. That’s what our work is all about and it is extremely worthwhile and from that, we can help a company achieve far better results in a wide variety of areas.”