Making a newly hired/promoted to perform instantly

Organizations tend to believe that you can't get value for newly hired people. The concept is simple "they need to understand first how to get things done in the organization, then they can get it done". Even though this mentality is changing in AIESEC Norway, still some local committees have this attitude too, letting their newly recruited into "learning mode" for too long.

I have 2 good reasons for not doing this, but instead put the person in deep water from the first day:

#1 - training is overrated, no one can truly learn the work without practicing the work. Even though most organizations still put more money in theoretical learning than in anything else that should generate learning.

#2 - because Halvard Business Review said so. See part of the article bellow:

Case Study #1: Working within the first five minutes on the job

Michelle Pomorksi, started her job as a contract programmer at the software design and development company Menlo Innovations after an intensive hiring process. Within five minutes of walking into the office in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Michelle was working on a project. This wasn't an "onboarding project" but a real one for clients. She was "tripled" (that's company lingo for teamed with two other people) and sent off to a client site to do interviews. Rather than observing, Michelle actively participated and was expected to contribute by asking questions.

Rich Sheridan, founder and CEO of Menlo, thinks he has created a unique process to get new people productive faster than at other software companies. Every new hire is immediately paired with a current employee to do design and development work, in what the company calls "paired programming." Pairs are switched every week so by the end of the first three weeks, a new person has three mentors to rely on for advice and help. Even better, after the initial three weeks, she is ready to mentor someone new. "The real power is in the pairing," Michelle says. "There isn't one day I've gone to work that I haven't learned and taught at least one thing."

The process is facilitated by an open work space: Menlo doesn't have offices, cubes or doors. Rich thinks his hiring and onboarding strategy gives him an advantage over competitors because he can seamlessly expand and contract his work force according to client demand. It also makes employees enjoy a task they might otherwise dread. He acknowledges that onboarding this way requires careful attention to how pairs are put together and a good deal of orchestration. But he does not see it as a loss to productivity. "I probably get four times as much work done with two people pairs than most people get with two individuals," he says.

Case Study #2: Start early and see the whole picture

Pat Lee, a top Marketing Director at Johnson & Johnson Asia, happily received a promotion to Vice President of Marketing. But, she was not fully prepared for the suddenness of the promotion and all that it entailed, including relocating to a different country. She immediately began planning the logistics of the move: deciding which town to live in, exploring job prospects for her spouse, investigating schools for her children. She expected to have all these details worked out in advance so that she could "hit the ground running" on her first day in the new job.

However, Joe, her HR business partner, urged her to begin the transition to the actual job before she made the move. He suggested she take a "transition risk assessment" to help her better understand the challenges she faced in the new role. This helped Pat to fully see the situation she was getting into and better understand herself. It uncovered several issues: she had never worked in another country before; she had never taken on a regional role; she had minimal understanding of how her company did business in other countries; and she had little knowledge of the people on her new staff, the office politics, and how things got done. She also didn't know what her new boss expected of her and what phase of operation her businesses were in — start-up, turnaround, downsizing, optimizing on-going, etc. She realized she needed to address these problems and so with Joe, developed a Transition Acceleration Plan and started working with a coach, who helped her by interviewing her boss, direct reports, and colleagues to get honest feedback about their expectations. Doug Soo Hoo, former Director of Learning and Development at J&J, explains that this intense process is "a good way to get out of 'sink or swim mode' and an investment in the company that also shows a caring for the success of the individual."

After three months on the job, Pat's boss and her peers gave her rave reviews on how quickly she had mastered the "ins and outs" of the new situation and taken actions to address them. One of her new reports said it was almost as if she had been in the division for years.

To read the full article, click here.

What I want to say with it? Simple: put your new executive board to work now and make sure that the new members joining are not expected to stay in "learning mode" for long time. Start working now!

What NGOs need to do to gain respect

They need to:

• Make an honest assessment of their core competencies, competitors and consumers so that they understand and can articulate where they fit in the marketplace -- and make a market play if they can deliver a competing service more effectively. The end goal is to solve problems, not get along, right?
  
• Take more risks in how they deliver solutions and how they fund them. The status quo is not enough, so think big and act accordingly.
  
• Say no to funders who demand new programs or changes to programs that detract from the organization's theory of change or core competencies.
  
• Diversify revenue streams so that they are not beholden to any one funder or funding stream.
  
• Demand that board members invest significant time and money in the organization, or get out.
  
• Fire under-performing staff. This is such a taboo in the sector, but with limited resources and mounting social problems to be addressed, do we really have time to invest in people who can't deliver?
  
• Be brutally honest with funders, board members, others about the true costs of running operations effectively and don't apologize for, or hide, administrative expenses
  
• Create a bold strategic plan that will drive the organization toward social impact and sustainability, not mediocrity.

From Change.org.

That's exactly what we have been trying to do in AIESEC Norway - and we are beginning to see the successes of it. I still love one of the quotes from one of our members "AIESEC is volunteer? Yes, volunteer to join, volunteer to leave, but while you are here you work your ass off".

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

No wonder this video has almost 1.5 million views, I never imagine this kind of thing would be possible, but the new Photoshop can do it:

Electric highway

So, Brazilian researchers discovered a way to create electricity from the traffic of cars - it's a special material that can be covered by asphalt and remain with its electric properties.

If you have an increasing volume of electric cars and the movement of the cars generate electricity, that would be really cool, especially in a traffic heavy nation like Brazil, where most of the production is distributed by heavy trucks and such. What about if this would be distributed straight to the public lights?

Now it's just thinking how/when this can be implemented in a large scale that would actually make a difference?

Source: Fiat Mio.

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

The 8 things people expect from their leaders

Sent to me by my "boss", from HBR:

(...)

1. Tell me my role, tell me what to do, and give me the rules. Micromanaging? No, it's called clear direction. Give them parameters so they can work within broad outlines.


2. Discipline my coworker who is out of line. Time and time again, I hear, "I wish my boss would tell Nancy that this is just unacceptable." Hold people accountable in a way that is fair but makes everyone cognizant of what is and isn't acceptable.


3. Get me excited. About the company, about the product, about the job, about a project. Just get them excited.


4. Don't forget to praise me. Motivate employees by leveraging their strengths, not harping on their weaknesses.


5. Don't scare me. They really don't need to know about everything that worries you. They respect that you trust them, but you are the boss. And don't lose your temper at meetings because they didn't meet your expectations. It's often not productive. Fairness and consistency are important mainstays.


6. Impress me. Strong leaders impress their staffs in a variety of ways. Yes, some are great examples of management, but others are bold and courageous, and still others are creative and smart. Strong leaders bring strength to an organization by providing a characteristic that others don't have and the company sorely needs.


7. Give me some autonomy. Give them something interesting to work on. Trust them with opportunity.


8. Set me up to win. Nobody wants to fail. Indecisive leaders who keep people in the wrong roles, set unrealistic goals, keep unproductive team members, or change direction unfairly just frustrate everybody and make people feel defeated.
(...)


That's a quite good and to the point list. I like especially number 8. I have this "mantra" to myself, something like "if we are going to make mistakes, let's make them quickly, so we can also try something different quickly". I value so much people that can be decisive as leaders. It takes balls to do so, because, as a leader, "everything is your fault (dot)" and sometimes people believe it's more comfortable to not decide.

I prefer to take a decision, even not knowing if it's the right one (not even mentioning the "perfect decision", which is probably an unrealistic concept anyway). If we new all the answer and had all the information we needed to make a decision, even a monkey could run a business. Leadership is about uncertainty and belief, management is about certainty and facts.