India experience - 1.5 month - The Path to Illumination

In which I find Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, fight depression after receiving a pep-talk from my teammate and have the epiphany of The Path to (my own) Illumination.


One of these days, I found a golden statue of Ganesh in one of my drawers in my wardrobe. Certainly from the previous renters of the flat, the little elephant-headed statue was not more than 5 centimeters tall. I didn't pay so much attention to it and I just let it rest inside the wardrobe.

I might not look like the type (neither I give many hints about it), but I am deeply spiritual person, even though I don't have any religion. So one of these days I was browsing the web randomly and I started reading about  Indian gods. I was reading about Ganesh, which is one of the most beloved indian gods, and one thing called my attention: among other things, Ganesh is the remover of obstacles.

It is no secret that I am having a major hard time in India, with cultural shock hitting me with both feet on my chest. I thought "remover of obstacles, eh?"

Now here I must expose the crazy things that go inside my head when I say I am a spiritual person and not a religious one:

Crazy idea #1 - The Truth is only one, but wise men have called it by many names.
I believe in one God. The true God. But I believe that everything is an emanation of God. In other words, it is all just different aspects of God - like looking to those mirror labyrinths, the images reflected in different mirrors certainly look different, but they are all the same thing, just reflected in a different way. Which means that everything is God (or different aspects of God), including you, me and that tree over there (yes, the rickshaw driver is also an emanation of God - but I wouldn't say it is a particularly good one).

You can burn me later, I saved the best for the last: if everything is God, then no religion is wrong.

Crazy idea #2 - If you and me are emanations of God, we have god-like powers
And if you, me and them have god-like essence & powers, we can make things happen just by wishing hard enough (The Secret feelings anyone?). So if a bunch of people (1 billion?) believes that an elephant-headed god is the remover of obstacles, it will help people to "access" the "remover of obstacles" energy from God. We invented the gods, we make them powerful and, when we forget them, they lose their powers and fade away. (Connected, but not really, read American Gods, excellent fiction).

And this ends up the crazy explanation of what goes inside my head. Continuing from where we stopped:

"remover of obstacles, eh?"

Than I put the Ganesh statue in my office and gave him a bit of a nudge and a chat here and there during the day, especially the difficult ones. At home I started meditating about my obstacles in India and why I was having such a hard time, while the others seem to be much better.

Yesterday was one of those hard days at the office. I was feeling destroyed, defeated and complaining about everything. So much that one of my colleagues had to get me and talk about it. "Hey, let's focus on solution, we are only complaining, that is not right". I am glad by his leadership, that is what I was needing at that moment. I immediately recognized the down-spiral, the hopeless attitude and all the things that I should not do when I was MCP. And I invoked the MCP god energy and the wish for Ganesh to help me to clear up the obstacles on my way. I decided to end it right there. I needed to snap out of the defeated mode. For those that know me, they know I am capable of very dramatic changes in behavior to accomplish objectives. That is what I decided doing.

After that, I had a blast at work, I impacted the lives of the trainees that just arrived, had some good social time with the guys at the office and, at home, had these revelations:

#1 - I can't change the whole of India, I am only one god, they are more than a billion.
#2 - I am unhappy because I am focusing on complaining. What we focus on is what we will notice. "Think of buying an yellow car and suddenly everyone is driving that yellow car". Perception is reality for the perceiver.
#3 - I am unhappy because I am feeling purposeless in India, which lead me to create the Path of Illumination (just a fancy way to say "happy life plan")

Goal #1: enjoy India - this country has so much to offer, what a waste of time to focus on all that makes me unhappy. I will change those 274 trainees lives. I will travel around the great and magic places and experience the India that one should experience before death. I will make deeper friendship (but I am still not seeking loads of friends, I prefer few deep relationships), I will find ways to enjoy the physical space in Chennai (beach? Sparky's? Temples?) and STOP COMPLAINING.

Goal #2: prepare the ground for doing what I love, with who I love and where I love - That I really cannot say so much about, just that it is on its way and I am really thinking this can go very right!

Now, I am walking the Path.

But do not follow me. Each person has to find his/her own path.

The leadership pendulum between reflection and action

I tend to be a person that, like a pendulum, swings between deep reflection (especially self-reflection) and insane fast-paced action. More or less like this: I think of what is going on, I get to a conclusion, make a plan of what I should do and then use the 5th gear to go towards whatever I decided. I find it useful, especially when I remember to go into a quick reflection to check if I am going to the right place and if I need to adjust the course.

