Fraternal Thoughts

Greek Life and Real Life

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:54:00 +0000

Guest essay by Amanda Kocefas, Alpha Chi Omega, Michigan State University 2011

Have you ever interviewed someone with fraternity or sorority experience on their resume? Did you overlook it? Did it come up in the interview? Maybe or maybe not, but did you ever think that someone with that experience could have that “something extra” your organization is seeking? You should. Almost everything I learned about accountability, recruitment and conflict management, I learned from sorority life.

I know what you’re thinking, “How could you possibly learn anything from pillow fights and chick flicks?” It is commonplace for people to imagine sorority life as this fantasy-ridden, girly, imaginative adventure into oblivion, but it’s not like that at all. In my experience, sorority life was a serious business – there were rules, standards and processes – and I was in charge of enforcing them.

Much like any business, the primary driver for a chapter is recruitment and getting the right people to join your organization. If you are not bringing in the right people, ultimately your business and your reputation will fold. In the instance of a failing Greek chapter, you would lose your charter and another organization will take over your house, hang up their letters and fill it with their memories. Tell me, if the President/CEO of your company led your organization to shambles, wouldn't someone else take over? The same basic principle applies here. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard colleagues stress how important it is that we “get the right people on the bus” in order to excel.

As a participant in Greek Life, our membership was contingent on upholding academic, personal and social standards. Women who did not meet grade requirements were ineligible for participation at events and in some instances, dismissed from the organization. Being a member of Greek Life is about contributing to the organization in a positive way that ultimately leads to philanthropic and academic successes, while still having fun. During my final semester, I was the Director of Greek Week, a series of philanthropic events that raised over $265,000 for charity.

They say that there are 3 major decisions you make in life: the person you marry, the job you have and the house you buy. I viewed joining a Greek chapter as a critical step toward my future of securing an enjoyable occupation and for a while, it was my home. I joined for many reasons that took precedence over the social aspect – I wanted to be a part of a tradition and ritual, an organization that had true values and worked to uphold them. It is from that ambition that I became the VP of Chapter Relations and Standards, which is essentially the same as being the head of HR. This involved tough conversations with people who were my friends, neighbors and roommates. This also involved dismissing women from our organization, penalizing those who jeopardized our integrity and reputation and having to be the “bad guy” in a slew of other situations. These lessons, although tough at the time, have allowed me to develop and grow into someone who can handle conflict in the workplace and address most problems with a diplomatic approach.

You see, our occupations can vary across industries or functions, target audience and more, but at the end of the day, a business is a business. It takes a team to run one, whether it is a Greek organization or a multinational corporation. They both have an executive board, a group of people with similar interests, rules and regulations, targets/goals and a social aspect. In Greek Life, you get out what you put in, and in my case, I feel as though I completed the most rewarding unpaid internship I didn’t apply for. I can literally travel the world and somehow find a connection back to the people I collaborated with during my time as a Greek member. These doors are continually opening for me.

In short, these experiences and leadership opportunities that I took on have prepared me to be an active and influential member of my company – investing loyalty and time into something for the greater good. You will never hear me say “that isn’t in my job description” because I am invested in this company from the top down. It is this attitude that allows my team to achieve things such as “Best Marketing Team” or “Investors in People” status. It is because we come together under a united set of values and definitions of success that we are able to achieve these goals.

So, all that I ask is the next time you see a Greek Life organization on a resume, consider the experience and accountability that membership requires and ask questions to tap into those lessons learned. The person you are interviewing could truly breathe life into your company’s goals – be it monetary targets, recruitment goals, or community involvement.

The author currently serves as a Junior Marketing Manager for The FiveTen Group, primarily focused on positioning Greythorn US & UK, a specialist technology staffing firm (IT), and also their legal recruitment brand, Laurence Simons. In her professional career, she hopes to travel internationally and learn the different market dynamics throughout the world, as well as manage various campaigns in such markets.

An alumna member of Alpha Chi Omega, Amanda has a Bachelor's degree in Advertising from Michigan State University. As an undergraduate, Amanda served on the Greek Fall Welcome Committee, as Vice President of Chapter Relations and Standards 2010 - 2011, as the Mary Beth Knox Memorial Brunch Coordinator, and as the Director of Greek Week at MSU 201, which raised $267,000 for Relay for Life & 3 local charities. She is truly passionate about raising awareness for several non-profit organizations such as Relay For Life and One World One Future, and now the Boys and Girls Club of Chicago. Follow her on Twitter (@mandyresh)

15 signs that you did your fraternity/sorority undergrad years right

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:23:00 +0000

15. You are wiser. More proud. More fulfilled. More engaged in the world around you. And exhausted.

14. The last few weeks before graduation feel a lot like this...

13. As you pack up and sort your stuff, you find that one stupid little thing that you got at that one stupid little event and that has been sitting in the bottom of a stupid little junk drawer, and it makes you grin. And you toss into into the "KEEP" box.

12. The reaction from a potential employer when you explain all of the leadership skills you learned...

11. You have decided to pursue, looked up how to pursue, or even just thought for a hot second about pursuing a career in student affairs or a job as a traveling consultant.

10. You earn a Mr. Miyagi-like look of pride from your fraternity/sorority advisors.

9. The accomplishments, victories, and great moments are running on a loop in your brain. So are the failures, missed opportunities, and mistakes.

8. Lately, when you see your brothers/sisters, you just can't help yourself from...

7. You actually graduate. With decent grades.

6. The one brother or sister that hated you, that was a thorn in your side, that always seemed to push your buttons, gives you some small notion - whether a handshake, words of thanks, or just a smile - that he or she respects you.

5. After saying farewell at the final chapter meeting:

4. When invited to attend a fraternity/sorority celebration years from now, you earn an introduction like this one:

Bono introduces Frank Sinatra at the 1994 Grammys

3. You've probably forgotten the fraternity history lessons you learned in pledging, and some of the famous names, and maybe even the Greek alphabet. But you remember what Ritual felt like. And after years of just reciting the creed, you now finally get it. And believe it.

2. You are ready for the world.

1. The chapter is in a better position than it was when you joined, and most importantly, is in a position that can continue to thrive even when you're gone. You harvested much, and yet, you planted more.

Smile. You did it right.

Framing Fraternity

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:53:00 +0000

There is an old leadership parable that I heard once, and has resonated with me ever since:

A woman saw three men laying bricks…
She approached the first and asked, "What are you doing?"
Annoyed, the first man answered, "What does it look like I’m doing? I’m laying bricks!"
She walked over to the second bricklayer and asked the same question.
The second man responded, "Oh, I’m making a wall."
She asked the third bricklayer the same question, "What are you doing?"
The third looked up, smiled and said, "I’m building a castle."

I believe that in life, how you frame your experiences determines how you live them.

If you believe you are laying bricks, then that’s what you will do. And that’s the limited experience you will face when you get out of bed each morning.

And if you believe your fraternity or sorority is just another extracurricular activity or club, then that’s all it will be. All it can be.

There are some things I theorize about or philosophize about on this blog, but this I know for a fact: a fraternity can be much more than just another club. I know this because I experienced it. Many of you reading this share this understanding. When you go to national events and look in the faces of dedicated advisors and alumni volunteers, you can see that they know it as well.

As a fraternity or sorority member, you hold in your hands the key to possibly the greatest leadership development vehicle ever invented. You can choose to just park it, or leave it in neutral, or you can choose to drive.

Pedal to the metal. Windows open. Drive.

When a family member, or a professor, or a recruit asks you to describe fraternity, what do you tell them? Do you recite brochure-speak, such as “we’re a social organization that fosters leadership, service, academics, and brotherhood?” (I almost fell asleep as I wrote that). Or do you frame it as something more?

If a fraternity is a large, awe-inspiring, and glorious fresco, we tend to talk about it like it's a wallet-size photograph of a flower pot.

If we frame fraternity to be as powerful as it truly can be, then it will cause ourselves and others to treat it with the respect it deserves. And thus, treat it better than we do today. Framing fraternity differently also can mean we attract those who believe in something greater, and who believe that they themselves are greater. And then we – as fraternities – become greater.

Before I joined a fraternity, I framed it as a traditional activity that you had to check off your list if you wanted to have the quintessential college experience. Once I joined it, learned the values, felt the brotherhood, and let the highs and lows of leadership wash over me, I started to truly comprehend its power. For me, it became life-altering. And as I observe the power of fraternity from the vantage point of an alum who continues to use its teachings, I now frame fraternity as a movement to bring urgent values and vital leaders of character to a world hungry for them.

Therefore, a little something more than just another club.

Reframing can add meaning to other aspects of fraternity and sorority life as well. Think about how our experiences could be better if we framed:

Fraternity initiation as the starting line, and not the finish line.
A little sister or brother program as mentorship-building and not just friendship-building.
Becoming an alumni as the time to accelerate fraternity and not to leave it behind.
Community service as a chance for members to clarify personal convictions, and not just a PR opportunity.
Chapter meetings as a weekly chance to celebrate fraternity, and not just a time to conduct business.

Reframing can change our attitude, but also our behavior. The Greek Advisor who sees the student in their office as just another appointment will handle that conversation differently than the advisor who frames it as possibly the greatest opportunity he/she may ever have to push a young person to new heights. The second advisor probably won’t be glancing at the clock or their email inbox throughout the conversation.

And for those graduating soon, how are you framing this time in your life? Will your next step be to just get a job, or something more? Maybe it's the first chapter in your manifesto on how to build a better world, for example.

So ask yourself, what kind of frame are you building for your fraternity experience? For your life? Is it something ordinary, basic, and forgettable? Or something truly majestic?

I see a castle. Do you?

The Dream Team Syndrome

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:35:00 +0000

It's March Madness time, so everyone has basketball fever. I hope that your team, or your bracket, or both, are still alive!

Basketball is a compelling sport for people who love leadership like me. There are so many lessons to be learned from the sport and how it's played. There are moments in basketball when the five players on the court meld as one. There are other moments when one star player just takes over the game and wills his/her team to victory. There are also moments when some rookie kid comes in off the bench and saves the day. In basketball, the outcome of each game can be determined in a wide variety of ways, which is why we're glued to our TVs and computer screens throughout March and April.

An entire leadership dissertation could be written from the movie Hoosiers alone.

There is one particular story from the game of basketball that I like to use when speaking to groups, especially when sending the message that group mission should always supercede individual agendas. The thinking here emerged from my work with boards, although it can apply to any group.

I've spent time around dozens of fraternity and nonprofit boards comprised of supremely talented and successful individuals, and more often than not, I find myself baffled as to how they can be so dysfunctional as a group. It's the Dream Team syndrome.

For those in their 20's and beyond, Dream Team doesn't likely need an explanation. However, I'm now entirely aware of (and entirely bothered by) the fact that current college students were born in the mid 90's.

