Has done vs Could do

If you are a reader of the Wall Street Journal, you know they issue these special “Journal Reports” on a regular basis. The one from last weekend was all about hiring and managing employees. There were a number of parallels in the different articles between corporate America and our schools.

As an exemplum, happy employees equal productive employees. Don’t we all know that happy students also equal productive students? My own headmaster is fond of saying that if they are not first and foremost happy, then they won’t be as successful as they can be in class, on the playing fields and in the residences. When they’re happy, they’re not bored and when they’re not bored, they’re generally not getting into trouble. It’s not to say that we change what we as adults believe and do to make them happy but that it’s important, maybe more so in a boarding school than not, that they are happy.

Another article addressed the tension between high unemployment and companies saying they can’t find the right people to do the right jobs. The author suggested that companies need to widen their search from those who have done that job in the past to those who could do that job. That is, who could do that job with the right training and mentoring. The suggestion was to shift the emphasis from the new hire being able to immediately succeed to the old guard, and what is that old guard doing to help the new hire, especially during difficult economic times.

Sadly, we probably all know a small but wonderful school that has closed its doors in the last two years during these difficult economic times. It was a great school that served a specific niche but it couldn’t keep it together. Enrollment was slipping or there wasn’t any savings (ie endowment) in the bank on which to rely. I wonder if those schools had shifted their emphasis from the quality of applicant (new hire) to the quality of teaching (mentoring and training) if they could have survived. If they had shifted from looking for students who had done the job to those they believe they could do the job—with the right teachers and teaching in place.

On the one hand, it’s a sad commentary on our society and our lack of emphasis on quality education that keeps our schools open. Shouldn’t a truly 21st century country be marked by a free and public education so exceptional that our schools should all close? On the other hand, until then, it’s sad to see those that had to do so.

That is the question

I started my career in admissions in the world of higher education. Admissions at the university level is much more of a profession. There are standards and expectations and even rules. And consequences. And it is taken more seriously by their institutions. Maybe things have changed since then (it was almost two decades ago!) but nobody would be caught standing in front of their table at a fair, or have a bowl of candy on their table, or hand out gifts.

After all, this was about higher education, this was about each student’s own education. Admissions was admissions and not recruitment. It was about the serious business of a student’s future and figuring out where they would be best served. And it would be cheapened by stuffed animals on a table or cute give-aways.

Imagine my shock when I moved into independent school admissions!

All these years later, I’m essentially immune (or numb) to it although this week the topic came up among a group of colleagues, in part because we were at such a quiet programme and were lacking anything better to do or discuss. There were some who were anti-gift and some who were very pro-gift. The majority, however, thought there was a fuzzy, undefined line in there somewhere. Giving away a pen or maybe even a lanyard was okay. Hats were dancing near the line and shirts for many were clearly on the other side of that line.

For me, it raises a question of purpose and value to your recruitment efforts. If you’re a school 2,000 miles away that doesn’t offer a sport a student plays, do you care if your bowl of chocolates brought them to your table and they took a viewbook? Do you really think that giving away a pen or highlighter will make a student apply when they would not have done otherwise? And do you really believe that the free tshirt will confirm an enrollment when the student (and/or their parents!) feels there’s a better fit, albeit a gift-less better fit?

I don’t know. I have my doubts. I do wonder if any school who does such things has ever specifically tracked the success. Is the application rate higher among gift-getters than not? Is enrollment yield better for those sporting the school’s tshirt than those who are not? I’d genuinely like to know.

To gift or not to gift. That is the question.

Plan C

I love my Bose headset. I can’t imagine all my travel without it. I love it so much that I actually wore out the rubber ear cups recently and had to order replacements.

The replacements came just in time for my recent trip to the UK. There were instructions on how to remove the old cups and insert the new ones. Right cup, done. No problem. Snapped right into place. Left cup? Not so much. I tried and tried and while it would gingerly stay in place, it didn’t take much to knock it off, sometimes frustratingly down into the mechanics of my plane seat.