It is useful to think like that, because I see a lot of people constantly bogged down by their own thoughts and uncertainty, really paralyzed, unable to act. I am a deep believer that it is better to do something than wait around. I also believe that it is better to make a mistake fast, so you can correct it fast. I also believe there is a time for input and a time for hammering on. Which sometimes makes me very frustrated when I have to work with people that come back to review previous decisions taken or stop everything to give you a new set of requirements.

* Sometimes I post in this blog things that are in fact not to the normal reader, but reminders to myself (or a-ha moments I need to capture). This space is also my own leadership journey. Sorry for the interruption. :)

No wonder I am having cultural shock at work

The black is me and the red is the typical Indian culture

Via Globesmart.

I am a respectful inventor

My personalDNA Report

(Via Rolf's blog)

Ha det bra, Oslo (Goodbye, Oslo)

I started writing this inside my head a few days before I left Oslo, while I did some things over there for the last time (like the path from my old job to my old flat), then I handwritten it in the plane using the amazing notebook Deniss and Albina gave me, now I am re-writing it on my PC, at the 3rd day in Mumbai, but I will only post it when I have internet, which means when I get to Chennai, in  a few days.

I have reached the point of no return: I am at the Amsterdam airport and it finally hit me, I am going to India, most importantly, I left Oslo, where I lived for 3 years. Good part of those years thinking I was going to live there. So it was just like home for me, at least in feeling. Schiphol airport was the same airport I used to come for the first time to Europe. It felt right to be the one I would be leaving it too.

I consider myself a strong fellow, but when I get emotional, I cry just like a little girl. So while I am writing this (both at the Amsterdam airport and at the my room in Mumbai) tears lick my face like a dog's wet tongue would. Humans are animals of habit and I am crying because my life will not be the same now. I already miss even the things I didn't like or even hated in Oslo. But of course, I miss much more the things I loved, like my girl, friends, spring weather, sitting at the park and have barbecue and beer, read under the sun, my flat, kebab... all the stuff that is gone when I boarded the Delta flight to Mumbai.

My last day in Oslo was one of running around and goodbyes. I finished giving away my furniture, and the last piece was given to an international couple which fell in love with the apartment. I loved the idea of such a nice international couple living in my place. It felt right for that flat. I have been very happy there and I know they would too. I gave the phone number of the landlord and they said they were really going to call at that very day. I hope they get it.

The last day was of goodbyes: as meals, I obviously had Bislett Kebab and Burger King. I got a haircut at the same cheap place I always went in Grønland. I walked through Slottsparken and Aker Brygge. And then, when everything was done, I came back to the apartment, where only my bags remained. I looked around at the completely empty flat and I remember releasing a big sigh. I was going to miss that place. I got my bags, left the flat and put the key at the mailbox. It was over, I was homeless.

I went to Sveinung's place, where I would stay until my flight very early in the next day - which means we would not sleep. We went with my best friends (still) in Oslo to the Eurovision party, it seamed a pretty reasonable way of saying goodbye not only to my friends and Oslo, but also to Europe. Azerbaijan won the contest, which for me sounded as an indication of what was to come in my own life: Europe was not my place anymore, I was going to live in the East.

At that night, it started raining. I hated Oslo for that, such a bad way of saying goodbye. But then I started to believe it was crying too because I was leaving. Walking around wet, looking for busses and cabs to go from one place to another was very stressful. I didn't want to miss my flight, or, well, maybe I wanted, by I decided I couldn't. Unfortunately Oslo was not my place anymore, I had to move on.

When finally we managed to get cabs to the places we needed to be, I said a cold goodbye to my best friends. I suck at goodbyes. I don't like to say bye to the people I love. I feel uncomfortable and stressed and I don't know what to say.

Since I haven't slept in that day, I slept the whole way to the airport and the whole way from Oslo to Amsterdam. This soothed my tight heart. But when I got to Amsterdam, it really hit me that I was not an Osloner anymore. I felt sad, but the sadness had to wait, because on the way to the flight to Mumbai I had the toughest security check ever. 2 guys interviewing me and asking the same questions over and over again. Very annoying. I wanted to throw at their faces that I lived legally in one of the richest countries in the world and certainly I had better options than India (including staying in Oslo) if I was trying to move somewhere illegally. At some point, when I showed the invitation letter from Tata, the guys finally believed I was for real and let me go with a somewhat apologetic tone. Buggers.

