Merlos

The best place to have coffee, after getting matched.

Numbers

I am coming to the end of my LCP term, and I thought that I might take some time to define it in numbers:

• 7 days notice before being proxy-LCP at July 2008.
• 0 transition sessions
• 18 Month term
• 2 MC teams
• 2 RB teams

Measure of Success

• 29 Active Members (From my memory)
• 12 Exchange Realised (Jul 08 - Oct 09)
• 12 Exchange in Pipeline (realise by end of March 2010; 8 matched by end Nov 09)
• 3:1 = M:X
• 4 X+L (From memory)
• 2 Sustainability Events
• 1 Website
• 35 media appearances (minimum)
• 3 Australian National Awards
• 1 Office
• 12 months of renovation delays (so far)

My Executive Boards

• 10 EB Members
• 6 Proxies
• 70% of those are female
• 37% moved to either X or L
• 1 Elect

• 3 Recruitments
• 9 conferences
• $7.50 avg bottle of red

Me

• 360 meetings (not including mentor chats, MC chats, cluster chats, SM chats)
• 1,440 hours of actually doing AIESEC work (based on 20hrs a week, though my record is the early 40's)
• 1 overseas destination (soon to be 2)
• 4.3 GPA
• 1 Promotion at work

Peter's Ponderings

• What would I be like now, without AIESEC?

Change

I had a conversation today.  One that left me ultimately frustrated.  This conversation motivated me to think about what change means and how I instigate change.

Everyone works in teams and in different environments, and often times there are actions and attitudes that are going to annoy, irritate, infuriate and many other elaborate describing words as to how they negatively impact your experience with a team.

At this point, a member of a team in this situation has three options:

1. Accept and live with it.
2. Force your environment to change and fit in with your belief system.
3. Identify how you might be able to change yourself (behaviour &/or actions), and therefore be able to impact the situation for the better.

I personally don’t think that 1 is an option, and for years I have practised option 2, with few, if any, successes.  And if was going to be truthful with myself, I would say that I still do it from time to time now…  Often you would find that when you actively attempt to change the environment around you, then you will find resistance, and end up finding yourself in a worse situation than you were before.

Realistically, option 3 is the best option for perpetual change.  That is, change that happens, and then continues into the future.

Change the things you can control, and from there, everything else will just fall into place (fingers crossed).  Even if that change is a behaviour you have, a method of communicating, an attitude, a thought process, future action points or even just the way that you approach the situation, and in many cases, the team you work with, your environment and your overall enjoyment of the situation will change for the better.  It becomes perpetual when you make the change in yourself permanent, and therefore continuing to make the same change in more and different environments that you work in, into the future.

Change is something that I think is fundamental in how you interact with the world and how the world interacts with you.  However, it is the “how”, about facilitating change, which I think is the most important facet to making it happen.

Funny the things you think about after a conversation about work.

Peter’s Ponderings

• Other than the 3 listed, are there any other options that you can take if you are in a situation that is impacting on you negatively?
• If you make a perpetual change, should you be allowed to change it if the environment calls for it?
• What happens if you change yourself, but the environment stays the same?  What do you do then?
• Is change important to society at large?  Is it important for it to be perpetual?
• When do you know if change has worked?

Turkey

I got AIESEC Bursa's Reception Booklet this morning.


Turkey is really happening.

Strengths

Seeking a higher level of self-awareness, I ventured into the shelves of a bookstore in a massive shopping centre in KL, and I bought a book.  Yes, I bought a book, to better understand me.

To be honest, I was in a time where I needed to make a decision, and I needed some advice printed in black ink.  I bought 2 books, the one I want to focus on now is about Strengths Based Leadership.  I found this book really interesting, as it was one that Robbie alluded to in a session during National Conference in Melbourne in July this year.

Basically the premise of the book is that we should play to our strengths, particularly when it comes to leadership and team management.  The book defines 34 key strengths that exist in humankind, and the divides this up into 4 overriding categories.

My Strengths.

1. Communication - People strong in the Communication theme generally find it easy to put their thoughts into words. They are good conversationalists and presenters.
2. Activator - People strong in the Activator theme can make things happen by turning thoughts into action.  They are often impatient.
3. Strategic Thinker - People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.
4. Command - People strong in the Command theme have presence. They can take control of a situation and make decisions.
5. Woo - People strong in the Woo theme love the challenge of meeting new people and winning them over. They derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection with another person.

For me these are quite accurate, and at first I thought that this wasn't so good, mostly because they are all from the same overriding category Leading with Influence.  I thought that it meant that I wasn't really that flexible and only good at one thing... but after reflecting on it, I have realised that I am really lucky.  Mosty because my strengths actually build off one and other, and they become super strengths when I am able to use them all together at the same time!!

What I need to be able build now is being able to recognise strengths in different people, so that when I am working in a team, I am able to leverage off my team mates' strengths in areas where I am lacking.  This is going to be the trick from here, and I think that this is going to be fun!  I am actually really looking forward to it!

Being able to do identify my strengths, and learning about others are some of my key learning points from my LCP term, and something that I will take with me into the future, particularly when it comes to being able to achieve goals as a team and konwing the role that I take on within that.

Peter's Ponderings

• Are my strengths that I identify with, the same as the strengths that others identify with me?  ie. are others' perception of my strengths, the same as mine?
• Do you really know at any point in time what your strengths are, considering everyone grows and learns from new experiences?
• Is 34 too great or too small to describe the factual number of strengths that any one person can have?
• Realistically, do people use their strengths when participating in an activity, be it as an individual or as a team?

Blogging...

For how simple something could be, blogging, or setting your blog up takes it's time...  and can be frustrating.