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.

Pale blue dot

Late on saturday evening I am taking alook around youtube, as I often do. I should be in bed, but I am not. Came across this video, which I find very powerful. I have seen it before, but every time I do it gives me just that little bit of power :-)

Developing competencies? Show me the money!

So that is the purpose of personal development without any way of seeing and following that development?

AIESEC uses a leadership based competency model to measure the development of its members towards positive change agents, the objective of the organization. Like all models it only depicts a certain view of reality, but it definitely gives great input for personal development.

As a member of AIESEC I have this really cool access to a competency assessment tool developed together with our partners at Career Innovation. Basically this tool allows me to assess my own competencies based on a series of questions where I assess my own behaviour in situations. When being honest about oneself and ones own behaviour, this allows me to break down and the see the whole picture of my own competencies. In addition, the very same tool can then be used for 360* evaluation.

The very same behavioural questions are asked to those you pick out yourself (teammembers, teamleaders etc.) to assess you, and who can give you honest (it's anonymous in that at least 5 others give their input for it to work) feedback on your competencies.

This then allows me to compare my own assessment of my behaviours and competencies to those made by those working with me. This gives me an understanding of where I actually stand, where I have blind spots, known strenghts/weaknessess, hidden strengths etc.

All this is really cool, of course. Now they have added this awesome thing which gives me the chance to actually publish my results. So here it goes:

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

Basically only one of my profiles so far consists of a full 360* evaluation.

LCVPTM_Q3 is from Q3 2008

LCVPTM_Q4 is from Q4 2008

and the third is from Q2 2009 (that is very recent).  - unfortunately I have not been able to rename this one for now.

I prefer making this public as this allows me to keep accountable towards myself and my own aspirations!

Random note: Today is a beautifully sunny day in Oslo and I am inside studying for exams. Sometimes real WILLPOWER is required! :-)

New Role...

So... Here I was. Selected into the role of Vice President of Talent Management in AIESEC Norway. Things were fantastic. I felt right at home in an area I love, where I am developing alot, and where I get to strategicallly have alot of impact on the organization that I love and care for so much.

Since January I have been preparing for this role, improving my knowledge, thinking of the individuals I was going to be leading on local level. I was developing and adapting strategies, observing and trying to obtain information and input, and taking my role of inspiring for change and growth in this area.

You plan and predict, and try to make yourself comfortable. Bang. The 99,9% that falls within our pre-conceived boxes makes us comfortable. We feel like we understand the world around us. That we can turn unpredictable surroundings into a predictable and safe environment. But even if we were to be right 99,9% of the time (and we're not - we really suck at predicting and still keep going at it!) it wouldn't really matter.

What happens in the last, 0,1% is much more important. It has a much larger impact on our lives. Firstly, because it is by definition outside our realm of understanding and prediction it has larger implications than other events - we are unprepared for them. And trying to understand and know what they are doesn't help either - you can't - they are unpredictable! Secondly, because whatever we can't predicat usually has the pattern of an event with "unimaginable" magnitude. We don't assume it can happen, just because the impact seems so uncharacteristically larger.

What is the solution? Well, let's be careful in not looking for one too hard. Let go. In addition the solution is to change our mindset. I have started realizing this lately and hence I started to change my mindset about unpredictable events. I have started to think more in terms of being prepared for events that I cannot be prepared for. I do this by staying light on my feet, letting go of as many models, theories, and conclusions that I can (this isn't easy - I am intuitive and judging!). I simply try to see events more as a random combination of things, than as a chain of connected things. This is hard, and I am exagerating my ability here!

But last week I was confronted with just such as situation. In AIESEC, like in any organization, there are different roles on a leadership body, depending on the functional area. The Vice-President for Corporate Relations for our team next year was the same person that is doing the job now. What happened is that she actually found out that this position was not at all aligned to what she wanted to do with her life. Not now - not later. And finding motivation to start a whole new term doing something for which you are not motivated now, is hard. Actually, not only is it hard, we shouldn't even try.

Instead, she was brave enough to actually be proactive and say - "I cannot do this!" It takes courage to stand up and do that. Diverting for a second, I myself have spent several years at one point doing things I hated, because I could not admit to myself that I was doing something I hated. As a result I was doing poorly! Anyway. She was facing the truth about her own motivation in an open and honest way. And she had the courage to step up and say so. I am very proud of her for that.

From our teams point of view, we are a member down. A functional area, Corporate Relations, is suddenly without anybody. This area is responsible for sales in AIESEC Norway. This relates to the sales of our main product, which are internships, to companies and organizations. Through these internships AIESEC is realizing the development of its members through amazing international internship opportunities in another country, and the servicing fee from the internships is the main source of income for the organization. In this way we can actually run operations.

