Last week, we had a band playing in my building. This new band had contacted me because they were doing a national college tour to promote their music and wanted to perform in my building. I like music and I've always had a thing for new artists...I just like supporting them and helping them as they're starting off. So of course I couldn't say no to this new band, especially after I listened to their music and really liked it.
Anyway, so this band came to my building. We had a pretty bad snowstorm that day and they were a little delayed. I thought, "Yay, everyone will be in the building and they'll love to come to our concert." Not so much. Sometimes I just don't understand my residents. Who says no to a free concert? But many of them did, so the crowd in the basement was pretty thin. I felt bad for the band, but I soon forgot all about that because I was just absolutely enjoying myself. I loved their music. And they were really nice, fun guys.
Three of my RAs and I invited them to come to one of our dining halls with us after the concert. We went, had food and just sat there and laughed and joked. It was AMAZING!
So since that concert, I've been obsessed with this new band - much to the amusement of my colleagues and friends.
But here's the thing: The music was great; the guys were really nice. But you also have to think about what's been going on in my life. I haven't had an entire weekend off since the beginning of the semester. I hung out with some colleagues occassionally, obviously spent lots of time to with my RAs and my students, but I hadn't hung out with anyone, who doesn't have anything to do with our university or Student Affairs, since winter break. And it was SO NICE! Just talking about non-work related things; having a normal conversation with guys, who have no idea what I do day in and day out. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I suddenly had this unexpected opportunity for a real conversation. It almost felt like I had a life outside work again. Hmmm, maybe I should try to do things like this more often....
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
A job or a leadership position?
It's been an interesting week with lots of follow-up conversations with RAs and my grads. Overall, I think many of those 1-on-1 conversations have been helpful. Some have been eye-opening, not necessarily in a positive sense. For example, one RA wanted to argue with me over why we charged lock-out fees. He felt that he should be able to make that determination himself whether or not he wants to charge someone. You know, I'm not a fan of this lock-out policy either (I don't have any better suggestions either though), but if it's a policy and we as a staff agree to do it, then we also have to follow-through. Otherwise some RAs are the "mean" ones who charge residents and the other ones become the "cool" RAs, and that's just not fair!
After lots of reflection, I feel like it comes down to the big question: Is the RA position a job or a leadership position?
If you ask me, I'd say it's both. You have to treat it like a job: complete assignments on tasks, follow instructions, be on time, enforce policies that you personally may not always agree with, etc. Then, there's the leadership position aspect of having developmental conversations with your supervisor, pushing yourself to take it to the next level, making connections with residents, learning yourself and so on.
Looking through the position through just one lens (the job or the leadership position) just doesn't work.
But unfortunately, I feel like that's what a lot of my staff members have been doing lately. They use the "I was talking to a resident" line as an excuse for not getting administrative tasks done on time. Don't get me wrong: I love that they want to connect with residents and get to know them, but there's some other basic things that just need to happen. And in general, I feel like I'm much too lenient with those things anyway, giving second and third chances when things are turned in late, discussing with students how they can work on their time management and and and. What else do they want me to do?
But I think my staff and I are getting back on the right track. My grads and I came up with an activity for our meeting on Sunday. We will continue to discuss issues in 1-on-1's.
Please keep your fingers crossed for me that the meeting on Sunday goes over well. :)
After lots of reflection, I feel like it comes down to the big question: Is the RA position a job or a leadership position?
If you ask me, I'd say it's both. You have to treat it like a job: complete assignments on tasks, follow instructions, be on time, enforce policies that you personally may not always agree with, etc. Then, there's the leadership position aspect of having developmental conversations with your supervisor, pushing yourself to take it to the next level, making connections with residents, learning yourself and so on.
Looking through the position through just one lens (the job or the leadership position) just doesn't work.
But unfortunately, I feel like that's what a lot of my staff members have been doing lately. They use the "I was talking to a resident" line as an excuse for not getting administrative tasks done on time. Don't get me wrong: I love that they want to connect with residents and get to know them, but there's some other basic things that just need to happen. And in general, I feel like I'm much too lenient with those things anyway, giving second and third chances when things are turned in late, discussing with students how they can work on their time management and and and. What else do they want me to do?
But I think my staff and I are getting back on the right track. My grads and I came up with an activity for our meeting on Sunday. We will continue to discuss issues in 1-on-1's.
Please keep your fingers crossed for me that the meeting on Sunday goes over well. :)
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
What just happened?
My staff and I participated in this "Improv Training" study. Basically, it was all about using the ideas behind improv (attitude of acceptance, no negativing, for the good of the group) to improv how we work together as a team. The training was long (3 hrs.) but the staff, in spite of not having been excited about going to it at first, actually enjoyed it and said they got something out of it.
The following staff meeting, I decided to talk about staff expectations. I felt that, as a staff, we had hit the "spring slump" where overall everything's still going okay but little things are starting to slide and staff members are losing motivation and drive. I had also heard some concerns from staff members about other staff members not following through on some tasks (e.g. collecting lock-out money, doing rounds when on duty).