When I boarded the plane, I was in tears. I was completely scared, which rationally felt good, since I would be leaving my comfort zone to grow and develop. But even though my mind knew it was a good thing, my heart was heavy like Indian food. More than once I thought of turning around and catching a plane to somewhere else. I kept walking, found my place at the plane and got my notebook, where I finished writing this text. I remember wishing very strongly that I would not regret this step in my life, both professionally and personally. I still hope I won't.

To finish, for those that didn't see my video where I gave away my books to strangers in Oslo in a way to say "thank you" to the city, here it is:

My team management book – what do you think?

During a the new year’s eve collective delusion, I decided it would be fun to write a short ebook to help people to manage teams better. The idea come from the amount of people that came to me to get advice on how to run a team like I ran mine when I was AIESEC Norway’s President.

I set a deadline to finish the book by end May (geez…) and that before my birthday (21^st of January) I would have the basic structure in place. And this post is exactly about this last bit, the structure. I will post it here and I would appreciate if you could feedback or give some insights that could help me to improve it. Ah, and if you have ideas for the name of the book, please let me know also.

What I want the book to be:

-          - It’s a funny and easy to read book only about managing/leading a team

-          - If the readers put the tools/advices in the book in practice, it will help them to manage better their teams

-          - Examples to illustrate

What I don’t want the book to be:

-          - Full of theory or impractical

-          - Talk about other aspects of my leadership experience (Organization management/development, change management, strategy, recruitment, finance…)

-          - Personal leadership (I am unsure about this in fact, since there is a component that impacts quite a lot on the management of the team – so I think I will have to touch it a bit)

Structure:

-          Introduction

o   This is not about theory, it’s based on nothing else than my experience and observations.

o   Read and do it. If you don’t want to try anything or don’t have enough discipline to do it, this book will be useless.

o   Adapt and feel what is right for your leadership style as well as your team needs. There are no 100% formulas for team management, because in the end it is about people

-          Building and starting a new team

o   Build the team or it will build itself

o   What is the foundation of building a team?

§  Team purpose (team mission / vision -> what is success for this team?)

§  Individual roles and responsibilities

§  How we work (How we deal with each other in the team, outside the team and with work/challenges, team values, ground rules, expectations)

§  How we make the team work (team operating processes)

§  When dealing with humans, don’t forget the social stuff

§  Role modeling

o   When a newcomer joins a team that already exists

o   After it is built, it needs more building (Every day is team building day, even if you don’t realize it)

-          Team purpose

o   What is it?

o   How to do it? (both fluffy and hard core)

o   How to use it?

§  Visible

§  Take decisions / get directions

§  Assess current situation

§  Celebrate or change and tweak it

-          Individual roles and responsibilities

o   Breaking down the purpose into the individual (both responsibility and goals)

o   Adapt the job to the people, not the other way around

o   Don’t allow “support” roles to sprawl

o   Don’t allow silos, but don’t allow “everyone is responsible” also

o   Change roles as purpose evolves

-          How we work

o   Team values (building and using)

o   Expectations and Ground rules (building and using)

-          Team operational processes

o   Prioritizing what to do and what not to do (planning and stuff)

o   Decision making (who and when)

o   Team learning

o   Team Meetings

§  What to use it for? When not to use it?

§  How often

§  Calling

§  Preparing

§  Conducting

§  After the meeting and follow up

§  Tools for idea generation

§  Tools for decision making

o   Individual meetings

§  What to use it for? When not to use it?

·         Team member oriented

·         Professional oriented

·         Maximizing strengths and minimizing weaknesses

·         They really want your honest assessment

·         Don’t give all the answers, but don’t play riddles in the dark

§  How often

§  (ask, don’t assume)

§  Tools

-         Team members’ relationships

o   GTKEO (constantly)

o   Building trust in the team

o   Feedback

o   Social agenda

 -         The team is a reflex of the leader

o   As a leader, everything is your fault (seriously) -> consistency role model

o   Feel it and speak up (ask, don’t assume), even if you are unsure, test and listen

o   Doggie style: reinforce good behavior, call out bad behavior

o   Give honest feedback and ask for it (and then listen carefully!)

