the legacy project

 

Senioritis. The inevitable virus plaguing students in their final year at school. We make a lot of excuses for these students, and have come to expect less from them. But, now knowing what I know about motivation has helped me to understand how we can maximize their talents. They are our most mature and  knowledgeable group of students, so it would be a waste to lower our standards and let them slide. And truthfully, if approached in the right way, they don't want to be left to let slide either. So here is the idea. The Legacy Project...

Depending on when you execute this depends on how involved your students can be in the selection of their project. I will be piloting this year with a second year graduate student, and for this pilot year I have selected three projects in which she gets to choose from. However, the ideal would be involving the student(s) from the beginning so that by the time they get to their final year/semester they have outlined a project proposal based on their understanding of the office or department. Here are a few things to keep in mind as it relates to what makes a legacy project...

• The senior(s) should be matched with a younger and involved staff member. The younger staff member wouldn't play a huge role in the creation and design efforts of the project. They mainly serve as a sounding board of which to bounce off ideas. You need to be savvy with the younger leader's role. Essentially having them involved gains investment from a key player to ensure the projected is implemented. That being said, they need to be involved enough that they care, but not too much that it becomes their project.
• The project is meant to leave a legacy of the person or group behind. Therefore it is very ideation, creation and design focused as opposed to implementation focused. So for instance, in my case I chose three components of the staff experience that are currently failing and have a lot of efficiency holes, and the legacy project will be design a new strategy or approach to revamp or fix the current problem. Maybe an example will help bring a little more clarity. One of the options I am offering is fixing the staff communication channels and information sharing among staff throughout the summer. 
• The supervisor/advisor expectations should be detailed, and I recommend the use of deadlines. While most of our seniors are beyond needing someone else to set their deadlines, I will tell you why I encourage them. With all the others cultural experiences that  run parallel to senior year like the job search or graduate school application process and the many events our seniors have to celebrate the end of their time in school, deadlines will be appreciated by the student(s). I would include the following in the outline of components for the final product...
• An overview of the idea(s) or methods(s) chosen
• The people that will need to be involved in the implementation
• A facilitator guide or publication that anyone could use to execute the plans no matter their involvement or lack their of in the planning stages
• Prototypes of assessments that will be used to measure efficiency
• A budget
• If necessary they should be thinking forward like a three year roll out, ie. year one looks like this, then add this component in year two, etc.

• The more they include in the final materials the better. Remember they will be gone after the finish the project so it has to be detailed enough that anyone could pick up a guide or materials and be able to implement. The final product should be presented to a group of staff and students, and should serve as a celebration of the hard work that went into the project.

• The focus should be on the individual's exploration of self and how they illustrate that in their work. I would recommend that either you or someone identified as the adviser or supervisor be available to meet about the project. It doesn't have to be very often, but when meeting the focus should be on progress and then mainly on how they are exploring their niche or who they are as a professional through the completion of the project.

Ok now that I have explained how to do this, here is the kicker...why it works! The science behind motivation essentially identifies three main things that drive people: autonomy, mastery and purpose. The legacy project is a perfect example of how one's search for purpose can be channeled and utilized to improve programs, services or staffing work environments. Purpose is driving many retirees to start their own businesses, "now they have the time to do what they like" and many of these businesses are people oriented with the idea of helping or advising. Much like the many retiring baby boomers are becoming a new crop of entrepreneurs in today's business, senior students are in a place where they are reflecting on what they have contributed to their campus or organization and in a prime place to turn that curiosity into product. They want to leave something behind that will be in existence when they come back. Ok, one last plug for the student development theorists.  We know that our senior level students are most capable when it comes to designing these intricate initiatives due to their developed critical thinking skills. The exploration of self and emphasis on leaving a legacy, challenges them to think in the higher levels of moral and identity development. Through process and reflection, this serves as a unique way to challenge our most mature group of students, and should yield a high return on investment.

key to relationships

This says it all.

Training Tube

 

Think about all of the training you do with your staff. There is probably a lot. Anything from team building to customer service to diversity related issues. My staff endures a ton of training to prepare them for their summer of orienting new students. In addition to all the typical training topics, they have to be well versed in all things Rutgers. It ads up. People can learn a lot though just sitting at the computer from home. With a young staff like mine that practically lives on facebook, youtube and google, the more we can integrate forms of training into the mediums they are already using the better the chance they will participate and enjoy it. What if they created the training? So here is the concept...

Interested students go through a one hour "training design" workshop. Videos follow the few parameters identified by the training coordinator, and are kept to 5 minutes or less.The students are granted a Cisco flip cam and either windows movie maker or iMovie software. Training videos are created.

