“If you want to change the culture, you must start by changing the organization” — Mary Douglas
Change is inevitable. You cannot avoid change or ignore it’s presence – you must embrace it and progress forward. If you set up the appropriate tools and processes within your chapter, you can leverage the necessary change to propel you chapter forward. However, resisting change will only delay the inevitable and expose your chapter’s shortcomings.
Enter Brady Kent, Political Science and Spanish Major at Southwestern University. Below, Brady explains how to successfully administer change within your chapter with anecdotes from a popular book in organizational management:
Being a leader in college is difficult. Not only are you required to balance the responsibilities associated with a leadership position on top of the rest of your coursework, but you also have to motivate your peers. In my opinion, successfully achieving the latter requirement is the hardest proposition a student leader faces—one that becomes even harder in a Greek environment when the people you’re trying to motivate are your closest friends.
Fortunately, this is possible and if you use the right tools, it can be much less painful than you think. The ideas I’m expressing are based on the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath. Switch tackles the concept of motivating change in an environment where old habits are an engrained part of the culture. Tradition remains the backbone of most Greek chapters, making it difficult—but not impossible—to change outdated habits and culture.
Switch presents simple concepts based off the metaphor of a person riding an elephant down a path (dorky, I know, but bear with me): you need to direct the rider, motivate the elephant, and shape the path.
Direct the rider: Give your members a goal to achieve – You cannot direct change if you do not have a specific outcome you wish to achieve. You must make SMART Goals – Make them Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. Make sure everyone understands the goal and work together to determine the best way to achieve this end. If possible, connect with other chapters on campus or within your organization to determine best practices for your specific goals. More often than not, you can find another chapter that has overcome the same challenges you’re currently facing – don’t try to reinvent the wheel; learn from others.
Motivate the elephant: Emphasize the benefits of the change and your members will find it appealing and necessary for the chapter to progress forward. This will help Motivate them toward accepting and embracing the change. Highlight the benefits of change and break it down into smaller, more manageable steps. Simply telling your chapter to up their GPA to a 3.5 by the end of the year is too much: remind the chapter that scholarship is important for rush and make it simpler by offering rewards to raise grades in on tests, then midterms, then classes, and the higher semester GPAs will follow.
Shape the path: Change the environment your members exist to promote the change you’re seeking. Build a culture around the change you wish to see. If you’re trying to raise the GPA, make it clear that participating socially requires high academic standards. At every chapter meeting, recognize those members who are doing well in their classes publicly and run a competition for the best GPA at the end of the semester. In short, make GPA a priority by integrating it with other aspects of chapter life and all your members will see a reason to achieve. Make change apart of your chapter’s culture.
The above suggestions are not the only answer to motivating a chapter to change, and only briefly cover the ideas in Switch. What are some suggestions you have from your chapter? How would you promote change using the ideas above? Let us know in your comments below:
About the Author: When school isn’t interfering with his education, Brady stays up to date on the latest trends in technology, leadership, minimalism, design and international relations. Brady gives back to his community as President of Southwestern University Student Congress, Peer Academic Mentor atSouthwestern University and Vice-President at Pi Kappa Alpha, Alpha Omicron Chapter.
Check out his blog. Follow him on Twitter. Find him on LinkedIn.
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