People Who Care

When I was working at SMU, Jim Caswell the Vice President for Student Affairs, gave me a great gift. It was called staff development, but it was truly a gift because it still ranks as one of the best professional learning experiences I’ve ever had. The program was the NASPA Stevens Institute, a week-long program for senior staff in Student Affairs. Twenty-plus years later, I’m still connected with many of the participants and I continuously use lessons and tell stories from that experience. This week as we close out the month of February with our newsletters loosely grouped around the idea of connection, I’d like to share a couple of those lessons and stories from my notes – that I still have!

Larry Roper, formerly Vice Provost for Student Affairs at Oregon State and all-around amazing human being, was the Institute director and he shared information about an initiative on his campus designed to help people talk more effectively about a wide range of issues and concerns. The basic concept of the program was:

“People who care, talking about things that matter”

This eight-word phrase has become a bit of a mantra for me. When we bring together people who care and give them an opportunity to talk about things that matter, good things come from the conversation. I’ve watched it happen over and over again.

We joke, and complain, about the propensity for colleges and universities to create, propagate, and over-rate committees. But, done well, our determination to include a variety of voices is a strength of our culture.

What if we remember this is a strength and when we set up the committee or call the meeting, we choose topics that matter in the life of our communities and we look for people who care about the topic to join in the conversation? What if we commit to creating an opportunity for a dynamic discussion that leads to action rather than just another dreary meeting? What if we see these gatherings as opportunities to create connections across campus? What if we were dedicated to fostering connections that support employee engagement across organizational lines? What might we think about our committee work then?

Other bullets from my notes from the Stevens Institute:

• People come first (but the paperwork has to get done.)
• Change is always happening, our awareness of it varies.
• Lifelong training versus perpetual learning.  Lifelong learning has a set place and is synchronous. Perpetual learning happens anyplace, anytime and is asynchronous.
• Even in a problematic interaction, your responsibility is to take care of the other person.  That’s a tough one, isn’t it?  Obviously, this works best if everyone in the room has this perspective, but even if I’m the only one who ascribes to this idea, it will still change the dynamic of the interaction for the better.
• Take care of the organization, not the department. If my job is the entire organization not just a specific department, that certainly changes the dynamic of turf wars and operating in silos.
• People are sacred.  Structure is not.  That’s an important idea.
• Relationships are a series of conversations.  We construct relationships one conversation at a time.   I think this is very interesting.  So the way to be in a relationship with someone is to actually converse with them.  This places a whole new face on our organizational disconnects.  We all know if we call someone we don’t know to try to solve a problem, it tends to take longer to get sorted out and the interaction is at the level of rules and routines.  But when we have a relationship with the person, the interaction is more likely to be on the level of “how can we get this accomplished.”
• The last three conversations can tell you about the nature of a relationship.  Who are you in relationship with?  Who are you in conflict with? Can these ideas help you reframe this is some way?
• Team is where things happen in organizations.

This week as you go about your work think about these ideas.  Where do they help you identify a different way to interact with colleagues, friends, and family?  I believe we are all people who care but are we really talking about things that matter?  And, if we aren’t, shouldn’t we be?