Our returning staffers have a lot of valuable insight on how to deal with different personality types in a group, and could role play this in a training video. Students could create videos showing different offices around campus and how to do things that first year students would be asking about (getting an id, changing their meal plan, visiting the records office). Beyond orientation training this could be really valuable for an office/department that has more "hands on" type of training, like room set ups or how to use a/v equipment. Training ref's about different rules for a sport through role playing, or showing resident assistants a dummy room filled with "illegal" items in a residence hall are just two more ideas. The possibilities are endless. As long as the student is creating quality training videos and uploading them to the server or youtube channel they can keep the flip cam and continue to make videos. Black and Decker executed this approach to training 3 years ago. Their training has quadrupled. The training tube server receives 15-20 new training videos a month. It cut their in-person training in half.

getting things done

The note above is a scribble one could find in a variety of places around my office. The end of the year allows us to reflect, set goals and think about things we will do differently in the new year. Productivity is very important to me, and I continue to work on sharpening my skills as well as identify new tools that can make me more productive. Here I share a couple of useful resources, tips and ways to boost productivity. Feel free to comment and share others if you'd like.

Delegation is one strategy that can make or break people. I have seen it plenty of times, those that are excellent at delegating and those that struggle so much that it can literally put projects on hold, drive people to unhealthy habits, even hold up an entire office's ability to move forward. I was given a diagram similar to the one above in one of my classes in grad school, and find it to be a good tool to use when analyzing a task list and identifying what to delegate. The four levels in case you can't see them are (starting with the outer most level): Administrative and Routine Tasks, Minimal Oversight, Management or Training Needed, Ample Oversight, Management or Training Needed, and lastly "You". Essentially you plot the different tasks on your list in the different levels on the diagram to help you plan out how you will delegate, what you want to delegate and who you will delegate too.

remember the milk- The ultimate task manager. You can create task lists, have reminders sent to a variety of places (e-mail, phone, instant message) and manage your tasks with a variety of features like maps and calendars. It's free and now you can sign in using your gmail account.

evernote-I love evernote. I personally use it, and find it to be a wonderful tool. You can put your thoughts, ideas, inspiration, and things to remember all in one place. You can capture anything whether your on your personal laptop, desktop in your office or on a mobile device like ipad or iphone. If you see a blog post or article on your home computer that you want to take a look at when you get to work, you can just use the evernote browser extention (that is a little button on your browser) to capture that article and put it in your evernote account. My husband used it last time we we're in borders. He used his camera on his iphone to take a picture of two different book covers that he wasn't going to buy there but wanted to save the info for a later purchase. He saved the pics to his evernote account for easy access anywhere. Lastly, if you want to do a voice recording capture of a workshop or presentation you can save that to your evernote account as well. It's great, and...its FREE!

google chrome- I downloaded google chrome on my personal computer and work computer. It is a great new browser with a ton of productivity apps. Essentially its like free software solutions to presentation creation, task management, appointment organizers and many more productivity challenges.

I have read a couple of good articles, books and blog posts lately with some tips that I tried putting into practice the past couple of months and have found to be very helpful. The following is a list of a few that I have found most useful...

• Do not have your e-mail open all day long. This has made a tremendous difference for me and my ability to get things done at work. I had always just had my outlook open all day long as I did things on my computer. However, when I started shutting it off for chunks of time I got so much more done. It made me concentrate on actually responding to e-mails when I scheduled time to deal with e-mail, and then by turning it off I switched my focus to the next task. 
• Instead of looking at productivity from the "time management" lens, try looking at it through the "energy management lens". Personally I am most productive (in terms of completing tasks) in the morning, right after lunch, and after my work out/dinner. I am absolutely scatter brained between 3 and 5pm. I can do things, but its better to schedule meetings, phone calls, or short quick tasks during that time because I don't have the energy to sit and think for long periods of time during those two hours. Since being more cognizant of this I have been able to be so much more productive with my time. I have realized that even though I may just want to get it done, it will take me twice as long to work on a "thinking intensive" task at the end of the day. It's better that I focus on more administrative quick "mindless(ish)" things, leave at 5 to get a good work out in (followed by a good dinner), and I will be very energized with lots of ideas. Understanding my energy has helped me plot out my day with the tasks that I will tackle throughout it.
• "80% is showing up". We have all probably heard that before, but it didn't make sense to me until I read Tom Peter's new book "little big things" and read his interpretation of the quote. He explained that 80% of going to the gym is getting dressed for the gym, convincing yourself your going to the gym and driving there. Once your there it's easy, the last 20% is just doing the workout. Being someone that needs a little motivation sometimes to get myself over to the gym, this resonated with me. I now tell myself this anytime I have that one thing that has stayed on my to-do list and I have avoided it for too long. I just remind myself that 80% is getting in the mindset to do it, setting aside the time to get it done, and deciding to do it. The last 20% will handle itself when I can do the first 80%. 
• Reading. Plain and simple. I don't know what got into me this semester, but I have been reading more than I had in years. I did a post about a month ago on "books inspiring scribbles" and will probably do another one in January with a new set of books that I have been reading since then. Reading books, articles and blog posts regularly, has not only made me more productive, but it has quadrupled the amount of ideas I have on a regular basis and has opened my mind to a much more advanced perspective on key components of my job like supervision, training programs and collaborating with colleagues.