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Dear Colleague,
Leadership is situational. The greatest satisfaction a LEADER gets is the amazing feeling of "self worth" when he/she does volunteer work and help others to lead; the exhilarating feeling of making a positive difference even when it's done through another.
You are a LEADER. I appeal you to lead irrespective of your age, membership level, field of work, location of work, language skills, etc. You know the situations where you can lead.
Let's break it down to few "actions" and we being engineers I have boiled it down to Key Performance Indicators ( KPI ) :
Become a volunteer in a Sectional Committee:
Part of your IESL Membership is to be present and to participate in activities IESL organizes. It starts with your volunteerism in a sectional committee and you are not limited to your own area of engineering discipline. IESL encourages its members to join multiple sectional committees. Also, you need not be a "committee member", you can participate anyway. IESL Mechanical Engineering Sectional Committee encourages all our colleagues to join its activities. This session MESC was expanded because there was lots of enthusiasm. Our monthly meetings are full with at least 50% of the MESC members coming and none members filling the rest. Contribute to sectional committee Forums ( better subscribe for auto updates) to discuss, organize, to stay up to date on various matters of interest. Read News or contribute to news. Else register for upcoming Events so you get email reminders. If you are a committee member, ensure 80-100% attendance at monthly meetings because you have taken another's opportunity! make the best of it.
KPI: become an active member ( if not a committee member) of at least 1-2 sectional committees
Participate in Public Lectures:
Continuous Learning and Educating others are some of the key reasons why you joined IESL. I see few committee members at our public lectures except the ones who organize. I am stating this after observing for 3 years at a stretch! Not only your attendance matter but I request you to ensure 5-10 others ( engineers or public - friends, family, etc.) come to a lecture with you. We have around 160 seats in our auditorium and the official number of members that should be in a sectional committee is 15, thus members of a committee should be able to bring 100-150 to a lecture!
- KPI - come to 10 public lectures / session and bring 5-10 outsiders to each of them
- KPI - deliver a public lecture or organize 2 / session with your sectional committee ( think of organizing at Provincial Center Chapters, Universities, and Public Places)
Contribute to SLEN (monthly digital SLEN or quarterly paper SLEN) :
Create articles as text ( write in Sinhala, Tamil and/or English - you can request a friend to translate and send all versions), video ( your smart phone is more than enough - MP4 format) or audio (again your smart phone can record in MP3 format or use www.soundcloud.com free and send the link). Also get your colleagues to do them, work on a collaborative project. This activity will improve your communication skills. You have plenty going around you ( work, university, school, society, leisure, hobby, etc.). Given the number of members at IESL, it's a shame that we are unable to produce such articles. Seniors and Juniors equally are responsible for this contribution. Those who live abroad or work abroad can easily contribute new experiences. Easiest way is to provide digital videos/audio with photos. If you are doing excellent projects, promote them without hesitation. If you are an inventor or an entrepreneur promote your project. Please do send your articles ( files, links) via email to dir.pub@iesl.lk and srinath@mahimainboundmarketing.com. If you send them to me I can even provide input /edit.
KPI: provide 2 articles / session
Contribute to Common Forums:
We have created few common forums to "drive" change at IESL, the profession, and the country. Join or rally hundreds of like minded members on a cause to get it done. For example, don't try to solve your membership problem alone, bring it up in a common forum, bring others to comment on it, lobby for change. Do the same with professional or national matters. I make an appeal to Chairs of Sectional Committees and Provincial Chapters to fully utilize their respective forums for 24x365 discussions, planing, etc.
KPI: Subscribe to two of the main forums, "Meet IESL President and Council" and "Ask an Engineer" on our forum page so you get auto email updates ( login to access the forum and once in a forum, click "subscribe link" at the top of the page)
KPI: join your sectional committee, provincial center forum pages.
Get updates to your mobile device as they happen:
Download relevant mobile apps to your devices and create free accounts to get the "buzz" from IESL social media. Topics vary from IESL news/events to education, technology, politics, economy, sports, hobbies, etc.
Please get involved seriously and WALK THE TALK. Set high standards through our actions. If you have own initiatives then bring up and execute them enthusiastically. But to just be in an IESL directory of members is not a productive thing. So, this message is to say "it's time to be true to yourself and IESL".
IESL desperately wants you to LEAD ( learn, educate, act, drive )
If you have more suggestions please write to SLEN Letters to the Editor section.
Eng. Arjuna Manamperi
Chair - MESC
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