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Diane Craw opened our conversation this week by describing the lessons she learned as the staff representative on the presidential search committee. As the single representative of the largest permanent constituency on campus, she at first felt isolated; because of the committee's confidentiality agreement, she could not talk with any of the staff members she was representing. She had high praise for the way in which the chair of the committee "didn't let people hide," but made sure that every member contributed. In contrast, Diane was asked no questions by the candidates themselves. The process worked very well, overall, because all the members of the committee could see the outline of clear goals and expectations up front, and then were flexible in adjusting and asking for input.

Liz McCormack explained that, along w/ one staff representative, there were 7 trustees, 4 faculty members, two students and a chair on this committee. Drawing on the arguments of a book called The Fifth Discipline, which looks at organizations as learning communities that can "generate their own evolution," she said that this group worked together up front to be flexible and responsive. Their initial task, writing a description of the position, was a clarifying, collective digestion of a wide range of imput, and served as a perpetual reminder of their organizing principles and collective understanding. The group also came to know one another during informal meals together, which helped them break down pre-conceptions and see beyond official roles and tiles; they made a commitment, too, to show up to all of the meetings.

Liz offered two examples of this responsiveness. The first one had to do with community frustration about the infrequency of communication from the committee; they were strongly criticized, first by a student reporter and then @ a faculty meeting, for not making the selection process more transparent. As a result, they needed to adjust their assumptions about how effective and satisfying their reports were to the campus as a whole. The second example of how well the group functioned occurred when one member found herself struggling with her constituency; the committee acknowledged that this was a problem for them all, so they all attended an extra meeting with that constituency.

Diane and Liz then asked the group to speak about their own experiences in times of change: what are the sources of anxiety or fear, and what can contribute to a shared sense of trust? It was suggested that "if there is an elephant around the table, it should be named": perhaps a conversation that appears to be about one thing--for example, a question about procedure--is really about another high level emotion that is not being acknowledged; the community member might not even be aware of the real source of her emotion. How can we work with such a dynamic?

There is of course always the challenge of communication--of information that is "put out there, but not seen." There was some debate over whether laying out "principles and practices" (with regard to the revision of the graduate program, for instance), and then asking individual programs to meet those goals, is "landing well." It was noted that these principles have not been circulated to staff, which certainly has contributed to fear, mistrust and rumor. Who is responsible for making such communications?

It is the nature of change that we will fear it (although we learned a few weeks ago that IT people assume change in a way that librarians--for instance--may not); but must mistrust be part of the process? How can we assure that everyone shares expectations about a good, collective vision? How can we get folks to participate early in the process, when there is time for real discussion to take place? What about the problem of raised expectations: if someone is invited to participate, they expect that their concerns will be addressed, and this is not always the case.

But is it really effective to define outcomes and then work backwards? It was asked whether having "shared goals and a flexible process of meeting them" really addresses the diversity of aims in this community. There is in all educational settings a tension between structure and freedom, between autonomy and integration, between mainstream voices and those of the "outsider society." Othering always occurs; might it be that we do not--and cannot--agree on a mission?

Can we nonetheless learn to be better engaged? Might we do so, if we could count on influencing--if not determining--the outcome of a process? There is a theory that all organizations need people with overlapping skills. But sometimes we do not have a common--or even an overlapping--language for our many different worlds. And then there is the "human nature side": how can we help one another set aside ego, and learn some humility? It was suggested that family gatherings often work best when there is "a guest at the table," who calls out our better behavior!

We stopped with many ideas still unexpressed. We also ran out of time before we were able to take on the task Diane and Liz had hoped to facilitate: constructing a memo to the leadership on campus. What form might such a memo take?

And what further steps might we take--and tasks might we take on--as we end this year's worth of conversations about taking risk from a variety of different positions?