For many years, the United States (and other nations) sent its top amateur basketball players to represent our country in the summer Olympic games. This meant college players for us. In the late 80's, there was a push to change this practice. Since basketball was increasing it's profile globally, and since the International Basketball Federation wanted to increase the excitement around the sport, they made the decision to include professional players in future Olympics, starting with the 1992 games in Barcelona. America was hesitant at first, but then want along with the plan. Our college players had some mixed results, including a 3rd place finish in the 1998 games, so this was actually a chance to reclaim dominance in the sport of basketball internationally.

Team USA went to work to assemble what was described as the best professional sports team to ever exist. The media quickly dubbed this ensemble "the Dream Team." Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, and so many other hall of fame players answered the call to represent their country.

The United States then rolled through the 1992 Olympic games. In fact, it wasn't even close. The average scoring margin of the games was 44 points. The rest of the world could do nothing to stop this team. It was almost silly.

And why shouldn't it be? Basketball was invented in America, and we have the best players in the world. That's still true today. Canada has hockey, Europe has soccer, and we have basketball. We should be dominating that sport arguably more than any other in the Olympic games. And in 1992, we did.

And in 1996. And again in 2000 (although it was getting closer).

And then came 2004.

Up until this point, for the American people, a gold medal in basketball was a given. We were crushing the competition. There was more drama around who would be selected for the latest Dream Team than any of the actual games could offer. And in 2004 in Beijing, we again sent our best. Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Tim Duncan, and Allen Iverson among others.

Something seemed off. This team had the star power, but not the chemistry. That caught up to them. The rest of the world had been steadily improving their game, and we had gotten lazy. That became crystal clear in the first game of those Olympics when Team USA was stunned by Puerto Rico, 92–73. After regrouping and winning a couple of games, they lost again (this time to Lithuania). And then came another loss to Argentina in the medal round. After all the dust cleared, the boys from USA wore bronze around their necks instead of gold.

What happened? How can a hall of fame roster fall short to teams with players no one had heard of?

The other teams had to function as true teams in order to succeed. Team USA tried to rely on individual talents, hoping that would be enough to dominate the competition. But it wasn't. The best players in the world lost to lesser players who happened to be on better teams.

Are the lessons for us? Your fraternity, your sorority, your board of trustees, your office staff, your council - no matter what group of individuals you can think of - can fall victim to the Dream Team syndrome. We cannot expect that simply finding the best individuals and throwing them together is going to mean anything for success. You could assemble a dream team of all-stars, and it might start out great. However, unless these all-stars accept the shared mission of the organization and put that ahead of their own personal interests, the group will fall flat on its face. It's a simple lesson really: teams need to be comprised of people who believe in the team's goals. A simple lesson that often gets set aside, especially when we are enamored by the quality of the star players.

There is also a lesson from the Dream Team in the perils of overconfidence. Years of success probably gave Team USA the belief that simply showing up was enough. Add individual ego to the mix, and you have a recipe for the kind of hubris that crashes the loudest.

You may in fact fit that all-star billing yourself. But remember, if you choose to play a team sport (such as fraternity or sorority), you need to place your personal ambitions underneath the team's objectives. It's fine to have personal goals and personal rewards, but they should be the spoils of a greater team accomplishment.

Let's remember that recruiting outstanding men and women for our organizations is the first step, but we can't stop there. Ask any coach of an NBA team: finding the all-stars is the easy part when compared to the grueling work it takes to intentionally build a functional team. Whenever we can and wherever we can, we need to emphasize our shared values and our shared mission. Teams that form around those things, and then fit their all-star individual talents into a plan to achieve them, are the ones that find the podium.

Mentor with Meaning

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:22:00 +0000

Has our casual attitude and approach to mentoring diminished its power?

A mentor of mine, Dr. Denny Roberts, once shared the opinion with me that the word mentor has become watered down. I agree. I'm not one who generally cares about terminology battles, but I can get on board with this. Mentor is now used all of the time to describe a wide scope of relationship types, of any length, depth, or value. You can be called a mentor if you spend an hour with a person, or a decade. You can be called a mentor even if the impact you have is forgettable. So-called "mentors" can come in and out of our lives like taxi cab drivers. By the time we are in college, we've probably had dozens of individuals in our lives who were called or claimed to be our mentors.

Lots of educational institutions and nonprofits now have "mentorship" programs. "Be a mentor today" is a common slogan. Mentoring relationships are even becoming predetermined. Once, on a plane, I overheard a guy complaining to the person next to him about how much he dislikes his assigned mentor.

With mentor becoming relatively synonymous with having any well-intentioned interaction with another person, what term is truly left to describe the extraordinarily powerful, life-altering link between a person with guidance to share and a person eager to soak it up? The link that turns a caring adult in your life into a father or mother-figure? What can you call the Yoda in your life, the Morpheus, the Mary Poppins, the Professor Keating? With mentor becoming a benign, throwaway word in our culture, can it still do these types of relationships justice?

Dr. Roberts' concerns with our overuse of mentor came also from the historical derivation of the word. Mentor was a character in Homer's The Odyssey. If you remember, The Odyssey is a sweeping story of Odysseus and his adventures during his return home from the Trojan War. While he was gone on his quests, Odysseus entrusted his kingdom and his most important possession - his son Telemachus - to the wise Mentor. That level of trust was profound. Because of Mentor's wisdom and regard, the Goddess Athena chose to take on his persona while giving Telemachus guidance that would alter his life.

If you had to entrust your child with one other person in this world, who would that be? Probably someone extraordinarily consequential to you. Someone like Mentor.

Ever since The Odyssey, the word Mentor has come to mean a rare relationship that is longstanding, caring, and developmental. Well - maybe not so much any more.

The purpose of this essay isn't to try to reverse how the term mentor is being used, or try to reclaim its significance as a word. That probably can't happen at this point anyhow. I only wanted to share the information above as encouragement to all of us to remember, and not take for granted, the presence of true mentors in our lives. Even if the word gets watered down, the relationships are real. And you know which ones they are.

A lot of my mentors come from my college years. I'm guessing that's true for a lot of you as well. College is a time designed to force us into a journey of self discovery, and so we tend to be attracted to influential people who want to help us along that path. Thus, fraternity can provide us these opportunities as well. Consider for a moment your big brother or big sister program. Some bigs and littles will define their relationship by gifts to each other and perhaps a deeper friendship. Others will grab that chance to coach a younger member on how to draw the most power from the fraternity experience. They'll seize the opening to mentor.

By the way, if you let down your guard, get to know them, and let your relationship with them flourish, Greek advisors can become some of the best mentors you could ever have.

Take a moment to think about who are true mentors in your life. Remember - there should only be a few. Do these people know this? If not, why wait to tell them?

And, consider another question. Are you currently, or have you ever been, a mentor to anyone? As you look at it, you may need to downgrade some of the relationships you thought were mentorship because they aren't at that high of a level. Or, if you want to continue to call it mentorship, then you may have to double your efforts to earn it. Give your heart and soul to it. Make it matter more to the other person than it does now - more than they would have thought possible.

And, if it isn't a mentoring relationship after all, a caring relationship of any kind still matters immensely. Young people need those now more than ever. The Search Institute's research shows that the presence of a caring non-parent adult in the lives of young people could be the tipping point for their future. It doesn't have to be mentorship to matter. I have lots of advisors, coaches, supporters, and friends in my life who have made a difference for me.

But I only have a few mentors.

And to my mentors - I thank you. I'm sending you a personal note today to remind you of how much you mean to me. You have earned every ounce of the meaning of that word. And by now, you should know, that its a word I hold in reserve. For only those rare relationships. For you.

Dr. Denny Roberts has an outstanding blog, Pursuing Leadership. He is also the author of Deeper Learning in Leadership: Helping College Students Find the Potential Within.

Women Are Owning Student Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:19:00 +0000

In student leadership, women are stepping forward and men are fading into the background.

My youngest son is a big fan of the Wiggles. He knows all of the words to the songs and all of the moves to the dances. I’ve learned to somewhat accept the Wiggles because…well…they’re not Barney.

And you’ve got to respect these Aussies. According to their Wikipedia page, The Wiggles have earned seventeen gold, twelve platinum, three double-platinum, and ten multi-platinum awards for sales of over 17 million DVDs and four million CDs.

For years, the Wiggles were four men: Anthony, Greg, Jeff, and Murray. Just recently, it was announced that a new group of performers would take over for these aging originals. My son stumbled upon the new Wiggles performing their new songs on YouTube, and I was a little stunned. They now have a female member! And she actually seems to be the leader. This is great – and she’s great – but it’s definitely a shift for the longstanding group.

I thought about this for a moment, and it struck me that this is sort of like what is happening in the world of student leadership. The only way it might be even more relevant to our shifting landscape is if the Wiggles re-booted with all women instead of one.

Not only is leadership more accessible to women in higher education today, on most campuses, they are owning it. This isn’t really that new of an observation or occurrence. However, what is making it more apparent isn’t the continued emergence of women, but rather the shrinking of men. Men dominated the leadership landscape for a long time, but once women showed up for the party, it seems they went and hid in the basement.

Before I am accused of not celebrating women’s rise in this regard, I see this is as a fabulous achievement in our society. When women are involved, it creates a better overall leadership dynamic. However, in solving one problem, have we created a new one? In terms of student leadership, we blew right past that 50-50 gender equality statistic and landed somewhere closer to 70-30 in favor of women. And, it seems like that ratio isn’t going to balance anytime soon. Are we heading from one extreme to the other?

It’s not just college either. I work with one of the largest and most prominent high school organizations – Key Club – and I’m noticing it there as well.

The problem is magnified even more when you take into account leadership drive and ability. When I worked at the NIC and conducted UIFI or IMPACT sessions, it was clear who was in charge. The Panhellenic Councils were the movers and shakers, the pace-setters, and the power players. Many of the Interfraternity Councils were struggling to keep up. Too many of the IFCs would have served their members better to just dissolve and let the Panhellenic Councils take over their governance.

I’m not saying that in all cases the Panhellenics were effective – just stronger.

I first noticed the onset of this trend years ago. In the South, the Panhellenic Councils attend SEPC (Southeastern Panhellenic Conference) and the Interfraternity Councils attend SEIFC (Southeastern Interfraternity Conference) for training and education. I spoke at SEIFC several years ago, and remember clearly the casual attitude and approach that the men’s-only event fostered. A good number of the men strolled in late for workshops and looked half-dead as they tried to pay attention. Many skipped sessions, but didn’t skip the bar later at night. I compared my notes with a colleague who went to SEPC. Her report was that the women showed up, dressed to the nines, listened intently, and scribbled furiously on their notepads at every session. They were serious. The men were not.

