Desperate for a drink?

Living in Norway one is sometimes surprised by the lengths to which people will go to have a drink. This video made me laugh and think of crazy Norwegians.

Leadership in politics

I am not a big fan of politicans, and I guess I don't distinguish myself too much there. I truly believe that the difference politicians choices make are quite limited on an individual scale (bare with me - I am not talking about dictatorships here). Only the individual has the ability to create happiness for himself, whatever that means. Therefore I see politicans as facilitators of this.

Make sure you don't mess things up too much. Make sure people have the freedom and possibility to change their own destiny without the possibility of reducing their fellow mans space of freedom. Ensure freedom and justice, and trust the individuals.

However, in what direction the individual chooses to take himself to pursue happiness is subject to surroundings. And that is where true leadership comes into play.

Bold moves, bold statements. Inspiration. Showing direction. This speech by Barrack Obama struck me as particularly appropriate.

(move to 13 minutes)

Defining leadership is not easy in my opinion. Defining management is quite alot easier.

Management in some way or form refers to managing resources in my book. That may be human or other resources. Effectively and conciously managing these resources to produce the desired results is hard, of course.

Leadership on the other hand has primarily to do with direction. You lead somewhere. Also, it most definitely has to do with people - you lead people. These to aspects mean that there are essentially two things any leader must posess. First of all the ability to clearly see a vision and stake out the direction to get there. Secondly the ability to get people sharing that vision and willingly moving in that direction.

Once you know where you want to go, and people want to follow you, you can start working. That's where the management part comes into play. There is no use talking of great visions and inspiring people if you are not enabling action towards that goal. However, management requires a hands-on approach. You can only manage what is around you, available to you. Therefore, the more people you are leading, the less of a percentage of them you can manage. You manage your direct surroundings, who then manage theirs etc. But the leadership has to transcend these immediate limits for there to be any effect!

What impresses me about Obama is his relentless ability to clearly stake out a direction and a path in which he leads. He also has the ability to make people want to move in that direction. Leading a country means he has to get people seeing his vision. He has to communicate that constantly and enable people to want to move in that direction.

What is harder is the management. When will we know whether this management actually moves the resources and this huge country towards this direction? I think it can take years before any sort of sobereyed appraisal of that can be made.

Learning: fast mode

The last couple of days have been really full of input. Learning about the current reality of functional subsystems really gave an excellent overview of the whole organizations.

What really amazes me is how unaware I can still be about my own behaviour sometimes. Today I was asked by someone whether I was unhappy at what was being delivered and whether I espected more. That coulnd't be further from the truth! I feel like I have learnt so much, and really starting to connect some dots in my head.

I also found it extremely inspiring to see all the challenges that the old national board had faced, and how they had chosen to face them. Real leadership includes som real tough decisions, and they faced some of the toughest. Real leadership also includes setting goals that are above and beyond oneself, which have a common purpose, and they surely did that. What inspired me the most though was that having faced some really tough times, and not succeeding within certain areas they were not giving up, even now, with only 1 week left of their term.

Instead, they were soberly and clearvisioned describing and sharing their experiences in detail, giving input on what they believe they could have done, but also accepting that they had not found all the magic keys. For me, this honesty is leadership. It scares and challenges, but it also empowers and inspires me.

And then I realize that my own body language, and perhaps comments, when faced with this input and my mind working at 200% all day long - analyzing and hypothesizing, I am giving the impression that I am unhappy and aloof. No. Not the case. However, the truth is in the eye of the beholder. And if that is the message I am sending, then it is true because its effects are real. Wow. Learning, learning AND more learning.

On an entirely different note, today was a real summer day for Norwegian standards. This can only make you happy! Blue skyes, warm, no wind, and generally the whole world preparing for vacation. It's also quite sad though, that as vacation approaches for the world, all I want to do is work, perform, challenge myself, drive results. Non-alignment with the outside world? Yes, perhaps...

