Transformative Student Affairs Leaders Challenge their People to Grow and Excel

Building a Culture of Innovation

We are faced with incredible challenges and obstacles to accomplishing the desired outcomes of our work. It will require doing things differently than in the past. A culture of innovation is one in which members of an organization accept as an expected aspect of their jobs the need to come up with norm-breaking ideas and to put those ideas into action. Patrick shares the efforts, tactics, and lessons learned from building such a culture of innovation in a division of student affairs and helps participants create their plan for developing their own culture of innovation. 

Competencies for Working in a Complex World

We work in an increasingly complex world. Unfortunately, we often still try to address complex issues with mindsets and strategies more suited for linearity and rationality. Patrick starts by defining what complexity is and what it is not and how it shows up in our daily work. He then brings to life the competencies today's professionals need to navigate and be successful in such a world, including adopting a both/and perspective, thinking in systems, design thinking, and futures forecasting.

It isn't about Customer Satisfaction...

...it's about creating loyal, raving fans of your customers (i.e., students, families, faculty, other staff). When we settle for mere satisfaction, we are losing an opportunity to create transformative moments and experiences for our customers; moments that could lead to greater success in such things as student engagement, retention, cooperation, and resource generation, but also joy, appreciation, and delight. Patrick shares the elements of High Quality Customer Service and has participants apply them to their contexts.

Unconventional Leadership

This presentation challenges participants’ views and definitions of what it means to lead and manage in a world where change is a constant. There are four segments in the presentation: Values, Talent, Innovation, and Marketing. Patrick provides practical strategies to inspire and lead others. Areas of focus include values driven practice, recruiting and retaining top talent, rapid prototyping, risk-taking and innovation, and relentless marketing and advocacy. This includes methods to intentionally and systematically forage for new ideas and incorporate “best practices” from outside our field. 

Disrupting Ourselves: A Key to Renewal/Personal and Job-Related Transformation

Disruptive innovation transforms organizations, businesses, sometime entire sectors of the world. Disrupting ourselves can result in personal renewal and transformation (and possibly lead to organizational disruption and transformation). Patrick shares the techniques through which individuals can intentionally disrupt themselves and put themselves on the path to a transformed future for themselves and their organization. 

Lessons from the Experience Economy

The economy we all work and participate in has evolved over the centuries from an agricultural economy, to an industrial economy, to a services economy, and most recently to an experience economy (think Starbucks vs. coffee shop, or Disneyworld vs. old style amusement parks). Patrick describes each of these economies and how the experience economy emerged and came to dominate our world. Much of the time will be spent on how student affairs must address the expectations of people immersed in the experience economy.

Pervasive Leadership

For organizations and institutions to be successful in today’s complex and challenging times, leadership cannot be restricted to people located at the top of the organizational pyramid; it must be the responsibility of everyone in the organization to exert leadership. Patrick shares eleven ways anyone in an organization can (and should!) exert leadership.

White People: TEACH Thyself

It is incumbent for white people to educate ourselves on the lived experiences of BIPOC people without forcing our friends and colleagues to recount their experiences, which is tiring at best and retraumatizing at worst. In this session, Patrick shares his own self-teaching journey and discusses strategies for teaching oneself about these experiences. The strategies include identifying one's personal race awareness journey, practicing race and privilege mindfulness, excavating bias, investigating systemic racism, and exploring extant literature and media. Attendees will leave with an action plan for developing their own personal curriculum for their learning journey.

Job Searching in Student Affairs

Patrick has worked with and coached numerous grad students, entry-level professionals, and executives throughout his career on effective job search strategies. Drawing from his recent new edition of his job search book, Getting Hired: Unconventional Perspectives on the Student Affairs Job Search, Patrick shares strategies and tactics for preparing for a job search and enhancing the effectiveness of your actions.

Effective Negotiation

Unfortunately, grad students and new professionals are often advised NOT to negotiate when they receive their job offer. They are also misinformed about what negotiation actually is — It ISN'T just about getting what you want! In this presentation, Patrick explains what negotiation is and is not, why everyone should negotiate, and how to effectively conduct a negotiation.