AIESEC is a not-for-profit NGO, and nobody, anywhere, does AIESEC for money - there simply isn't any! However, for the organization as a whole the sales of internships is crucial. There is no prizes for guessing that financial crisis means tough times for organizations like AIESEC which depend on the corporate sector as well! So as an organization we are a teammember down in the area which is providing the revenue crucially needed for short- and longterm financial sustainability.

The president of AIESEC Norway next year, called me into the office last week and basically told me this. I was surprised, shocked and sad. We had lost a teammember. He also laid down the situation that we needed to fill this position, quickly. The person, having to work with the Norwegian Corporate sector, ideally should speak Norwegian, know the market well, and have the competencies to sell AIESEC during financial crisis to companies that have plenty of other places of putting their money!

He told me that I was the profile he was looking for. There basically was nobody else in the organization in Norway, speaking Norwegian, who could take this role at short notice. I was given a few days to think about the situation.

I was shocked. I have been thinking about my new role for 5 months! 99,9%. But it's the 0,1 that counts. New reality, new proposal. I spent some days thinking.

What were the arguments against?

1. I did not have experience in the area from AIESEC and hence I was unsure (still am) of how I will actually do.

2. This inexperience might lead to people not respecting my ideas and proposals in the area as they might not regard me as competent.

3. I love "my" functional area, Talent Management, so much. This is perfectly aligned to what I want to do with my life, which includes starting my own business focused on education, value based leadership and learning.

4. This might lead to "my" Vice Presidents of Talent Management at local level getting lost - I have already started a coaching relationship with them.

What were the arguments for?

1. AIESEC Norway needs this. Talent Management or we die later. Sales, or we die now.

2. I want to take the role the team needs me to take. Part of my personal development goals for the AIESEC Norway term relate directly to learn to become an even better teamplayer, increase my flexible thinking and taking on new challenges. What better way of learning than doing?

3. I am excited by challenges. Anything that seems hard, that I don't know anything about, that perhaps I should keep my fingers of because it's not my speciality - I love it! I LOVE challenges. I want to succeed. Call it arrogance, call it confidence, call it stupidity. I want to be the best at anything I try. (Sorry!)

4. I want to be an entrepreneur: According to AIESECs competency model, I need to develop:

Resilience: Easily adjust to changes and new conditions, in order to be able to perform in diverse environments.

Taking on the area that is struggling most in AIESEC Norway, not knowing the area from beforehand and selling to business during financial crisis? Yeah, I think it ticks the box.

Innovation: Thinking out of the box and challenging conventional wisdom. Creating new solutions for current challenges or new approaches to old situations.

We need new approaches in sales in AIESEC Norway, especially enabling and empowering our local entitites to perform! Yes, ticks the box.

Commitment to Results: Knowing what results are important and focusing resources to achieve them.

Sales anyone?

Stakeholder Focus: Identify key internal and external customers; working with them to understand their requirements and concerns in order to generate value based partnerships.

Internal customers: Local Committess in AIESEC and their members. External customers: companies and NGOs interested in AIESEC. Let's focus on the stakeholders and create some parterships!

Effective Communication: Clearly conveying and receiving messages (feedback, opinions, etc.; written/verbal communication etc.) to meet the needs of all parties involved.

I will develop this through pcontacting partners and key customers throughout the year.

Flexible/analytical Thinking: Use technical knowledge and expertise effectively to analyse information and situations making effective decisions as well as being ready to change your opinion.

Vice President Talent Management --> Vice President Corporate Relations is my first step...

--------------------------------

So what is all this rubbish? Staying light on my feet, knowing where I want to go I am able to take this opportunity as a positive change for my future.

By sunday afternoon I had decided. I let my president know. I have no switched. Good luck to me,  I guess - except - I was once told that luck is for those with no talent. Is it?

Right now it is 02.18 night to friday. My life has just taken this HUGE unexpected turn. I am scared, proud, excited, and humble. And I am shouting to life: I am ready for more. Give it to me! I want to learn.

From individual to team to individual to leader

It's difficult to find time to write about one's life when it is passing by in a whirlwind. But the faster life moves the more important it becomes to hold on to those rails of steadfastness which we have created around ourselves.

Keeping in mind what is important and what is permanent. Looking up and around for what should be different and where change should lie. To find direction. Just because we are going at 100 miles per hour doesn't mean we are going in the right direction. And if it's not the right direction, then surely we are moving away from our target, right?

To quote Yogi Berra: We are lost, but we're making good time.

