I recently threw a poll out to my social networks, inviting people to share one word that describes how they’re feeling now that it’s August (caveat: Some people did not follow instructions and wrote a sentence; the result is that some of the responses don’t quite fit into the word cloud).
It’s a good reminder for all of us to take special care as we head into whatever Fall 2021 will be. Is your word reflected here or no?
The Facebook chatter on this poll in The Chronicle’s “Higher Education in the Pandemic” group is pretty much “yup. All of this.”
I’m thinking about what it takes to create the conditions people need to manage the kind of complexity and shifting contours we’re facing, and from the perspective of org theory and leadership, I think people need three things:
Security. We have been living in a state of constant turmoil and trauma. Brains are pickled in cortisol by emergencies on multiple fronts, which eats up all bandwidth. We’re just depleted. Our brains are working against our need to engage in higher order thinking (it thinks it’s helping by providing fight, flight, or freeze resources). Thus, the smartest leaders in the next six months will avoid adding more bleach to the organizational waters. They’ll avoid messaging that focuses on “disruption1” and “uncertainties” and instead focus on restoring a sense of security and predictability.
Honesty. But how can we provide a sense of security when the ground is still shifting? By engaging honestly: Sharing what we know and what we don’t, inviting feedback and demonstrating how we’ve used it in our refined and reformulated plans, and doing what we’ll say we’ll do. The theme for Fall 2021 could be “no surprises.”
Humanity. The pandemic has demonstrated that care, compassion, connection, and community are critical to our survival as individuals and organizations, but these matters are not baked into organizations. In fact, when we think about the bureaucracy in the before times, we can easily pick out spots where business as usual disadvantaged any number of people. I think about all of the employees with disabilities who were never “allowed” to work from home, even if the nature of their work was conducive to the arrangement. Fall 2021 is a great opportunity to rethink all of that business as usual within the context of who is harmed.
All of this applies in the classroom, too. I think we’ll need to meet students with a “humanity first” approach, engage in honest dialogue, and provide whatever security we can. In my own praxis, that means creating strong bonds, engaging honestly and authentically, and just being steady. That’s my goal. It’s not flashy, but I show up for students and for the faculty members in my department. I think that matters in all contexts. It’ll probably matter even more in Fall 2021.
What else do we need as we stare down Fall 2021 on the horizon?
I have a thing about this word. We have zero positive synonyms for the word “disrupt” in English OR Spanish. Leaders like to use “disruption” as a motivator (I guess?) but using negative language in an attempt to inspire positive change starts change processes in a hole. Even the person who coined “disruptive innovation” came to regret it: “The word disruption has many connotations in the English language," he told the Boston Globe in 2015. "I just didn’t realize how that would create such a wide misapplication of the word 'disruption' into things that I never meant it to be applied to."
Like organizational change.
https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=10&emc=edit_gn_20210803&instance_id=37017&nl=in-her-words&productCode=GN®i_id=59087727&segment_id=65262&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F9baf7852-3dc7-506b-8e0d-ed54e1baacfa&user_id=2f2732b57b57b9ee574532983d4a73f8
As much as companies and the government are “trying “ to help, I think the assumption for most people is that “ no help is coming.” Handouts, help, assistance, accommodations, and support are viewed as weaknesses when considering the way business is done in the USA and business is always being done. What is not good for business cannot be sustained . It’s not in the USA DNA. The truth is that no matter what kind of reforms or help have been implemented, the stories of success in the USA seem to be those of sheer and utter personal sacrifice and perseverance by the individual or their immediate family. I don’t hear anyone thanking the government, their jobs, their bosses, or big business. Students still have massive debt. Minimum wage still sucks. Women are still underpaid. Proper housing and food insecurity are still issues, not to mention the root cause of everything - racism.