People oriented versus Results oriented or Do it for fun or Do it for the money

When we start analyzing an organizational culture, we always end up with two different kinds of culture: a culture mainly focusing on people and a cuture mainly focusing on results. Great cultures are always focusing on both, meaning focusing on people so that they can generate great results for the common good of the organization as a whole.

AIESEC is in my view one of those organization and that is why I am still active in this network today. AIESEC gives you the opportunity to develop yourself so that you can contribute to the organization's goals. But we really need to be careful not to damage this balance in our focus on both people and results.

The day we start only focusing on people and on what they want we will end up becoming a student with no real purpose except pleasing our members. A typical kind of organization that only focus on pleasing people are drinking student clubs.

But, on the other hand, if we focus too much on results, either we will scare people that want to join because they won't feel capable of delivering those results or, if they are capable of delivering those results, they will start asking for money and AIESEC will be considered nothing more than a SME present on campus.

One of the motto in AIESEC is "work hard, play harder". I usually recognize a real AIESECer by the fact that for him or her working is always like playing and playing is always like working.