Advice from a Fortune 500 District Manager

Photo credits:Eric Brian Ouano

There has been a disturbance in the force and haven't been able to pin it down to exactly what it is for myself. I've been having challenges when it comes to my career and have searching for answers. Luckily, I was able to meet someone who is much farther down the road to where I want to be.What I benefited from immediately was an older perspective from someone who's lead numerous teams and helped others overcome their challenges.

When I met up with the district manager for the Fortune 500 he was able to figure it out immediately. Helped me put words to something that I was having a hard time describing from watching and listening to what I had to say.

Friction. 

My expectations for what results I should be getting aren't matching up with what I am getting and over time every so slowly its been building up into frustration. I didn't even really realize it because I like to think I'm a pretty patient person. I've realized I'm not when I'm not sure how long I have to wait. A building frustration from doing the work but not seeing any results.

Makes you start asking yourself, "How long do I need to keep doing this ?".

Stick with it

If its worth getting then it'll be challenging. The biggest challenge is to not stop. Like asking yourself the question when will puberty hit and make me grow taller. At some point you just do.You cant predict when you'll get where your looking to go but if you keep moving in that direction you will get there eventually.

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” 
– Confucius

I was asking him when will I get to where I want to be? The answer to that question is different for everyone because we aren't all looking to get to the same place. He reminded me that its important to understand yourself, to know why your on this journey anyways.What pushes you forward ?

Is it prestige ?
Is it money ?
Is it helping people ?

This will be a big factor in shaping how you approach your work and the steps you need to take to get to where you want to go because in the end it is a personal journey. Understand your motivation in life. Think big picture and holistically about yourself and what truly motivates you. Enjoy the journey and the process.

No one can predict your future as much as we want someone to, but talking to someone farther down the road really helped. Helped me reset unrealistic expectations.

I pushed him anyways to give me a rough estimate of how long it'l take to get me where I want to be. Seems like I have 10 years left to go.

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The Formula break down of building communities: 90-9-1

Photo credit by Nial Kennedy

I've been thinking about how to build a community since NetSquared Camp and thought I'd share my thoughts on the topic. 

I had an amazing session hosted by Phillip Djwa and Crystal Henrickson from Chimpfund on the topic. During the presentation they touched upon the idea of participation inequality which is represented with 90:9:1. What exactly does that mean when it comes to  growing and creating a community ?

• 90 % aren't engaged
• 9% is somewhat engaged
• 1% is super engaged 

You can read more about participation inequality here.

I'm glad I'm not alone in this phenomenon after chatting with everyone. Reflecting on my experience on building organizations and recruitment, these ratios has been very true. Building active communities is hard work and the more niche it is, the harder it is to create a big community. 

Stay persistent and don`t give up

When I was new to creating and building organizations getting results where the majority weren't interested or participating was demotivating. You tell people and everyone seems excited about being a part of it only for a small minority of them to show up and an even smaller group to be as fully engaged as you want them to be. 

Don't let the numbers get you down.

You build your community through the 1%

It's a matter of perspective. Crystal shared advice that I wish I had gotten when I started building and creating communities. If you are looking at how your community only grew by 3 people when there were 50 people that said they were interested it doesn't look fantastic. But if you look at how your community just grew from 3 to 6, you've doubled in size and doing pretty well! 

You build your community through the 1%, one person at a time.

Philip provides a great frame for designing and creating a community with his 8 design dimensions which you can view here. However, what I want to focus on is the idea of inclusion/participation and leadership he touched upon. 

There is an out and in group

Ideally we want to be completely inclusive and have everyone participating at the same level. However, the 9% somewhat engaged and 1% actively tends to be how communities are. With that in mind this does have parallels with the theory of Leader-Member Exchange. This leadership theory is unique in that its central focus is on the relationships between the leaders and members. Furthermore, it recognizes the existence of in-groups & out-groups within an organization. 

Researchers found that those in the in-group have greater participation, less turn over and greater organizational commitment. Which if we reflect on our life experiences can see how this exists. For example, teams where a few individuals do a lion share of the work or class back in school where there is one student answering all the questions. 

The question then becomes, how are you developing the relationships to grow your community ?

Focus on positive relationship building and you will be able to bring individuals from the out-group into the in-group.

"leader–member exchange focuses on increasing organisational success by creating positive relations between the leader and subordinate."

