who are you disapppointing?

One of my favorite poems is "The Guy in the Glass", it reminds me that the only person who will be disappointed in me, is myself. Not my parents, not my friends, not by my boss, not the JCI members, only myself. Of course - other people can be disappointed if I promise something then don't do it, or forget, but that's not the kind of disappointment I'm talking about here.

I'm talking about the more serious kind of disappointment, the am-I-fulfilling-my-expectations-to-life disappointment, the one that can lead to serious self-doubt and self-confidence issues.

One of the first things I say to members that want to get involved in JCI activities is to not disappoint themselves. In general, JCI members are ambitious young people, we see something we don't like and we fix it, we get ideas, we implement them, we go for our dreams, go-getters, sometimes even overachievers - you can call us a lot of things. And sometimes you can call us disappointed. Not in each other, but in ourselves.

Sometimes we think we can do everything, we'll spend an hour each and every morning working on JCI things, we'll get Richard Branson to come speak for us, we'll do everything, go to all meetings, travel...

And its a killer.

How, as a leader, do you deal with disappointment in a team? From an email saying "I'm sorry I didn't do what you expected", to someone who is so discouraged by their own efforts they don't even want to come to meetings any more? We've all been there - the project you don't even want to think about, the contact you should have emailed ages ago and now its too late, the note to yourself telling you to follow up on that lead...

So I do my best to not have to deal with it, telling my directors to not set themselves up for disappointment. I tell them that I will never be disappointed in them, in JCI we all participate as much as we can, but that they can be disappointed in themselves, and its a lot worse. It is better to give more than expected than less.

Yes - I am only disappointing myself, but is that really an "only"? Are we not the harshest judges of ourselves and our accomplishments?

I don't believe in living without expectations, I believe in following your dreams, being your best, but also keeping it all within reality. You should have a big hairy goal, an ambition you think is only 50% achievable, a dream to work towards and live up to. Just keep it --- you know ---- semi realistic. 

Investing in yourself - youth getting a competitive edge over their peers

There has been much written about unemployed and lazy youths having to get off their backsides. Youths – together with the rest of the UK – are facing the challenges of the recession, but not everyone is making this a disadvantage. In voluntary organisations we see many youths rediscovering the value of being an active citizen, not only to their communities, but also to their CVs and career prospects.

As President for the biggest Junior Chamber in the country, I see more and more young people looking to find that particular competitive advantage that will propel them into working life, fill that elusive gap on the CV, or help them make the next step on the career ladder.

Youth involvement in voluntary and political organisations decreased dramatically during the nineties and the first decade of the new millennium. Why? We-the voluntary organisations- don’t know. Did life get too comfortable, Did people not care about anyone but themselves? What we are seeing now is that involvement and membership in voluntary and civic organisations is again on the rise. Youths, including myself, are realizing the benefit of working for something other than our account balance.

Are we seeing the rebirth of the active and engaged youth? The abundance of jobs our parent’s generation got used to simply does not exist any more, jobs have to be created, they are not up for grabs any more.

JCI promotes youth leadership and entrepreneurship and we see that those members who lose their jobs rarely stay unemployed. Investing in oneself is worth more than investing in the bank. Getting proven hands on experience from a voluntary organisation, be it project management, leadership or budgeting, pays more in terms of real and tangible opportunities to get the dream job than any number GCSEs or A levels. Not forgetting the social and professional networks involvement in a voluntary organisation allows a person to build.

Book review: "Collaboration" by Morten T. Hansen

I've just finished a very good book,  Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results by Morten T. Hansen.

The book has given me great inputs and powerful tools on how to evaluate and enhance collaboration in JCI London, and also inputs for how we can implement the JCI UK Impact Plan and develop "connected autonomy" in our chambers throughout the UK.

Inspired by the book, I made this collaboration quadrant for how the chambers in the UK are working now, and where we want them to go. I really like the term "Connected Autonomy", coined by Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsicCo.

The book looks at both bad and good collaboration, opportunities and barriers for collaboration (no - collaboration isn't always right), right into the very organizational culture, analyzing what supports collaboration and what works against it.

How can we collaborate without anyone feeling threatened? How can we avoid that people think their input is not acknowledged, that their contributions are not recognized. Sometimes in teamwork, the individual disappears, the individual value disappears, and that would be of no help to JCI UK. Luckily, Mr. Hansen deals with exactly that (and a million other things, like how to build networks, how to set goals...), and I'm hoping to finish a plan of action for JCI UK this weekend that looks at how we can achieve "Connected autonomy" in our chambers.