Are You a Student Affairs Hoarder?

Maybe you've seen it, maybe you haven’t but I’m certain you’ve heard of the show Hoarders. As described on the show’s website, Hoarders is, “a fascinating look inside the lives of two different people whose inability to part with their belongings is so out of control that they are on the verge of a personal crisis.” Some people hoard toys, others animals, while others hoard dolls and canned goods.

I have watched the show once or twice, fascinated by not only what these people hoard but by the difficulty they have in changing their lifestyle. Some of the people on the show lost relationships with loved ones while others lost their job. After seeing the show, it got me thinking about student affairs and how at times, I think professionals and student leaders “hoard” their information. With that being said, let me explain. Before I do, it should be noted that for the sake of this blog entry, I interpret hoarding in a much lighter sense and not as a disease or mental health issue.

To begin, let’s look at the student leader. Once you have been elected into your respective position you are excited. You are thrilled at the chance to create change and lead others. Yet, before you know it, the semester is over. Soon after, the reality of moving on and transitioning out of your position sets in and you begin to seek out your predecessor. Before you know it, elections are occurring and your time is done. For some of you, this is the best day of your lives. For others, you wish you had just one more semester. Regardless of your feeling after your responsibilities have been passed over, you have one more duty…officer transitions. It is during this time I see the “hoarding” mentality take place.

How often do you as students keep things to yourself? Maybe you created an amazing idea but rather than share it with anyone, you keep it to yourself because you fear of someone stealing the idea. You “hoard” the idea to receive the limelight. How often do you neglect to tell your predecessor important information because you’d rather they learned it on their own? How often do you keep important documents simply because you don’t’ like your predecessor so you figure, let’s just hoard it and lie that I had it in the first place?

As professionals, how difficult is it for us to give up the ability to make a decision for the students we work with on a daily basis? Sure it’s easier to do everything and “hoard” all the information rather than create a teachable moment with our students but is that right? How often do we as professionals refuse to seek out other colleagues for ideas because they might make the idea their own and heaven forbid, make it better?

One definition of hoarding describes it as the “excessive collection of items, along with the inability to discard them.” In addition, most articles or thoughts on hoarding state that the individuals doing the hoarding don’t see it as a problem, making treatment challenging. In a broad context, does that not ring true with some of our students and professionals. Specifically, the inability to discard the items and the inability to see that it is a problem are the two that stand out in my eyes.

Imagine for a moment that we were able to share ideas within our organizations and workplace freely with no fear of trust? Imagine if we lead others with the encouragement to bring someone in our organization that is better than ourselves? Imagine if every document you had as a leader was available to anyone? What are the possibilities if everyone got over the “I” mentality and focused on the “we.” Simply put, what if we stopped hoarding our most precious items, thoughts, or beliefs?

I think to some extent we are all guilty of hoarding at times. Is that a bad thing? I don’t know. I think it depends on your specific circumstances. What I will say is that I think the obstacle we face as leaders is overcoming that feeling of letting go of something we care about and knowing that it will be okay. Letting go of the feeling that we need to have or hoard everything. Most of all, being able to embrace our belief that there are others that will keep building on what we have created and make it better.

So, what will you stop hoarding?

The Impact of One

In 2008, I had the pleasure of helping to facilitate the first campus-based Undergraduate Interfraternity Institute (UIFI) at Purdue University. I was honored and excited to say the least. I had facilitated UIFI before but never a campus-based session. It presented a new challenge, but also provided a new excitement.

As the students arrived and we split off into our respective small chapter groups, I was, as always, intrigued with the personalities that would make up my small group. As we finished teambuilders, ate dinner and had a large group session, it was then time for our first small group meeting.

Typically, the first small group meeting is a chance for us to get to know our group members on a more intimate setting. Naturally, some personalities were more extraverted than others during the teambuilding and this was a chance to hear from everyone. To do so, we did an activity designed to build trust amongst the group. That is when I met David.