If you don’t own a Bose product then you may not know they are one of those rare companies known for their unparalleled customer service. Since I had gotten the right cup to work with no problem it was obvious to me that there was something clearly deficient with the left cup. So upon arrival in San Francisco last week, I took my headset to the Bose store expecting one of two plans:

Plan A: they would have a set of replacement cups that included both a good right and a good left cup and I’d be on my way.

Plan B: knowing Bose, if they didn’t have the pieces I needed, they would just give me a new headset for free. They’re that kind of company.

So I proudly showed Trevor at the Bose store how I’d successfully attached the right cup but how there must have been something wrong with the left cup. I demonstrated how quickly it would pop right off. Trevor, instead, had his own ideas and introduced me to Plan C: Trevor, with little effort, manages to successfully install my previously considered deficient left cup. Certain he’d only done so to the level of my own previous limited success, I gave it a pull. But this time it stuck.

Damn it.

I looked sheepishly at Trevor and thanked him for his time and assistance, and packed up my headset, getting ready to leave the store with my head hung low. His response? With a big smile and friendly energy, he said, “Hey, that’s what we’re here for!”

Now later that same day I had what was probably my fourth or fifth skype conversation with a father in Bahrain. He had lots of questions. Actually, his wife had lots of questions but she kept making him contact me for the answers. With each additional conversation, I noticed he got more sheepish, like a guy who thought he was lacking a working left cup when all he was lacking was the ability to install it.

So when he thanked me profusely at the end of our chat that afternoon, apologized again for “bothering” me and letting me know he thought we were done with these skype calls, I simply said to him, “Hey, that’s what we’re here for.” As we signed off, I could see him sit up a bit, smile, and thank me with a bit of relief that he truly wasn’t bothering me.

Thanks for the excellent line, Trevor. It’s good to be reminded.

Refuse to Sell

With age comes many things: wisdom, perspective, patience. And updated prescriptions for your glasses. Yes, after going almost blind looking at all those Excel spreadsheets of funnel data and financial aid amounts in preparation for my September Board meeting, it was evident I needed an update! So in between all the events of Association Weekend (i.e. homecoming) I made a dash to Toronto yesterday for some new frames and lenses.

Now that was an interesting experience. I sought the advice of sophisticated Toronto friends (who wear glasses, needless to say!) and they sent me to what ended up being the centre of hip, progressive, and fashionable eyewear. Well, there are three things you don’t associate with me! After doing battle with them over the fact that I wasn’t going to be busting out some “geek chic” black frames, circa “Leave It To Beaver,” I put the owner on the phone with my friends who had sent me there. I don’t know what they said but I ended up with a pair they refer to as “retro banker”. They’re different but not so different that I wasn’t uncomfortable with buying and wearing them.* Being hip certainly comes with a pricetag.

During the earlier negotiations I pulled out some frames I thought were more “me” and they pulled out their “refuse to sell” policy. Even when I exclaimed it was my face and my money and they should sell me what I wanted, they referred to their policy and explained they refuse to sell a pair of frames they felt were not appropriate, were not attractive on me, and would not reflect favorably on their business. Interesting. Who turns away revenue? Isn’t it a “buyer beware” and take the cheque kind of thing??

Who turns away revenue? We do. As I drove back to campus to chat up some more alumni, I realized that my whole career has been spent executing a “refuse to sell” policy. If I don’t think that my school and the applicant are a good match, I’ll deny him or her admission, regardless of the parents’ readiness to spend the money. Like those crazy people at the eyewear store, I am not offering admission when I think it’s not appropriate. It may be hard to see the revenue walk away but if we’re doing our jobs with integrity, then we do, in fact, refuse to sell.

Our jobs are to look after the best interest of our institutions and look after the best interest of our applicants, not unlike how those crazy eyewear people were looking after me—and looking after themselves.

*For those going to Saudi Aramco in two weeks, I think you’ll get to “see” me there with them. I “look” forward to it. Puns intended!