o   “I was wrong” and “I don’t know” are source of power, not weakness

o   Incentivizing mistakes, but not sloppiness

o   Solution oriented approach

 -         The easy team management checklist

My work at Yara

I am working in Yara for almost 2 months, I can’t pretend I know a lot about the organization, by I can pretend I know enough about my job to actually speak about it. And since Yara doesn’t have a social media policy, here I am, using all the good sense I have today from the top of my 28-years-old-International-Brazilian-self. Let’s start with the beginning:

Yara International ASA is the world’s leading chemical company that converts energy, natural minerals and nitrogen from the air into essential products for farmers (this means fertilizers and crop nutrition stuff) and industrial customers (all sorts of chemicals to be used in other industries). Yara is a Norwegian company that has a global presence and is physically in 50 countries. It started in 1905 as Norsk Hydro, then it got demerged from Norsk Hydro only in 2004. So we are old, but we are also young. Near my desk there is a book saying “Yara. 100 years young.”

I am working at the Human Resources department, more specifically at the Talent Management and Sourcing department, which was created in January this year. Since Yara grow mostly by acquisition, we don’t have global standardized HR processes - that's where the Talent Management and Sourcing department comes in. Our mission is basically to ensure all the company uses top of the class HR processes. So this gives us a lot of room for creativity, interaction with other units and businesses, research of good case practices, buy-in and lobbying, etc. It’s definitely challenging to accomplish our job (especially when you think that the central Talent Management and Sourcing team is only 4 people including me).

I am very happy with this, since one of my biggest fears when I was leaving AIESEC was a job that was not meaningful (as an organization) and challenging (as in my job). Yara gave me both.

But what do I do? Very different things. I was hired to take care of the communication necessary to implement the HR processes globally that we in Talent Management and Sourcing create (with the help of loads of other stakeholders in the business, of course). But I am an AIESEC alumni and I don’t settle until I am going crazy with challenges, so I am now responsible for the whole Talent Management and Sourcing implementation planning (not only the communication part), responsible for designing and delivering the Employment Value Proposition design process, and I am involved here and there in the Competency Framework creation, High Potentials Program, Workforce Diversity, Talent Management Framework, Global Sourcing and Recruitment Process and Innovation Process. It’s really exciting to be part of such a huge change management process, since that’s what I really like the most: change and improve stuff.

Of course not all are roses and good weather (which challenging job is?) and the freedom to do whatever you want that I got used in the last 5 years (both in my company and in AIESEC, specially as head of AIESEC Norway) is really not present. And I understand it is mostly necessary! The company didn’t survive and thrive for over 100 years by allowing people like me (28 years old, 2 months in the company) do whatever they believe is right without supervision. Especially when you are talking about a chemical company, that needs to ensure safety and so on. But that doesn’t stop me from trying :) I am also a bit frustrated with the pace of changes, that sometimes seems a bit slow (when you need to get buy-in of so many stakeholders), but I also believe it’s the right thing to do, since without buy-in, nothing gets done – and when you are leading an organization with 50 people (as last year after the major downsizing we made in AIESEC Norway) and one with 8000, things will always move slower.

One thing that I am very happy with Yara (especially in contrast with AIESEC) is the resources we can use. Example: we can invest in the work (and also salary wise). How many AIESECers have access to top talent management research and good case practices? Consultancy? People who work with HR for 30 years sitting just in front of you? That are definitely hard/impossible to find in AIESEC.

Though one thing I wonder every day: where this path will lead me? I am a bit uncertain about the future. Growing up and all :) But let’s take the first months like this and then on the goal setting and performance management process in December/January I can talk about these things and start outlining my path.

The secret Big Bang Team Days (a post that only the chosen ones will understand)

Well, I am not President anymore, but for them, I am always going to be "MCPiiiiiiiiiiii" (with Alex's drunk voice). Yesterday we used Skype Beta to all see each other, even though we are scattered in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Belgium and Romania, it felt just like our crazy days in the office. So here is a picture of our team days:

It just coincides with the closing of the books of our term, which made me get very happy for the effort we put in turning the organization around. Before our term, the year result was a loss of 1 million kroner. In our term, we had 111 thousand profit! Way to go my dear Big Bang (and, of course, some special individuals in the organization, to name a few: Hege, Halvard, Andreas, Elizabeth, Kjerstin, Andrea, Catherine, Ane, Tine, Christian and Jan Robert).

Sorry for the random post, but my team deserves it.