David Feltner. David was a scrawny, quiet, and fairly pale young man when I met him. He didn’t say much throughout the day as we did the teambuilders nor at dinner so I was looking forward to hearing David’s story. You see, the trust activity we would be doing asked for each chapter member to articulate a significant moment in their lives that had shaped who they are as people. There were no guidelines or restrictions; we just asked that it was a significant moment.

As the students finished writing their significant moments, we opened the floor to the chapter members to share aloud. The more vocal group members went first as expected and detailed some remarkable stories. Some were funny, some were enlightening. As a facilitator, you learn so much about someone during this activity and I couldn’t help but wait to hear from David. I had barely heard him speak and I wanted to know what this kid had on his mind.

After a few more group members went, we asked who would like to go next. David raised his hand and with a tentative voice said, “I’ll go.” The first thing David said was, “My significant moment is that I currently have cancer.” Cancer? Did he just say that? No, I must have heard wrong. Whoa. I’m fairly certain my jaw dropped and my heart sank.

David went on to detail that he was currently battling rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of childhood cancer that attacks soft tissue. He stated that at that very moment, it was attacking him and that he had been battling this disease for a little while now.

After describing his significant moment, the room was silent. Almost an awkward silence but David wouldn’t allow that. While I can’t remember fully, he stated something along the lines of, “It’s a battle but I’m not going to let it defeat me.” David was determined to beat the disease and he said it with a smile.

As we finished up the small group meeting, I pulled David aside and just said thank you for sharing his story. He said no problem and that I should know he hadn’t been feeling too hot. He just wanted to let me know. I said okay and the night concluded with some fun fellowship in the large cabin.

The next day we awoke early to prepare for a long day of leadership and values based conversations. Before the first session started, I was pulled aside by the lead facilitators and was told that David would be leaving due to his health. I said okay and made it a point to say bye to David. I wished him well, probably said something sarcastic in good humor, and told him I looked forward to hearing him beat the cancer he had. He smiled and said, “I will.”

That would be the last I heard of David.

On Sunday, June 5^th 2011 David Feltner, at the tender age of 22 and a brother of Pi Kappa Phi passed away.

I entitled this blog the Impact of One because David truly impacted me. He inspired me. Here was a young man, at age 18 fighting for his life but chose to be at a leadership institute. Here was a man who was fighting one of the worst diseases known to man but he took it on with a smile. Here was a fraternity man who was 18 and with one statement, had changed my life.

You see, we go through each day thinking our problems our bad. Maybe we are upset because our alarm didn’t go off. Maybe it’s because traffic is bad. You can insert any number of problems but when someone like David walks into your life, things are put into perspective. Life gets real.

In my eyes, David was and always will be a true Fraternity man. He espoused the values of leadership and courage. I didn’t need to know David on a day-to-day basis to know this because he lived those values. David’s character told me what kind of fraternity man the minute I met him and the night he told his significant moment.

While short, I appreciate my time with David and as this blog justifies, his story still resonates with me. For that, I thank him. I know now he is pain free and in a better place.

In closing, I hope everyone understands the power of sharing something significant to you. It’s a gift. Truly cherish it. I felt honored to hear David’s story. I am truly grateful to hear each story a student tells me in my profession. I am honored because students are never told what to say, they choose what to say and they say what they need to say for a particular reason. For that, I am truly humbled to know that in that very moment, they choose to share something significant with me. Never doubt the impact of one story. Never doubt the impact of one person.

May you rest in peace David.

Here is a specific link from David’s Pi Kappa Phi chapter highlighting their efforts to help David before he passed. This is what being a fraternity is about:

http://tinyurl.com/43j73lp

Sleeping Upside Down: How It Will Make You a Better Leader

Have you ever slept upside down? I’d venture to say 99.9% of you that read this blog would say no. Heck, for most of us nationwide, we sleep the same way every night. For 365 days, we crawl into bed and lay our head at the top of the bed and our feet at the bottom. This has become the norm, our routine.

