Supervisory Group

The last couple of days we have had our quarterly Supervisory Group meeting. The SG is an advisory group in nature, which plays a role of keeping AIESEC International accountable. it lacks the formality of a board itself, mainly as AIESEC is to remain a purely student-run organization. However, it does play many of the same roles a board would, including oversight and report back to our 'shareholders' the Member Committees.

In life, asking for advice, feedback and consultancy is a tricky thing. If you don't ask the right questions, or frame the right context, you might not actually get what you are looking for. If you frame it too strongly, you might take away the space of someone pointing out your blind spots- the questions you didnt't think of, but you should have.

For the last couple of years we have tinkered with the model of our SG meetings to truly get the best out of them. The combination of reporting, presentation, questions, case studies- how to get it exactly right?

In this process we are approaching sone sort of balance, I believe. Again we left the SG with some key insights and perspectives, as they challenge us and pull from their vast experience.

For my own sake its the fourth year that I am reporting to a board of some sort, our Board of Directors when I was in AIESEC Norway, and our SG on AI. I think I have gotten used to the fact that there is someone keeping me fundamentally accountable, while at the same time having significant, almost absolute, daily decision making power over what to do, what to focus on. I like that combination, very much. But thinking about it, that combination is pretty rare in life.

As an entrepreneur, which I aspire to become, freedom is the name of the game, but corporate governance is usually lacking, at least in an early phase. If I go into a company as an employee, I will be expected to report upwards, of course, but with more restrictions and scope of action.

All this just reminds me how lucky I am to be living the experience I am. Thank you AIESEC.