Ateneo offers one of the best, if not the best organization life in the country. This discussion attempting to uncover the anatomy of successful organizations may be relevant both for freshmen choosing orgs they want to be active in, and for top org officers who wish to improve their orgs’ systems.

A Strong Community of Members

The primary foundation of a great organization is a strong community of members, united in a specific cause or vision. In all my four-year college experience dealing with the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo (COA)’s 49 accredited organizations, and being an active org member, I’ve seen that the most effective organizations are those who can make members feel that they belong to a community. This happens both on the personal level, in forming tightly knit relationships inside organizations, and on the professional level, in making members understand the advocacy and core competency of the organization and inspiring them to work for this advocacy. The most successful organizations are able to integrate these two levels in a member base imbibed with the org’s values.

A good indicator of this is the first few weeks after the COA Recruitment Week. If during this time, an org sparingly makes announcements or the org’s officers rarely attempt to talk to members personally, then the org will most probably not be a good place to stay in the entire year. An excellent organization will have support measures and systems such as frequent one-on-one consultations the entire year to communicate with and sustainably guide every org member. This is where the potential time members offer to invest in the org is met with leadership opportunities and mentoring offered by org officers; through this, members can grow in service and excellence.

Friendships in orgs are usually underrated and trivialized, but these friendships are actually where real service starts. A good org will give you close friends, but a great org will make you stay for your friends in service—be it with the sector that you visit weekly, the performances you give and practices you have, the decisions and issues you discuss, the faith you form and imbibe or the culture you uphold. The orgs who can make their members inspired to work are those with a tightly knit community of friends in service, who realize that org work is more than just a line any resume can reflect.

A Healthy Mix of Internal and External Engagements

It is very easy to settle in the Ateneo environment, since most orgs are already well established, and it is less of a hassle to organize projects in the Colayco Pavilion or the Escaler Hall compared to outside, where costs and great efforts are needed. But really, the most successful organizations are those who are able to overcome this tendency to settle, recognize that there is a world beyond the Ateneo and act on identified problems using their resources.

More than the mere presence of external projects, great orgs give members an opportunity to serve beyond the university walls: to engage clients outside the Ateneo, to represent the community in national or international competitions, to organize dialogues with orgs in other universities, or to immerse members in different areas. But this kind of external representation takes time, as members need to be equipped with the proper skills to represent the org and the university. Nonetheless, the effort to immerse members in these projects early is a good indicator of an excellent org.

Organizational partnerships, be it with sponsors, NGOs, Loyola Schools offices or other Ateneo organizations, are also a good indicator of success. An org need not be perfect internally to go into external engagements; in fact, orgs will be able to learn so much more about themselves if they go out and form sustainable relationships with external bodies, adopting changes according to their best practices and experiences.

A Mindset of Sustainability

In the greater scheme of things, an organization’s excellence is in its sustainability. Much of the real success of an org is based on how extensively its programs, systems and efforts transition into its next administration. In a very real sense, great orgs work not just for their year but for the next.

However, org leaders tend to want to “leave a legacy,” that they sometimes become closed-minded about adopting what has worked in the past, accepting what was suggested by someone else, or transitioning ideas properly to the next batch. This false sense of legacy is what org leaders need to prevent and correct as they start their terms. After all, a legacy is only a legacy if it remains founded on a stable rock, not on the shifting sands of a narrow mind.

In summary, great orgs always think about their future: forming members equipped to lead in the next years, and resisting the culture of settling by building sustainable relationships with orgs both inside and outside the Ateneo, in accordance to the org’s principles.

For the excellent organization, to really serve is to sustainably serve.

Ken Abante is the President of the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo. He is currently a senior majoring in Management Engineering, with a minor in Philosophy.

Updated 6:04 AM, June 17, 2011.