(EDIT: This isn't meant to say that SEIFC wasn't/isn't a great organization and conference, nor that SEPC is perfect. Both make extraordinary contributions to the fraternal movement)

While the overall societal affects haven’t been felt as strongly yet (in many industries, men still dominate the leadership), it’s coming. More women are going to college, more women are succeeding in college, and more women are taking hold of leadership opportunities in college. Men are being left in the dust.

How have we arrived at this problem of slacker men being run over by uber-achieving women? Here are my guesses:

Leadership is becoming more relationship-oriented. Whereas in our fathers’ time, leadership involved power, hierarchy, and tough-minded authority (think Don Draper), today’s conventional wisdom around leadership is that good ones make a solid human connection with the members of their team. The leader of today listens well, understands emotion, involves others in decision-making, and motivates through recognition and support. This is more natural turf for women.

The rewards have changed. Competitiveness, personal ambition, and high achievement used to be the things that set students apart from each other in a positive way. Men thrive when these things are valued, and always have. So do many women. In seems that nowadays, these values are not only de-emphasized, but viewed negatively. Someone with these values is seen as egotistical. The values that tend to be rewarded now are cooperation, humility, and selflessness. Again, men are capable of succeeding with these values but they are more natural for women.

We expect less from men. In my current hometown, the local men’s suit store went out of business. I assume that’s happening in a lot of places because men just don’t dress up like they once did. This is a minor, but telling point about the state of men today. They’re not expected to carry themselves like they once did. When I walk on campuses today, the men look and dress like they were just yanked out of an underground bunker by a Navy SEAL team. They drift slowly to class, staring at their cell phone, while groups of women blow past them talking with each other about how solve world hunger, or something like that. Our society is just tolerating the slacker man right now. It’s cute. It’s funny. But, it’s troubling.

It’s academic. According to the Census Bureau, 685,000 men and 916,000 women graduated from college in 2009 (the latest year for which statistics have been published). That means 25 percent fewer men received college degrees than women. Studies have also shown that women are doing better academically than men while in college. So, if women are succeeding in the classroom, they are likely to succeed in other places as well.

It’s easier for advisors to work with women. Simply put, women are more reliable than men, tend to listen and work with adult advisors better, and are more coachable. Again, it’s about their strengths in building relationships. Because of this, they may get increased opportunities and support in their leadership efforts.

There are many other factors as well. For example, some argue that our K-12 education system is designed more for female learners. Also, the video game factor is real, and shouldn’t be dismissed. Media portrayals of young men certainly favor the slacker lifestyle. It's a multi-faceted issue.

As I’m apt to do, I see fraternity as a primary solution. There are few men's-only experiences left in our world today, and if handled correctly, fraternities can become supportive environments that rebuild men's leadership potential.

We can learn a lot from sororities. A sorority is still a place where a less-confident, less-skilled, and less-motivated young lady can go and emerge four years later as a savvy, confident, and inspired woman. Can we say that for your fraternity today? Does your fraternity take a slacker and make him a man who is ready to take on the world? Or is it actually the reverse?

It starts with making leadership development a signature priority for your organization. There are many criteria by which to measure your fraternity’s success, but one of the biggest should be how many capable leaders you graduate each year. The answer is not easy, but it’s simple: we need to raise expectations for how men in our organization engage both inside and outside the fraternity.

We can reclaim the confidence and swagger that made us compelling leaders before, and match those qualities with the relational leadership skills that the world now expects. We can still command a room, but yet find depth in conversations. We can bring a spark of ambition along with an ounce of humility. And yes IFC men, we can also bring an occasional (and much needed) dose of calm flexibility to a Panhellenic world that can get too heavily controlled and structured. This is what balance in the leadership universe looks like.

In a world where we keep asking about the relevance of fraternities, we have yet another answer: to reverse the tide of diminishing men and turn them instead into eager, committed, and strong partners with women in leading our world forward.

It’s a good thing that women have emerged as leaders and are here to stay. However, that doesn’t mean that men need to vanish.   Gentlemen, the women around us have issued a challenge. They are standing in front singing their hearts out. What are we going to do?

The Walking Dead Within

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:45:00 +0000

I'm not a zombie guy. I've never really been interested in zombie movies, or zombie books, or zombie survival kits, or anything else connected to zombies. The closest I've ever come was my fascination with the Michael Jackson Thriller video when I was 7 years old. At least those dead people could dance!

But, zombies are a big thing in our culture right now. 12 million of you watched the premiere of the new season of The Walking Dead on AMC. I'm sure many of you reading this are convinced of an impending zombie apocalypse and are storing rations.

Here's the thing. We've been fighting a zombie apocalypse for years. They have been attacking organizations like fraternities and sororities, and in most cases they are winning.

I'm not talking about true walking dead, although some of these organizational zombies might as well be. These are the members who slowly drift throughout our fraternities as though they have no clue as to why they are there. They follow instinctual urges to eat and drink, but don't do much else. They seem to go missing during the day, but swarm us at nighttime activities like parties. A fraternity zombie may just show up on our couch, murmur something as we go off to classes for the day, only to be found again in the exact same location when we return. And he's eating something rotten from the mini-fridge.

The zombies walk aimlessly, seeming to follow only the light of the I-phone they hold in front of their faces. They carry the zombie look very well - unshaven, disheveled, untucked, vacant eyes, and a little blood oozing for their mouths (or is that ketchup?)

Most of us choose to ignore them. After all, these aren't flesh-eating zombies who will cause us physical harm. But, even though they don't chomp on our brains, they could very well be eating away the soul of our fraternity.

The oft-repeated reality of organizational life is that 20% of the group does 80% of the work. That other 80% of the group is comprised of a lot of zombies. And, zombies create other zombies, right? If new members see that being mostly dead is an accepted way to experience the fraternity, then a good number of them will take that option. Soon, the percentages grow more and more in favor of the zombies, and eventually, your fraternity might as well board up its windows and give in to the apocalypse.

Two things create zombies in your fraternity: poor recruitment and low expectations. If you recruit zombies to begin with, then it's almost impossible to liven them up. But let's say you recruit really strong members. Lets give one a name - Mark. Mark is excited to receive his bid and is ready to go. He then experiences an unstructured, lifeless, new member education program. Mark is initiated in a Ritual ceremony that is performed is a shoddy, lifeless way. Mark attends his first fraternity meeting, which is boring, poorly attended, and yes, lifeless. Do you see where this is going? Add in the many other zombies in the chapter who start to get their fingernails into Mark, and soon enough, he too is lifeless.

So what is the zombie survival kit for fraternities? You have a few choices with the zombies in your organization. You can ignore them, but like the heroes in the movies, you do so at your own risk. Another choice is to try to change them. This is a noble choice, and one you should first pursue. The key is to investigate what caused them to zombify and then actively try to find their points of energy. Perhaps they just don't know where to apply their strengths, which is something you can help them with.

The more likely choice is to help them move on. Most can't be saved. It's for their benefit and yours and they no longer enjoy the privileges of membership.

Here is the way to start your plan of attack: assemble a zombie fighting team (perhaps your executive officer team), and spend some time determining how rampant of a problem it is for your group. You might classify them according to whether they can be saved or not. Next, spend time in a meeting addressing questions such as these:

What are our expectations for committed membership? (consult bylaws, Ritual, creed, etc. as guides)
Where, and how often, do we set clear expectations for what it means to be a good member?
In what ways do we actually celebrate poor choices and behavior from our members?
When was the last time we asked a zombie to leave the fraternity, and what's preventing us from doing that more often?
Identify 5 zombies in your fraternity, and then ask: what is similar about these individuals or their fraternity experience that could have caused their disengagement? What themes can we see in their experiences?
Do we have any zombies in our officers/chapter leaders?

Then, your solutions ought to start to materialize. A couple of answers might be to spend time redesigning your new member education program and/or your standards board. Fraternities that have fewer zombies have better programs in place for education and accountability.

So, in conclusion, continue to enjoy your movies and TV shows about zombies. But, be aware that once you turn of the TV, you may be confronted by real ones lurking on the other side of the door. Our greatest enemy in fraternity and sorority life is not the media, or the campus administrators, or any other external force. Our greatest enemy is within our walls. The fraternity experience is meant to be seized by those who want to be better and make others better. The fraternity experience is too valuable to be taken over by the walking dead. Don't let them destroy your fraternity from the inside. Don't let them win.

Fraternity Culture: Lessons from Belligerent Baboons

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:10:00 +0000

A colleague recently introduced me to a fascinating study on primates, which has great lessons for organizations such as fraternities and sororities.

Dr. Robert Sapolsky is a neurobiologist at Stanford University (smart guy) and has written many articles and books on animal behavior and how it relates to stress, socialization, and community. One of his primary subjects has been wild baboons in Africa, and he even studied the same group (called a troop) of baboons for 30 years to observe their behavior.

Dr. Sapolsky described why baboons are good animals to study and learn from:

"The reason baboons are such good models is, like us, they don't have real stressors," he said. "If you live in a baboon troop in the Serengeti, you only have to work three hours a day for your calories, and predators don't mess with you much. What that means is you've got nine hours of free time every day to devote to generating psychological stress toward other animals in your troop. So the baboon is a wonderful model for living well enough and long enough to pay the price for all the social-stressor nonsense that they create for each other. They're just like us: They're not getting done in by predators and famines, they're getting done in by each other."

Baboon troops tend to be dominated by highly aggressive alpha males. These males acquire power like bullies do - by being physically aggressive and intimidating. Dr. Sapolsky casually describes them as acting like jerks in order to get what they want. (Sounds kind of like that guy in your chapter who loves to talk about hazing so much)

The particular baboon troop that Sapolsky was studying was struck by a tragedy, which created a very interesting turn of events. Here is how it was described in a 2004 article from the New York Times:

"...researchers describe the drastic temperamental and tonal shift that occurred in a troop of 62 baboons when its most belligerent members vanished from the scene. The victims were all dominant adult males that had been strong and snarly enough to fight with a neighboring baboon troop over the spoils at a tourist lodge garbage dump, and were exposed there to meat tainted with bovine tuberculosis, which soon killed them. Left behind in the troop, designated the Forest Troop, were the 50 percent of males that had been too subordinate to try dump brawling, as well as all the females and their young. With that change in demographics came a cultural swing..."

The cultural swing was a move away from stress, fear, and loathing, and a move towards community, peacefulness, and mutual support. In short, with the jerks gone, the good guys and gals took over. The toxic environment went away with the belligerent baboons.

Sapolsky's study is profiled on Stress: Portrait of a Killer

The troop thrived with this new culture. But even better - they found a way to ingrain this culture and protect it against returns to old habits. The young males were raised in the new culture and embraced it. Many outsider baboon males that tried to enter the troop and use the old-school methods of aggression and nasty behavior to assume control were thwarted by a culture that wouldn't stand for it. Their choice was to accept these norms or move on.

Dr. Sapolsky found that this new behavior was still the norm and culture 20 years after the tuberculosis incident.