The other day after a long day at work, I was so exhausted that I laid on my bed upside down. My head was where my feet would normally be and my feet where my head would normally rest. As I laid there with my cats crying for attention, I thought for a moment what it would be like to sleep upside down. Weird thought right? I laid there asking myself why, even though I was on my bed and nothing was different about the way I was laying, my perspective had changed. My view was different. My equilibrium, for whatever reason seemed to be out of whack.

I began to wonder if I could force myself to sleep upside down for one night. Oddly, it was quite difficult to convince myself of such an act. Almost immediately, I began to rationalize reasons why not to sleep upside down. First, why in the world would I do that? Second, the light from the windows would hit me earlier in the morning. Next, the pillows for my head would fall off with no headboard to save them. Finally, it would just be different waking up. It would just be…unusual.

For whatever reason, my mind shifted to relating sleeping upside down to leadership. Specifically, two aspects of leadership: perspective and comfort zone. I’ll start with the latter first.

Much like the way we sleep in our beds, leaders tend to get stuck in a comfort zone. Once we find aspects of leadership that work for a particular group of people, we tend to rely on those techniques too much. We become fixated on the notion that what worked in the past with others will work for your current team. As generational differences have taught us, this is not the case. We need to constantly adapt to our working environment, our audience, and the groups we oversee.

In much the same way as if you sleep in the same spot in your bed every night, you develop a little nook that over time, is a detriment to your body. You wake up sore and eventually, need to rotate and/or flip your mattress. The same is true for getting out of your leadership comfort zone. Eventually, your comfort zone “nook” becomes overused and the groups or individuals you work with become disengaged with your leadership endeavors. So, it is important to be comfortable with leaving your leadership comfort zone, changing how you’ve always done things, and as a leader, adapting to the people and talents around you.

Adapting to others can be challenging and often requires a leader to modify their perspective. Lying upside down in my bed not only took me out of my comfort zone in a physical sense but it changed my vantage point for awhile. I saw things differently even though nothing in my bedroom had changed. I began to wonder how often we as leaders, change our perspective? Do we do it enough? From a Greek perspective, why don’t we focus more time asking non-members why they aren’t joining our fraternities and sororities? From an executive or director level perspective, why is it that the new employees feel disengaged or unhappy? From an alumni perspective, why is it that undergraduate only call when they want money? From an advisor perspective, why aren’t the students seeing the vision that I am envisioning?

Too often as leaders I think we get caught up in our own perspective, we lose the backing of our fellow workers. If the people who work for you never have a voice, what buy in will they have to the perspective and goals you are trying to complete? If you are a chapter president and don’t consider the thoughts of your peers, do you think they will stand beside you if what you are trying to accomplish falters? I doubt it. We as leaders must do a better job of seeing things from a different perspective.

Overall, we as leaders we need to sleep upside down more. I should make it clear that I’m not saying to sleep upside down every night because that would defeat the purpose. However, I’d challenge you sleep upside down once in the next week. See what happens.

Here is the true mind blowing thought of this blog entry that I want you to think about for a moment. For those of you that just thought about sleeping upside down and chuckled at the idea, what does that say about your ability to step out of your comfort zone and change your perspective? If you are unwilling to sleep upside down for ONE night, my inclination is that you are the type of leader that is unwilling to step out of your comfort zone. Sure, that is a wild accusation but if it got your blood boiling a little bit, is there some truth to it?

I really do believe the true innovators in this world (I’m seeing Steve Jobs in my head) are those that are comfortable with the thought of sleeping upside down. There is a reason leaders like Jobs become renowned innovators because they are willing to step outside their comfort zone. They are able to see things differently and from different vantage points. In the end, they develop an idea, a product that becomes transformative. Life changing. Generation defining.

I believe every leader has the ability to do great things. Yet, it is those leaders who are willing to sleep upside down who will truly leave a lasting mark.