"I knew that being president couldn't lead to unemployment"

That was what my successor as president in AIESEC Norway told me, about 2 weeks ago, when he heard that I've got a job in the human resources of Yara International. It wasn't easy, but finally my 5 years in AIESEC paid off. Don't get me wrong, I know it paid off a lot in terms of development and experiences that I will only be able to get 10 years ahead in my career, but it doesn't help me if only me and other AIESECers know that. And I was extremely lucky, since they were looking for someone with my expertise (a mix of communication and human resources) and the new head of human resources in Yara was the head of HR in UBS, which is a proud and happy AIESEC partner. So when I was in the interview, I already started with a good impression, since he knew AIESEC from before and my new boss also knew AIESEC because Yara was a partner of AIESEC Norway.

It's sincerely a relief to have a job, after 3 or 4 months of daily job applications and negative answers. What is most extreme is that in the same week I received an offer from Yara and from another big company I admire a lot. Statistically that was very unlikely, but, well, it happened and it helped boost my self-confidence after such a long period of feeling useless - especially after applying for jobs from a wide range of opportunities, from management to shop assistant and everything that is in between.

I start at Yara on 1st of August, but I am already working some days a week and I am enjoying it a lot. But in the next days I should speak about my job, it deserves a whole post only for it. :)

Competency development through AIESEC

When I say that I learned a whole lot in AIESEC, it's really enough learning to consider myself a different person. And this is not only on practical skills (like how to manage a budget), but also in my whole behavior as a person. I act differently. This, AIESEC calls competency development.

In AIESEC you can develop 5 competencies (that we believe are the competencies that leaders need to change the world for better). We track the development of these competencies checking how frequent you have certain behaviors connected to those competencies. We score them from 0 (not shown at all) to 4 (master). The competencies are:

1. Global Mindset 

Definition: Actively seeking to encourage diversity; shows openness and respect towards other cultures, works effectively with individuals of diverse cultures, styles and abilities, making optimum use of their insights and ideas towards the fulfillment of goals.

2. Entrepreneurial Outlook

Definition: Demonstrating ability in coming up with and implementing new ideas, organizing and managing resources and opportunities, engaging and influencing others, taking risks and finding innovative solutions to increase performance.

3. Social Responsibility

Definition: Approaching social, economic, environmental issues in a sustainable manner and taking a prompt action for improvement while considering the long term consequences of actions and the involvement of others.

4. Emotional Intelligence

Definition: Showing consistency and honesty about own intentions, motives, feelings, recognizing own feelings and those of others demonstrating respect, empathy and appropriate behaviour towards others; adjusting to different situations and personalities.

5. Proactive Learning

Definition: Demonstrating self-awareness, identifying areas for development of self and others; continuously increasing own/others knowledge and skills by trying different learning methods.

Want to know how do I rank on them? See the image bellow (the orange bars are the approximate score I had when I joined AIESEC, you can see I went through quite a development):

PS: my social responsibility and global mindset probably would be higher if I went on a development exchange.


And bellow are some of the things written about me by other people when they were evaluating my competencies:

Things that Sergio is good with:

Focusing on end results and targets - I think Sergio has very clear in his mind what the final results should be and he is personally focusing on it. Sergio does not let anyone he is working with lose sight of the end results and targets either.

Staying calm when faced with difficult situations - I believe Sergio has always shown an incredible calm when dealing with challenges and unexpected situations. This calm also brought solutions to the table.

Analysing information and situations - Active analysis of information provided gives Sergio an excellent understanding of situations which enables him to quickly deal with them.

Using knowledge and expertise effectively - Sergio has an impressive "database" of knowledge, techniques, procedures etc which he uses to accomplish what he wants to do.

Delivering on promises and commitments - Sergio would never take on something that he does not deliver upon. If he says he is going to do it, you feel confident that it will be done, and it will be done good.

Managing own workload efficiently - Sergio is really a role model on this area. He always manages his workload so that he finishes well before the deadline.

You can count on Sergio to…

… generate new ideas and implement them;

… to trust his team to do what they say they should do, but at the same time follow up to make sure it's done;

… have a clear idea on what he wants and how to get there. He is excellent at communicating this and at convincing people of the logic behind.

… act as a professional when needed, to reflect upon his own learning

… to be strict when he feels it's needed.

… give you a solution when you run out of or when you are in difficult situation.

… Always show and remind the direction the organization should head towards.

… Include people in planning, organizing, decision making.

