10173328 how to keep a highly motivated membership

8/12/2019 10173328 How to Keep a Highly Motivated Membership

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How to keep a highly motivated membership

If you think about AIESEC and motivation, ask yourself a few questions:

Why did you join AIESEC? What did you want to experience, to learn?What did you want to get out

of it? Do you know why your members joined AIESEC? What did they want to experience and to

learn? Did they achieve that? Did you achieve that?

Everyone joins AIESEC with certain goals. Many want to go on Exchange or learn how to lead teams,

how to plan and implement a strategy. Some just want to have fun, get to know people from

different countries and get contact to companies to enhance their future careers.

If everyone would achieve the goals they have when first joining AIESEC, over 80% of our

membership should have been on Exchange, many would apply for Leadershippositions, ourinternational networks would be much bigger. We could achieve so many of our Goals we have as an

organization!

So why, when the goals of our organisation and our individual goals match perfectly in the beginning,

why arent we more successful?

After being on Nico, finding your team, receiving training after training, maybe being stuck with a

task you dont like, not getting responsibility it is so easy to forget why we are in AIESEC. And then,

after 6 Semesters we are finished with university and still havent been on exchange!

So this is what we have to do: Remember our goals, maybe find new ones after some time, not

manage our members but empower them to realize their own dreams!

We are not in AIESEC to do as many exchanges as possible, reaching the highest number and then

winning some prize. We are in AIESEC to give students the opportunity to develop themselves!

Behind every exchange or member or leadership number is a valuable experience, we should never

forget that.


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So how do we keep our membership motivated?


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Some Notes on that:

Expectation Setting:Making your Expectations clear to applicants already during the Recruitment

and then checking the Expectations of the applicants in a Selection Interview is crucial. You have to

know why your members join AIESEC in order to give them the right tasks so that they can really

develop themselves and stay motivated. A selection Interview can be already the first PDT, where

you really get to know, what the Newie wants to learn and do in his first semester in AIESEC. You can

already do long term planning and prepare your Newies for L Positions.

Giving Responsibility:Dontgive your Newies a Task that doesntfeel important. Everyone want to

contribute something valuable. Give your Members responsibility and then trust them. Even if your

members carry out a project differently than you would do it: it is their project, not yours. They will

succeed or they will fail. But they will only learn, when they take the responsibility. Give clear

responsibilities, not tasks. If one task is finished the Member will ask your for the next task. If your

member has the responsibility for his own area, he will independently organize his/her tasks.


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Remember: if you dontgive resonsibilty, how could your members take responsibility? Also: Training

is important, but sometimes learning by doing is more effective!

Creating Value:Your members dontshow up to your LCMs? Dontbe annoyed by that but ask

yourself: maybe it is because your LCMs are boring! Creating Value means giving your members what

they expect from AIESEC. We promise an international network, we promise contacts to companies.But how many of our members have been on an international conference and how many of our

member have actually met those big shots from our board of advisors or supporters? Invite externals

to your LCMs, invite internationals, make all your activities so interesting, that even NON-AIESECers

would want to join your LCM because of the interesting topics! If people have fun, they will work a

lot more!

Celebrate Success:Being OCP or OC is so rewarding. Why? Because a project has a clearly defined

end and you can actually see your success with your own eyes, when you for example walk around

your university during the Firmenkontaktgesprch or get great feedback on your conference. In Team

work there is no end and this is why it is much harder to see your successes. So maybe you couldorganize your work more project based? When you think about it: Every Semester in OGX is an own

project with the goal of sending as many people abroad as possible. Every TN that your raise, match

and then realize is one project that could be done by one member. And so on. Also: Successes are

everywhere! Of course it is easy, when you are able to compete for awards like the Excellence Award

and then you win it, but which of our LCs can really compete in that? SO maybe you could chose one

LC that is similar to yours and start a competition. Or when you realize your first TN after one year,

that is a huge achievement and could be celebrated with a huge welcome party for the trainee! And

always remember to say thanks to the members that achieved that. Say it publicly on tha LCM and

thus give them recognition, but also just say thanks more often to your members, when you just

meet them in the hallway. Think about how a thanks from your LCP makes you feel!

Development Assessment:PDTs and so on. Remember: A PDT is not for the LCP to know when the

Member will have time to do stuff and when they will go on X, but for the member to realize what

dreams they have and how they could achieve them! How can AIESEC help our members to achieve

their dreams, inside and outside AIESEC? Be interested in your members, not only about AIESEC but

in them as a person!

Outro:If someone wants to leave AIESEC arrange a meeting with him. It is crucial for you to know

why members are not satisfied with AIESEC anymore! Maybe it is only because that person really has

to concentrate on Uni now, but maybe you just didntgive the member enough opportunities. Here

is a huge chance to get feedback and learn from your mistakes! Also have Good Bye talks with all

members that finish with university. Ask about their future plans, maybe also get feedback from

them and then you can include them in the LC activities as Alumni. (or as TN Taker!)


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So, and this is a short summary:

PS: These are just a few ideas and hints on what we should and could do to empower our members. I

am sure you all have a lot more great ideas already implemented or just in your head. Of course this

is very hard and we are constantly failing. This is just the theory and I can tell you that also in my LC

there are a lot of those ideas still not implemented. But nevertheless we should never give up! We

can all achieve so much more than we think!

I wish you all a lot of success and fun in your time in AIESEC!

Katinka (LCP Augsburg)

10173328 how to keep a highly motivated membership

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