Stale and boring is a recipe for disaster. So many times I have been asked the question "how do I motivate my chapter" and so many times the response is nuanced, qualified, and term laden from Kousezes and Posner's Leadership The Challenge. But today, the question crystallized into a question in response.
When was the last time you did something your men wanted to do?
In the cases of failing organizations, the response is usually every friday and saturday night. It's the same thing that's brought these groups before their standards boards before and will likely bring them before those boards again. For those groups, I'm sorry, this is not your post. Though perhaps you may find the project I'm about to propose an interesting alternative?
The greater tragedy is when great groups fall into dissarray and complacency. It's these great groups gone bad that makes being a consultant truly difficult.
Last time, I talked about Southwest as a model of Fraternity behavior, today, let's talk about the rise and fall of Blockbuster. Blockbuster, like many a great chapter, built an empire off of a necessary service and brand loyalty. Fraternities too, came of age in a time when the academia was not concerned with the slightest in the moral development of its students in the greater world around them. Co-curriculars? Forget about it. Many of the more distionguished institutions believed that pure academic discourse would "elevate man" and make better people. Social, even Academic Groups, disagreed, and the Fraternal System flourished. Let's not even ruminate over the failure to provide housing and group building that creates lasting legacies and committment to alma mater vis a vis alumni giving.
All of that has changed. Schools are now in the business of providing pro-active positive co-curricular enrichment. Leadership, once in the purview of Fraternal programming offices and through hands on experience, are now in established offices in academic institutions across the United States. Residence halls are one of the biggest revenue generators outside of tuition for most institutions along with meal plans. Community service is now required of ALL students both during the first year and beyond. Even the trump card of national networking opportunities is eroding as schools increase their presence and outreach to their alumni in a global age.
So what is a fraternity to do? The response is generally tradition. We're going to do what we've always done and do it bigger and better. Bigger parties, bigger shirt designs, bigger new member education processes.
And as traditional actions yield increasingly meager results (law of diminishing returns anyone?), our members become increasingly frustrated.
Blockbuster, one of the biggest traditionalists in the home entertainment field, filed bankruptcy, while many of our best chapters worry about the same. They worry their classes aren't natural leaders, they worry they're not the best of men, they worry that as numbers grow, the organization risks being diminished and at every juncture, men respond to change with "but this is how we've always done things and look how good we were." As you continue to wallow in the past, you become complacent about the future. Just ask Blockbuster. They turned down a significant partnership with Netflix in 2000 and look where they are now...
Remember, Einstein once said "insanity is the repetition of the same act expecting different results." So, when was the last time you tried something truly new?
To fight complacency, I want to pull an old card trick from my days doing improvisation WAY back in the day. It is a little game called "Yes and..." Basically, you get the name of a person, a place, and a job and you must act out a scene one line at a time. You can never say no and you can never go back on previous statements. See where you end up and how you feel about outside of the box thinking? See if you can make committee meetings a game of "Yes and..." To be fair, a kegger is probably not the best response, but keep thinking outside of the box.
Remember, there are always consequences for your actions or inaction.
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