-Wikipedia

 In Leader Member Exchange this can be accomplished through :

• Opportunity for new roles/responsibilities
• High-quality exchanges with members
• Focuses on ways to build trust & respect with all members – resulting in entire work group becoming an in-group

Relationships are the heart of a community

At the end of the day what makes a social community are the relationships with one another that weave into the fabric of the community. If your looking to develop a community focused on a niche you won't attract everybody. It's important you don't let that detract you as there will be those who are not interested, somewhat interested and those who are fully engaged. You will build your community through the 1% and creating opportunities for relationships to develop with others. 

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment below !

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The Journey Takes Us

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.
-John Steinbeck 

I love planning and deciding where I should go, what I should do, how things will unfold. Unfortunately, the outcome is always something I never expected completely. Thinking back to all the things I've done over the years, this has always been something that has been consistent.

Local Committee President for AIESEC Kwantlen

I wanted to develop myself. I wanted to do this through experience because you can't learn leadership from just reading books. Its the reason I dived straight into AIESEC the moment the opportunity came a long for myself. I expected it to be challenging and for it to be a one year involvement where I would have a successor to pass the leadership mantle to afterwards. Ultimately, I never expected the outcomes that would come from it.

It would lead me to travelling more

I didn't expect I would get addicted to travelling. My trip to New York City with my friends became a defining life experience for me. The people I met, stories I heard and memories I made will be lasting me a lifetime and I've developed a craving for more of them ever since. As a result, I've caught the travel bug and every year I've been going and exploring new cities and plan to continue to do so.

It made me into a life long volunteer

I never expected I would volunteer as much as I do, even if I'm not paid for the work. Even after my experiences, I've found that I like volunteering and having projects to actively work on when ever I want to. It made me realize that volunteering is a great way to continue to try new things and develop skills that otherwise I wouldn't be able to.

It went from 1 year to a 3 year journey

AIESEC was 14.2% of my life by the time I passed my leadership role on to someone else at 21. This is something I joke about constantly but its true. It took up a significant part of my life to help build up AIESEC Kwantlen. As a result it is a big part of what made me who I am today. I never expected it to take have as big of an impact as it did and I continue to build my own businesses and organizations in the same way I built AIESEC Kwantlen for myself.

I was so new to AIESEC I event spelt it wrong in my journal !

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By Stevie Vu

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My trip to Singapore

The Buried Life : A tale of inspiration, battle and dance

Addressing all of us at the"Be The Change" conference at the Langley Event Center, the crew from The Buried Life asked us the question :

What do you want to do before you die ?

My signed book written by The Buried Life !

A good question and difficult to answer. They were asking us to announce it at the front of the stage to hundreds of people in attendance. To announce to the world what was important for us to achieve within this life time, within the minuscule amount of time that we have and before we lost the opportunity to achieve it. 

With the encouragement of my friend Hardeep, we both walked up to that lonely scrawny microphone at the front of the stage. Being a gentleman of course, I let her announce her message first. Lost in my own breathless anxiety I only briefly heard her mention something about dancing together. I heard what she wanted to do clearly enough in just a few moments. 

"I CHALLENGE ALL OF YOU TO A BREAK DANCE BATTLE AGAINST US !"

 The crowd was astonished. The guys from The Buried Life was surprised. I was astonished ,surprised and a bunch of other things too. Especially since Hardeep doesn't break dance. 

Since the event was running short on time we had the dance battle after the event. Dave is awesome for doing it, regardless of a shoulder injury already that made it difficult to do too much. Maybe someday will have an actual battle.

Dance battling The Buried Life may not have been on my bucket list of things to do before I die, but it is now definitely on my list of things I'll remember til the day I die. Its not everyday you challenge a crew of guys you look up to and watch on TV after all.

The 3 take aways

The Buried Life had a great presentation and here are the three things I'll remember:

1) Make your bucket list

Do it now and do it as soon as you can. The reason why when they explained it was perfect. Writing them down helps make it into reality. Once you put it down paper you can then start treating it as a project as opposed to a dream. A dream is something you have while your asleep, a project is something you work towards completing and making into a reality. 

2) Talk about it

We can accomplish more amazing things through working together  than we can on our own. That and you never know who you might meet, I've learned that lesson time and time again. Tell the world what you are looking to accomplish and the universe will create opportunities for you to accomplish it. 

For example, you could randomly receive a message that The Buried Life is coming to your city, free admission to the same conference and get an opportunity to dance battle them.

3) Don't give up

If it doesn't work the first time, try again. If it still doesn't work, try another way. From breaking into the playboy mansion, basketball with Obama and creating their own reality TV show, not giving up has been a big part of why they succeed. Persistence is key to success.

Have you created your bucket list yet and whats on it ?