Leave governments away from the Green negotiations and treaties

Copenhagen, Cancun, Rio, etc are all very nice places to visit and to have a conference about climate change, reducing emissions and going green, but doesn't it sound just like a huge waste of time (and greenhouse emissions by all these planes flying to these conferences) when they never get to a binding agreement to be followed?

Some might argue that it doesn’t, because there is some forward movement and by discussing it, governments start to think about it. This is completely right, but on the other hand, I still find that if we rely on governments (which are protectionists of their own economy by design) we will discuss until we are wearing bathing suits inside a boiling swimming pool until we reach a binding decision.

And for you not to call me an half-assed problem oriented guy, here is my solution: get the biggest companies in the world (that are in one way or another already committed to get green) together and sign binding agreements about reducing emission, not buying from suppliers that don’t follow a certain standard, sharing green technology, etc. This would be a huge PR for those companies who opt in (gaining the consumer good will, thus the money on their wallets) and it could have a domino effect: once the big ones are in, the 2^nd bigger ones have to adhere to compete, then the medium companies and finally the smaller enterprises.

Naive plan?

When something is wrong, just do it harder (NOT)

When I was President of AIESEC Norway (my all time preferred starter phrase) and we were doing really dangerously bad financially, I pushed the team to go to sales. Every single person, including the ones who had no clue on how to do it and didn't want to learn also. After that, there was a lot more effort on the sales, but, the results kept the same: not good enough. A bunch of amateurs trying harder something that was already not working with the pros didn't work. (Who could guess that?)

When you read it, it sounds so obvious: who is idiot enough to push harder on something that is not working? Who believes that crushing the square shape into the circle hole is the answer? Well, most people, including myself, when the thing that is not working was/is the base for the business. Anyone sees the whole of the music industry pushing harder on something that is not working anymore?

After that we used a bit our heads and then decided to use more efforts into a product we were able to sell, but we needed to sell much more to make it more relevant to the business. Well, we did. And we did a hell of a good job doing it - so much that around 60% of our financial year profit came from it. Doing more of what was working actually helped more (again, who could guess that?)

Next time you solve a problem, check this out: do you need to solve that specific problem (lack of sales) or can you just solve the situation by using a different approach altogether (sell more of the product that is selling and leave untouched the product that is not selling)?

Linchpins see the world as they truly are

In terms of perception, there are 2 extremes of people: the ones who see the world as they truly are and the ones that are so attached to their world view, their reality, that they can’t see anything beyond that, so they fail to adapt to the needed changes around them. A linchpin need to have enough discernment to check reality (don’t confuse with “negativists” that think everything is impossible). Linchpins are indispensable, and discernment is indispensible. How so?

When I was in AIESEC Norway, in my first year, when I was VP Talent Management, no one in our term had enough discernment to understand the situation of the local business units and their volunteer workers. The result was that our super smart strategies were never really prepared to face the cruel reality of the real world. In theory they were great and they would be great in practice if we were dealing with a well oiled and functional organization. We were not. The result was pretty obvious: it failed over and over again, until we were almost bankrupt.

On my 2^nd year in AIESEC Norway, this time as president, I was fortunate enough to get a team that had a much better perception of how things really were. In the beginning we struggled again, but when we finally accepted reality, we made the most awesome changes in our own behavior. The result was also obvious: operational growth, getting out of the bankruptcy and building cash reserves, positive balance at the end of the year.

The music industry doesn’t have a linchpin strong enough to understand their business model is going down, so they try to protect their worldview by suing and saying that download is a crime. They are attached to their reality. How come any of the big music shots didn’t invent iTunes (today the biggest music retailer) or Spotify? They had everything: the resources, the industry knowledge, etc. But they were too attached to their reality and didn’t have any discernment to realize the business model was dead.

There are loads of examples of organizations that clearly need linchpins with discernment: Blockbuster didn’t move on to the online rental, now they are filing for bankruptcy; Nokia was the biggest mobile company, it saw the smart phones coming (even developed a touch screen mobile 3 years before the iPhone), but they were too attached to their current cash cow and didn’t see the world evolving, now they are lagging behind and the CEO was thrown out the window. GM lost its edge by losing touch of the reality in the market.

