West Wing

As I have the opportunity to chat, commiserate, compare notes, and engage fellow admissions directors and deans this summer, there has been a growing theme in those communications.  It’s the desire to do “more”.  I don’t mean additional work!  But to take our current work to the next level.  Some, because it’s a necessity: their enrollment isn’t quite where they’d like and they need to be changing things up.  But more often, it’s because a colleague is looking to stretch personally and professionally, trying to find a way to grow without having to leave education or at least our profession.

But change is inherently risky; the unknown and all of that.  The greatest struggle my friends seem to have is a willingness—if not ability—to let some things go and let others on their staff take them over in order to free them up for the “more” they crave.  It means letting others put their own stamp on something you’ve owned and built.  It means allowing for a different path to the same successful outcome, although maybe not the exact path you might have chosen.

In this challenge are some complementary opportunities, if not obligations.  The first is to allow yourself to think on a higher, more strategic level.  Find a blog or buy a book about the power of word-of-mouth or social media marketing in schools and allow yourself to sit in your office and read and think.  It’s okay.  It’s still working on behalf of your school if you’re not at your keyboard or on your phone.  Additionally, allow your staff to take some ownership of the operation and success of the office.  They, too, need “more” and desire to be nurtured and mentored, challenged and encouraged.  By you.

In doing this, you need to create a “safe space” for you and your staff to work differently, to create a new paradigm.  As they venture into new territory and take some work off your desk for you, they need to know you have their back.  Once clear goals, outcomes and expectations are set, they need to try things their own way and they need to be okay not nailing it right each and every time.  Likewise, you need to allow yourself to stumble as you redefine your role and how you prioritize your time.  There’s a relevant, wonderful scene from “The West Wing” that has stayed with me all these years.  I commend it to you as an application for both yourself and for your staff. 

(You had to be living under a rock at the start of the 21^st century if you never saw “The West Wing”.  It was on for seven seasons and won a record 26 Emmy awards.  I mean, really!)

Leo McGarry, the Chief of Staff, is trying to convince President Bartlett to allocate funds for a missile defense system.  Needless to say, it’s an expensive missile defense system and it needs some investment to perfect it.  The hesitant president, fearful of a bad investment and not inclined towards defense spending, interrogates McGarry asking why he should spend so much money on something that is not guaranteed to ever work as promised.  Why?  Why?!  

Because, McGarry passionately notes, there’s been a time in the evolution of everything that works, when it didn’t work.

Indeed.

Human Interaction

Living in Canada for almost four years, it’s been a while since I stepped foot in a CVS.  I did so for the first time recently while back in the USA on holiday. 

My process was downright efficient: Enter store.  Select items.  Pay the machine.  Self-serve bag.  Leave.  I managed the entire transaction without a single human interaction.  Not only that, I managed my entire visit to the store without a single human interaction.  I suppose that is the point of such newfangled self-serve registers: no human interaction means no need for humans.  And like schools and most everywhere else, the cost of labor is the largest expense in almost all organizations.

This is not new.  Think ATMs.  I had my first ATM card in high school.  Who needed those pesky tellers and their passport savings books?  (Let’s not put a year on that, shall we?!)  This is from where we got EZPass in 1991.  If you could drive through the lanes and pay your own toll, who needed expensive toll takers?  Think printing your own online boarding pass for the airlines and the success of Amazon.com: the world’s largest bookstore without one…yup…store.

So, what is the loss?  First, possibly money.  Have you ever shopped at a Wegman’s grocery store?  What are the first two things every cashier is trained to ask you: “How are you?” and “Did you find everything today?”  Those seemingly lazy employees just milling around the registers are actually there to leap into action and go fetch exactly what you couldn't find before it’s time to pay the cashier, thereby providing marginal additional income to the store.  But multiply that marginal income by the number of customers each day times the number of stores.  Ka-ching!  I can tell you at CVS that nobody cared if I found everything and if I hadn't, nobody was seemingly available to help me do so, thereby facilitating me spending more money.

I praise the efficiency, the cost savings, and the spirit of independence it gives the consumer.  But, I am cautious about letting them run around—or worst, running out—on their own.  So, how does this look in schools?  Online report card viewing, web-based applications for admission, internet textbook shopping, and third vendor credit card payments for tuition are just a few examples.  When they work, they work.  But when they don’t, you better have an easily found FAQ, email link for assistance, or a phone number to call.

Let’s not make it hard for our families paying a lot of money to be served.  And let’s not make it a hurdle for them to possibly spend more.  After all, is it us or them who are craving the absence of human interaction?

“How are you?  Did you find everything today?”