1. The question I think we should ask ourselves is: “How do we become the organization
we’re supposed to be?”
It astounds me when I look at what AIESEC does and what kind of people it creates and
yet, if we look at the numbers, we see that it’s not really that much. The numbers I’m referring to
is how many members we have compared to how many students there are in Romania, how
many internship and leadership opportunities we delivered compared to that same number and
how many partners we have compared to how many companies we have available in our
country. Even today, after 21 years, we are still small.
This is one of the harsh realities we need to face. I know it’s hard, but somehow, for me
it’s exciting ! It means that the next generations might be the ones who actually boost AIESEC
Romania to reach it’s true potential. For that to happen however, we need to accept the reality
and start thinking and acting bigger. We need that pioneering courage to go out there and take
a chance. We are young and the role of AIESEC is to give us the chance to experiment.
Of course, we need to make sure we are capable, which means we need to have the
proper framework to support a relevant growth, which we already have – the new structure. For
that structure to work we need many members who aren’t just present, but also engaged and
willing to invest time -> which is a problem since nowadays, young people need time to make
money, or they just can’t afford some of the facilities which gives them the knowledge, skills and
attitude boost -> conferences, not even top management positions. This way, we lose a lot of
capable leaders, just because they can’t afford to be.
It’s clear we need to invest more in our members than before, but to do that we need
revenues and those come from the very people who are reluctant to invest in us. The only way
they will start to do it is if they know us well enough, they see a gain from it and if they trust us.
If we just go out more, participate at events, meet new people, make contacts (outside of
AIESEC) and maintain a close relationship with them, it’s amazing what a progress we can
make. Why not create more fun and friendly get togethers with stakeholders, get to know them
and their needs. Let them tell us what to do in order to reach the desired impact and they will.
We always tell people in AIESEC to “think outside the box” and ironically our biggest
problem is that we keep thinking “inside of the box” which is AIESEC.
The steps are there for us to take, we just need to let go of our fears and DO IT !
Radu Matei – for MCVP Organizational Development of AIESEC Romania
“Impossible is just another realized objective!”