Right now I am just waiting for an online conference call. In the beginning of August all the national boards of AIESEC in the Nordic Countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway) are going to deliver the most amazing of all conferences: Scandinavian Leadership Development Seminar, or SCALDS for short. This is truly an amazing experience, and most people who have ever goine have truly loved it. It's one of those situations where the right people being together at the right time doing the right things leads to amazing results. Wow!

However, preparing for this the countries speak to make an amazing agenda, which truly empowers and develops the leaders, primarily local level Executive Boards, of AIESEC in the Nordic countries. 5 countries, different realities, different expectations, and online meetings. Difficult to say the least - but extremely rewarding and challenging in the end. We are 1 agenda responsible from each country, with the person from Denmark actually the final responsible.

This is also what AIESEC is all about. Put people in a room together from all over the world. While I am a Norwegian representing Norway, AIESEC Sweden is being represented by a Colombian, AIESEC Denmark by an Indian, AIESEC Finland by a Finnish and AIESEC Iceland by a Dane. So we have a team of 5, coming from 5 different countries, representing 5 countries, in total 7 different countries (!) and 3 continents (!).

I love AIESEC.

And we are working together to deliver this amazing conference. The challenges in communication, expectation setting, culture, understanding, ways of working etc. is something that might be frustrating but is viewed simply as another challenge to be overcome. If the world worked like this, then I guess AIESEC could take a vacation as well. Hard day at the office? Be happy!

Becoming the MC of AIESEC Norway

This week we started. On Tuesday and Wednesday the whole team arrived and all of a sudden we were flying.

First we were detached from civilization for a couple of days, getting to know eachother as a team. We then spent the best part of a day aligning our understanding and ideas within the organization to our year ahead. We have been sorting out logistical needs and settling some practicalities. We have started defining and building our own team values.

For me it's been a great week. I think I had really high expectations beforehand, and high expectations can be quite unhelpful. Rather than disappoint me, they were exceeded, however. The honesty and sincerity with which we are communicating is impressing me. The extent to which we are aligned as a team is extraordinary.

This doesn't mean that challenges, even within the team, won't appear. We all know that within human relations this is always the case. However, for me personally, this is looking to be the amazing team experience I have been seeking. I really feel like a small part of something larger and more rewarding and I appreciate this alot. I am also starting to see what my role in this team should be and how I need to behave to live up to that.

What has impressed me the most with my new team is the complete lack of fear. Failure is not something that scares anyone or the team as a whole. This makes me think of one of life's greatest failures: Michael Jordan

Personal Development Quarter 3, 2009

Today I finally got a complete 360 competency assessment profile. I will post the link again to my profile, simply so I make sure I keep myself accountable

http://www.netbiog.com/OutputWindows/Generic.aspx?SiteUserUID=9296

Based on this I have decided the areas of focus for the next 3 months.

1) Awareness of Others

2) Resilience

3) Stakeholder Focus

The plan consists of a daily, a weekly and a quarterly follow up.

This plan consists of 23 yes/no questions. It should be filled out close to every day at the end of the day. Every week I will review the results and try to evaluate my progress. Towards the end of the quarter I will again review this.

Awareness of Others: (8 questions)

Conversations and discussions:

• Was I able to understand what the person I was talking to wanted?
• Did I take time to understand their aims and goals?
• Did I pay attention to the tone of voice and body language of people I was talking to?
• Did I understand what they were trying to communicate?

Meeting people during the day

• Did I take time to try to figure out how the person was doing today?
• Did I carefully consider their bodylanguage before starting to talk to them?
• Did I approach people caring for them first, or with my own concerns first?
• Did I adjust my behaviour according to how I perceived the other person?

Resilience: (6 questions)

Personal work situations

• Was I able to remain clam when put under stress with several tasks?
• Was I quickly able to change my priorities when new issues with short deadlines arriving at my desk?
• Was I able to actively use personal management tools when faced with many tasks?

Interacting with others

• Did I behave well with other people when put under stress in difficult circumstances?
• Did I let others suffer when I was stressed?
• Did I continue working in a positive manner when things were tough?

