Sunday, May 11, 2008
Outcomes Not Outputs
Yesterday I was again given the chance to share my own reflections about leadership. This is my second time to give this talk. The first one was with COA during their formsem. I am truly honored to be seen as someone who is worth listening to for at least 30 minutes. Whenever I look back at my humble beginnings (DOTA 'til 4:00AM, sleeping in calculus class, failing 2 subjects), I can't help but smile at the blessings that I have received.
The talk that I gave was supposed to be the same one I gave during the COA formsem. Unfortunately, when I was supposed to edit the last slide of my presentation, I found out that I wasn't able to save it in my flash disk. So within 15 minutes I had to produce my presentation from scratch. Because of this incident, the presentation I gave was a bit different from the last one I gave. My thoughts during the last time I gave a talk was different from my thoughts these past few days. One month really changed my perspective about my leadership.
I found out that one of the things that stuck to the audience was my little piece about outputs and outcomes. This is something I picked up from my OJT. The point I made was that we should measure our success not by the amount of funds we raised nor by the number of attendees to our projects. I believe that the true measure of success is its societal outcome. Did it have a positive effect on people? I know that this is difficult to measure. But at the end of the day, forming better people makes the SAF (student activity fund) worth the penny.
On a side note, I really believe that my talk yesterday was an improvement over the first one. The COA version was more than an hour long. I had the general outline in my head but I was struggling a bit during my actual delivery. Yesterday, I was a bit clearer (I'd tend to believe so) and more organized (with my thoughts). I was more comfortable since I knew the points I was making. I was able to deliver my talk within 30 minutes, which was quite nice. I was also able to control my saliva problem in the side of my mouth. That was a big issue (hehehehe!) during my COA talk.
I have two things that I would like to improve regarding my talk yesterday. The first thing is my posture. I really need to learn how to stand up straight. I would also like to add more of my personal stories. It helps other people to get to know me better. That way, they'd see leadership as something less of an effect of perfection and achievement but more of an everyday decision that we can all make, regardless of background.
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