AIESEC Leaders in Action

2007-11-29T06:19:00.000-08:00

It is a roller coster. It is 7 pm, Thursday. I have meetings lined up till end of the day… I went to bed yesterday at 5 am and had to wake up at 8 am. I got one hour of sleep today in the afternoon, which was really half an hour, because I kept thinking of all the things I am still supposed to do.

I have insane days. I have great business meeting in the morning, with good promises and opportunities, and I feel jumping to the sky.

The next moment I get an email from a member talking about their frustrations with work. Few minutes later I get to know that a task that can affect the success of the organization was not delivered. It makes me want to cry.

An hour later I receive positive feedback from a team mate, and start understanding how much I’ve learned. It makes my heart go happy.

Then I indulge into endless online conversations, talking to 50 people at the same time, trying to fix up problems, fire fight, motivate and lead a country. It makes my mind go nuts and my body dead tired.

Three minute break before the next meeting. I’m listening to Ala Mowj El Bahr by Lena Chumamyan. I so love this song…

I know I will do it. I’ve come to this country to make it a success, to bring the vision of AIESEC here, and I know I will achieve. This year I realized the job of a leader is to not quit. The true entrepeneurs don’t quit. In their hardest times they get up and move. They find their inner motivation; they reflect & learn more about themselves, and they always move forward.

That is what defines successful people from any one else. ‘There is always a solution; anyone can be convinced and anything can be negotiated’. ‘When the going gets tough, the tough gets going’. This is the attitude that defines the winners. I can be an average person, whining about the world being hard on me; or I can be someone who shapes the world. Even if I am not confident, even if I am scared, even if I know I am not perfect, I choose to be the one who shapes the world around me.

I know I am on the track. I know we are moving in the right direction. And I know that now it is a matter of plain moving, going steady – step by step – persistent, confident, forward-looking.

And I know that this extra step is what will define the true achiever, winner, and successful person.

I am already making this step.

"Change is Nature"

2007-10-05T23:16:00.001-07:00

During my "free" time that I arrange for it (since if we don't arrange we won't have it, u know...).
I went to cinema and sit alone for this movie and learn a lot from it.

Enchanting, amusing, and little bit childish if I can say, "Ratatouille", It's about a little mouse tell big story about its life.
Remy is the mouse which has talent to smell and feel about what he eats, he really wanna change the perspective of other mouse which always steal, take, and eat everything. He thinks that he wanna create something, innovate something, then he starts to dream to be a chef in Paris, France.
I believe what he believe, when everybody starts dreaming, other people stop us to continue our action make the dream come true. During Remy journey, it also happened then I believe his word that when we wanna make a change that something impossible because of the nature has already been decided for us, it's not what we should follow because the change is nature and what we should do is making it happen!
If a story of little mouse teach me something from its experience, I believe everybody as human can tell more about the experience that they got to change this world.

Thank you AIESEC

2007-07-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

"There is an inch different between success and failure, what we need to jump from failure to success is just a tiny grain of will"

This is the statement that I really believe in.

I was a teaching assistant a year ago and in the same time I also was AIESEC Local Committee President in one of government university in Indonesia for one year. One year-experience has taught utter perspectives of the learning process, when the different methods of learnings had hit me in the same time.

When I was selected as teaching assistant I had big pride, because that what I wanted when I just entered university. It's a dream of dream from every students in the university.

I was trying the best for creating something new in the team because I was the coordinator for 4 other teaching assistants. I was overwhelmed with the title that I was a teaching assistant and I just follow what my lectures & the senior assistants said because they are the persons who had chosen me. I follow their methods because I was too busy with the new position, fill the bulletin board with teaching assistant profile, too busy with technical things. Thus the preparation was over and finally I had my first class with the most important thing was overlooked and I still didn't know what was it.

At the same time as President in AIESEC I really glad had a nice team but we face many challenges and obstacles, pretty different with the teaching assistant condition where we were supported with proper infrastructure and guidance. Apparently University support the lab with more infrastructure rather than AIESEC as student organization under university. In AIESEC as executive board team, we did many derelictions in trial error process and we evaluated them in weekly meetings. In the reality, I hadn't had ponderous feeling about them and we took them as personal & team learning process. Together along with the time I realize that everybody in the team try to share our experiences to all members and took it to the fore.

The different methods were in me and I didn't notice in the first 6 months why I got stressed when I had a class to teach or had teaching assistant meeting, even though I was being paid by university. I tried to reflect what I were doing and still didn't find the answer. It was really an intricate feeling.

