AIESEC Nigeria partners with Challenge:Future Nigeria

TweetWe are happy to announce that the Challenge:Future chapter in Nigeria is now in partnership with AIESEC Nigeria. The partnership which kicks off today (December 12, 2011) is one that …

LEAP Africa Recieves AIESEC Today

TweetAIESEC Nigeria  was received by LEAP Africa today 13th October by the Executive Director, Miss Mosun Layode. LEAP Africa is a youth development orgainisation, with a mission to inspire, empower …

Nigeria – My Nigeria

TweetNigeria, a blessed country located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the …

NYSC: The Scheme Revolution

TweetEvery year we graduate the future leaders from our tertiary institutions, Every year we send them on a mandate to serve their mother land. But what does all this really …

Introducing Youth2business Forum

What is AIESEC Nigeria’s Youth2Business Forum?

It is simple…

Youth2Business is a one day event; a forum that would bring together corporate Nigeria and the youths in Nigeria with the single purpose of coming up with solutions to some of the social challenges in Nigeria. It would also be an avenue for companies to tap into the energy and creativity of youths in solving some of their peculiar challenges.

It goes without saying that there is a lot of potentials in Nigeria’s Youth. In a country with 150million people, youths (people under 30 years old) in Nigeria accounts for 70% of the population and it is estimated that by 2030, Nigeria would be one of the few countries in the world with abundant supply of young workers…

But the question is this: “is Nigeria tapping into the potentials of her youths? do companies in Nigeria recognize the potentials of young people? how are we maximizing the creativity and energy of our youths?”

Presently, challenges abound which limit Youths in various ways. These include a high unemployment rate, dilapidated educational system etc, but still, it is inevitable that in other to spur on the development in Nigeria, Youths need to be empowered.Youths need to be given a platform for development and expression.

MAKING YOURSELF COMPETITIVE: THE ROLE OF VALUES WITH COMPETENCIES

How do you make yourself competitive? That is the question.

Recruitment agencies have repeatedly stressed the need for every employee to build himself in order to meet up with the high demand for expertise from employers. They even go all the way to accentuate the fact that your Curriculum Vitae is your true identity in the professional world where employers have to go through over a thousand job applications in most cases just to hire only one person who they believe is the best. Remember, in one of my posts titled ‘Get Competitive with AIESEC Nigeria SWAP’ I mentioned that the definition of ‘the best’ has been redefined in this cutthroat world of ours and truly it has.

The question I usually pose to my colleagues whenever we pore over this scenario is: What major ingredients do employers or HR experts look out for in a prospective employee? Unfortunately, the answer has constantly varied from one colleague to the other. Astonishingly, the predominant component every employer I had ever met with subscribes to is the fact that, what interests them about an employee is a blend of the employee’s competence with outstanding values and I agree with them.

True. More government leaders have failed due to poor values than poor policies and more business leaders have sabotaged their careers from lack of values than lack of cash flow.

THE BLAME SYNDROME AND A NIGERIAN’s SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; LESSONS FROM AIESEC!!!

The basic nature of man is to act, and not be acted upon. To take responsibility, as we say and do in AIESEC, to be proactive,to choose! However,this is not the case in our society as individuals at several levels in our society choose to be acted upon and succumb to reactive,as against proactive behaviour, which unfortunately is the root of our socio-economic backwardness.

It amuses me when I see youths,who belong to the most energetic age group fail to act and make things happen but rather choose to lay back and let things happen to them, and then push the BLAME on the nearest person or thing. It further fascinates me when I see that this Blame syndrome has eaten so deep into our fabric that it has become cultural,even spiritual!

Our children BLAME their parents/guardian for sending them to public schools, or making them hawk,and then use that as an excuse for not finding time to read or refusing to do so when told to,while some few proactive ones in the same shoes with them come out in flying colours,proceed to higher institutions and go on to become great men with inspiring stories.

Our students BLAME their lecturers for failing them in exams and bribery,or ASUU for going on strike,or lack of electricity,or lack of conducive environment or money; anything at all,as excuses for performing poorly in school. As if those who excelled all have rich parents,or attended classes somewhere else,or were taught by different lecturers,or had generators in their hostels!

Beating Procrastination

In my last post I talked about the enemy called fear and how it can prevent us from reaching our full potentials. In this post, I would be looking at yet another issue that can serve as a deterrent to personal/professional achievement, personal development and fulfilment of our potentials. This time I would be talking about Procrastination; the enemy called Procastination.

Ok, we all know what procrastination is and we all, at a particular point in time have been guilty of this insidious crime. You know, those times we find ourselves putting till later responsibilities that needs to be attended to. And we do this, not because we do not have the resource necessary to get the job done at that moment, but because we just don’t feel like it.

“In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions or tasks with low-priority actions, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time. Psychologists often cite such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision” via wikipedia

AIESEC Nigeria Raises Leaders: Leadership Story From Gaius

Well what can I say! AIESEC to me is a factory that manufactures LEADERS: AGENTS OF POSITIVE CHANGE that will have a positive impact in both our immediate and future society. My production process to becoming this agent of change started in February 2007 when my LC started gathering raw talent to be put into the refining process of change.

The decision I made to join this league of proactive people has in all measure affected my life positively. AIESEC brewed me from a core Introvert who sits back and watch things happen to a sparky extrovert who takes an active role in making a positive change.

This process of growth showed me how to really know myself, develop myself and in the long run equip me to be the change and impact I desire around me.

The leadership pool of AIESEC is one that should never be underestimated in terms of performance management, organizational management, result orientation, resilience, entrepreneurship, social responsibility, emotional intelligence just to mention a few.

Plan Do Check Act 2011

In management circles there is a well accepted procedure termed Deming Cycle; it is a quality assurance guideline that does not only make an organization maintains its quality of service/production but also helps organization in identifying areas which they can improve at.

Typically, Deming Cycle involves 4 steps: Plan, Do, Check and Act. It is a continuous cycle where Plans are made, then they are executed via the DO phase, after which the effect and effectiveness is evaluated in the CHECK phase and finally the knowledge gained would then be used in improving execution in the ACT phase. This procedure has shown to be an effective guideline.

But the beauty of it is that the effectiveness is not only limited to business and organization, but it can also be employed for a more effective and impactful personal living.