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THIS IS A CRITICAL TIME TO ENSURE THE LAST TWO MONTHS OF THE SCHOOL YEAR ARE PRODUCTIVE
By Shawn Dalgleish, Illinois ‘81
Now that CLA is over and our new executive board officers are trained, it’s time to increase efforts with our chapters’ change agents. We can sell it as professional change leadership training. As volunteers, we have two months left in this school year to:
 Advance prioritized, metric-driven, continuous improvement efforts;- Mentor and enhance their change leadership skills;
- Hold them accountable; and
- Set expectations for the summer months
Should they ask why, explain the value to them. In addition to helping them serve as great chapter officers, they will competitively differentiate themselves during their upcoming internship and job interview cycles. Ask them to consider these leadership opportunities as a pre-professional experimental playground. Their chapter is— loosely – a scalable Apple, Google or Nike.
Here’s a checklist of items for your next executive board meeting:
- Review team pre-conference goals/priorities
- What was/wasn’t accomplished?
- What was learned; can it be applied?
- How does this change your priorities?
- Re-prioritize
- Identify next steps and develop a timeline
- Identify resources and partners
- Create a written plan
- Identify a date to deliver the plan to audiences and pre-sell
- Deliver plan to audiences: AVC, chapter, Greek Affairs, etc.
- Ask for feedback
- Measure progress against plan
- Hold each other accountable
- Have fun
Their short time on the executive board is all about leading change by breaking paradigms and winning and losing along the way. Here are some other great discussion topics to help undergraduates develop as leaders and chapter officers:
- DREAM – ask them to imagine a radically different tomorrow
- Don’t focus on doing things better, focus on doing them differently – “This Fraternity will be different!”
- Re-imagine your organizational purpose
- Ask them to intuit: what’s coming in two-three years and how to best plan for it? What’s the difference between anticipation and reaction?
- Embrace risk rather than fear it - this can be the difference between innovation and breakthrough
- Get them to imagine what their life would be like with this change and how they just couldn’t do without it – and sell it!
- Power of prioritization – sometimes it’s the things that you don’t do that are most important – don’t drown in too much at once
- Strategically align quick, small, slam-dunk wins to build momentum and then tackle the elephants in our rooms
- Accept failure, don’t expect it
- Have fun!
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