Another example that happened with me: a company was pitching to me an e-learning course. "Quite useful" was my first thought, since I had a deep interest for the subject. After trying it, I couldn't stand the e-learning course for 2 full minutes. I could not skip to the parts I was interested. Only when the narrator would stop speaking, I could pass to the next screen. So if you were not interested in that part or simply wanted to check something else, no, no, you had to wait. I told this feedback (in a very polite way) to the vendor. The answer was more or less that they didn't see it as a problem, but would adapt to customer needs. I asked another colleague, she had the same problem with the not skipping and could not finish the course. He clearly was too much attachment to his own reality (to his own product) and that made it impossible for him to understand customer needs. I predict this will not go well.

Reality is perception, it’s always biased by our own world view, that’s why it is so hard to have discernment, to be a linchpin. That’s also why so many innovations come from people without experience in that industry (like Spotify, Voddler, Hulu, Google ads, Skype…). But failing to see reality means failure in the real world.

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!

How to get a job interview without a CV

I have been job hunting for some time now, since my term as President of AIESEC Norway is ending now in June 30th. In the best of Maslow's style, I was trying to get absolutely anything anywhere so I could survive, get some money and then try to find a place that is cool and a better position. I was practically a CV-sending-machine-gunner.


This didn't work well - or, well, putting in my own words: it failed supreme. I couldn't even get an interview. Are you serious? Do you know how much experience I have? How do you prefer a fresh graduate with no experience? I can't understand. 


Then in a spree of lucidity I decided to apply what I've learned in these 5 years of AIESEC and I decided to scrap all the sh*t out of the way and go only for the important stuff. I thought "to hell with it, if I am going to get rejected, I am going to get rejected by companies and jobs that I really wish to work!"


Then I sent 4 e-mails to 4 companies that I would love to work in - mostly because of the business they are in, such as leadership development, culture management consultancy and this sort of thing. The sort of thing that I am not only passionate for, but I am good at it - and, sincerely, I love it so much that I would pay people to work on this (if I had money, which is not exactly the case - or, putting in my own words: I am a serious candidate for the worst paid CEOs documentary). Ah, I forgot to mention: none of these companies had any job opening.


From the 4 e-mails sent, I received 3 answers in the same day asking me to have an interview, a lunch or anything. And one of these companies I didn't even send my CV, it was just a mail. 


What happened?


Here is the recipe (in order of importance - i.e. if you don't get the first, the 2nd will not help you):


#1 - Passion - I was not sending a job application, I was sending almost a love letter. I wanted to do it so much that I would do anything to contribute - I just want to be part of it and have fun. Just let me play with your toys! If you are not passionate for what you are applying for, you are just another guy. Passion is free and generates crazy commitment (like working until 22h for free just because you like it) - but no one can buy passion.


#2 - Add value first, then get valued - I just spoke from my heart that I was a talented guy wanting to contribute, even for free. This is quite obvious: I won't get any money anyway, I will be unemployed, so I can work even for free. It's much easier to get to know people that can give you a job when you are working and making the difference, than while sitting at home sending CVs. This paid off already: I met yesterday around 10 amazing people that was ultra-cool to work with.


#3 - Between big and agile, go for the agile - I know my mom would be proud of me if I worked in a huge well-known company. Good that I have self-perception enough to know that I am the one that I need to please, not my mom. Going to big companies you are just asking to be treated as a number from a boring HR person which has as the best tool to manage talent monetary incentives. Bypass the HR people, talk to the owners and CEOs of smaller and faster companies. They can smell talent and that's not a commodity largely available to smaller companies. If you have talent, stand out and talk to the boss.


And that was it. Of course most of these things you really cannot do if you are a fresh graduate that has no clue about your strengths, dreams and so on - but that's why you should join AIESEC and stand out, be Linchpin.


I am having fun as hell. Spring feelings supreme.


PS: hey, you got interested? Talk to me (sergio.schuler AT gmail.com) or check out my CV.

