Khan Academy's TED Talk - a.k.a. technology improving (and humanizing) the classroom

I am serious when I say that I almost cried when I watched it - not because it is emotive, it is not at all, but because of the impact it brings.



I have been using the Khan Academy FOR FUN every night.

Decision making paralysis in AIESEC Norway

This post will only make sense if you read the post about decision making paralysis.

When I was president of AIESEC Norway (…) we were not doing so good in our main types of sales: bring exchange students to work in companies and send Norwegian students to work abroad. Then we kind of intuitively narrowed the options for students to go on exchange – instead of promoting that they could go literally anywhere, at any point in time and to do all kinds of different jobs (which is true from the AIESEC product point of view), we started promoting around 5 specific countries, with a specific timeframe for the exchange and more or less set job (better defined, but not amazingly clear).

The result was that much more people made de decision and our numbers grew. Still there were a whole bunch of people that decided not to go on exchange, even after being accepted in the program. If I am not mistaken the number was quite high, like at least half of them, usually when they needed to pay and really decide  to go on exchange in definitive.

On the corporate sales we never managed to solve the problem, but I heard that today they are doing much better than before. Their approach? As I understand, they are specifying better the product (not anymore “any type of student, with any background, any time…” you get the picture). Now they are segmenting type of exchange (market expansion, IT, volunteer work, etc) and time (summer, winter…)

Both approaches clearly are tapping into the problems seen on the decision making paralysis post. And I think that both can be even better tailored to overcome even better the decision making paralysis. For example, giving even less choice to students in terms of job description and length of exchange (2 things that are more or less still very adaptable and susceptible to decision making paralysis due to too many good options).

The Curse of Knowledge

A research was made where there would be 2 kind of roles: the tappers and the listeners. The tappers job was to tap on the table a common melody of a very known song (like happy birthday). The listeners would have to listen (duh) and name correctly which song was the tapper tapping. How many times do you think the listener guessed the right song? Don’t jump to the next paragraph, really think how many times would someone guess correctly if you tapped “happy birthday” on the table.

Over the course of the experiment, 120 songs were tapped out. Listeners guessed only 2.5 percent of the songs: 3 out of 120. But here's what made the result worthy: before the listeners guessed the name of the song, they asked the tappers to predict the odds that the listeners would guess correctly. They predicted that the odds were 50 percent.
The tappers got their message across 1 time in 40, but they thought they were getting their message across 1 time in 2. Why?

The answer is the Curse of Knowledge. When we know the name of the song, it’s very hard to act as you don’t know it and put yourself in the shoes of the listeners. When you are tapping, it’s almost impossible to not listen the song in your head. It becomes obvious which song it is, because you already know. Try it out, tap “happy birthday” on the table and listen to it, you hear the song while tapping.

The same thing happens in a miming game, how many times were you impressed by how people didn’t get your outstanding Mao Tse-Tung mime? It’s easy because you already know the answer. AIESEC people are the champions of the Curse of Knowledge, when they say to someone that they were MCVP OGX, they don’t realize that this is completely impossible to understand if you were not in the organization. Jargon is the Curse of Knowledge’s best friend.

The result of the Curse of Knowledge is people talking in abstractions, instead of concretely. A CEO suffering from the Curse of Knowledge talks about “increasing shareholder value” or “world class customer service”. The CEO is listening to the song in his head, “world class customer service” does ring a clear bell in his mind – unfortunately, to the people in customer service, that is too abstract, too high level for anyone to ACT upon it.

How to beat the Curse of Knowledge? Easy: being concrete. Use plain talk. If you want your employees to be better at customer service, what do you think would help most: a passionate talk by the CEO about “achieving world class customer service” or a story about a customer service person who gift wrapped a product, even though it was bought in a competitor’s store? Or a shop attendant who ironed a shirt for a client so he could go to a business meeting?

These were all stories (which in general are concrete by nature), but to be concrete you don’t necessarily need stories. Take when I was President of AIESEC Norway (my all time favorite phrase starter): we had a goal/vision/wish/whatever in our team that we wanted “one exchange happening every day” (I removed the “raised, matched or realized” from the phrase, because only AIESEC people would have a clear picture of what it is – the Curse of Knowledge). It is very concrete stuff, one exchange, every day, that is what we consider success. People can act accordingly to get to that. On the opposite “increase our performance” is too vague and abstract.

We had another one of those, it was “don’t finish our year on minus [in the budget]”, which helped us to cut costs wildly and to push to bring more money in every time there was a chance we would finish our term bellow zero. On the other hand, “to have sustainable financial results” doesn’t have the same impact.

--
The Curse of Knowledge appears on Made to Stick, an outstanding book about building messages that stick to people’s brains.

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.

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.

