Life is a Mosaic

Insights from ITC/AoH

It took me a while to write about this, but there is something I really would like to share...

After having a crazy week, awesome OPS I was facilitating at and flight to Vilnius, I finally got to my mother`s place to get some sleep. However, in the morning I felt like crap, with a terrible cough and other dragons. Bye bye ITC global village, my bed is my friend for today!

ITC workshop was delivered by alumni and an external, they both work for the same company. It was a short, but also a tiny workshop for 20 people, which made it one of the best seminars I ever had. And people were very special. At least for me. I would like to share some thoughts about those three days. I`s gonna be a long post, but nobody reads those weblogs anyway ;)

The seminar was called `Art of Hosting Meaningful Conversations`, or just AoH. The agenda was pretty easy comparing to usual @ conference agendas, so we had pretty nice time to chat with each other and I think we became very connected. I wish I could've had more meaningful conversations, but my ilness consumed most of my attention and brain was constantly on antibiotics...

However, the seminar had some meaning. I think the size of the seminar was perfect - 16 people, very close, getting to know each other. Because of a chilled-out agenda (in AIESEC conference terms ending at 6 pm is very chilled out) we got a lot of space to talk and just chill. Was nice to see all people I haven't seen for a while - AoH delegates were some of my closest friends, and also AIESECers from Lithuania were around.

The agenda of the seminar got us puzzled in the beginning, because we were learning methods of hosting conversations, but it took us time to actually make the most out of it. But after all, since the seminar was done by alumni and external, I got quite important new insights on some of my personal and aiesec things. It is different opinion which is sometimes missing and I love to have it back :) I'll try to keep them concise, but i would like to give you some food for thought...

1: Learning in AIESEC - who is responsible? I am my LC EB reject long time ago. I knew I have strong competition, however, by being rejected I lost my opportunity to learn. So in a way because of that my personal development track turned out to be completely different than I wanted to have. Of course, if not this, I might haven't ended up in a Belgian MC which I don't regret at all, but maybe if I had EB experience I would have performed better in my MC position? Same with trainer/facilitator applications - would you prefer to select someone you know rather than someone who has indicated relevant experience in the application? And what is relevant experience? Does it have to be facilitating at AIESEC conferences? I would say facilitating a group of energetic young scouts is more challenging and give a better learning?
As well, if you find someone being a good faci, would you choose him/her another time, thus taking a place of someone who has potential and wants to learn?
Those were the questions I was asking myself during one Open Space, where one of the external trainers participated. And I will always remember what he said at the end of conversation: 'Be very careful about how you affect someone's learning, as it is a very personal thing and it can change person's life completely.'

2: We all say that AIESEC is a learning organisation. OK, fine. But somehow, when someone in the executive position does not fulfill your expectations, what happens? People don't trus you anymore. Then they limit your learning, they don't give more opportunities, as you seemed not to be good. And again, is that person not good at all, or has potential to develop? Are we good enough to spot the right potential? Are we all capable enough to develop that potential, or does the person has to do that? Being responsible for the learning of ourselves an learning of others - where is the border? Do we put enough effort to develop others, or we just leave it to the person and say 'It's up to you, you are not proactive enough'? What is the standard of our performance? Is it results, numbers, growth in organisation, or is it a learning of an individual? How to make sure that a newie and a 3d year AIESECer in the same EB would achieve the same level of performance, or how to set the expectations that those two profiles are different and that one will need more coaching than another. Who should do that? Is it up to the leader of the team or the people themselves?

Those two for now :)

Labels: AIESEC, Musings

posted by Vija @ 10:15 PM