Within my new role, our new team had our first common objective. Deliver an amazing national conference which was going to represent a milestone and a point of change for our organization. We were going to bring the organization back to its basics, get the members enthusiastic about changing peoples live on a daily basis through exchange and leadership.

At the same time we ourselves were about to commence our journey towards building a team. What kind of team? With some experience of being part of a leadership body on one level, I was sure looking forward to starting "all over again". How confident we are, with hindsight, that given the chance to remake all of our choices, we would not make the same mistakes again?

And how blisfully we ignore our incompetence of choice and direction, our inability to predict the consequences of our actions, even after it has been made abundantly clear to us that we do not possess that sort of ability.

We this in mind (or not!) our team was going to be build right. It was going to be built from the start. We have great individuals, we see a common direction and purpose, we are dedicated and passionate and we actually like eachother!!

Yet here we were, only a few days after getting to know eachother, already unsure about eachothers roles, already probing and testing one another, and already concerned about our working together! WOW. I must say it is a truly humbling experience for me. It is actually what makes the concept of a team so exciting. It is hard. Damn hard. If it wasn't, what would be the point or the challenge?

I think we are on the right track though. I think we are starting to see the contours of a team which is ready to perform together, for one another, towards a common goal and purpose and having a great time doing so.

The conference was a great success. The changes we can see in the organization, in the attitudes, in the way people are talking are noticeable. Hey, who knows whether that has anything to do with us at all, but seeing as nobody else is going to take credit I most definitely am. In order to keep believing in the directon one is leading towards, one is absolutely dependent on telling oneself that one is getting somewhere. Sometimes that is tangible, but most of the time I guess it's not. Management is easy to measure - but leadership and the effects of it isn't.

Zip. Point. Finito.

Teambuilding over. Conference over. Members spread back to their old roles, to their old teams, to their old responsibilities. I am spread back to my local reality. And our local joys and pains.

I am probably the person pushing the hardest for delivering a hardcore, kickass transition in order to help our new leadership team "avoid all the pitfalls that we stumbled into". Off course, I know this isn't possible. Some hardships every person has to go through for themselves. But some things can be learned from others experience also - surely. If not, where would humankind be today? Surely not blogging on computers...

So irony has it, that I have to cancel on my new and old EB team when it came to EB to EB transition weekend. Everyone else went. I didn't. Bloody part-timer! Actually people in my family were turning ill and so was I, so I chose to take care of those close to me. Right choice? Probably. Hard choice for me? Definitely.

So I am leading, I am committed, but when it comes down to some execution I am unable due to some circumstances. Does that make the effort pointless? Or was my pushing for the weekend instrumental in it happening despite my non-attendance? Who knows.

Easter.

LX: L+X:

Leading by example. Leadership+Exchange. I keep writing this on my hand, I keep telling myself this, and it is the one concept which I truly and really do believe in when it comes to leadership. I must be the example for myself. Only that is leadership. Only then am I leading myself.

Yet, when does it end? Where does it start? Do you become the role or does the role become you? Are you a leader all the time? What about your personal life? What about in the toilet when you are singing to yourself? What about that morning when you can't even lead yourself out of bed? What about that bad joke you let slip, which you didn't really mean? What about not working out when you should? What about those problems with your mother? How about those clothes you are wearing? Where does it start? Where does it end?

This month I am coming to the end of my 4 month personal development plan. I have conciously tried to develop more awareness of others around me and better incoming communication skills. I believe I have succeeded, but not entirely. These are definitely not off the chart, but I am putting them in second line for now, to see whether effects there are permanent when I take away some conciousness.

This week I will make 3 important choices:

1. How can I be flexible enough to take on the role I am being asked to?

2. Which areas of personal development should I focus on next?

3. In which ways can I create a learning environment for myself that fosters this development?

Romania

Sunday a little over two weeks ago I left Norway for Romania.

I was extremely excited as I had never at all been to eastern Europe before. I went to Prague once when I was around 14 with my dad, but that doesn't really count. One of the many simple things I have understood about myself since joining AIESEC, it's that I haven't really travelled much at all. I used to think I had seen alot of the world and was a well aware of cultural differences, languages etc.

Then I realised I had never really ventured outside the "western" world, which made me realise I had been fooling myself. Sure, I have lived in the US, UK, Italy and Norway. Sure I speak Enlighs, German, French, Italian and Norwegian. Sure, I have been on week-long holidays to Egypt and Singapore.

But what am I left with? Pretty much a narrow world-view without perspective, without understanding the larger implications of a world growing at an ever faster pace. But what is happening outside my own little bubble? When am I going to get a more holistic and real understanding which corresponds closer to how people work and cultures interact?