Organizational culture is a powerful force. Not only does it dominate the scene within an organization, but it also affects the behavior of current and future members. The strange irony is that culture - while critically important and complex - can be influenced so greatly by only a few. Have you ever had a horrible boss that made the whole work environment toxic? In the example from nature above, the few dominant alpha male baboons behaved in a way that made the pack tense, stressful, and negative. Their departure changed that almost immediately.

Don't we all desire fraternities and sororities that bring out the best in each member? That are places people come to find refuge from stress and isolation? That are democratic in how decisions are made and directions are chosen? That are positive and uplifting?

If your chapter's culture is the opposite - stressful, tense, and negative - then take some time to look around. It may be a simple matter of who is holding the reigns of influence. Too many of our chapters are held hostage by dominant personalities that are self-serving, mean-spirited, and aggressive.

Maybe it's time for them to leave (in a much more pleasant way than the dumpster-diving baboons).

It isn't always the leaders either. It can be the advisors that create this stressful environment, or perhaps older members who use their age to gain stature. Why should we tolerate anyone who drains life out of our organizations?

There may be other ways to change your organizational culture, but the simplest and most effective way is to dismiss those that would do it harm. There may be no greater tool for culture shift than the exit sign.

You might think that it's too difficult...that it's easier said than done. It requires standing up to power. The baboons in the study never did this at first - they just stumbled into their new culture by accident.

It's a good thing we're not baboons. We're humans who can summon up the courage to control the destinies of the organizations we care about. But will we?

A Livestrong Movement for Integrity

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:01:00 +0000

Dear Mr. Armstrong-

Well, there’s no need to pile on at this point. You’re having a tough week. I was never one who idolized you, but I certainly admired your ability to inspire so many. I wonder how that “so many” are feeling today.

I’m writing to offer you a suggestion. Clearly, you have talents that do not require performance enhancing drugs. You built a worldwide movement with a rubber yellow bracelet for goodness sake. You know how to rally people to fight against a dangerous force. The first time it was cancer.

Cancer didn’t seem to have a chance against you. And you inspired others to have that same attitude in their fight against the disease. Now we all see that you should have left it right there. You didn’t need to win another bike race to be an inspiration and to lead a movement. That’s when you got into trouble.

So, what now? I suggest you take all that you learned from your battle against cancer and apply it towards another scourge trying to take over our world:

The increasing absence of integrity.

The world is really struggling with integrity right now and congratulations, you just became the poster child. You might as well make the best of it. It’s time to lead another movement Lance. It’s time to broaden the idea of Livestrong to include leading an honest and ethical life.

And I don’t think you should do this just for the sake of redemption. You should do this for the same reason you created the Livestrong movement – because you can teach us how to deal with the pain. You can instruct us on how to lift ourselves up when we are defeated. You can show us how to find strength in our weakest moments.

None of us are perfect. We all have had ethical failings. The difference is that you tried to build your entire legacy on a foundation of dishonesty. Young people can learn from their friends and families how to choose between right and wrong. But you can reveal to them how tempting it is to risk (and lose) your soul for the sake of winning a trophy.

There is a young person out there starting their business career who may soon be invited to take a shortcut to the top of the ladder. There are likely thousands of young athletes every day who want a championship so badly that their mind has entertained the idea of drugs. There are budding politicians who want to be selfless but see so much power amassed by those who don’t seem to be. They need to understand the consequences through your example.

So do the fraternity and sorority members who deal with their own share of dilemmas and difficulties.

They need to see that integrity matters again.

Instead of letting your example rest as a warning to others, let it set you free. Like your book is titled, it’s not about the bike. It’s about the person who rides it.

So, take that marvelous marketing brain of yours and apply it to this next great challenge. Get ready to tour the country talking about how you are now trying to overcome a different debilitating disease. There are so many self-righteous people out there, and I think we’re more willing to listen to someone who tried to win without integrity and lost horribly.

And if there is a bracelet involved, I’ll wear it.

Good luck.

Toward a Definition of Brotherhood

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:40:00 +0000

What is brotherhood? I’ve often found that it’s a difficult concept to put into words. The dictionary just can’t seem to do it justice. The same with sisterhood.

A common answer I heard during rush was: “it’s just something you have to experience to understand.” I probably said that to recruits as well.

As I’ve moved along in my fraternity journey, I think it’s becoming easier for me to define. Brotherhood is not as vague and intangible as it once was for me.

At this point, if someone were to ask me to define brotherhood in the fraternity sense, this would be my reply:

Brotherhood is the bonding of men of various backgrounds, beliefs, places, and eras around a singular set of life-directing commitments.

This is what allows me to share brotherhood with the men I graduated with, and with the men who graduated a century ago. It allows me to be a brother with someone I disagree with politically, religiously, or in any other way. Because instead of being based on personalities and friendship, brotherhood is based on shared commitments.

A brotherhood is weak or strong based on the degree to which the commitments are made and maintained.

A brother is a good brother if he follows the commitments and helps others follow them as well.

How do I know if the recruitment chair’s claim of the “strongest brotherhood on campus” is true? Or even partially true? By how much the men know, stay true and hold each other true to those commitments.

Brotherhood has to be maintained. Constantly. For the rest of your life. If you choose to stop adhering to the commitments you made, then you fall out of the brotherhood. You stop being a brother, even if you're wearing the letters or your name still appears in the directory.

If a fraternity values togetherness and hanging out, then it is really valuing friendship. This is completely fine. Friendship is an attractive asset for a fraternity. It's also an attractive asset for a residence hall floor. Lot's of places can claim friendship.

Brotherhood is not friendship, although it can create friendship.

Brotherhood is a sacred privilege. It's not easy to maintain. I have a lot of friends in my life, but very few true fraternity brothers.

Brotherhood is unique enough that it is found sparingly. Of course, you find it in families. You also hear it in places where men fight wars together, or enter burning buildings together.

Brotherhood is a term you sometimes hear in religion. Brotherhood in fraternity is like religion, but the stakes are not quite so high. There are oaths, obligations, and peer accountability. It’s just missing the whole afterlife thing. [although God might ask you how good of a brother you were]

Why is brotherhood difficult to define? Because done right, it is extraordinary. There is a reason so many brothers stand up at each others' weddings. And eventually eulogize each other. Those moments are reserved for family, or those who might as well be. For those with whom we’ve forged a connection that’s deeper than just beers on Saturday nights, or Spring Break trips together. A connection born on the day we spoke the oaths that made us fraternity men together.

Those oaths made us brothers. And for as long as we pledge to stay true to those oaths, and help each other stay true as well, brothers is what we’ll remain.

I think at this point, that’s how I view brotherhood.

Fraternity Board Member Application

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:56:00 +0000

Please answer the questions honestly with either "YES" or "NO."

Name: ________________________________

1. Was the name you wrote above your fraternity nickname?    YES /NO

2. Is your working theory of dealing with college students centered on command and control?     YES / NO

3. Are you in this for the free dinners and travel to convention? YES / NO

4. Do you think you can do the Executive Director's job?    YES / NO

5. Do you want to do the Executive Director's job?    YES / NO

6. Do you have a pet project that will become your singular answer to every challenge the fraternity faces?    YES / NO

7. Do you have Roberts Rules of Order memorized and/or an autographed copy?    YES / NO

8. Are you excited to answer every big-picture strategic question with the words, "Well, in my chapter..."    YES / NO

9. Do you think every undergraduate should have the same exact fraternity experience you had?    YES / NO

10. Strategic plans are stupid, right? YES / NO

11. Do you approach boardroom debates like King Leonidas fighting the Persians at Thermopylae?    YES / NO

12. Do you feel it's best if the staff's reaction to you is based on fear?    YES / NO

13. Does your fraternity resume include “Hell Week Chair?”    YES / NO

14. Do you believe you are the only one who can save the fraternity and all of fraternity-kind?    YES / NO

15. Do you love to "play politics?" YES / NO

16. Do you like to share your opinions via 3-page email rants, to which you have copied every person in the fraternity directory?    YES / NO

17. DO YOU WRITE YOUR EMAILS IN ALL CAPS?    YES / NO

18. Are you still thinking about your pet project?    YES / NO

19. Does the word "micromanage" make you smile and/or giggle?     YES / NO

20. Do you plan to buy undergraduates drinks in order to get their votes?    YES / NO

21. Is your home chapter untouchable? YES / NO

22. Is any chapter untouchable? YES / NO

23. Do you consider any of the following to be the devil incarnate: email, Facebook, Twitter, or text messages?    YES / NO

24. Do you plan to ignore the financial reports because numbers make you tired?    YES / NO

25. Do you believe that the hallway or the parking lot after the meeting is where the real business gets done?    YES / NO

26. Will nothing stand in your way of having Oprah Winfrey or Bono be the keynote speaker at convention?     YES / NO

27. Would a colleague describe you as someone who likes to raise his/her voice in order to make a point?    YES / NO

28. Do you think it’s a fun challenge to walk into the board meeting completely unprepared and see how long you can fly by the seat of your pants?    YES / NO

29. Can your motivations for completing this application best be summed up by the words "ego trip?" YES / NO

Thank you. Please be aware that if you answered YES to any of the questions above, we will promptly dispose of your application. We have plenty of those board members already. Have a great day.

Approachability Matters

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:02:00 +0000

For many years, I’ve been confident in what I feel is the single greatest leadership skill. Without it, I tell students and adults alike, no leader can succeed. That skill is listening.

Now, after much thought, I think I’ve decided upon an equivalent, if not greater, leadership skill: approachability.

If someone isn’t approachable, the skill of listening can’t be used and thus doesn’t really matter. Those you lead, or want to serve, need to recognize you as someone they trust enough to visit and talk with. To them, you must be seen as a room that is inviting to walk into.

Have you ever had a boss or a leader who made you more nervous than comfortable? I’m sure the old-school types will say that intimidation isn’t a bad thing, and maybe that works for some. But I don’t think it works for most. It never worked for me. If the essence of leadership is relationships, then approachability has to matter. Without it, leaders become isolated. Their influence withers.

If you want to improve your approachability, start with your communication skills (back to listening) and your emotional intelligence. For example, take this next week and practice hard at being completely devoted to every conversation in which you find yourself. Keep the cell phone put away, and pay attention like you never have before. You may find something unusual happens - people can't wait to talk with you!

Approachability is clearly an essential quality for organizational advisors who work with young people. An advisor cannot do their job if the students he advises chooses not to interact with him. And the best advisors try to be approachable to every student, no matter their background or beliefs.

For students, you have a Greek advisor on campus, and they are there to support you and help you grow. In order to do that, they need to be in a position to coach you, mentor you, and simply talk with you. So, how approachable is your Greek advisor? Do you walk towards him or her eagerly, or gingerly? We could ask this about your chapter/alumni advisor as well.