The discussion started off pretty good. My grads and I challenged the staff to dig deeper into what their expectations were. For example, we didn't want them to just say that they wanted "respect," we wanted them to elaborate on what it means to show respect, what would be some actions that would show one staff member that another staff member is respecting them.
We started and I was happy with people's comments and how they were questioning and challenging each other. Of course, there were a few who said things like "why don't we just say 'open-minded'...it's all the same anyway" but I didn't feel like that was the overall attitude.
One of the staff members brough up the issue of "tolerance" vs. "acceptance" in an attempt to challenge us to move more toward acceptance. Some were having a hard time understanding the difference. There were some very obvious non-verbal cues showing that people didn't care or weren't paying attention anymore. The staff (and I was so proud of her for that!) pointed this out and from there on, it all went downhill.
Two days later, I still can't really explain what happened.
One staff member questioned why we were even talking about this. How would staff expectations affect our residents?
I tried to explain that some of us not living up to the expectations of the staff did have a negative affect on residents. I gave some examples - and maybe, in the heat of the moment, didn't pick the most significant examples. But we've been having problems with collecting lock-out money. Some staff members have been slacking, which is why we spent the past two weeks hunting down lock-out money (it costs $7.00 here if you lock yourself out) from September and October. Residents were frustrated with us; I spent hours trying to figure out what was even going on with the lock-out money. Granted, I could have paid more attention to it as well. But I guess what really frustrated me was that after I had asked them to start knocking on people's doors (which had been an expectations all along but had not happened), many of them just didn't do it. And they didn't even feel bad about it.
Well, from there everything got out of control. Staff members got defensive. They said things like, "if we are making an impact on someone's life and changing their life, why are we being evaluated on administrative tasks"...I tried to point out that watching football with a group of male residents isn't changing their life. Obviously I appreciate them having positive relationships with their residents, but in the end, we are here to be educators and to teach our residents something...and I know that's not always happening. Some of the RAs have done an amazing job incorporating our learning outcomes into their educational programs and following the curriculum, others have done the bare minimum (e.g. if the task was to organize a team builder with a reflection aspect, some played capture the flag without any follow-up conversation or debriefing).
I know what I just wrote may sound pretty harsh. I don't think I worded at as strongly during the meeting. I know, for a fact, I even said that I was proud of them and what we had accomplished so far and that we could have those conversations of how we could bring it to the next level - but that I wanted to bring it to the next level. That I didn't want to get complacent.
Oooo, that didn't sit well with them. Several staff members said it "hurt their feelings" that I suggested if they were just doing what they'd been doing all along was being complacent.
It was like they thought they were the best RAs on the face of the earth. The ironic part, of course, was that the RAs who thought that were the ones who were the ones slacking off and not taking things seriously.
I guess I got more frustrated than I should have. I probably should have stopped the conversation earlier and continued it in 1-on-1 conversation.
But I still don't understand how they could get offended at me saying that I wanted to take it to the next level?
I think we have accomplished a lot this year. And I'm much more satisfied with how we incorporated the living learning community into daily interactions, events and initiatives. But I think we still have a LONG way to go. I don't think corridor meetings are as effective as they could be - I think they are solely a way of information dissemination and when I tried to include experiential learning activities, not all of the RAs did them with their corridors (some having the dumbest excuses ever...like, 'oh i lost the handout you gave us and forgot that we were supposed to do that....hmmm, and that after we had talked about it for like 10 minutes at a staff meeting).
Anyway, I'm just getting more frustrated again. I think the challenge is how you get that feedback across to RAs, who think they're perfect. There are some, whom I give feedback, and they just shrug it off and I know they're not even going to consider it.
We have invented this "job jar"...if you're late or you miss a deadline, we will ask you to pick up some administrative task. Nobody loves having to pick a task from the job jar, but most of them do it. One of my RAs even, when she forgot something, came running into my office and was like, "okay, where the job jar? Let me pick something," before I could even say something to her. Others have very different reactions, ranging from annoyence to getting defensive when I remind them to pick up a job jar task.
I guess what it comes down to is just their attitude about the position. They've done a pretty good job all year and I just didn't expect several of them to "just not care" and I didn't expect them to be so full of themselves. Maybe I should have seen it coming...already during training, other staffs looked at us and said, "Oh, that staff thinks they're better than everyone else." I just saw the excitement my staff brought to the position and loved it. Somehow, that excitement and passion turned into arrogance.
On a positive note though, at least some of the staff members understood where I was coming from and agreed with my perspectives. Interestingly enough, those were the staff members who had been doing an outstanding job all year.
Okay, enough rambling. I will have to continue to do some damage-control over the next few days and I should probably get some sleep so I'm ready for it.
