Joe Sabado – Higher Education & Technology Leadership

I’ve been in far too many conversations when new ideas are immediately met with “that’s not possible because …” and with those conversations come the quick death of what could just transform organizations beyond imaginable. When thinking about future possibilities, ideas should not be framed in how we see things as they are now. Granted that no one knows what the future holds, I do know that the reality we see today is not how it will be in the future. Given this case, why not think of the future as an optimist and consider all that could be possible instead of limiting our thoughts because of the current constraints? A popular Wayne Gretzky quote goes something like “skate to where the puck is going and not where it has been.” Leadership is about the future and not maintaining the status quo.

When having conversations about ideas, I’ve noticed that folks immediately get into the mindset of scarcity and managing constraints. Often, the mindset is about “we don’t have enough resources to do that” or “how can we do that when we need to give up …” While these constraints need to be considered, there are times and places for that level of conversation. When I hear those feedback, my response is “even more reason why we should be thinking differently. We cannot choose to stay on the same path, or situations may become worse.” I’ve also responded with, “was there ever a time when we had enough resources? We will never have enough resources, but it’s about being resourceful with what we have.”

A colleague who’s proven himself to be able to implement innovative ideas on campus once told me ideas often start with “wouldn’t it be cool if …” and sharing them with other folks who share the same enthusiasm or who may be able to provide support.  Keeping this in mind, when I’ve had conversations about new ideas and I’m met with skepticism,  sometimes, I’ve had to say, “I don’t know how we’ll do it, but wouldn’t it be cool if we could do that?”

I used to think, “it’s not possible here in our organization anyway, so why to bother thinking about an idea.” That mentality stopped me from exploring possibilities, and it frustrated me. But, I’ve come to find that while my ideas may not be implemented at my university, there really is no one stopping me from thinking about possibilities and sharing them with the world. Many of the ideas I’ve shared on my blog will never be implemented at my university (now) for many reasons, but they are fun to think about.

On a personal note, my wife and I commute to work for about 30 minutes every day, and we often use those times to dream about possibilities. We dream about an exciting future ahead of us. It’s not costing us anything, so we don’t limit ourselves when we think about the possibilities ahead of us.  Will they happen? Who knows, but I do believe in the idea of self-fulfilling prophecies. One can continue on the path of “it will never happen because …” and things indeed will never happen, but with an optimistic perspective, there’s the chance that what we think about and pursue may just happen.

I committed to pushing myself beyond what I think I’m capable of and comfortable with this year. I will try new things that will result in embarrassment, failure, criticism, and feelings of inadequacy. Why? I’m not doing new things just for the sake of trying new things, but rather, I want to challenge myself to get used to the feeling of being uncomfortable. What I’ve come to realize after some reflection is that I have the tendency to give up too soon when things get hard, or when I encounter criticisms. I tend to personalize criticisms, taking them to heart to the point where they paralyze me. I look back at opportunities missed in my career when if I only persisted more than I did, I could have done more. I look back at how easily I gave up in 2009 when I tried promoting the idea of mobile websites, but I could not quite convince my colleagues that mobile would become more common in the next few years. I gave up too soon. Six years later, some of our most used sites are still not mobile-friendly. What a missed opportunity.

I recently started a group on campus called Innovators Community at UCSB. I started the group because I was craving a place to just chat about new ideas. I feel there’s not enough space to just talk about ideas without getting stuck thinking about why things can’t work. I had invited folks to come to our first social. I even offered to buy food. After some feedback, I chose a date. I had expected quite a few people to come. Two other people besides me came. In the past, I would have beaten myself up and considered the event a failure. This time around, I didn’t see it that way. I was talking with a colleague today, and he said, “that’s a bummer.” My response was, “not really. I thought it was great!” Two folks or fifty, I was going to make the most of the result. I had an awesome time having long conversations with my friends who showed up. It was the type of conversation I had been looking for.

There are goals I had wanted to do, but I was too scared in the past to pursue them. I’ve always wanted to do formal research about student affairs and technology, but I gave myself many reasons why I couldn’t do them. This time around, I will find ways to finally start taking steps towards this goal. I will be attending the NASPA Regional 6 conference Research Institute to gain research skills and connect with others who may be able to help me out.

