beyonce: your assessment strategist

Beyonce recently returned to the music scene after taking a year off from touring. She explains in her latest commercial what she did for her year long break from the stage. She studied performances of all kinds. By the time she closed out the year of observing she was that much more ready to get out there and perform. She understands the importance of taking time to evaluate and observe, and for that we can learn from her.

Summer is a great opportunity to take time away from the office and do some site visits. Get out there and check out how other institutions are doing things. Go outside of higher education for inspiration. Maybe check out some of the festivals in the area for some event planning inspiration. Volunteer for a big race to get a sense of how its organized. All of these things may just spark some new ideas at a time of year when we can live in the moment more so than when the academic year is in full swing.

lady gaga, your new social media strategist

I love this commercial. I like the song, and I love the authenticity of it. It's so "millennial" and I love it. I was watching it tonight when I am was in a thinking/writing mode. I saw it through a new lens.

Like her or not, if you know anything about Lady Gaga you know that she is relentlessly dedicated to her fans. She is all over every social media outlet, and keeps up with posting/updating.

Many student affairs departments are trying to break into the social media trends. Creating blogs, twitter accounts, fan pages, etc. The key takeaway we can learn from miss gaga....

YOU MUST KEEP UP WITH IT TO STAY RELEVANT

A fan page is working against you when it only has five fans and the last post was 7 months ago. This may seem like common sense, but in 2 minutes of searching I can find 9 department fan pages with this exact problem. Here are a few tips...

• Don't bite off more than you can chew... The first thought is to create it all at once. Start small. Pilot a fan page for a month, and monitor activity. Keep track of the amount of work to maintain it.
• Find the geek. I am a self proclaimed geek...so I can say that. Find the geek in the office that is really excited about this stuff. If they are interested in it, and have ownership over it, it's a great project for them. Don't be surprised if this person is a student or young professional.
• Strategize. Whether its rotating authors of blog posts or tweets, a strategy is important. It may seem to lack authenticity if things are scheduled out, but without it you risk the "7 months between posts" issue.
• Lastly, check out mashable.com for all the latest on everything social media. It's a great website and stellar resource.

motivation vs. morale

There is a student, his name is John and he goes to State University and works in an office on campus. The office does an "employee of the month" program. John did everything on the office check list and got a gold star. His boss throws holiday parties for John and his fellow student staffers where they get goodie bags with candy and trinkets. There is a bulletin board that John's boss decorates each month. Last month John was on the bulletin board because it was his birthday. Next month the student managers are going to make John and his fellow student employees paper plate awards.

John's supervisor, Kelly, is frustrated. She does all of this, and yet her staff is not motivated. She has thrown every morale booster in the book at her staff and yet they come in to work and do the bare minimum. Sound familiar?

Not surprised.

So many managers see motivation and morale as one in the same. Morale is not motivation. Morale is important, but leaders need to understand motivation to make change. According to the new research on motivation it takes intentional strategies that incorporate three fundamental components: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.

In sum...

Autonomy: This can be provided in four different ways. Time, Technique, Team or Task. When John comes into work, he needs the ability to take ownership over projects. Following a checklist does not give John autonomy. Picking his hours, who he works with, what he does or how he does it...that's the key. It doesn't have to be all at once, but a little bit of each goes a long way.

Mastery: This can be executed in a few ways. When John begins his job he should meet with his manager and talk about what skills hes looking to learn or enhance. Maybe John wants to learn basic graphic design. Give him some projects related to that, let him be able to run with it as he sees fit. Maybe its designing the staff newsletter, or Then when he has to do the check list stuff its not as daunting.

Purpose: You'd have to be living under a rock to not know about the Susan G. Komen organization. Susan's sister started this global non-profit organization that now raises millions of dollars annually for breast cancer research after witnessing her sister's fall to breast cancer. This is purpose driven motivation. So how does it translate for Kelly and her student staff member John? Maybe John is a first generation student. Is there something he can do to support other first gens through the office? Purpose driven motivation can be very powerful.

Keep the pizza parties...

but mix in a few new strategies to make a bigger impact.

considering wellness

I had an idea I just had to share because I am not sure I have time to actually make it happen this year. A friend of mine told me about this cool thing that an orientation program had a little running group among the staff members. They would all go run together over the summer. I know for me when I was a NODA intern I loved that I had the chance to go for a run during the one break in the orientation program.  I have been brainstorming ways to try and integrate a wellness campaign into the summer staff experience. And then I thought...

What if each staff member had a pedometer? We could have contests for who had the most steps per session. Track how many steps we walked as a group. By the end of the summer we will probably have enough steps to have walked across the country. Just a thought...