For advisors, we should routinely take some time to investigate our approachability. It starts with observing what is happening around us. Approachable leaders will have a lot of drop-in traffic. They will also find themselves in many conversations that they do not initiate. Students will be genuinely excited to spend time with an approachable advisor. Also, if we are approachable, we may find that people want to discuss big things with us. We will often hear “hey, can I run an idea past you?” That’s the fun stuff.

When I worked as a campus professional/advisor, there was no quality I held more sacred than approachability. I worried about it almost every day, and did anything I could to avoid losing even an ounce of it. This probably made me an overly careful person who worried too much about how others regarded me. But, given that I chose a profession that was all about relationships, I can still justify that degree of cautiousness.

It all boils down to this for me - if you sign up to work with young people, from Kindergartners to college students, you have the responsibility to be approachable. Otherwise, you can’t do your job.

Politics and Approachability
I’ve had something weighing on my mind. We just went through a contentious election and over a year’s worth of political battles. And, I’m sure you would agree, civility was in short supply. I was quite amazed at how many youth development professionals - including fraternity and sorority advisors - were wide open about their politics on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. And it wasn’t just “I think Romney is the right guy,” or “I’m glad Obama won.” It was quite intense at times.

Saw this posted many times. Usually followed by a political post.

There shouldn’t be anything wrong with this, right? The students who follow us on these sites shouldn’t expect us to filter our beliefs and passions, right? Free speech is still one of the bedrocks of our nation. So is our ability to make choices and live with the consequences.

Our choices influence our approachability. Politics is a hot-button issue that often causes emotions to triumph over rationality. Should a student, who is still trying to figure out their beliefs, be able to see a tweet from their advisor that enthusiastically puts her political stripes on full display and be able to compartmentalize it? Sure. In this day and age, will they? I’m not so sure. It’s probably why I’m a chicken about sharing those kinds of beliefs in public.

Some may wonder if my reticence to share politics out loud like that means I’m not as confident in my beliefs. My reticence is simply practical. I want the conservative Christian pro-life Republican and the liberal environmentalist pro-choice Democrat to feel equally excited to walk through my office door and share their dreams with me.

I'm not trying to tell any advisor what to do. My choice to not broadcast most of my personal beliefs about politics, religion, etc. has worked for me - and it is my choice. There have been many times I’ve wanted to post something on my Facebook page about sensitive topics, but I’ve held back. I share those thoughts with my friends and family instead.

The point is, approachability matters. And it’s not something that emerges without attention and thought. Those of us in positions of leadership and influence should be driven by the answer to fundamental questions: if I open the door, who is excited to come in and see me? And who isn't?

The Things I Learned From Joining a Sorority

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 04:00:00 +0000

By Jen Glantz

Most of the decisions we make when we are 18, fall apart. When I was 18, the Registrars office at my University knew me by first name since I filed a “change of major” form once a week. And the day I decided to go get an ink stain on my wrist and piercing through my lip, I walked out of the tattoo parlor with nothing more than a temporary tattoo on my elbow.

6 years later, the only decision I made back then that has not fallen apart was when I decided to join a sorority.

Just the other day, I was in the middle of a conversation with a man who was not from this country when he shot me a look into my tea cup eyes and asked me sternly, “What is a sorority?”

Where, oh where in this world, was I supposed to start?

I told him it started in the most simplistic chaotic way. Six years ago, I went to college and a girl named Heather who I knew from my hometown, told me about a thing called sororities and this crazy little thing called “RUSH”, which at first sounded like a heard of freshman trying to navigate their way around campus continuously crashing into each other, but turned out to be a term for speed dating sorority women. This girl, looked my bun-head, punk rock style, freshie self and said, “Jen, you really should come see what it’s all about.”

And my skeptical, “this is SO not for me” rebellious mindset started kicking through my bones but I went through sorority recruitment anyway and I found these girls who learned all about who I was and instead of laughing at my weirdo ways, took me by the hand and ran with me, making me feel like it was okay to be a little different, and 6 years after joining, they never made me change who I was.

They only made me grow up, just enough.

Living in this 9-(whenever I get out of work) real world, I only ever hear about sororities, unfortunately, when they are in the news for bad, unthinkable, things. And whenever I introduce the fun-fact that underneath these black slacks and 9pm bed time ways, I am a “sorority girl”, people always ask me about the hypothetical terrible things they assume I endured. But they, and you, will learn that like anything else in this world (boyfriends, jobs, hobbies), you get whatever it is you put into it and you must only stand beside people and things you believe in, or else you will fail miserably.

There are many different sororities, with many different women who join them and dance with them for different reasons. I can only fairly speak on behalf of my experience, so I won’t generalize or stereotype the whole sorority experience as being “rainbows and butterflies”, but I'll tell you this.

When you ask me about the crazy parties or rumors of nasty, degrading hazing, I’ll tell you that at the age of 18, I was the newsletter chair of my sorority because I loved to write. At 20, I was the Vice President of Philanthropy, raising tens of thousands of dollars for two causes that were founded or influenced by sisters. At 21, I was the President, but more importantly the role model of 150 impressionable and resilient women.

It does not just matter why you joined things or why you started something; we start new things every day. Job positions, inseparable relationships, lines outside of Jamba Juice, goals to finally hit up the gym. It’s about what keeps us, if we stay. And you will learn, that if you stay for the long-haul, the marathon sprint, you’ll stay for the right reasons. Because the wrong reasons exhaust us, make our faces wrinkle and our hair gray. Leave us with upset stomachs and indigestion.

You’ll see.

Some things in life stay together, but most things will fall apart. Hold on real tightly and celebrate the nouns that keep you from falling apart.

Jen Glantz is a 20-something crawling the streets of NYC. You can find her in a tutu and converses, surrounded by overdue library books, pizza crust and the spontaneous combustion of laughter that often shoots the chocolate milk right out of her nostrils. Jen is a proud graduate of the University of Central Florida, where she received her B.A. in both journalism and English. Read Jen’s latest work on her blog “The Things I Learned From,” (www.thethingsilearnedfrom.com) or shoot her an email: jenglantz@gmail.com.

A Future Without Fraternity Houses

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:53:00 +0000

What if we, as fraternities and sororities, decided to no longer be in the housing business?

Before you fight back, I’m only wondering at this point. Although, the more I wonder, the more I think the next era of fraternity may feature fewer and fewer houses. Or none at all.

I am a product of a fraternity house. I lived in one all of my college years except for my freshman year. Beyond some great memories, the experience of living in a house taught me a lot about relationships, leadership, and life. The house taught us all responsibility, including the importance of keeping it clean.

We didn’t do a very good job at that. My mom cried every August when her and dad would leave me behind at the house. It was a shipwreck. A shipwreck that I loved. It’s hard for me at times to separate my fraternity experience from my fraternity house experience.

But despite my love for my house experience, I’m fairly certain that if given a chance to establish a brand new fraternity system on a given campus, I would opt away from houses. Why? Risk and liability mostly. No stairs, balconies, flammable couches, or overloaded electrical outlets that I would be responsible for.

Financial reasons also play a role. If you build a house, you have to fill it. Students these days are not as likely as I was to put up with bare-bones amenities and communal living. For instance, a growing number of residence hall rooms are singles or suites that have private bathrooms.

There was NOTHING private about the bathroom in my fraternity house.

This trend shows itself on so many campuses. How many fraternities on your campus, for example, can only get their freshmen/sophomores to live in the house? How many have had to institute mandatory live-in policies or a penalty fee if members choose to live “out-of-house?”

Speaking of on-campus residence halls, how can we continue to compete with those? Colleges and universities are pouring big dollars into their lodging options in order to stay competitive. Most campuses have new shiny buildings that make parents temporarily crazy enough to pay exorbitant fees for their sons or daughters to live there. Keeping up with the Jones’s may bankrupt us.

Many of our houses nationwide were built during our boom years of the 70's and 80's. That's a lot of wear and tear, and a major period of repairs, upgrades, and rebuilding is upon us. Are the tens of millions of dollars worth it?

The work of a fraternity house corporation is getting harder and harder. I have to think many of them would find private relief in boarding up the house and having members make other arrangements versus trying to keep the place running.

I have to think fraternity headquarters and boards would also find some relief, especially on the insurance side.

Some campuses have handed over the fraternity dwellings to the university entirely. They are now owned and operated by the host institutions, which means they set the rules and could change their mind any given year. I don’t see this as an ideal solution either. We might as well just move on.

Before you argue against the idea of no more houses, you have to answer the question: is a fraternity house essential for a fraternity experience. I conducted an unscientific poll on this question a couple of years ago on this blog, and the highest percentage by far said a house wasn’t critical.

If a house is essential, why are so many brand-new fraternities and sororities (including colonies) some of our highest-performing? They are likely to meet in a classroom on campus and then live scattered in many halls, apartments, and houses.

Houses weren’t written into our Rituals, or into our constitutions from the beginning. Every fraternity in America has chapters that do not have houses, yet consider them equal brothers or sisters in every way.

So why would there even be a debate? It hardly seems worth it to have a house these days. Well, there is a very believable theory that members who have the house experience have a deeper fraternity connection and thus are more engaged with the fraternity as alumni. The invention of the fraternity house may have been a big reason for our sustained success over time. Maybe the solution is MORE houses, not fewer.

Fraternities still need a place for fellowship and to conduct their business. But does that require a house? Meeting lodges - which some campuses already have - could be a good option. If we put our money and attention towards fraternity spaces, and not fraternity dwellings, then maybe we would have a lot fewer headaches and a strategy to meet the future.

Can you imagine a future without houses for fraternities and sororities? Despite the fact that woke up and went to bed in one for three great years, I can.

100 Posts

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:30:00 +0000

I realized earlier this week that I recently posted my 100th essay to this blog. Most of them are authored by me, but several others were contributed by people I respect and admire. Time has moved so quickly, that I couldn't believe it at first.

This blog has been a labor of love for the last four years. When I started it, there weren't that many blogs devoted to fraternity/sorority life. I had just finished my brief tenure at the North American Interfraternity Conference and was trying out a new career path. I wanted to stay connected to Greek life, and I had some opinions and thoughts to share. Thus, I decided to give this blog a shot. My very first post, Justifying Fraternity, is still one of my favorites.

From that point forward, I decided that I would try to not only write column-style posts that gave my opinion, but also more creative expressions of my belief in fraternity. I even tried a video essay called Crazy, that may have been my first widely-shared post.

I don't pretend to think I'm writing the Huffington Post here or anything. But it has been encouraging to see how many people have reacted to the writings here. I was especially surprised by a post that began as scribbles on an airplane flight and became the most popular one - A Woman's Touch. Thank you to anyone who liked, shared, commented on, or simply read something on this blog. You've made this a whole lot of fun.

I hope to keep doing this for a long time, although I expect more guest writers will be needed in the future. Of course, that was the original intent as well (hence the word "Fraternal" in the title). So, please consider contributing.