Romania

It's a first step at least. And I was not going on holiday - I was going on a conference. Now, I am not going to claim that I somehow in a few days, where I was mostly interacting with AIESECers from different parts of the world in a hotel, I got a deeper understanding of Romania, of eastern Europe or of anything else. But, hey, it's a start, right?

Moving around Bucharest on the very first day I must admit I was surprised. Firstly, I don't think I actually realised how deep-rooted the Soviet style construction heritage was still stuck, almost 20 years after the revolution. Secondly, clearly the image I had of Romania and Romanians is fucked up by the society I live in. I was positively surprised, pretty much by everything.

What impressed me the most was young Romanian students I met. In addition to the AIESECers, who I assumed would be pretty ambitous talented and capable, I was strongly impressed by the general attitude of the young people I came across. The go get them attitude, the positive curiosity about the world around them, and the pointed questions they asked struck me as far more proactive than what I am used to from Norway.

I guess that's what happens when a society wakes up and realizes it wants to go somewhere - fast.

I liked it alot.

Quite a cool experience, though perhaps fairly simple, was Romanian money. All notes are made out of plastic, which make them more or less impossible to tear apart, and give them a very special feeling when you are holding them. I found it very, very funny.

Bucharest is a huge city. Driving around mostly by bus, and sometimes by metro, I kept getting lost, not really understanding where we were. As every other tourist, I too had to visit the houses of parliament, that crazy building (second biggest in the world apparently) built by Ceaucescu while the Romanian people were starving. I wonder how that happens. I clearly don't know enough about Romanian history to go into the details in any way, but what happened to leadership? What happened to values and actually leading according to a given set of moral parameters? How can we as a world avoid this from happening?

As I mentioned above I was in Romania for a conference, more specifically EURO XPRO, the conference for future LCPs (Local Committee Presidents) and MCVPs (National Committee vice presidents) in AIESEC in the CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) and WENA (Western Europe and North America) regions. Pretty much most of the leadership body of these two regions for the next year.

As always, AIESECers impress me. I still cannot pinpoint what it is about this organization that makes it the hub for reflected, ambitous, funloving, serious and exciting young people - but there is no doubt in my mind that it is. No other setting that I have seen or experienced is even close to this. I feel very, very privileged.

Anyway. The opening day, which was monday, had three main events.

The first was a visit to the Romanian royal family, who were chased when the Communist Revolution came after the second world war. We had the privilege og meeting Prince Radu, who spent some time speaking to us about the future generations of Romania and the world. It was a once in a lifetime experience.

The second was Global Village, which was in the centre of Bucharest with hundreds if not thousands of people visiting all of our different countrystands, traditional dances and country shouts and performances. Really awesome experience, although perhaps six hours was slightly too long. :-)

After that, quick changing and and running back and forth, the third event came along, which was the official opening ceremony that evening. Not everyone seemed to enjoy it - but I have no idea why. I really liked it. It showcased dancing and singing performances, some very inspiring speeches and last not least a real feeling of opening.

The speech I enjoyed the most was about the inherent conflict between wanting to learn today to make an impact in the future, and the impact we are doing today. The real question is whether you learn enough to even have an impact in a distant tomorrow, if you don't genuinely try to have an impact today?

The next day there was another event where AIESEC was interacting with the external world through a forum called World Cafe. It gave us the chance of discussing some world issues with bright young Romanian students. It really opened my eyes.

The rest of the conference, from Tuesday afternoon to sunday, was "AIESEC only". We went by bus to Mangalia, which is around 4,5 hours from Bucharest on the coast of the black sea. The first evening of the conference was mostly dedicated to getting to know eachother, connecting abit and finding out about everyone else. It also set the stage for the 4 days of intensive learning ahead of us from that point.

Now, I am not going to go into any dreadfully boring details about what happened on the next four days. Suffice to say it was another shock to my system. Another challenging and intesive experience which opened my eyes even further. I wonder when this feeling of continously feeling helplessly knowledgeless will eventually subside? When will I stop being surprised and excited about that wonderful world out there? I hope never.

My favourite moment of the conference was making this video with some new friends I met:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heiIQC-eAHQ

It was absolutely awesome. We were simply given half an hour to describe the state of the world today and we decided that the world we are seeing is a beautiful one full of differences and potential, but also full of love and similarities. You be the judge :-)

I also got to know some very special people along the way. If you are reading this you know who you are. You are changing me and I love you for it.

On the sunday after it was time to go back to Norway. I have understood a few things about myself. First of all I want to get to know Romania alot better, along with the rest of eastern Europe. Secondly, the world out there is scaring me a little bit. Actually, no. Alot. What awaits me?

The only way of finding out is to keep living life to the fullest.