Good leaders shield their people from wasting their time and organizational idiocy

The article is in fact "Why good bosses tune in to their people" in McKinsey Quarterly, but I found particularly good the part that says about shielding their followers - something that I recon, in the beginning of my term as president, I didn't do so well, but then I think I managed to improve. Here is that part of this interesting article:

The best bosses invent, borrow, and implement ways to reduce the mental and emotional load heaped on their followers—and protect them from the incompetence, cluelessness, and premature judgments of fellow bosses or others who can undermine their followers’ work and well being. Followers who enjoy such protection (and who may be bosses themselves) have the freedom to take risks and try new things.


Annette Kyle, for example, managed some 60 employees at a Texas terminal where they loaded chemicals from railcars onto ships and trucks. In the mid-1990s, Annette led a “revolution” that dramatically raised her unit’s performance through a host of changes, including better planning, greater responsibility at the lowest levels, improved and more transparent metrics, and numerous cultural changes. She personally sewed “no whining” patches on workers’ uniforms, for example, to discourage the local penchant for complaining and auctioned off her desk to workers for $60 because, as she explained it, “I shouldn’t be sitting behind a big desk. I should be contributing to team goals however possible.”

This transformation virtually eliminated the penalties that were levied when ships arrived at the terminal’s dock but (despite considerable advance warning) workers weren’t ready to load them. These “demurrage charges,” which cost the company $2.5 million the year before the revolution, were down to $10,000 the year after. Previously, it had taken more than three hours to load an average truck. Afterward, more than 90 percent were loaded within an hour of arrival. Surveys and interviews by University of Southern California researchers showed that employees became more satisfied with their jobs and felt proud of their accomplishments. I asked Annette how she could make such radical changes in her giant company. She answered that her boss shielded her from top-ranking managers—he found the resources and experts she needed but never discussed these moves with senior management until they succeeded.

Good bosses are especially adept at protecting their people’s time—for example, by eliminating needless meetings. Take a cue from Will Wright, designer of computer games such as The Sims: rather than automatically scheduling meetings, ask yourself if they are really needed. Wright employed a clever trick. Every time someone called a meeting, he charged that person a dollar. Although he collected a lot of dollars, this requirement made people “think twice, even though it was only a dollar.” He also used an employee-centered method to keep meetings short—inviting the creative but impatient artist Ocean Quigley, “the canary in the coal mine.” When Quigley raised his hand to be excused, “we knew that the meeting had hit diminishing returns.”

"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!

Prosjektdesign

Related to the post bellow, I have been involved in a project for a couple of days that already paid off supreme: I went yesterday to a get to know of the people involved in the project and it was in a school called Prosjektdesign, around the always trendy Grünnerloka. The school is not what you would imagine of a crowded school, but a house where 26 people divided in different teams. The purpose as I understand is to develop different leadership and management characteristics in the best way possible to develop: learning by doing - or, how they say, learning by burning. For those who know about Kaos Pilot, it is a similar concept.

But also very, very similar to AIESEC style, that's why I felt right at home. Almost one of them. The spirit and the sensation when you enter the house that hosts the organization is exactly the same feeling when you enter a bursting AIESEC local committee (or our dear national office): activity, fun, passion, friendship, work hard - in sum, a shiny place to be.

Besides the people from Prosjektdesign, I also met the other ones that are involved in the project and I couldn't have more fun: brilliant people. Including someone passionate about education that is currently doing something about it. I got very cool ideas for my future projects. I somehow was ignoring technology development in my "life school project".

I had tons of fun. I am very privileged that even after I leave AIESEC I will keep considering my job the best fun I could ever had. I am lucky.

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.

Dreams coming true

As this is my 2nd year in the national board of AIESEC Norway, I remember that, in my first year, we had this dream of exchange happening every day in AIESEC Norway. Being it raise of a new internship, matching some exchange participants or realizing a new exchange with some exotic country.

Looking back today, after almost 2 years, I can say that this dream we are almost fulfilling today. Exchange became the central part of our organization. Innovation around it is begining to catch up, today all local committees are into constant EP recruitment and the DT TN project had it's first sell: 4 TNs sold in NHH! These changes are amazing. Thanks to a lot to the hard work from different people: members in teams, local and national executive boards. But not only hard work, also passion and, lots of times, personal sacrifice for the cause. We are AIESECers.

Is a good feeling to be part of all this change. We are far from over, but results are showing up and they will keep growing.

Let's go, AIESEC Norway! Let's raise as hell and match fast as the speed of light!

Never quit if there is still time

AWESOMENESS POST

I keep postponing to talk about the amazing things I've experienced so far as President of AIESEC Norway because I want to write about them in details - bad, bad habit, because there are so many amazing things that they pile up and this leads to a situation where I never talk about them. So, I will try to put them all together in one post. The AWESOMENESS POST.