I thought it would be fun to celebrate this milestone by sharing my own personal top five favorite posts.

5. Greetings From the Back Row - I had a day to kill in San Francisco, and was too lazy to walk far from my hotel. I settled into a local coffee shop and the idea and the words just began to flow. I couldn't wait to publish this one.

4. It's Time to End Pledging - I don't believe in being provocative just for the sake of it. I truly believe what this essay says and it has probably been my most controversial post. I love how it created a spirited debate.

3. Seeking the Truth from Fraternity - This post reflects a shift in my own thinking about the power of fraternity and that fraternity is a movement intent on creating a better world.

2. Thank You and Your Welcome - I always wanted to put this concept in writing, and it just hit me one night that I should do it in the first person. I chose a sorority perspective because so many posts here are heavy on fraternity.

1. ENOUGH - Maybe I chose this as #1 because it was the most time-consuming to create (by a mile). I spent months on this. The message still speaks to me, especially because I wasn't a very courageous leader in my undergraduate years.

Thank you again for choosing to read this blog. I'm honored that you do. I believe in fraternity and as long as I can add to the conversation about its future, I'll keep writing. And I hope you will too.

A Fraternity is Like Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 15:41:00 +0000

Or more specifically, a video about Facebook.

Many organizations struggle to explain who they are and what they do. Greek-letter organizations are no different. Sometimes the best way to describe the mission of any organization is to compare it to something very familiar.

Facebook recently released a promotional video which, in my opinion, is one of the most effective expressions of mission and purpose I've ever seen. Those who are critics of Facebook often say that it causes true relationships and human connections to suffer. The Facebook video offers a compelling response, which in short, is that Facebook is instead all about relationships and human connections.

What was most interesting to me about this video is that the principles it expresses are quite familiar to those of us in the fraternity movement. Facebook may not be able to fully deliver on all of them, but I'm pretty sure we do.

Here is an exercise for you: watch the video and wherever Facebook is written or spoken, substitute the word "fraternity" or "sorority."

It works, doesn't it?

Smoking Out Hazing

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:50:00 +0000

Note: This post was first written for Phi Delta Theta and published in September 2010 at their blog: phideltblog.com (without question one of the best blogs in the fraternity world). I wanted to give new life to this essay in honor of National Hazing Prevention Week 2012. Some passages have been updated and revised.

The other day I was flying back home and while sitting on the plane, I noticed the “no smoking” signs all over the cabin. This wasn’t a new observation, but I stopped to think about what it must have been like when smoking was allowed on airplanes. Imagine the guy next to you, sharing your armrest, smoking a half a pack between takeoff and landing. And you couldn’t escape. You just had to deal with it. That’s the way smoking was all over our country not that long ago. Restaurants, grocery stores, taxi cabs, and hotels were filled with smoke.

And now? Light up within 100 yards of a nonsmoker and you’re treated like you have the plague. The only safe place for smokers to go is out behind a building right next to the dumpster. It is safe to say that most places in our society have grown intolerant of smoking, and those who choose to do it are often isolated. Smoking still takes place, and consumption levels are still high. There is just a different attitude toward the practice, especially among young people.

I believe this change over the last decade or so was accelerated by an extraordinary anti-smoking campaign, called “The Truth”. You have probably seen their commercials, one of which shows a group of activists carrying megaphones lining hundreds of body bags on the street below the offices of tobacco executives. This campaign has been effective in reducing smoking – especially in young people – because instead of focusing only on the health reasons, it turns nonsmokers into rebellious youth sticking it to the “man” (tobacco companies). Rebellion has always been a well-received message amongst teens!

The campaign is also effective because it involves young people talking to other young people. Peer to peer education works.

So what does this have to do with hazing? From my observation, the vast majority of anti-hazing messages that are delivered to college students come from much older adults. It feels like a parent telling their child to “stop doing that” because “I know better than you.” While we’ve made strides against hazing, there certainly hasn’t been the same momentum like we’ve seen against smoking. We need acceleration.

Let me offer a vision. What if fraternity and sorority undergraduate members became the chief activists against hazing in our society and brought that message to their brothers and sisters, as well as their peers in sports, the marching band, or other clubs on campus?

Let’s take it one step further. Where I live in Indiana, there have been some high-profile hazing incidents in the high schools. What if fraternity and sorority members were invited into high schools to educate students about the dangers of hazing?

We understand hazing because it has been a vicious scar on our legacy. So, let's make amends by being the world leaders against it.

The messaging could be similar to that of “The Truth” campaign – hazing offers power-hungry meatheads the chance to bully others, and we’re not going to take it anymore!

Perhaps this vision is not yet within reach. What is within reach is your personal influence within your own chapter. It’s not enough to be quietly against hazing and just hope that it will go away. I tried that approach, and it didn’t work. If you want to see hazing eliminated, you need to pound the pavement and work against it. Find like-minded members and start a rally within your own organization. Put the “no hazing” signs right next to the “no smoking” ones.

Hazers are like tobacco executives – getting compensated for promoting an unsafe practice. Treat them as such. Turn the chapter against them. The ones who matter will allow themselves to change.

Imagine if the one place on a college campus where a person could know for sure that they would be safe from hazing was your fraternity. Or any fraternity.

It’s great to be against hazing. It’s better to make sure it has no place in your fraternity. Working to eradicate it from our society is even better than that. Let’s stop reacting to this issue and start leading.

Grab your megaphones.

Fraternity Expansion: Take a Number

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Submitted by a staff member at a men's fraternity. Edited slightly with permission.

A young man enters his freshman year of college ready and excited for the adventure ahead of him. He has anxiously waited for this day, hearing fond memories from his father about his days as a fraternity man; days that forever changed his life. The young man’s father has introduced him to his brothers, taken him to chapter alumni events and even bought him a t-shirt with his organizational letters. He is a legacy.

The young man is accepted to a different state institution than his father, and his father’s organization is not represented on campus. He signs up for fall recruitment with an open-mind and visits all of the chapters on campus. Frustrated with the chapter members’ interest in alcohol and the lack of brotherhood, he drops out. The semester continues and the young man makes several good friends through his residence hall, getting involved with student government and participating in intramurals.

During winter break, a friend attending a different university shares he is pledging a fraternity and will be a founding father. Curious about his experience, the young man e-mails his friend and learns more about the process. He is first intrigued, and then enthusiastic. Could he start his own fraternity? What a great opportunity and a great tribute to his father.

As soon as he returns for the spring semester he quickly recruits 15 men from his residence hall, student government and his intramural team. His friend told him that he would need at least 20 guys to be taken seriously by the IFC.

By February, he has set up a meeting with the campus fraternity and sorority advisor. He has downloaded the IFC constitution, as well as information from his father’s fraternity website about expansion. He and the two other “soon-to-be-founding-fathers “ walk into the advisor’s office organized and prepared.

Through their conversation they learn that another fraternity just colonized on campus. The advisor informs the men that there is an order of when fraternities are able to colonize on campus. If they want to join a fraternity, they can join the new colony or one of the existing chapters. The students leave the office deflated, discouraged and frustrated.

The young man calls his father and lets him know that he isn’t allowed to start the new fraternity, despite their best efforts. Even worse, he won’t be able to carry on the fraternal legacy.

Flash back more than a hundred years. A young man decides to go to college in a rural farm community. He is the first in his family to attend college and very intimidated by the size of the buildings, the demanding professors and the academic expectations. However, he finds solace in the conversations and debate that occurs between him and his friends each evening.

This man, like so many men and women, were told by their higher education institution that literary societies were not permitted. The institutions had regulations and policies they must abide by. Sound familiar? However, they persevered and established a tradition of fraternal excellence that has spanned more than 150 years.

So why is it today we are still battling limitations on our freedom to associate with host institutions?

Policies and regulations are much tighter than they were 15 years ago when it comes to expansion, and include:

Scheduling fraternity expansion 5 to 10 years out.
Requiring scholarships and financial contributions to local governing councils.
Imposing regulations on colonies that aren’t required of other fraternities and sororities.
Headquarters courting campus professionals to ensure their selection during expansion.

All under the auspices of fairness, balance, and control.

And because of that, have we let the needs and desires of existing groups (including their fear of competition) trump the needs and desires of unaffiliated students?

Have we accepted that notion that all fraternities are the same? That it doesn’t matter which ones exist on a given campus – only how many? That one fraternity can’t offer anything different than another?

Is it acceptable that fraternal organizations are expected to invest $3000 - $6000 per campus to “present” to a group of undergraduate leaders and campus professionals on why they should be “allowed” a place on that campus? You better send the executive director as well!

If the intention in doing all of this is to “change the culture or our communities”, is it working?

Why do we have Interfraternity Councils that have become the roadblocks to fraternity expansion, taking over for the authoritarian administrators of yesterday? What might our founder’s say?

Times have changed, but the limits on our ability to associate haven’t. The troubling thing is that the regulators have become IFCs and professionals who believe in the fraternity movement. Just at their own pace it seems.

In the past, staring in the face of opposition meant looking in the eyes of headmasters and professors who resisted anything they couldn’t control. Now, in many ways, the face of opposition we are staring at is our own.

[This staff member wished to remain anonymous, ironically enough, so that the fraternity's expansion efforts wouldn't be harmed]

Strong Fraternity Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:09:00 +0000

I am a big fan of Dave Ramsey, who is a financial management guru famous for his radio show and bestselling books. His style is to give tough love to people, not allowing them to make excuses for their financial situations. His message is well-received because it’s simple: get debt-free, live debt-free, build wealth slowly, and after you’ve succeeded, give lots of it away.

One of his primary messages is a principle that is so simple, it’s profound: If you want to be rich, do what rich people do (do “rich people stuff” as he says). If you want to stay poor, keep doing what poor people do.

Here is a great quote from his website:

If you are broke, you will become rich when you do rich people stuff with your money. Find out what the habits of rich people are and do them, and you will become one of them. How do I know this? Seventy-eight percent of America's millionaires are first- generation rich. They started with nothing and became millionaires. If you do poor people stuff with your money, you will become poor people. If you are rich and you do poor people stuff with your money, you will become poor people. "Rich" isn't an amount of money; it's a mindset in how you live. I've been broke, but I've never been poor because when I was broke, I just had no money. It wasn't that I had no hope. It wasn't that I didn't believe I could win. It wasn't that I was unwilling to sacrifice.

What is “rich people stuff?” He shares many examples that come from research and studies about millionaires. They work their tails off to get out of debt, and then pay cash for everything. They invest wisely and patiently. They buy used cars with cash instead of new ones with loans. And they live frugally.

This goes against conventional wisdom, doesn’t it? Rich people either inherit their money or lie and cheat to get it, right? Not according to the research. They have very distinct behaviors and make very thoughtful decisions.