The following staff meeting, I decided to talk about staff expectations. I felt that, as a staff, we had hit the "spring slump" where overall everything's still going okay but little things are starting to slide and staff members are losing motivation and drive. I had also heard some concerns from staff members about other staff members not following through on some tasks (e.g. collecting lock-out money, doing rounds when on duty).
The discussion started off pretty good. My grads and I challenged the staff to dig deeper into what their expectations were. For example, we didn't want them to just say that they wanted "respect," we wanted them to elaborate on what it means to show respect, what would be some actions that would show one staff member that another staff member is respecting them.
We started and I was happy with people's comments and how they were questioning and challenging each other. Of course, there were a few who said things like "why don't we just say 'open-minded'...it's all the same anyway" but I didn't feel like that was the overall attitude.
One of the staff members brough up the issue of "tolerance" vs. "acceptance" in an attempt to challenge us to move more toward acceptance. Some were having a hard time understanding the difference. There were some very obvious non-verbal cues showing that people didn't care or weren't paying attention anymore. The staff (and I was so proud of her for that!) pointed this out and from there on, it all went downhill.
Two days later, I still can't really explain what happened.
One staff member questioned why we were even talking about this. How would staff expectations affect our residents?
I tried to explain that some of us not living up to the expectations of the staff did have a negative affect on residents. I gave some examples - and maybe, in the heat of the moment, didn't pick the most significant examples. But we've been having problems with collecting lock-out money. Some staff members have been slacking, which is why we spent the past two weeks hunting down lock-out money (it costs $7.00 here if you lock yourself out) from September and October. Residents were frustrated with us; I spent hours trying to figure out what was even going on with the lock-out money. Granted, I could have paid more attention to it as well. But I guess what really frustrated me was that after I had asked them to start knocking on people's doors (which had been an expectations all along but had not happened), many of them just didn't do it. And they didn't even feel bad about it.
Well, from there everything got out of control. Staff members got defensive. They said things like, "if we are making an impact on someone's life and changing their life, why are we being evaluated on administrative tasks"...I tried to point out that watching football with a group of male residents isn't changing their life. Obviously I appreciate them having positive relationships with their residents, but in the end, we are here to be educators and to teach our residents something...and I know that's not always happening. Some of the RAs have done an amazing job incorporating our learning outcomes into their educational programs and following the curriculum, others have done the bare minimum (e.g. if the task was to organize a team builder with a reflection aspect, some played capture the flag without any follow-up conversation or debriefing).
I know what I just wrote may sound pretty harsh. I don't think I worded at as strongly during the meeting. I know, for a fact, I even said that I was proud of them and what we had accomplished so far and that we could have those conversations of how we could bring it to the next level - but that I wanted to bring it to the next level. That I didn't want to get complacent.
Oooo, that didn't sit well with them. Several staff members said it "hurt their feelings" that I suggested if they were just doing what they'd been doing all along was being complacent.
It was like they thought they were the best RAs on the face of the earth. The ironic part, of course, was that the RAs who thought that were the ones who were the ones slacking off and not taking things seriously.
I guess I got more frustrated than I should have. I probably should have stopped the conversation earlier and continued it in 1-on-1 conversation.
But I still don't understand how they could get offended at me saying that I wanted to take it to the next level?
I think we have accomplished a lot this year. And I'm much more satisfied with how we incorporated the living learning community into daily interactions, events and initiatives. But I think we still have a LONG way to go. I don't think corridor meetings are as effective as they could be - I think they are solely a way of information dissemination and when I tried to include experiential learning activities, not all of the RAs did them with their corridors (some having the dumbest excuses ever...like, 'oh i lost the handout you gave us and forgot that we were supposed to do that....hmmm, and that after we had talked about it for like 10 minutes at a staff meeting).
Anyway, I'm just getting more frustrated again. I think the challenge is how you get that feedback across to RAs, who think they're perfect. There are some, whom I give feedback, and they just shrug it off and I know they're not even going to consider it.
We have invented this "job jar"...if you're late or you miss a deadline, we will ask you to pick up some administrative task. Nobody loves having to pick a task from the job jar, but most of them do it. One of my RAs even, when she forgot something, came running into my office and was like, "okay, where the job jar? Let me pick something," before I could even say something to her. Others have very different reactions, ranging from annoyence to getting defensive when I remind them to pick up a job jar task.
I guess what it comes down to is just their attitude about the position. They've done a pretty good job all year and I just didn't expect several of them to "just not care" and I didn't expect them to be so full of themselves. Maybe I should have seen it coming...already during training, other staffs looked at us and said, "Oh, that staff thinks they're better than everyone else." I just saw the excitement my staff brought to the position and loved it. Somehow, that excitement and passion turned into arrogance.
On a positive note though, at least some of the staff members understood where I was coming from and agreed with my perspectives. Interestingly enough, those were the staff members who had been doing an outstanding job all year.
Okay, enough rambling. I will have to continue to do some damage-control over the next few days and I should probably get some sleep so I'm ready for it.
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