1 - Coaching visit to Local Committee University of Stavanger

In our national board job, we have a huge role which is to coach local committes. I am the coach of UiS and what this means in reality is that I have to do a consulting job with them to increase their performance. UiS is a very small local committee, they started just 2 years ago and almost no structure were in place. In fact they barely had members, only 4 or 5.

When I arrived there, I could see there were lots of things not in place, like for example the corporate relations - in 6 months they had only 3 business meetings, a total disaster. They were struggling and the few members they had were feeling they were failling big time, thus making the general mood being very down, because these guys have been working a lot. In fact 2 of the executive board had quitted also and a 3rd one was also thinking of quitting. Terrible state to be in, especially when you just recruited new members. This was looking like the recipe of disaster, if they kept the same pace, they would lose all the new members recruited and frustration would be in the air.

Instead of puting me down, their problems in fact energized me, I was excited to be back at the ground level to help them solve problems. I decided to step up and change the game. I gathered the executive board and had an intense day of work on feedback and suggestions to the LC and building up solutions. I felt energized because even though the problems were deep, I totally believed in their ability. The only thing they needed was passion and direction. And we built up this together.

Today (1-2 months after my visit), I can see the changes in UiS. Their members are passionate and motivated. They are having tons of fun while working very very very hard. And they have super talented people. If in 6 months they booked 3 meetings only, in one week they booked 8, talk about improving fast. I am 100% confident that these people that are in UiS now will change this local committee in an enduring way, shaping their culture for the next generation.

Extra random point about the visit: I never felt so welcome in any coaching visit: I had my own room, we went to 2 parties, 1 norwegian typical dinner and people really wanted to make the changes in UiS.


2 - Excel 2009 - AIESEC Norway National Conference

This one absolutely blew my mind. It was even more positive then I was dreaming it could be. What I saw was a different AIESEC Norway for ever before. Everything was just absolutely perfect:

- The content - the agenda was very well built and the content delivered with passion, creativity and focus. I believe at the end of the conference it was very clear the country direction and who was responsible to make it happen and how.

- The delegates - very lively, energetic, smart and willing to learn. What a crowd. I am so proud of our members. If they keep that kind of energy level and fun in their AIESEC every day work, I am sure they will do good.

- Facis - it was mainly the national board and some talented local committee vice-presidents. The content was delivered smoothly and in lots of cases in a very creative way.

- The conference organization committee and logistics - they were so amazing people. Always smilling, very focused on client satisfaction, these people put on a real show: amazing food, everything on time, great session rooms, party, everything. From the basics to details, the organization committee rocked the house - and, of course, the conference ended up in a profit.

- "Externals" - in AIESEC conferences all around the world we have this word "externals" to say about the people who are not in AIESEC, but they are there in the conference as representatives of other organizations or the government. In the case of Excel, we had 2 sets of externals that were just mind blowing: DnB Nor and CTI.

DnB Nor put a show that will be hard to match in the future. They delivered a full day of leadership development to our AIESEC members, which was part in fact of their own leadership development program. It was a great added value to our members and, not only that, it was also extremely fun and impressive. They had famous classical musicians, normal plenary sessions, skills workshops and also in the end a huge interactive session where every member had a different percussion instrument. The analogies with leadership were perfect: when playing, you have to combine listening to what is around you and playing your own music; the diversity of instruments (talents) made possible that in fact we had good music (if everyone had the same instrument, it would be very difficult for 80 amateurs to pull this off); leadership is about giving a base that people can use as a guideline, but also giving the possibility for people to solo with their own way, etc etc etc. I loved it. Some pictures of the DnB Nor leadership day with AIESEC Norway:








CTI had a short session on what is coaching. They offer an appetizer to our members, that thanks to our partnership can get professional coaching with very very competitive prices. They also give the whole national board a 3 days coaching course that is so amazing. I cannot describe how lucky I am for having this opportunity. Here are the coaching couple dancing in the moment:



- Sunny Bergen - believe it or not, it was sunny most of the time during the conference!


3 - National Board Team Days

Each quarter the national board gets together, stops for 2-3 days and evaluate where we are, where we are going, what we need to change, etc. It's the most powerful team management tool I use, because it's a mix of interpersonal relationship, direction, celebration of success and adjusting the things that didn't work so well, strategic creative discussions, etc.

It's just too awesome to describe, you have to be there and live it - and to live it, you have to be a member of the national board. I consider myself very lucky, because my team is simply the most awesome I ever saw. Such talents you don't find easily everywhere. They are challenging to lead, as any room full of only talented people, and I learn everyday with them.

I am so grateful for being the President of AIESEC Norway. This kind of opportunity, with this level of job I won't see very soon in my career. Probably it will take at least 10 years in a "normal company" to do the same things I am doing today at the top of my 27 years old.

I wish every human being have the same opportunity as I have, that's why I want AIESEC to keep growing, especially here in Norway.