Stuff that poor people do includes things like living by credit cards, payday loans, adding debt upon debt, not saving, and frivolous spending.

So, while our emotions may say that it’s unfair that rich people are that way, our logic should tell us that if we make the right choices and behave in a disciplined way, we can join them.

The same is true for fraternity success. If you want to be a strong fraternity, do “strong fraternity stuff.”

But, like rich people, we tend to demonize strong fraternities. We hate them for all the awards they win, all the recruits they get, and all the attention they receive. Instead of learning from them, we dismiss their success (yet secretly hope we have the same).

Let go of your envy or jealousy about the highly successful fraternities, and start observing what they do. You can be right there with them. One of the benefits of a Greek system is that we see several examples of how to do fraternity happening at once. In any given Greek system, we see the range of success, from chapters that are failing completely to those that are knocking the ball out of the park.

There is no cap on how many successful fraternities there can be. The problem is, too many of us choose to just be mediocre, because like many people, we’re just waiting to win the lottery or for some other stroke of ridiculous good luck. Wealth isn’t built that way. Neither is organizational success.

It’s an old but true quote – don’t wait for your ship to come in. Swim out to it.

So, what is “strong fraternity stuff?” We don't have very detailed studies on this, but based upon years of observation, awards judging, and common sense, here are a few things to consider:

Strong fraternities are extremely discerning in recruitment. So much so, that they have a very low pledge dropout rate. They pick the right guys from the start.
Strong fraternities are quick and nimble. When a natural disaster strikes, they have tables set up within hours to collect donations and a van full of members heading towards the relief efforts.
Strong fraternities practice and perform the Ritual ceremonies with precision. They treat membership initiation with the same reverence that new colonies do.
Strong fraternities care about presence. They strive to look impressive and act confidently when showing their public persona.
Strong fraternities have high chapter GPA’s because they recruit high academic performers. They realize that recruiting a low performer and thinking they can change him/her is unrealistic.
Strong fraternities do not take shortcuts in recruitment. It’s person-to-person, time consuming, focused work. They know it’s their lifeblood as an organization and they prioritize it that way.

The list goes on. The main point here is that a strong fraternity is not something to ignore. Or complain about. Or hate. It’s something to observe, study, and possibly emulate. Fraternity success is not by accident. Nor is fraternity failure. Choose your examples wisely.

Road Warriors for Fraternity

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:25:00 +0000

I'm called many things. Field staff. Field rep. Traveling consultant.

No matter what you call me, I know what I am in my heart.

Road. Warrior.

And this is my creed.

I will build a brighter future for fraternity, one chapter at a time.

I will learn to live out of a car. And how to get through airport security with Olympic sprinter speed. Just give me a month or so.

I will be terribly nervous. I will probably care too much about what others think of me. I will try too hard to make friends. Give me a month for this one as well.

On paper, I am a cost-effective way to bring the office closer to the members. I make the finance staff smile. I was promised a terrible salary and that's what I got. I was also promised adventures and that's what I'll get.

I understand that on the org chart, I'm near the bottom. Probably below the guy who comes in to fix the copier. But on the influence chart, I'm near the top. I am the front line.

There are staff back at the office complaining about a certain "dysfunctional" chapter. They’ve seen their balance sheet, their web page, and their reports. I'll be standing in their living room on Tuesday. I will see them.

My fraternity needs me. And needs me to be strong.

I will discover soon enough that truck stops have the best food, and that the world's biggest ball of twine is worth the 30 minute diversion.

I will speak and present dozens of workshops. But, I know that the difference I will make will be through individual conversations.

Listening is my greatest tool.

I understand that a few encouraging words from me can be the difference between a weary president who quits and one who perseveres; between the member who becomes lost and the one who moves one row closer to the front; between the advisor who drifts away and the one who re-engages.

I will prepare for each visit like Peyton Manning.

I will allow myself several fist pumps after a successful visit. And a big helping of ice cream after a bad one. Actually, ice cream either way.

I will proudly represent my fraternity or sorority through my actions. I am Ritual in motion.

People in the airport will be impressed by my kindness to the overstressed gate agent. I will let people merge in front of me on the highway. I will wave at construction crews and say thank you to every military person I see.

I will be a happy road warrior.

If I get pushed to the brink, I will call a timeout. They need me to be wise – not an exhausted jerk.

As Hunter Thompson put it, everyone needs psychic anchors in their life, and I will find mine. Be it church, or Mad Men on Sunday nights, or the cheesy hashbrown casserole at Cracker Barrel.

I will learn to push and challenge. I will develop the rare skill of being the “lovable tough guy.” That may take more than a month.

I will work my tail off to move the needle. Some days it will move a mile, and most days it will move an inch. But it's moving. My fraternity cannot afford a day in which it doesn't.

And some days will be chaos. No matter how stressed, emotionally spent, tired, or road-weary I am when I get the fraternity's front door, it's game-on when I walk inside.

I will be discounted for my age by university administrators, chapter advisors, and almost everyone else. I will have to prove myself. I’ll wear a suit to big meetings.

And I’ll remember that my age is an asset. I’m not ready to be old and cynical yet.

I will forgo the chain restaurants in favor of the famous campus pizza parlor. And places with names like "The Flying Gila Monster" in towns with names like “Bug Swallow.”

Even if I don't like a member I meet, I will believe in him or her.

I will give each chapter a chance. And they will get my best.

I will spend more time alone with my own mind than ever before, and will be better off because of it.

I will have lots of stories to share. Like Buffett sang: "some of it's magic...some of it's tragic..."

My belief in the fraternity movement will be shaken, broken, rebuilt. Daily.

I will say to the members: you can confide in me, but remember something important. If you reveal something that puts you or others in danger, I will intervene. Not because I am from the national office. But because I am your brother. Your sister.

I will not ignore my gut. Or the butterflies. Or the loneliness. Or the spectacular feeling of winning. Or the handshakes, hugs, and “thank-yous” I didn’t expect.

I will trust my instincts, lean on my training, and make huge mistakes anyway.

I will say “I can do this.” Again. Again. And again.

And on those days that go terribly bad, when every conversation seems pointless, all my efforts seem worthless, and the future seems hopeless, I will return to my car and take a few minutes to be upset. Sit in silence. Or blast the radio. Or call a friend. But I can't take long.

Because there is another small town to drive through. Another chapter up the road. I need to get there by tomorrow, climb the stairs, ring the doorbell, and try again.

Because my fraternity still needs me.

The road is long, but warriors don’t give up.

Especially road warriors. Like me.

Which Hall of Fame are You?

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 19:57:00 +0000

This past weekend, the National Football League inducted six players into its Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Major League Baseball did the same a few weeks ago in Cooperstown, New York - although they only inducted two.

[2013 update - no one was voted into the baseball hall of fame]

In sports, reaching the Hall of Fame is a crowning achievement. It means that in your chosen profession, you were the best of the best. Halls of Fame are a way to separate the highest performers from the rest of the pack.

However, they wouldn’t be as significant if they weren’t so restrictive. If just above-average statistics and achievements were all it took to get there, then the Halls would lose their prominence.

Some Halls of Fame are criticized for being too difficult to get in - such as baseball’s. On the opposite end, the NBA Hall of Fame is criticized for selecting too many and for criteria that seems to reward popularity over achievement.

The criticism on either side results in this: the MLB and NFL Halls of Fame have stayed cherished, significant, and profound, whereas the NBA Hall of Fame is viewed with much less reverence.

The MLB and NFL Halls of Fame seem to take pride in how difficult they are to enter. Over the last three years, the NBA Hall inducted 29 individuals and 3 full teams. The NFL Hall inducted 20 individuals. MLB inducted 8.

In fairness to the NBA, they induct more than just NBA players. They have inducted collegians, international players, high school coaches, etc. However, this also means they are criticized for not being focused enough.

It seems - from this outsider’s point of view - that the MLB and NFL halls put more time and rigor into their selection process than the NBA. They seem to have unwavering standards that are almost never compromised. Inductees are debated endlessly, and it may take years for someone the public deems worthy to be chosen for their Halls.

Again, the result of this high attention to standards is that the public perception of these Halls is stellar. Sure, every year the sports talk shows and fans yell and scream about the omission of their favorite players, but they never lose reverence for the honor. Because that’s what it is seen as - a high honor.

On the flipside, does anyone really pay attention to the NBA Hall of Fame in the same way?

If you had to choose a model, I would suggest somewhere between the NFL and MLB. The various sports halls of fame seem to teach us that being perceived as too lax in selection criteria has greater negative consequences than being perceived as too strict. This means that you don’t just give a bid to anybody. You select those who fit your high standards of character and achievement. You analyze and debate potential members based on their merit. There will be some good men or women you turn away. Because, they aren’t as good as the ones you want.

By the way, there is a wide chasm of difference between having very high standards for recruitment (good) and making pledging so grueling that it weeds people out (stupid). No Hall of Fame hazes its inductees. They reward achievement and success that occurred before the person was nominated for the Hall. You should study, analyze, and debate potential members as much or more than the selection committees debate potential Hall of Fame inductees.

Pledging - if you must use it - should NOT be used to help you discover if someone is worthy of your fraternity/sorority, but should be used to provide baseline education to those who are already worthy.

You probably know the fraternities on your campus that are a little looser in their standards. It’s clear to see. You also know those that have high standards. Those are the groups that you watch when issues arise, to see how they react. Just like a good Hall of Fame, they can set the tone for success. Which one are you? If I spent a week on your campus, who would I say is setting the tone for excellence?

A word of caution: with this analogy I am not trying to argue for highly-elite, super-selective fraternities and sororities. Don’t become the Omegas from Animal House. You need to define the standards for your group, and then live with the outcome. My larger point is that when you demand and expect excellence, you earn respect from your peers and the public. You become the Hall that people pay attention to, and that potential members want to join.

Visual Values

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 19:23:00 +0000

I had the privilege recently - through my job at Kiwanis International - to travel to Fort Knox, Kentucky and visit the U.S. Army installation there. Fort Knox houses all of the Army’s human resource and recruiting operations. They also have a very strong education division, which is who we met with. Anyhow, I had been there before, but this time I took notice of the stairs that led to their main offices:

The U.S. Army is very big on values. They are printed everywhere, and everyone at Fort Knox knows them. The primary values, as seen above, along with the Warrior Ethos, are what all soldiers take to heart.

More on the army in another post. The purpose of this one is to illustrate the power of visuals. Like the Army, we are values-based organizations. How visually evident is that fact?

For those of you with chapter facilities, how are the values represented on signs, banners or the walls? If I’m walking up the steps of your chapter house, can I see what I’m walking into?

And no, a white sheet hung outside your chapter house that says “rush XYZ, text #5555” is not what I’m referring to.