Never quit if there is still time

8/march was yesterday, but people still don't get what is women's day

My friend Jake sent us because it concerns the Norwegian reality:

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Adding Female Directors Hurts Norwegian Firms' Value

Minus 18%. When Norwegian companies increased the proportion of women on their boards under a new diversity law, the firms' market value suffered, according to Amy Dittmar and Kenneth Ahern of the University of Michigan. If a firm achieved at least a 10% increase in the proportion of female directors, its Tobin's Q — the ratio of market cap to asset-replacement cost — dropped 18%. But gender wasn't the reason, the researchers contend; the decline was due to the new directors' young age and lack of high-level work experience.

Source: Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan
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Talk about understanding the importance of gender equality and doing it wrong by enforcing laws and regulations that demand unqualified people to take the job of qualified ones. We have the recognize the value in every individual, not force an idiot policy of "let's be nice to these poor little girls". Putting women in the board room that shouldn't be there is also undervaluing them. I can almost hear the male board members telling sexist jokes about the women who were put in the board room for questionable reasons. Is this better? Really?

AIESEC Norway CEO's failure 1 out of ?? - New Financial Model: rejected

AIESEC is an organization that works like that: the national executive board is only there to support the local committees to grow. So, for instance, the national executive board has no reason to exist if not for the local committees. That's why local committees should support the national association - as in any membership organization: the members support the association to provide its services, not the other way around. You pay a club to become a member, your payment and the other members give you access to some services, simple as that.

On the other hand, as in any membership organization, the members rule it completly (usually by voting decisions) - thus one more reason for members to support the organization and not the other way around. In reality, in AIESEC this means that local committees decide how much we can spend in each area of our budget, judge how many people to hire and fire, vote directly for choosing the CEO, discharge the national executive board after their term, etc.

Last weeks I've been working with our VP Finance and people from the board of directors to present to our Local Committee Presidents a new financial model to AIESEC Norway. Skiping the in depth details, this would mean that a bigger share of national board financial responsibility would fall under the local committees in a form of monthly fees. As a counter-offer, local committees would get more money for their performance.

This proposed financial model had 2 sole reasons of being:

- Give more responsibility to local committees to hold the association together
- Support performance improvement by destinating a bigger share of money to local committees

The proposed model is in contrast with the current model, where local committees get very little of the money generated, because the bigger part of it is retained in the national executive board. But the twist is that today local committes have no problem/pressure if they don't perform, because they don't need to pay anything to the association. ONLY and IF they perform, the national executive board retain a bigger share of the money generated. That would be the main change of the new model.

Yesterday I had one of the first (and still biggest for now) failures as elected CEO, since the new financial model was rejected by the local committee presidents. Weeks of work just rejected and threw in the trash. This hurts. I know as CEO I should be calm and somehow work to reach an agreement. But I couldn't. I failed. I was naive to think local committee presidents would think with the national association well-being as their first choice.



I am sure it's not only my failure though.

AIESEC Norway failed on yesterday's evening legislation. Fear, lack of ambition, lack of boldness, negativism, failure to commit to own goals, failure to take responsibility to drive the national association...

...lack of leadership.

I am ashamed by AIESEC Norway, both by local committee presidents lack of responsibility and by my failure to make some sense of the chaos that the legislation became. My failure in reassuring that it would be alright, that we would support local committees to grow and perform on the next level.

It was a setback, but I will keep trying. Failure is just midway to success.

I just need sometime to get myself together, because that was a hard one. Not achieving my goals (in this case, approving the new financial model) affects me so much that sometimes I wonder if I am the right person to be a CEO in an NGO full of volunteers that I don't have any real control, but only influence. I am sure the same local committee presidents that rejected my offer are not so worried or concerned as me.

Is this worth it?

Looking through my tons of AIESEC t-shirts and other memorabilia, I can say: yes. My experience was so amazing in this organization. No one or nothing will be able to convince me otherwise. Not even when people in it act the way they did.

I, my team and the new local committee presidents, local executive boards and local volunteers, we all will change AIESEC Norway for the best. This was just the first challenge and we will win as a whole, one AIESEC Norway.