I will be called the “lone nut” I will probably be called some names I may not appreciate, but I will take them on as a challenge. When I attended a student affairs conference this last weekend at UCLA, I attended a panel session of senior higher education administrators wherein they shared their experiences and challenges. One of the panelists, VP of Student Services at Rio Hondo College, Henry Gee, said something that resonated with me. I’ve heard the advice, but it was different this time. He shared how in his position, not everyone supports everything he does. He shared a story where a board of trustees offered their opinion not to renew his contract while he was in the room. VP Gee’s advice is you can’t take it personally. Guess what? I think that sounds like good advice. As I have learned in my position of one year as the acting Executive Director for my IT department, even with the best intention, everything I’ve done so far has not been met with unanimous approval. At least one person tells me I’m doing things wrong or I’m not doing things well enough. I’ve come to learn I cannot please everyone, and so with that lesson learned and with all my plans to try new things this year beyond what I would have done in the past, I will be learning to be comfortable about being uncomfortable. Onward I go!

I once read that identity is an intersection of how others see you and how you see yourself. As much as we want to define how we want others to see us, I think that’s pretty much impossible. We can certainly try to influence others’ perceptions of us but ultimately, what matters is how others see us. I believe that’s called reputation. The concept of identity is a complex one. It’s even more complex when one considers the role of identity in the context of social settings. When we are associated with groups, such as the organization we work for, we assume the organization’s identity and identity are shaped by its members. Actions by individual members reflect the organization and other members, while the organization’s identity impacts how its members are perceived. Have you ever walked into a meeting where you’ve never met anyone before, yet they’ve already formed an impression of you?

Those in leadership positions must sometimes have to negotiate and reconcile their identities and values with that of their organization as they don’t always match. So, how do leaders authentically represent themselves when representing their organization? What does it mean in this context to represent “themselves”? Are they representing their identities independent of the organization, or are they representing identities defined by their role in the organization?

I think about the questions above when I hear from individuals who maintain that they want to be authentic to themselves and the values they represent. Considering the possibility that there probably isn’t an organization anywhere that completely aligns with the values of every single one of its members, how will those individuals deal with this reality?

It’s easy to get caught up in our world and the challenges we face, which could lead to thinking we are the only ones going through difficult times. Sometimes, we might think we’re the only ones working after hours and the only ones who must face so much work for our inadequate resources. This could lead to thinking we are unfairly being asked to take on the burdens of our organization on our own. This kind of thinking happens when we don’t take the time to connect with other folks in other parts of our organization. In IT, we are often asked to work after hours and on weekends because that’s the only time we are allowed to do some maintenance work and not disrupt the work of our customers during business hours. I personally don’t do much technical work anymore, given my management role, but for years, I worked after hours and on weekends to complete parts of my job. There were times when I got frustrated, but there was one thing I did that gave me perspective on my situation. It’s a practice I still do today – talk to other folks in other units in my organization about the challenges they are going through.

Admittedly, there have been times in the past when I have over-valued the importance of my role in IT when it comes to providing services to the students and the campus community. As an IT organization, we’ve created significant systems that have improved the efficiency/effectiveness of how the staff does their work. We’ve also created systems that helped students learn and assist them in their lives outside the classrooms. As the dependency on technology grew over the last few years, so did the demands on IT. At the same time, the resources to meet the demands have not been able to keep up. This is the daily challenge I face now as the director of my IT organization. It’s daunting, indeed.

However daunting my challenges are, when I speak with other colleagues in our student affairs organization, I gain perspective on how my challenges compare with others. As I am reminded, we are all facing a not-so-unique challenge of too much work and dealing with much more complicated situations but with insufficient resources. But, on the other hand, I am also reminded that I don’t have to deal with the aftermath of tragedies, not at the personal level at least. When I speak with my colleagues, I am reminded that they are the ones that must make the calls to parents to inform them their child just committed suicide, or they must be the ones the campus community must look up to as the strong ones to lead them through a crisis when they are suffering at the same time. During these conversations, I am reminded that as challenging as my job is, I cannot even imagine the impact my colleagues’ jobs must have on them. I am dealing with computers; they sometimes must deal with human tragedies.

