Maximizing Your Potential: Practical Advice from a 20-Something Dean

1. Maximizing Your Potential:Practical Advice from a 20-Something Dean James A. Troha, Ph.D. Vice President for Enrollment & Student Affairs Dean of Students Heidelberg College February 3, 2006

2. Agenda • Introductions • Why Student Affairs? • Leadership • Building Your Experience • Ladder Issues • Degrees • Training • Mentors • Public vs. Private • Length of service

3. My background • Residence life (4 years) • Greek life (2 years) • Dean of Students (11 years) • Vice President for Student Affairs (4 years) • Vice President for Enrollment (3 years) • Ph.D. Educational Policy and Leadership

4. Why Student Affairs? • Students • Personality • Environment • Learning • Leadership

5. Leadership Leadership vs. Management “Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing” • To manage means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of, responsibility for, to conduct. • Leading is influencing, guiding in direction, course, action, opinion.

6. Leadership • What do Senior Student Affairs Officers say about leadership? • No single formula for success • Highly personalized leadership is needed; depends on institution and culture • Need to deal positively with stress, courage and integrity

7. Stress • Serve at the pleasure of the President • Long hours • Many constituent groups • Students, faculty, staff, parents, trustees, alumni, community members • Single issues may often determine fate • Unpredictable

8. Courage • “If you want a place in the sun, you’ve got to put up with a few blisters.” • Criticism • The courage to move forward in view of expected controversy and opposition is a clear indication of successful leadership. • Doing the right thing • Educational leadership means moving forward, developing new approaches. • Leadership is about risk.

9. Integrity • Trust • “I may disagree with Dean Troha, but I know he was telling me the truth.” • Credibility • Policy development • Fair but Firm • Consistency • Flexibility

10. Developing Your Own Experience • Before we can talk about advancing your career, you must first do well in what you are doing. • You are most promotable and most rewardable when you show superior performance at your current job. DO YOUR CURRENT JOB WELL! • What does it take though to do your job well? Trendy word is competencies… I like the terms hard and soft skills.

11. Developing Your Own Experience • Hard skills • easy to measure (productivity, accuracy, timeliness) • Soft skills • just as important, but hard to measure (team player, good communication, personality, demeanor, relationships) • YOU WILL BE MEASURED BY BOTH. You can be the best typist in the world but if nobody gives you anything to type because of your personality, you’re out of a job.

12. Basic Hard skills • Show initiative (own your job) • Meet deadlines • Do more than expected • Have a goal in mind and share these goals • Work from a base of knowledge (avoid rumors; facts deserve respect from others) • Don’t demand immediate payback or recognition Make lists and take notes! Each minute you spend planning can save 20 in execution!

13. Soft skills • Positiveness; optimism (hire for attitude, train for skills) • Herb Kellerher, CEO for Southwest: “We look for people who have to excel to satisfy themselves and who work well in a collegial environment. We don’t care that much about education and experience because we can train people to do whatever they have to do. We hire attitudes.” • People skills (other people have to want to be around you.) • Communication (small talk, conversation, avoid religion, politics, other social topics, know current events, listen)

14. Soft Skills (cont…) • Confident but humble • keep bad moods to yourself, work on fit, every interaction is a deposit in the workplace relationship bank • Don’t be a talented jerk (know-it-all, elitist) • Manage up (don’t kiss ass but play the game, understand boss’ game, preferences) • Be pleasant, say hello to people, shake hands and look at them, use names, ask questions.

15. Movin’ on up! The burden for most of us is on us! Some are born into good positions, others have great luck but for most of us, WE ARE IT!

16. So how do we get promoted? What will give us the edge? Meetings Speaking Committees Impressions Intentionality

17. Be a good meeting person • Take up space (spread work materials in front of you, pull your chair up and sit straight, ignore dinner table etiquette and put your elbows on the table.) • Pay attention (don’t sit and nod your head like one of those car dolls; marks you as a subordinate; use words to agree or disagree) “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”

18. Be a good meeting person • Don’t fidget (men average 12 major movements; women 27; the more you fidget, the more you siphon attention from you are saying; think poise) • Finish your sentences (don’t repeat things, state your point clearly)

19. Public speaking • DO IT! • Preparation - know your audience, be comfortable with your material • Use your nervousness (keeps you on your toes) • Use short sentences, dynamic words (use stories, visual aids, move around, look at audience) • Believe that your audience wants you to do well

20. Committee work • Provides visibility • top levels of management already have visibility; you need it; • builds a network, lets your talent be seen • can’t let day to day performance decline though

21. Good impression • Dress for success (the greater danger is not dressing for success and wanting it) • Wear the costume of the organization (high tech companies not the norm) • Good personal hygiene

22. Strategize / Be Intentional • Long, mid-range, short-range • Know yourself, be in the loop, get feedback, be a team player, accept change, have options, follow your plan, believe in yourself.

23. Ladder Issues • Degrees • Training • Mentors • Public vs. Private • Length of service

24. Other Ladder Issues

25. Conclusion • “What am I good at?” • “What do I enjoy?” • “What are my contributions to students? The campus community?” • “Am I satisfied and successful with what I am doing?” • “What are my opportunities for future growth?” • “What do I want to do next?” • “What has changed in my life the past year and how do I respond to that?”

26. Thanks for Listening!!! QUESTIONS? Jim Troha jtroha@heidelberg.edu (419) 448-2062