Who needs an AIESECer?

Working with sales in Corporate Relations in AIESEC Norway this is the question which I constantly have to ask myself everyday. The first answer would obvously be: "Everyone"

The real answer is obviously not the same. To me there is little doubt that an AIESEC Experience is the most substantial development platform available for young people today. One of the crucial ingredients is Exchange, or for those not familiar with the idiosyncrasies of AIESEC, our International Internships. An AIESEC Experience without Exchange is like a hamburger without the meat. Sure, a hamburger consists of hamburgerbread, pickles (for those who like them), tomatoes, lettuce - sometimes cheese - or whatever else. And without all these things a slap of meat is NOT a hamburger.

So we have:

(1) International Internship ≠ AIESEC Experience

However, as most of you would agree, without the meat, there is not really any hamburger at all - hence:

(2) No International Internship ≠ AIESEC Experience

You need it all, that is- you need the meat and the bread. In AIESEC we need Exchange (the meat) and the bread (Leadership) to make it a complete AIESEC Experience. All with pickles and onions, and flavours from around the global making our global learning environment. To me AIESEC in a formula is:

(3) (International Internship) x (Leadership) x (Global Learning) = AIESEC XP

Just like the Burger, however, if you had to settle - you'd choose the meat - right? This leads me to my title.

For this to happen people like myself, who are living the AIESEC Experience need to constantly find these internship opportunities for our members. Only by doing this are we providing AIESEC Experiences to our own network, and in a wider organizational understanding - for ourselves. That we need exchange (the Meat) to provide AIESEC XPs (the Burger) is without a doubt.

The question we are asking ourselves in sales, however, is another one. Which meat producer (companies) believes that by providing the raw material for the meat, will they get a great burger? And which meat producer needs a great burger (ie. an AIESECer on an Internship).

The answer is quite obvious. Nobody, if ANYBODY - needs a burger. A burger is something you usually permit yourself because you want it. It simply tastes great, and even though you know it's a bit expensive - even though you know it's not always the healthiest choice - you want a burger.

Who needs an AIESECer is the wrong question to be asking. Nobody needs an AIESECer, really. People get by eating rice, potatoes, pasta. People eat sandwiches and fishballs. But between all these meals, every now and then - people want a Burger. What we should be asking us is "Who wants a Burger" - ie. "Who wants an AIESECer", rather than who needs it.

And for all those AIESECers out there. The meat and the pickles are really important. Keep making sure we have them. But let's get our meat in order. Let's get students and graduates who want an Exchange Experience. And let's find those companies that want the Burger.

Exchange Explosion

Let's do it!

In AIESEC we measure our impact through the number of life-changing AIESEC Experiences we can provide. This is done mainly by looking at the number of Leadership Experiences and International Internships we provide to AIESECers all around the world.

For AIESEC Norway we believe the potential in impacting Norway by activating leadership in Norwegian Youth is huge! By going on one of AIESECs internships young people can explore and develop their leadership potential, gain valuable experience and live and work in a whole new culture.

In a few weeks we will now how much we are impacting. How many Exchange Participants can we recruit and send out this autumn?

Friday afternoon

I know that somewhere inside myself there is a real self-destructive part of me. Probably everyone has this to a certain degree, and I don't necessarily think I have more of it. It happens that shit ain't cool. Basically what happens is that I put myself into a small spiral of despair (only for around 20-30 mins) where I argue against most things to myself.

If by now you are thinking "what a fucked up auto-biographic psychoanalysis" don't worry by the way, that's not what this post is about.

Anyway, when this happens what I become aware of is the effects I can have on people, first and foremost on myself. If leadership first and foremost is about leading yourself, then this becomes all the clearer. By leaving the rudder for only a minute (30 mins) in reality you are risking to go off course, and if you're map and compass aren't well equipped you might stay off course for a while!

So how to avoid this? First of all, accept that you cannot always lead yourself to some fairyland. I believe it's true. It's only that those moments that you can take leadership to a basic level. Lead yourself to shut up. Lead yourself to bed. Lead yourself to have a drink. Lead yourself to watch the television for 30 minutes while you look for your internal GPS.

The crazy thing is that these 20-30 minutes is were you basically mess up quite a few things. Leading yourself, others are proud to be led by you. Stop, only for a moment, and find a mutiny on board. Nobody wants to listen to this direction less idiot. And after 20 minutes you might find the mutiny hasn't stopped!

So today, this Friday afternoon I basically behaved like a prick to a person a hold so dear to my hear. I still haven't said sorry, but I will in about 5 minutes. Completely unnecessarily so, but I guess I lacked the ability to lead myself somewhere clever then. I guess that's the real trick. Spotting those moments. Moments of strength - and moments of weakness. Our skills and abilities aren't permanently fixed - they surely fluctuate. I am sure that even Ganhi wasn't ready to engage in peace talks if he needed a piss - badly!

My path has taken me 2 1/2 months into my year on the National Board. How time flies. And what an exciting path I have found for myself

Coaching Local Committees

Today I spent around 2,5 hours preparing the visit I will have to Bergen in 10 days. I am coaching one of Norway's Local Committees, NHH, this year - which is an amazing opportunity and challenge

Quite Exciting to be coaching a whole Local Committee. The idea is that by supporting the Executive Board (EB) directly towards accomplishing their plan, manage their teams and drive growth, AIESEC Norway will continue growing and reaching it's goals - creating more life changing AIESEC Experiences.

How do you support a whole EB, however? Obviously the drive has to come from the Board itself. Having been on the EB of a Local Commitee myself last year, I know full well that we pretty much wasted the possibility of getting support from our LC coach. We thorugh it was valuable - in theory. But in reality it simply never came top of our list. Of course, it being the first time in a leadership position for most of us, being overwhelmed is not so surprising. Rather than doing the important things that led to the highest possible impact, we probably spent most time beating of seemingly urgent balls that kept flying towards us.

A year later, I truly see this as one of the great missed opportunities of last year. Many of the things we later turned out learning the hard way - or perhaps not learning at all - could have been facilitated had we only chosen differently when it came to this. So with hindsight - yeah - we could have done better.

Now I am working with my LC and I am so anxious to help them see the value of prioritizing the visit and of doing the right things at the right times. In a couple of weeks I guess I will see. I am excited today. Today the President and myself put together a first draft of the agenda and I really like it. He was committed to driving the message.

Again I am amazed at the opportunities and experiences I am getting through AIESEC. As an LC coach we get complicated and advanced responsibilities which in a normal work environment would most certainly not be trusted to a junior.

So cool.