… Listen to people's feelings

… Take the commitments he make in a working situation very seriously

… always be well prepared to start a process, meeting or whatever.

…give honest feedback

PS: of course I put only the good stuff, what are you thinking about? :)

15 leadership lessons learned through AIESEC

In no particular order, the lessons I learned in my AIESEC experience:

1. It’s better to have no people than the wrong people – self-explanatory, but the thing is that when you don’t have anyone, at least you know you have a problem. When you have the wrong people, you fight to make them right and this generally fails.

2. Your team is a reflection of your behavior – when a team is down or up or anything, look at yourself as team leader. Inevitably you will be in the same state, so don’t get pissed off with them. Change yourself!

3. Get out of the throne and rush to the battle, your Majesty – it’s very pretty to say you are an strategic leader and sit in your office commanding the troops. Get out there and do stuff. Be present where the things are happening, because you can impact a lot by being an example in the battlefield, not in the board room.

4. People are different, accept and act accordingly – we all like to think we are unique, except when we want people to agree with us. Accept that people are different, they value different things and need to be treated not as you would like to be treated, but as they would like/need to be treated. Some people need pushing, some people need pulling, most people need both in different times.

5. Top down looks smart, but it’s dumb – top down approach is a nice temptation, but it will work much better if you can involve the bottom and middle (or parts of it) in the change. It’s dumb to come up with solutions that considers only the upper organization ‘s viewpoint, use multiple perspectives.

6. If middle management is not onboard, your boat won’t sail – leaders and managers that make things happen are a huge bottle neck for change (or the most awesome lever). What do you want them to be? Get them onboard early.

7. Make it simple, as simple as you can – complexity looks professional, but it’s just a lame way to solve problems. Look at Google, anyone knows how to use it because it’s damn simple.

8. You can’t build Rome in a day – change takes time. Plan accordingly – or conservatively.

9. Focus, focus, focus – you know you can’t build Rome in a day, but you also can’t build it all at the same time. So choose wisely what you want your organization to be doing and focus on it as hell with consistent behavior and messages that reinforce what you want to focus on.

10. Whole human-being is not a theory, is a fact – humans are not rational machines. There is at least 3 equal parts in humans: emotion, sensation and rational. Tap into those 3 human perspectives to lead effectively.

11. Adapt the job to the people, not the other way around – use people’s strengths when allocating responsibilities and don’t be trapped in functional job descriptions. In the end, the only thing that matters is to achieve the vision while making the mission happen. Complicated organization structures and systems should help you perform, not make it harder.

12. Accept reality and act upon it – it’s very easy to get trapped in an ideal world where things should be different. Accept what things really are and act as they are, not as they hypothetically should be.

13. Simple and visible plan – Simple plan, with clear and measurable goals, clear action, responsible and deadline. Make it visible also – we’ve put our plan and scoreboard on the wall, it was simple perfect.

14. Trust the team – if you heard hint number 1, you should have only quality people. Stretch their potential by giving them more and more trust and larger and larger responsibilities. You will be 80% of the time surprised positively.

15. Have a strong vision for direction and put all your efforts in it – and then use hint number 9: focus, focus, focus, while also taking an active decision to not focus on some things, important or urgent as they might be. If you need to do many things that are not on the vision or your vision is wrong/incomplete or your work is wrong.

I wouldn’t exchange my AIESEC experience for a full scholarship in London Business School

And that is 100% true. I wouldn’t exchange the experience I lived in AIESEC for anything, especially not a scholarship in any of the top ranked MBA schools in the world. This is no empty rhetoric - I had to leave attractive things to be in AIESEC. I left a career that was giving me a reasonable amount of money to get more involved in AIESEC and after I also left the business I created (and was starting to become profiting enough to put a smile on my face) to come to AIESEC Norway and get a more challenging experience.

How can this organization provide such a powerful learning experience?

It’s simple, it doesn’t use the principles practiced by most schools: instead of classrooms and teachers, AIESEC give you the opportunity to be an integral part of the business, from the very operational level to the highest leadership position. It is learn by doing. We have the opportunity to work towards ambitious goals, work alone and in teams, manage budgets, sell to students, companies, NGOs and government, solve problems, deal with crisis situations, create and execute and change process, well, basically ANYTHING that you can learn in practice in a business, we do in AIESEC. In real life. No simulation. We are out there creating value or going bankrupt.