At your chapter meetings, are there visual reminders of your values? For those who use written agendas, are they stated on the paper? The most effective nonprofit boards I know do this, or they hang up a sign at every meeting that states the organization’s mission. It’s powerful because during the most heated discussions, or those that seem like a waste of time, all members can point to the sign and say, “how are we achieving that right now?”

If you have a house, you can sprinkle references to your values all throughout. It’s easy decoration, and creates a message that’s hard to escape. Here’s an idea for a random morning: take a dry-erase marker and write on the bathroom mirrors, “how will you have integrity today?”

If you have a dining room, make table tents that share quotes/stories about your values. At move-in day, when parents are likely to be at your house, make a huge banner that says something like: “this home is built on scholarship, service, brotherhood, and leadership.” Get creative.

And of course, we have to discuss T-shirts. What do yours say? How does it remind the person wearing the shirt, as well as those who see it, of what you stand for? T-shirts make us walking billboards, and too many times, our billboards turn people off to the product we’re selling. Instead, they can be a tremendous opportunity.

Several years ago, at a UIFI session, I vividly remember a young man standing up in front of the group and reciting his fraternity's creed, which spoke about being a perfect gentleman. He did this while wearing a shirt that had a cartoon image of a man fleeing a half-naked woman lying in a bet, with the words: “XYZ Fraternity: We screw, we nut, we BOLT.”

The moral of the story, visuals can be a force for good or evil. Make yours a force for good.

Visuals matter because they remind our members of the values we strive for, they tell others the same thing, and they keep us honest about living up to them. If you paint your steps with the same kinds of powerful words that the Army does, then in essence, you are making no secret of what I should expect when I walk inside. Good. Now deliver.

Reality Fraternity

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:43:00 +0000

A big hat tip to Ellen Shertzer and her colleagues for a lunchtime conversation that inspired this post. It's their idea I have expanded upon.

I am a fan of reality TV for two primary reasons: (1) as an observer of human nature it’s fun to watch some of these shows as a social experiment, and (2) escapist trashy TV can be fun.

My wife likes The Bachelorette, and every once in a while I’ll catch some of it out of the corner of my eye as I’m passing through the ro...ahh...I admit I love it too. It’s good TV. Lots of drama, heroes, villains, and suspense. Don’t judge.

The interesting thing about The Bachelorette is that the relationships formed on the show rarely work out. Most crash and burn. But, it’s very obvious as to why. When a suitor and the bachelorette go on dates on the show, it’s the stuff of romantic fantasies. Helicopter rides. Dining on rooftops. Walks on the world’s best beaches. Floating on yachts under tropical sun. Everything is hyper-romantic and simply perfect. And then, the season ends with a hilltop proposal and dancing until the sun comes up.

A few months later, the perfect couple shows up again to reveal their status, and you can tell from their faces that it has gone South. A big dramatic breakup typically comes shortly thereafter.

The show creates impossible expectations for a romantic relationship. Anyone who has been in a marriage or long-term partnership knows that it’s tough work sometimes. There are no helicopter rides or moonlit dinners. Those are replaced by the stuff of regular life. It doesn’t mean that romance isn’t there - you just have to dig through reality to find it.

Perhaps there are lessons for fraternities here, especially in regards to how we promote and present ourselves to potential members. Do we oversell the fraternity experience and our own organizations?

I remember recruitment when I was an undergrad. Every fraternity I met with claimed the best parties, and the strongest brotherhood. Each one had the best house, greatest alums, and the tastiest food. Strangely, each group had also won the previous year’s Greek Week (must have been a 15-chapter tie). There was no shortage of trophies and awards to display.

And what about the chapters that rely on big splashy events for recruitment? They take recruits to amusement parks, sporting events, or turn their chapter houses into a Hooters franchise. Just like The Bachelorette paints love as wine and roses every day, these fraternities are painting a picture that fraternity life is a constant party.

We have an apathy problem in fraternities and sororities. We also have a lot of dropouts. I wonder if some of that can be attributed to the mismatch of expectations and reality. If we create a lofty vision of the fraternity experience, but don’t deliver, why should we be surprised that people break up with us? And what's more, we're likely not attracting the right members by selling the superficial aspects. We get the party-lovers and then expect them to roll up their sleeves and work.

It’s about being authentic. Represent yourself honestly, and you may be surprised by what you get in return. Perhaps if The Bachelorette had a few episodes when the couples had to live for a few hours in a house with a screaming baby, or got lost on a drive together, they might be better prepared. Perhaps if you weren’t shy about your faults as a fraternity, your new members would more likely embrace the experience. Maybe your recruitment pitch should sound something more like this:

I want you to be a member of this fraternity. But before you decide, there are some things you need to know. We have a strong brotherhood, but not because we’re always laughing and having fun. We fight sometimes. We argue. We disagree with each other a lot. We are a strong brotherhood because we work through those things.

You won’t like every guy in here. Some you may actually dislike a lot. But I can say with great confidence that there are a few future groomsmen and best friends in here as well.

We win Greek Week sometimes. We lose more often. Same with intramurals and homecoming competitions. We don’t have as many trophies as the other guys, but I think we play a little harder.

You’ll need to work. This house doesn’t clean itself. There aren’t elves who show up in the middle of the night and cut the grass. We do those things. There will be dozens of times in which the state of this house will piss you off. There are other times when you’ll be too lazy to do your duties, and that will piss us off.

Many of these guys will let you down. They’ll make stupid decisions and leave you hanging. Many of us will disappoint you from time to time. You may want to quit. Or punch someone.

But, if you find the lessons in each of those moments, you’ll be better. If you learn understanding, then you’re on your way to mastering the greatest of leadership skills. If you can learn to hold people accountable without being a jerk, then people will want to work for you some day.

There may be a fraternity up the street that has only perfect parties, perfect meetings, and perfect sorority relations. But perfect isn’t a very good teacher. And, it’s an illusion anyway.

If you’re willing to be vulnerable, to make mistakes, and to work hard, then you are well-suited to be in this fraternity. Being a fraternity man isn’t easy, but nothing worthwhile in life ever is. Just because we may not be the ideal fraternity doesn’t mean that signing this bid card won’t be the best decision of your life.

And besides, if we were perfect, then we wouldn’t need you to make us better.

Highs and lows. Joy and conflict. Success and disappointment. Terribly frustrating and tremendously fulfilling.

That’s the reality.

The Times of Pampered Kids and Cynical Adults

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:40:00 +0000

There has been a lot of buzz lately about the commencement speech delivered below, and its message to young people that they are not “special.”

I love the speech. David McCullough, Jr. did an excellent job framing his argument, using humor, and being direct in his opinions. I guarantee the speech caused most people in the audience to think differently about something, which is the point of good speeches. I also liked his attack on cliches. He closes the speech with powerful - albeit not new - advice on how to succeed: don’t wait for success to come to you, and do things for selfless reasons. Good stuff.

But I am bothered - not by the speech itself - but by many of the reactions in support of the speech. All across the spectrum - from national news outlets to my own social media connections - the cheering of his message has taken on a life of its own. It seems that people couldn’t wait to say: “yeah kids - that’s how it is!”

It is conventional wisdom now to believe that kids are too pampered, and that parents bolster their self-esteem too much. Of course these things are true in some cases, but is this really a big issue? College applications are more competitive than ever. Job applications are more competitive than ever. Do we really think these kids aren't capable of seeing that real life doesn't have 7th place ribbons like their soccer league did?

We critics of this generation should take it down a notch. It’s true that many parents overdo it with praise and are too quick to rescue their son or daughter from mistakes. But, there are bigger problems in our world, right? What about the parents who overdo it with criticism? What about those who are absent? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about them?

These kids are starting their lives. A knight who goes to battle in armor will likely get hurt. A knight who goes to battle without armor will likely get killed. Parents spend 18 years trying to strengthen the armor, and too many of us take joy in the chance to strip it off. We're at war with youthful exuberance. Just so we can tell these kids how it really is. Or maybe, feel better about ourselves?

I like young people to be brash, full of confidence, and ready to just go for it. To feel bulletproof. That’s their thing. The contribution that 18-25 year-olds make to the world is their enthusiasm. Their optimism and self-efficacy are their gifts to the rest of us. They bring balance to our universe.

Do you remember your graduation and the days after? I remember mine, and the feelings I had which can be best summarized as “alright world, let’s do this!”

I used to hate overconfidence in young people. I’d mumble “they’ll learn” under my breath. Now, more often than not, it makes me smile. Why shouldn’t they be overconfident? Maybe I just want some of it back. Confidence and brashness is always beaten back by reality. That’s life. That’s the journey we share.

But why do we want young people to reach the end of the journey before they even begin?

The most relevant messages in our world are the ones that hit home. As I watched Mr. McCullough’s speech, my initial reaction was to join in his criticism. But then, I realized that he was speaking to me too. In many ways, I am no different than the kids sitting out on that field. Becoming truly selfless runs parallel to finding the answers to life itself. It’s a destination we all will likely never reach, but should try anyhow.

That’s why I love older people. They are closer to that destination, and have learned so much along the way. That’s why they stand at a podium and give commencement speeches trying to impart their wisdom to the young and innocent.

And the young may listen, but not truly hear it. What’s really wrong with that? Is it more unfortunate that they don’t have cynicism about their specialness, or that we adults have totally succumb to it? Maybe we should listen to them.

I posed a question to a group of colleagues I respect immensely, and who work in the youth development field: if the goal is to prepare young people for the tough life ahead, is a greater service to them to tell them they are not special, or to tell them they are? My wise colleagues correctly pointed out that there is a middle ground.

I think we should all be cautious, however. When us adults look a young, energetic, seize-the-day kid in the eyes and tell them that are just average/ordinary/not special, are we doing it for their benefit, or for ours?

An Acronymonious Conversation

noreply@blogger.com (John Shertzer) — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 15:47:00 +0000

[somewhere in an elevator in a mid-sized Midwestern city]

Hello.

Lovely day isn’t it?

Quite lovely.

What brings you to town?

I’m attending a conference.

Oh yeah? Which one.

FEA.

What's FEA?

Oh sorry - I speak in acronyms sometimes. FEA is Fraternity Executives Association.

No problem, we use acronyms a lot in our organization too.

Higher ed is full of them. We have NIC, AFA, NPHC, AFLV, NGLA, SEIFC, SEPC, NASPA, ACPA, and UIFI. Just to name a few.

Interesting.

I bet it's really weird for others to hear these. These things are just better known for their acronyms.

[silence]

How about you? What are you in town for?

I am also attending a meeting.

Oh yeah, which one?

It’s the annual meeting for the Association of Blatantly Correct and Dentally Energized Farmers Growing Horrendously Important and Judiciously Khaki Legumes Mostly for Nourishment, Ointment Production, and Quasi-scientific Reindeer Science That Undoes Viral Warts on Xenolithic Yellow Zymoids.

[blank stare]

It’s better known by its acronym: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.

[silence]

Darn it. You win.

Have a nice day.