By the time I realized that the method I followed in form of curriculum from lecturers and senior teaching assistant, had replaced all my ideas and creativity to learn from teaching process. It has changed the perspective of learning from willingness to be an obligation. Suddenly I got shocked because unconsciously I transferred all that negative perspective to university students that I responsible with, but it's an irrevocable moment. It's totally mundane but unforgivable because I handled more than 400 students under my coordination. I can't believe I did that huge dereliction.

I really thankful that I'm an AIESEC member that's why I write this essay as my dedication and try to reach that inch for being successful person by being responsible with the learning experience that I had.

This is the beginning for better education when every obligation become a will and not the vice versa.

Thank you AIESEC.

Label: reflection

Bad leadership

2007-03-27T01:46:00.000-07:00

Currently, I am reading a book called "Bad Leadership" which is written by Barbara Kellerman, got some interesting idea from the book... :) Have read a lots of books about stories of good leaders and what they did, how about bad leaders? Interesting perspectives.

When I read the book, I reflected the differences between Leaders and Leadership, also the writer, Barbara, she divided awful leaders into seven categories: callous, corrupt, incompetent, insular, intemperate, rigid or downright evil. Some of them are about the leader's personality while some of them are about behaviour description.

I haven't finished the book yet, but I found it pretty interesting and would like to share with you guys :)

Johari window

2007-03-26T13:08:00.000-07:00

Hey,

I hope you all remember talking about the Johari window during one of the sessions at IPM 07.

Here's an online website that allows you to set up a Johari window for your friends to contribute to. Or you could set up a Nohari window, which is an inverse of the Johari window and maps your weaknesses instead of strengths.

Don't forget to let your friends know so that can contribute!!

P.S: Access mine by visiting my blog: nida.nomadlife.org

Leaders in Action - PIMPED

2007-03-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

Hidiho global AIESEC leaders!

As the original blog-appearance wasn't really overly outstanding I took the liberty to make a few adjustments to our blog with the hope to help kick-starting it by doing so.
I admit it is still not branded and I didn't have a mandate from the global legislation for it - I hope you forgive me.

The most important feature I added to the blog is the labelling function:
When you create a blog-entry you will be able to enter labels below the field where you enter the main text. These labels will be added to your entry and - if clicked on - will lead you to all entries labeled with the same word.
As it doesn't make sense labelling around randomly (because you will always only find your own post after clicking on this randomly chosen label) I decided to provide a standardized labelling-system (can still be changed) with the following topics:

Leadership
External input (articles, books, etc.) and our own reflections and experiences about the topic leadership

Methods
Sharing methods and BCPs for our everyday work

Countries
General reports and experiences regarding our (AIESEC) countries

AIESEC
Thoughts, explanations and (provocative) statements about AIESEC as such

Reflections
Your personal thoughts about the state of the world, society and related topics

Random
Fun stuff and random topics

If all your entries are labelled properly (you can of course also give more labels to one entry, but please stick to the above topics and use at least one of the above labels), everybody can quickly get a decent overview about everything we wrote e.g. about leadership. So I would ask you to always use these ones.

That's it for today, feedback is always welcome, stay tuned for more!

By the way: thanks to http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/ for providing the awesome template.

WHO WILL CARE?

2007-03-18T06:58:00.000-07:00

Also, I want to share this letter of George Carlin
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Carlin) which was written to his deceased wife.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less
wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive to fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up tired, read too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to our life not life to our years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are times of fast food and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just delete...

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Remember, to say, " I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

The purpose of leadership

2007-03-07T06:05:00.000-08:00

I will like to share this extract:

The necessity for leaders to possess optimism and ego serves to answer the old-age question: Are leaders born or are they made? They are born. A leader is born with an optimistic disposition or she is not. If she is not, then no amount of "optimism training" is going to make her view the world in an overwhelmingly positive, opportunistic light. Through repeated counseling and coaching, you might be able to make a person less pessimistic then she was before, but "less pessimistic" is not synonymous with "optimistic", any more than "less rude" is not synonymous with "charming". To lead effectively, you must be unfailingly, unrealistically, even irrationally optimistic. Like it or not, this is not learnable.

This is from a book i am reading right now "The One Thing You Need to Know ...about great managing, great leading and sustained individual success" By Marcus Buckingham.

Ralph Nader said:
"The purpose of leadeship is to create more leaders
not more followers!"

How do we distill our passion, compentecies and leader capacity to fulfil this goal?

Hugs

.the team.

2007-03-03T02:15:00.000-08:00

Our first experience together

2007-03-02T05:18:00.000-08:00

Isn't MCP experience worth sharing? Isn't inspiring enough to be exposed to global network?
Weren't we all talking about ONE AIESEC, need for cooperation and inclusiveness in our diversity?

Let's invite ourselves to show the power of individuals coming together!

...:: Welcome to a team blog of MCPs 2007-2008 ::..