The difference of AIESEC and a business? While in a business you would take at least 10-20 years to get to top leadership of an international organization present all around the globe, in AIESEC we do it in from the 1st year – after you learn the basics, you are pushed out of the warm nest to fly or die. How? In our 800 business units in 107 countries we change the whole leadership every year. Every single year, since 1948. Talk about learning fast, adapting and keep growing anyway. We have a saying in AIESEC that “you are never prepared to your current position. You are only prepared when you are leaving the position and going for something even more challenging”. It’s about swimming or sinking.

Example? I will summarize my own experience (ok, it’s a big summary, but it’s really only 1% of what happened):

April to November 2005 – member of AIESEC

I joined the local committee of AIESEC in Porto Alegre. I was terrible with people (I could only get things done by fighting people and threatening them). My first assignment was to explain what was AIESEC to a classroom with around 10 people. I barely knew what AIESEC was. I was so nervous I was shaking and my voice failed.

Part of the team that evaluated the students that applied to join AIESEC

At that time my local committee was in rags, there was a severe retention problem and lack of pipeline for leadership. Results were down. Randomness was everywhere. It was not pretty to see. I had 2 choices: quit as most of the people did or apply to local executive board to change that and make it happen. It was a hard decision, because if wanted to be executive board, I would have to quit my well paid job in advertising, because I couldn’t handle both. But I needed the money. What I did? I decided to apply (and I got selected to vice-president human resources of that local committee) and I also decided to open my own advertising agency with other 2 colleagues, so I could manage my own time.

Executive board selection - the people selected are pushed into the pool

December 2005 until December 2006 – first leadership role

Being executive board in AIESEC Porto Alegre (or, how we say it “@PA EB”) was my first intense team experience and probably the biggest leadership development leap I had. From a struggling local committee of 10 people, we raised AIESEC Porto Alegre to a performing LC of 60 members. In the end, we won the AIESEC-Phillips award of best local committee in Brazil. The best part is that AIESEC Porto Alegre became a sustainable local committee that today is much stronger than when we left and their results beat the crap out of our term. Well done, Porto Alegre!

The No Fluffiness executive board

AIESEC Porto Alegre, best local committee of Brazil in the year 2006

In this year my competencies had a jump: I learned a lot on results orientation, emotional intelligence, change management, building and managing a high performing team (I lead a 14 people team), focus, leading by example, coaching, training and facilitation (I was a trainer for around 100 people and I was not shaking anymore!), planning (we even used the balanced scorecard), expectation setting, well… I learned a lot. In this year I was not a common university student anymore, I knew how to get things done. During this period I also learned about finances and general management on my own advertising agency, but I can say that I much more learned in AIESEC and applied what I learned in my business than the other way around.

First time I was a trainer in a national conference

The very first team I lead

December 2006 until December 2007 – national leadership role

I got a glimpse of leadership in the previous year, I wanted more. So I applied to the amazingly fancy title of “National Strategy Leader – Brazilian People Development Framework” (or “NSL BPDF”, AIESEC has awesome titles, no?) which I translate to the non-AIESECers simply as National Learning Coordinator.

During this year as National Learning Coordinator I had basic 2 roles (each of them were 6 months):

1 – support all the AIESEC business units in Brazil to implement a development framework to increase the awesomeness of the experience lived in AIESEC

2 – lead a team responsible for creating talent management tatics and support the implementation of those in all Brazilian AIESEC business units.

And a 3rd role that was part of both roles above: design and deliver conferences/trainings. That’s where I spoke in trainings for around 600 people and I was completely fine with it. How much my comfort zone stretched.

The first national board team days

That's the amount of people I was training in national conferences

December 2007 – failing

In the end of my term as national learning coordinator, I had 2 obvious choices: 1) don’t take a new leadership role and leave the organization or go on exchange; 2) take a full-time leadership role as Vice-President in the AIESEC National Board.

I was convinced that I would take the 2nd option, but then the President of AIESEC in Brazil at the time (Mauricio, that also wrote an awesome post when he left AIESEC) asked me if I was interested for running for president of AIESEC in Brazil, not vice-president. The idea sincerely never stroke my mind until he talked to me. I gave it consideration and I decided to apply. I had faith in my skills that I could get the job done, even though it would be for sure a huge challenge. If I was elected as president of AIESEC in Brazil, I would have the role of delivering the biggest operational growth the organization ever had and also deliver the AIESEC International Congress, which is a more than 500.000 euros budget, at the same time.

