What matters to me

By someone else, via Juan's blog:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF5g2i8_HM8

International Presidents Meeting 2009 – IPM

IPM 2009 or Global Leaders Summit 2009 (a more comercial name used to promote the conference) is the annual meeting where all AIESEC national presidents (from current term and elected to next term, as me) get together to:

- Elect the new President of AIESEC International and give confidence vote for his Directors and Vice-Presidents
- Start the global planning process, giving input to the global focus areas that AIESEC International for next year will have
- Prepare the elect presidents to lead the organization by leading high performing teams and managing well strategies and operations
- Help current presidents to wrap up their experience and prepare for next steps

But the above points really don’t describe the greatness of it. IPM is basically great because of 3 things: AIESEC International elections, presidents and content.

Elections for AIESEC International

When I joined AIESEC (back in 2005), I imagined AIESEC International people as the big super hardcore dudes. Respect, you know? It’s really funny when you see your friends, people that you have worked with, with all their qualities and improvement points, with all their successes and failures to apply to those positions.

It somewhat break the magic, but at the same time remembers us about the AIESEC magic: you will develop, it will be fast and if you are up to it, you can go sky rocket to the top.

And the AIESEC International President election, with 5 candidates, all of them current members of AIESEC International was a very special moment. It was very inspiring to hear those guys. It demands tons of balls to apply to this position, because it’s so much pressure, expectations and it’s there, in front of every AIESEC country, if you fail or win, it’s very public. I respect the people who applied.

AIESEC International President results announcement:


Aman Jain, candidate speech:


Directors announcement:


Vice-presidents announcement:



Presidents

First thing about IPM and the other AIESEC conferences is that IPM doesn’t look like a conference, it’s basically a meeting. You meet people and exchange tons of ideas. It’s a 10 days conference, but it passes so fast as 45 minutes Lost episode. You want always more, but it’s already over.

Around 200 AIESEC presidents, from 107 AIESEC Countries, this is something especial in itself. All of these people with the same role, sharing similar realities, problems, solutions, ideas. People usually say the AIESEC President is a lonely role, since you cannot talk about everything with your team. This conference is where all these people get together and identify “hey, I can talk to you! You understand me!” I myself already got some very good friends that are also elected presidents that I know I will talk a lot during my term.

Discussing the balanced scorecard


People from Western Europe and North America Growth Network


Content

I was agenda manager for the conferences here in Norway (and back in my local committee in Brazil) and one thing is very obvious: it’s extremely hard to make a conference to a too diverse audience. The magic of IPM is that everyone there is a president or will be. Thus, the content is tailor made and very relevant, doesn’t matter if you are in a weak or strong AIESEC country, hardcore management in financial crisis is all the same.

It’s been a long time since I didn’t have such an empowering AIESEC conference in terms of content also. I am more than satisfied and lots of sessions just blew my mind in ways that made my though “wow, I really don’t know anything”, “how I didn’t think of that before” and “jesus, these guys are doing a great job, I want to do that too”.

One extra point to the content was related to the AIESEC partners that were delivering sessions. At least the ones I attended - Tata Consultancy, Future Considerations and Time Management International - were extremelly useful. Thanks a lot!

IPM was the AIESEC conferenceexperience. (not to mention Rome, which is probably a point on next posts)

Coaches Training Institute (CTI) – Co-Active Coaching Fundamentals Course

Thanks to a deal between CTI and AIESEC Norway, my collegues and I had the opportunity to attend the Co-Active Coaching Fundamentals Course, given by CTI Norway.

Being in so much AIESEC conferences with all kinds of learning seminars, sometimes you get used and don’t expect much from this kind of course. But after I got there, wow, it was trully very powerful learning. After the 2 days and a half course in Co-Active Coaching I can say that I’ve not only turned into a 100% better coach and leader, but also a better person. And that’s only the first one, they have, as I remember, more 3 or 4 courses that complete the Co-Active Coaching Curriculum. I must say that I am very willing to go on the other courses too, each one dealing with different aspects of the Co-Active Coaching Model.



