Dynamics of an organization are all determined by its culture, while different organizations have different cultures, their separate divisions do as well. AIESEC’s National Congress (NC) 2015 was an opportunity to meet these separate divisions of the organization as it brought together over 400 student leaders from 30 AIESEC chapters all across Canada.
The majority of the conference encircled us talking about AIESEC in Canada and what we intended to accomplish in our next year of operations; however what you truly learn comes from those around you. Every chapter essentially runs the same way in terms of what they technically are doing across Canada, but our leaders ultimately decide how our intergroup dynamics actually work.
When anyone walked up to an AIESEC SFU member at the conference, and found out we were from SFU, we were always greeted with a smile and the straight to the point acknowledgement of how amazing our committee just works. At SFU we strive to have more than just an organization, but a family. We have the understanding that we can rely on each other for more than just AIESEC work, and we spend time with each other outside of such work. The other chapters across Canada envied us for this because a group dynamic is what can make or break your operations. When you have people who want to be there, rather than people who feel like they have to be there, it will make efforts more personalized and members feel more intrinsic value in the tasks they perform.
The importance of wanting to do something rather than feeling obligated to do it is what changes the level of quality and the delivery of your work. You discover that when an interviewer tells you how it is important for you to be the right fit for the company culture, it’s true. If you do not communicate well with one another, and do not understand each other, it can lead to conflict and low quality work. These bottlenecks, such as social conflict, are often avoided when a team can trust one another to be honest and driven with all that they do.
AIESEC SFU’s chapter is one of the few committees that demonstrated how we don’t only fit together, but we support and push one another to be better, which is how we create the next generation of young leaders. Although numbers and work quality are important in what we do, our strong friendships amongst one another is what will ensure we get to where we want to be.
AIESEC Canada’s NC 2015 demonstrated that it is essential and important for you to be part of a company culture. At the end of the day a company is like a machine and the employees are the cogs and gears within it, so if you don’t fit in the right way, the gears won’t turn, and the company just won’t work.
Ibrahim is a 2nd year Business Administration major, minoring in Computer Science. He is involved in two world-renowned student organizations, Enactus and AIESEC, in an attempt to grow his network and gain real world work experience. As a world citizen he has gone to Italy to volunteer as a cultural and lingual mediator for refugees coming from Syria. He is also going on Academic exchange to South Korea in an attempt to further expand his cultural and linguistic horizons. Discovering new places and opportunities, as well as connecting and building relationships with people, is what he aims to accomplish.