For the last three months, I committed myself to losing weight towards better fitness and as a challenge. In the past, I had gone through two separate personal challenges when I ate at least 1 salad for a meal/day for 100 as well as 40 consecutive days. I had set out to lose 20 pounds by the July 31st when I started on April 28th. I did meet that goal one day later than I had planned, but nevertheless, I consider it a successful attempt. This post is about some lessons I’ve learned the last three months that contributed to meeting my goal of losing weight. Overall, I needed to have the motivation and attitude to want to lose weight. I also needed some support, strategies, and tools to lose weight. Wanting to lose weight without the tools and strategies to go through the process and vice versa would not have worked.  What I will share below seem to be common sense and they are. The key is to actually committing through the process. Here are some lessons learned:

Find motivations/inspirations that will drive you to start and maintain your effort. Why are you trying to lose weight in the first place? For me, it’s because I hated hearing my doctor tell me I have to lose weight every time I went for a visit. He warned me about potential health issues if I maintain or increase my weight. I also got tired of not being able to find clothes that fit me. I just didn’t like the way I see when I looked in the mirror.I remember Anthony Robbins, the author, write something like “people will only change  because their situation is so painful they want to change or the perceived benefit of the change is so great they want to change.” In my case, I found my situation “painful” enough for me to change.

Find supporters. My wife’s support was key in my weight loss. She and I love to eat and try new food. She can also cook some amazing dishes I request. These dishes are not always healthy but nevertheless, she accommodated my requests. We both committed to changing our eating habits which involved some extra work and opting not to eat what we had enjoyed. For one, she prepared fruits and vegetables which I brought to work for snacks. She also prepared breakfast (scrambled egg white with spinach) I ate before leaving home. This was in place of donuts and pastries I bought at work. While we both enjoyed eating rice and desserts, we chose to minimize the portions we ate or just stopped eating them altogether. During the last three months, we rarely ate rice and even if we did, it was measured so that it was no more than 1 cup per meal.

Develop strategy. Maintaining a sustained effort, which includes daily routines, in the last three months was key. As mentioned above, I was mindful of what I chose to eat and it required some preparations. When my wife and I wanted to eat at restaurants, we looked at their menu online first to plan what to order. Also noted above is the preparation of healthier food to snack on throughout the day. I also found opportunities throughout my work day (and weekends) to have some physical activities. For example, instead of sitting at my desk during my lunch break, I would walk around the campus and go to the beach. Instead of driving to meetings across campus, I opted to walk instead. I also went to the golf course, either just by hitting some balls at the range or playing a couple rounds of golf with some friends. In short, I ate more of the right food at lesser portions and committed to more physical activities.

Use tools to support your effort. I also used Weight Watchers system and its mobile app.  Weight Watchers assigns a number of daily points to use and different foods have corresponding values based on their nutritional values. For example, fruits and vegetables are worth 0 points while meat, pastries, and processed food are worth more. To me, Weight Watchers is more than being aware of what I ate but rather, it was a behavior modification system. By keeping track of what I ate and also guiding me towards food that are healthier (and smaller portions), this changed how I viewed food in general. Another app similar to Weight Watchers is LoseIt! This app doesn’t assign points but it does count calories for the food you eat as well as calories lost from activities.I also use my iWatch and MapMyWalk mobile apps to monitor my daily activities.

Don’t expect results overnight. I didn’t see much result the first week or so and I almost gave up. I didn’t lose any weight that first week and I became discouraged but my wife kept on encouraging me to not give up. After the second week, I lost a couple of pounds and that gave me some hope and motivation to continue.

Have fun doing it/Don’t suffer (too much). To be able to sustain an effort that is not easy to do for an extended period of time without having fun along the way probably doesn’t work. In my case, I made a game out of the process. If I knew I had a planned big dinner, I planned what I could eat during the day so I don’t go hungry and still save my points for dinner. I do have to mention one significant change I made is that I began to snack between meals. When I felt hungry, I ate fruits, vegetables, or cinnamon rice cakes. I’m not sure if this change resulted in how my metabolism works.I also kept track of my activities, such as number of steps for the day, and I tried to meet the goals I had set for the day. As mentioned above, I also started playing golf more or just walking around the campus more often as I knew these activities contributed to my weight loss. A side benefit to these activities was that I felt mentally better. I used the time to relax and think about ideas and dream about the ideal future for my wife and me.

My motivations and the methods I used worked for me though it may not work for you reading this post. So, find what works for you using the general advice I shared.