AIESEC: MBA of life

My dear Brazilian friend, Maurício Schneider, is finishing his career in AIESEC and wrote one of the most touching (and truthful) posts I've seen about this organization where 35.000 young people develop their leadership potential. Bellow is the full post from his blog:

MBA of life called AIESEC!
Today I am finishing my 4 years MBA in the University of Life called AIESEC, and there is only one word that comes to my mind to summarize this experience… GRATITUDE!

Have you ever stopped to think why people do an MBA? What are the benefits of doing an MBA?
Usually the reasons are: Advancing in their career, changing their career, starting their own business, build a new and powerful network, learning how to solve complex problems in a practical way, and so on and so forth.

The University of Life called AIESEC and its MBA program aims to create change agents through the development of 11 competencies: Self-Awareness, Personal Effectiveness, Analytical Thinking, Awareness of Others, Inclusiveness, Effective Communication, Development of Others, Stakeholder Focus, Inner Strength, Innovation and Commitment to Results. (Check my competency assessment below, the green bars represent how it was in the beginning of my AIESEC MBA)



The methodology? Practical experience through international internships, a learning environment comprised by team experiences, conferences, seminars, virtual spaces and platforms, mentorship and coaching programs and much more, combined with a leadership program where individuals have the chance to lead a high performance team. The program is completely flexible and the student chooses its own path.

I started the AIESEC MBA going for exchange to India, Chennai, for a marketing internship in an organization called Campus abroad. This experience taught me the importance of being able to adapt, to react faster to different environment, to stretch our cultural understanding. I also have built a fair international network, while in touch with more than 40 other AIESEC trainees.

My second year was about getting some functional knowledge, so I was assigned to manage the finances of the AIESEC branch in Brazil (Sao Paulo), I have learned a lot about budgeting, scenario planning, return of investments and others.

The main projects I managed and main results I got: Development of a new financial model, Redesign of conference management (long term venue contract, increasing logistical capacity), Design of new financial management software and contract negotiation with vendor, Growth of 200% in operational revenue , Increase of 30% of reserves.

After managing finances, I decided to step up and go for a strong leadership experience, being responsible for leading directly a team of 6 people from 3 different countries, plus being responsible for the operations of 30 local AIESEC branches in Brazil, with more than 2,000 people.

During this experience, I have the chance to work in a Long Term Plan implementation (Adjustment of planning framework, design of road map, set up of long term organizational goals), Balanced Scorecard implementation (Development of new planning framework and tracking tools, revision of measurement tools and development of rewards & recognition based on the Balanced Scorecard, Delivery of the International Congress 2008 (a congress for 1000 people form 100 different countries with a budget of more than 1 million Euros).

Some of the results I got: Growth of 60% in exchange realization and general growth in all key performance indicators (200-325), Strategic Management ING Award winner – The best AIESEC office amongst 107 countries AIESEC is present in, Growth of 300% in operational revenue and increase of 75% of reserves.

My last year of the AIESEC’s MBA, took place in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. I was responsible for Strategy & Operations in the global headquarter of AIESEC, working directly with 22 amazing and smart individuals from 16 different countries, taking care of the strategic direction and operations of more than 600 offices, over a 100 countries, with more than 38,000 people.

Projects? What did I do? Leading global planning process with 107 Countries and more than 800 local offices, Balanced Scorecard education and Strategy Map revision, Redefining quality standards and measurement systems, Leading country development team (6 regional Directors), Leading the strategic development task force (Vice President of Talent Management, Exchange, External Relations, Information Systems, Finance and President) , Leading global competitive analysis process.

Results? 45% year-on-year growth in exchange results – Biggest growth in the last 15 years, and first time that we achieved the 2010 vision’s goals. In a year that the majority of the organizations failed to succeed!

I have tried to summarize how my 4 years AIESEC MBA contributed to my development and next steps, check this out:



I think now you understand why GRATITUDE is the word that express my feelings towards my AIESEC MBA! I wish more and more people can have the chance to join the university of life called AIESEC, and that more and more people can learn as much as I learned, can meet people as many as I’ve met, can travel as much as I traveled, can share ideas as much as I’ve shared and most importantly, can be happy as much as I am!

That's the truly spirit of leadership development, you do what you love, you deliver your promises in a sustainable way, you get people to do things you believe it is the right ones, you don't feel the time going away... you just enjoy the journey!

Thanks AIESEC and AIESECers, partners, alumni, sponsors, supervisory boards and groups, all stakeholders that make and made AIESEC possible and real!

Yours truly,
Mauricio Schneider
A proud AIESEC alumnus!

I had the privilege to see a little of the complete transformation in Maurício as he was living his AIESEC experience to it's fullest. He grew in an insane way and, with him, lots of others have grown to admire his work and be inspired by it. Congratulations and good luck on your next steps, nego veio.