The 2 facilitators (it’s probably better to refer them as “coaches” simply), Bill and Roxane, were amazing and inspiring. They had 2 different styles that complemented each other. Of course the coaches played a big role in our learning, but the course is so practical that sometimes you barely need them. It’s all inside us – thus one of the pillars of the Co-Active Coaching Model: the client is naturally creative, resourceful and whole. We coached and experienced coaching from all sides, for 3 days and the results were amazing. I think there’s no better way of proving the point that coaching is super useful than actually coaching and being coached – and that the course was totally succesful.

And about “us”, the participants, it was such a heterogeneous group that in the beginning I was afraid of the result and the focus. We had from 23 year old to 60, from tech experts to business leaders, consultants, people who want to change career to be coaches, people with masters in coaching, people who worked with Mother Theresa in Calcuta, etc. Definitely I learned so much from each person, breaking even some stereotypes and judgments I had in the past. It was almost an enlightening experience, if you let me be so “new age woogie boogie”.



This coursed even sparked me the willingness (again) to be a professional coach. Who knows where this might lead me? It’s very connected to what I see as my mission: to develop my potential by supporting the developing in others potential. Also it could be some valuable tool for my idea of the “school of the future”.

If I could recommend just one course for people that the main work is dealing with other people, I think this would be the one.

Peak experiences

AIESEC is quite fun and you learn so much that it’s hard to describe, but sometimes it can be quite stressful environment. Naturally, we strive for quite stretching goals, deal with high pressure for results and that’s how we learn also. But from time to time you have this kind of experience that is absolutely life-changing and that pays-off all the sub-optimal voluntary salary, stress, working in some weekends and all the things that sometimes we do. Some people call them peak experiences and I am quite found of the name, because it’s almost like being high, so much fulfilled, happy and whole you feel.

I’ve had quite some peak experiences in AIESEC and the last months I had quite some: I already mentioned in this blog my election for President of AIESEC in Norway and selecting my team, but there were also 2 more that I will describe in next posts: CTI coaches training and International Presidents Meeting.

Microsoft dude talking about AIESEC

Why Microsoft partners with AIESEC? The answer in in the video (even though, most probably only AIESECers will get it completly):


AIESEC - Microsoft

My teams

On the last post I just mentioned how cool the conference and my elections were, but I didn’t mention the coolest part of it (save the best for the last): selecting my team.

To be really sincere, the selection was even better than my elections (even the moment of being elected, when the water spills on your head), because selecting my team is for sure my first important decision. This decision will affect me for one year at least and AIESEC Norway for sure more than that, at least 2 year.

So, one day after being elected, I engaged in a series of interviews, both phisically and by skype, to decide who would be the people that would be my vice-presidents. In other words, these 5 brilliant individuals who would come together so that we lead the AIESEC Norway for the term 2009-2010.

Fortunately, I didn’t do it alone. I had more 4 great people who helped me to make up my mind, giving inputs, asking questions, telling their experience. I am sure, without them, I would not be so confident in the outcome of the selection (or, if I would be, I would only not be aware of the possible dangers that I could face). I need to especially thank them, the selection committee:



First, Jan-Petter Westlie, from Horton International. This was a key man in selection committee, since he was the expert leader. He guided us so well that after a few moments with him it was just natural to trust his process. Without him and the support from Horton in the competencies assessment, the selection would take a lot more time and, I am sure, wouldn’t be so clear. Secondly I need to thank Camilla Nihuus (AIESEC alumni and member of the AIESEC Norway Board of Directors) and Prashant (President of AIESEC in BI) for the support, good questions and all their time. And, the last, but the most important, to Sonam, the current President of AIESEC Norway, who arranged with all these people before hand so that it would be as easy for me to select my team as it could be.

But, enough of that, let’s talk about these amazing people who I selected to work as the main strategic heads of AIESEC Norway:

Camilla Gullberg - she was elected to take care of the corporate relationship and sales (again), since that’s her current position on the current national board. It takes a lot of passion to run again to the same position in AIESEC, since it burns you out quite a lot, because of the super-fast-passed environment, pression for results, low pay, etc. I admire her for that. I believe she is the best for the position in AIESEC Norway.