Stakeholder Focus: (9 questions)

Conversations and discussions:

• Was I actively listening to the other person or preparing my own response while they were talking?
• Did I ensure everyone’s concerns were addressed?
• Did I put people down and dominate discussions?
• Did I actively encourage others to contribute?
• Was I able to let go of my preconceptions when others were sharing their opinion?

Stakeholder relationships

• Did I ensure mutually beneficial relationsships
• Was I able to summarise and understand others viewpoints?
• In which way did I actively cooperate with partners and external stakeholders?
• Did I follow up on my commitments made to customers and stakeholders?

I see these 3 areas as very important in order to succeed in my new role the next few months. Also I am looking forward to trying to challenge myself within these.

Clear Vision

The last few weeks have been some of the most stressful in my life. Originally I had planned to spend the month of May to concentrate fully and entirely on my studies. Travelling away to Bucharest and to Prague for two international conferences in march and april I was already preparing to a great extent for my MC term.

After the change of position in late april, this was no longer the case. Having not worked within Corporate Relations before, having not worked with sales in AIESEC, time was suddenly short on learning what my new role would entail. New Vice Presidents at local level began their term on the 1st of May and rightfully expect the National Level to be ready to support them from day 1. Despite our terms beginning the 1st of July this is the reality we have to adjust to.

This meant that the month of May, which was going to be packed with studying for exams and finishing off my Bachelors thesis, all of sudden was flipped upside down.

Need to learn sales! Now!

Need to learn my new functional area! Now!

Need to start relating to the new VicePresidents! Now!

Exams? Bachelors thesis?

This was a true difficulty for me. Having previously not succeeded so well at university a few years ago, the whole degree I have done this time around has been as much about personally proving to myself that I am capable as anything else. Having worked hard for the best part of three years, arriving at the final month realising I needed to re-arrange my priorities around this at no times notice was not easy to face. At one point I even started doubting whether perhaps I simply wasn't the kind of person able to complete something. Whether this new reality was perhaps something that I was looking for in some weird pseudo-subconcious way so that I could have an excuse when "again" I wouldn't complete my degree.

The mind is a powerful thing, especially when it is trying to convince itself of something..

For a couple of days I was kind of like a deer on the highway. Caught in the spotlight of something arriving with great speed, I was frozen to the ground. Neither moving nor taking any decisions on how to go about the situation.

I don't think I have ever felt under such pressure as I did. Expectations just seemed sky-high, from every conceivable angle. No way could I let this late change get in the way of me completing my degree. No way could I let my degree get in the way of the commitments I have made and the impact I have clearly stated I want to have.

All of a sudden I snapped out of it. For a split second, the car sverved away, the lights dimmed and I ran across the road, so to speak.

May has truly been a crazy month. Most days have been extremely long and tiring. I have spent time helping one of my best friends through the Algebra of economics, while myself getting ready for the last exam and writing my paper. I can truly say that I am proud of myself. I know that might not be so important to anybody else, but hey, that's the way we humans are - right?

The need for feeling like we are accomplishing something is quite huge. So in the end I did it. I have had transition in my new functional area. I have done my exam. I have handed in my Bachelors thesis and I have started working with the new Vice-Presidents.

And summer has come.

All of a sudden I woke up this morning and I realised. All this pressure has really clogged up my vision. At one point I wasn't even able to see past the weekend. Now, as if transformed I see clearly again.

In 10 days we start. The experience I have been dreaming of for more than 7 months now starts in just over a week. I cannot wait. And for the first time in years I have a clear path ahead. I do not have ten other commitments. I am done with my studies (although I might sign up to some classes next year anyway). I no longer am occupied in my part-time job.

Only one mission. To turn AIESEC Norway great. Thank goodness we have an amazing team as well. During all this melee we also selected a new Vice President Talent Management, my old position. Got to speak to her last night, quite briefly, and she made a great first impression on me. Naturally she too is from Romania! What a great AIESEC country that is. So in honour of them I am posting their video. She too could have a part in it now! :-)

I really can't wait to start. Wow! We are here now. To paraphrase my great quotemaster Yogi Berra.

The future is brighter than what it used to be.