3 people applied to be president of AIESEC in Brazil and none got elected. I don’t know why the others lost, but I know why I did: I was arrogant. I believed that my smarts and skills, allied to my logic would lead me to being elected. I forgot the most important lesson I learned in my first leadership experience: people don’t act/think like me, we are all different.

I learned a lot the value of emotional engagement in leadership, too bad it was late.

June 2008 until June 2009 – vice-president human resources in Norway, not exactly a fail, but feeling like a huge failure

After losing the election in Brazil, I decided I didn’t want to be a vice-president in Brazil – it wouldn’t be challenging enough for me, I had done so much in the talent management area nationally in my previous role that I wanted something different. So I decided to apply to vice-president human resources in another AIESEC country! Yes, because AIESEC is an open platform, if you are a member of AIESEC, you can apply to AIESEC anywhere in the world.

I made a list of all the countries that had open application for vice-president HR and the first earliest application deadlines were UK and Norway. I applied to both, got selected to Norway and then withdrew my application from UK. I was now a leader in the AIESEC Norway national board.

That was not an easy year and it made me learn as hell. Besides cultural shock of the country, I discovered that also the organization mentality was very different. AIESEC Norway was ill: severe cash flow problems, underperforming in every area, uncommitted members, huge retention rate problems, etc. It was not the strong AIESEC in Brazil that I had just left.

The 2008-2009 AIESEC Norway executive board

It was so hard (and our leadership was not exactly awesome) that by around January (half a year of our term) the team had a huge break down. With this I learned the importance of the right selection and also building the team early, because if you don’t build it, the team will build itself – without any control and the results might be bad, as they were.

Again in January I had another choice: leave AIESEC Norway, defeated, or rise up once again and apply to President of AIESEC Norway. I took the steeper route, applied to President. And I got selected – this time I didn’t forget the importance of emotional engagement in the vision. What I wanted for AIESEC Norway is to turn it to be AIESEC everyday. Generating the kind of experience that got me until here, every single day. At that point of time, it was only a bold statement. We were far away from it, poor AIESEC Norway.

On my president candidacy speech

Selected the 2009-2010 president of AIESEC Norway

June 2009 until June 2010 – The Big Bang Team, big success!

I am still a bit shy when people talk to me and mention that fact that I am a president. It somehow doesn’t feel right. But besides being uncomfortable with the title, I must say that I never had a better, more challenging and pleasant job than being the leader of AIESEC Norway (or, how we would say it here, AIESEC Norge daglig leder).

I was lucky to selected the most hardcore and resilient team I ever saw. We started also with cash flow problems (only 15.000 in the drift account and average monthly cost of around 100.000), people quitting, lack of performance, uninterested members, etc. In the first 6 months, I think it was the hardest time of my life so far. But my team was simply awesome, we were far far more than the sum of our individualities. We managed to use our strengths, be flexible, put ourselves together and change AIESEC Norway from down to up.

The first team days of the Big Bang team

The things that we did as a team:

•           Break the record of outgoing exchanges raises (previous year was 40+- and in our year was 70+-)
•           Break the 20 years performance record of 40-55 exchanges per term
•           Starting with 15.000 NOK in the drift account and finishing it with 350.000
•           Having operational profit! (thanks to a diversification of revenues and innovative products)
•           Had a major culture change in the organization (a problem that was there for 15-20 years). Today we only have performing members that are in AIESEC for the right reasons and working hard. (2 of the main things here were to fire the underperforming half of our membership and change the financial model.)
•           Had elected better executive boards elected than previous term
•      Exchange happening EVERYDAY (the dream came true!)

Our first national conference - in the DnB Nor Leadership Development Day

AIESEC Norway today is a different organization. Much better. Still with a long way to go to be strong, but we started it. The Big Bang Team name was prophetic - we were indeed the beginning for a new AIESEC Norway.

The first time I felt like leading a country - Fyru Fyru!

It was a pleasure to serve AIESEC Norway, but now it’s time to leave the stage to the new generation, because they also need to learn and take AIESEC to the next level. I know, looking to the new National Executive Board and the Local Committees Presidents that AIESEC Norway 2010-2011 will kick the ass of my Big Bang team in terms of results.

Most awesome team ever

Thanks you so much for my whole experience, I can only be grateful to AIESEC for all those years. They were the best in my life until now.

As musicians, we are very good leaders

Fyru! Fyru! The sound of achievement!