Lyubov Byessonova - I don’t believe my luck, because Lyuba applying to this position is just too much luck to be true. She is Ukrainian and is current working in AIESEC Ukraine’s national board as the responsible for communication. For the ones who know AIESEC, knows the AIESEC Ukraine is doing very well in communication. So I couldn’t be more happy with her as our external relations and communication vice-president.



Mari-Anna Johansen - her current position is the equivalent of Camilla, but in University of Oslo local committee. She was running to the same position also as Camilla. How did she end up in the team then? During the interview, it was clear that she had a passion for finance (she is dealing with that currently in her bachelor) and also talent to that area. The final and best touch: she was passionate about AIESEC and flexible enough to assume as vice-president of finance, because she knows how much she can learn being in the national board, no matter which position. I am so grateful to have found this girl, without her, most probably I would have to end up with a non-norwegian finance person and that would bring a lot of problems to me.

Rolf Schmachtenberg - I consider Rolf one of my term’s achievement as VP Talent Management. Serious. Currently he is VPTM in the local committee of University of Oslo and I could see the amount of development this guy had. Of course he is only where he is because he himself is brilliant, willing to improve and that takes action by himself. I am very grateful to have his in the team and also very happy that he is my successor. I believe I could not find a best sucessor.



Us (well, Lyuba is not a piece of paper, but she was in Ukraine during the conference):


There’s one more person, just that I don’t know him/her yet. Since there was no one selected to VP Exchange, because I was not fully satisfied with the 4 candidates, we decided to open a 2d round. I can’t wait to know who will be the 6th brilliant element in the team.

But, just to not be ungrateful to my current team, here’s one of the nicest moments of 2009, us skiing together (me and Sonam for the first time):

Achieve 2009 feelings and elections

Achieve was such a different conference to me. I don’t know if it was because I was running for president of AIESEC Norway; or because I had to select the team that will work with me next year; or because I worked with very experienced people that gave me great insights; or because of the small number of people (nether less very important people) that were there; or because the organizing committee was so smiling and helpful; or because of the new people I met; or because of the old people I knew and met again; or because of Deniss, the Estonian chair; or maybe everything at once? I don’t know, but the thing is that Achieve 2009 in Trondheim was one of the most exciting conferences I had. Not tiring at all. Full of joy and fun - even when the problems came with the venue and everything needed to shift place one day before the conference actually started.

This is one of the moments that I am wordless. I just enjoyed the moment and lived it fully. And I could feel members were exactly with that feeling. I could see, maybe for the first time in large scale in Norway, their drive for the organization, their shining eyes and how much fun they had, even though it was hard work. It impressed me in several ways. I think MC, facilitators, OC, chair, LCPs, EBs and other delegates made the best they could out of it, took everything and contributed with everything. It was one AIESEC Norway, which I hope to keep for the next months to deliver in our huge goals. Because now we need to “achieve” as the conference name stated.

And, well, yes, I was elected the next president of AIESEC Norway, which throws me right to the infamous worst-paid-CEOs hall of fame. Not that I do it for the money, which obviously I don’t. I do it for basically 3 reasons:

1) what I will learn and take from leading and managing a country unit of a global organization with more than 33.000 members, present in more than 100 countries;

2) the belief I have in the organization, a true passion, a passion only possible because I experienced the product (the AIESEC experienced) and it trully changed my life by making me discover and develop my potential and what I want to do later in life;

3) the impact I can bring to AIESEC Norway, generating more results, which will turn up into more life-changing experiences like mine. Only this is a great deed on itself, I hope I am up to the task.

It’s hard to describe the feelings (including the happiness and the weight of the responsibilities), but for sure they are generally very good and, of course, lots of times very scaring. But I wouldn’t do it if it wan’t challenging and scaring, so I guess this is the right feeling.

Well, take some pictures of the conference and mine elections (in the next post, I will talk about the selection of my team):

The Talent Management team's rap...



...against the fabulous sales team song:



Members enjoying one session:



Bizarre themed parties, always present in every conference:





The organizing committee:



Captain Plenary (the dream from ScaLDS post-meeting coming true):




Random dancing:



Dressed for the election speech:



Dressed to take a bunch of water if elected:







Hugs afterwards:



and, of course, MCP elected roll call: