Category: leadership

‘The enemy of clarity’

freeimage-684383-webI got to tune in to the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast last Friday, thanks to the university I work for, which was a sponsor of the event. This annual event is broadcast at sites across the nation. This was the first time I was able to attend.

We heard from a lot of great speakers about leadership, and much of what I heard either inspired me or made me think more about ways I could be more effective as a leader. Those few hours on Friday have given me much to think about.

For me, the best takeaway of the day came from the first presenter: a minister named Andy Stanley.

He said:

Complexity is the enemy of clarity.

Those of us in the communications business know this, right? We learned from Strunk and White to “Omit needless words.” We try to break complex thoughts down into shorter, single-thought sentences. We strive for simplicity.

But as the work we do becomes more complex, it’s easy to lose sight of the need for clarity. It becomes shrouded by the fog of too many projects, too many priorities, too many new stakeholders to worry about, too many audiences to be reached with a single message or vehicle. (The typical higher ed home page is one example of how complex things can get in our world. Contrast the typical higher ed home page with Google’s, and the issue is very clear.)

Things may be even tougher for higher ed communicators than those in other fields. (Another speaker of the day, John C. Maxwell, pointed out that “Educators make the simple complex. Communicators make the complex simple.”) But judging from the buzzword-laden press releases that come from the corporate world, it looks like things are tough all over for communicators.

No matter what our sector is, complexity is the enemy of clarity.

But complexity is inevitable. It comes with growth.

Think about how you do your job these days. Now, compare it to five years ago. Consider the role social media plays in your marketing compared to its role in 2008. Look back 10, 20 years and you’ll see a tremendous difference. Remember your institution’s first web page?

Much has changed and grown more complex, hasn’t it.

Stanley said: “Growth creates complexity, which requires simplicity.”

The need for clarity has never been greater. We need more clarity in how we think, communicate, lead and work with others. We need to strip away all the complexity and figure out the clearest, best-understood approach to any project or task.

An experiment

Here’s an idea (stolen from Andy Stanley’s talk): Take a current project you’re involved in. The more complex, the better (for the purpose of this exercise). In the context of that project, try to answer these three questions:

  1. What are we doing?
  2. Why are we doing it?
  3. Where do I fit in?

If you’re really ambitious, try to answer the same three questions for your department, or your institution.

Those are three simple questions. But clearly, simple doesn’t mean easy. Answering them will take you quite a bit of think time. I’m still trying to answer them for my department, my university and myself.

P.S. – For anyone interested in reading more about what Andy Stanley, John C. Maxwell and all of the other speakers had to say, a consulting firm called The Malphurs Group has posted a great summary of all the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2013 presentations.

Photo © Chepatchet | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

Google’s Reader gamble: What #highered would never do

Google Reader is embedded in my iGoogle page, which will also goes away later this year (Nov. 1, 2013).
Google Reader is embedded in my iGoogle page, which also goes away later this year (Nov. 1, 2013).

So Google has decided to pull the plug on its RSS reader Google Reader effective July 1, 2013. And people are not happy about it. Google Reader grew to become a popular tool for aggregating, sharing and distributing information. It was not only “revolutionary in function,” writes Wired’s Mat Honan; “it was beloved.”

No matter what you think about Google’s decision to off Reader, you have to admire the company’s ability to make a decision to get rid of services that either a.) have no demand (remember Google Wave?) or b.) aren’t part of a key business objective. Google is a sprawling company that has forged its way along many paths. In that regard, its focus has been about as fuzzy as most colleges and universities, which strive to provide as many programs and options as possible to as many types of students as possible.

But what Google has done that higher ed seems incapable of (for the most part) is to realize that something that was once a smart thing to do has outlived its purpose. Google Reader has been one of the most popular and fruitful experiments, and now it’s on its death bed. Google made the difficult but unpopular choice to get rid of the service.

Colleges and universities have a difficult time focusing on core business objectives. They struggle to eliminate programs and efforts that aren’t critical to their missions. And when people freak out about administrative attempts to focus, then university leaders often back down and move forward with business as usual, or with some incremental change.

Last night, as I was reading about the demise of Google Reader, I also spotted this piece from Poynter about the University of Indiana’s decision to merge its journalism program with communications, telecommunications and film studies. This is a pretty bold move for a university, and not popular with the old-school journos at Poynter (or elsewhere, I’d imagine). Yet the provost argues that the way journalism has been taught for the past 100 years won’t work for the future. “[T]he field of journalism, in particular, has been the subject of numerous recent calls for renewal.” This push for a merger is IU’s attempt at that renewal.

Will it work? There will be backlash. Just as there is now with Google’s decision with its beloved Reader. (Remember in 2011 when Google eliminated the ability to share via Google Reader? I do. And boy was I hoppin’ mad about that decision. But guess what? I got over it. Other services have entered the marketplace to replace that function to some extent. And some of them do a better job of it.)

Making a decision to let go of something that is beloved is never easy, and rarely popular. But sometimes it’s the right thing to do. We’ll see if that’s the case for Google as well as IU. Maybe the rest of the higher ed community could learn from both of these examples.