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.