Joe Sabado – Higher Education & Technology Leadership

I grew up believing that “challenging” authority (elders, teachers, bosses) was considered rude and disrespectful.  By default, those in authority should be respected. I went through half my life, even early on in my career following orders and keeping my opinions to myself because of this belief. I was not supposed to “make waves” as their are consequences. I think I have come a long way from that person who was too polite to voice his opinions.  It took me some painful experiences to realize I had to change my way of thinking. Whether these self beliefs from personal experiences or imposed by society, I think there’s value in re-examining our own self limiting beliefs for a more fulfilling life.

In his book Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins, he shared some stories of self limiting beliefs.  One example are adult elephants that are physically capable of breaking away from a chain links tied to posts but they don’t do so. This is because as young elephants, they were tied to the same chain links and when they tried to break away from them, they were not physically strong enough and so growing up, they were conditioned to not even try. How many opportunities in our lifetimes have we failed to take advantage of because of our own self limiting beliefs?

Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile barrier on May 6, 1954. For years prior to that date, the general belief was that it was impossible to accomplish that feat. Thousands of runners have run faster than Bannister since he broke that barrier. As I read somewhere, “everything is impossible, until it is possible.”

As a student affairs professional, I wonder what self limiting beliefs we have as a profession that maybe preventing us from advancing, looking at our profession in a different light? In my role as a technologist intent on promoting the use of mobile web and social media, one of the biggest push back against using these technologies are the fear of potential FERPA/HIPAA violations, security breaches, disclosure of confidential information. As someone who is in the position of responsibility to enforce policies and guard student records as well as other confidential information, I am very aware of the consequences, including penalties that could result from these incidents. I remember having the same concerns expressed to me in mid 1990’s when I started building web sites or when email became the primary form of communication. I also remember a colleague who refused to acknowledge the possibility of using the web to conduct financial aid transactions because he felt the web will never be as robust as desktop applications.

New technological advances bring higher expectations from our customers for our institutions to provide services the way they are accustomed to getting in their personal lives via consumer technologies.  How long, as a profession, can we continue to cling on to our self limiting beliefs of “that’s how we have always done it” or our skepticism against new ways of providing services to our students?

At a personal level, what are some beliefs you may have that are self limiting? How about student affairs?

My lack of brutal honesty when dealing with others are interpreted by some as being dishonest, but I am not going to tell another person “You’re wrong” and be dismissive without some understanding of their perspective. There’s always a chance that I maybe just the one who’s wrong. Yes, it takes more time to probe, to reserve judgment, to diplomatically state my opinions, but there’s one thought that comes to my mind when engaging with others, especially when involving conflicts – “How will they feel after our conversation?”

credit – image by Lifehacker.com

One of the most memorable mistakes I ever made professionally happened while I was coding at 3 in the morning a few years ago. It was a mistake I took lessons from as someone who is constantly experimenting with new ideas and technologies.  It is also a mistake I draw upon as someone who is now in a position of leadership.  I suppose it is not the mistake itself that is valuable but rather what one learns from it and the idea that innovation and progress can be gained by allowing ourselves and co-workers the freedom to experiment, accepting the fact that in the process of experimentation, we will make mistakes along the way.

It was one of my typical workday years ago when I used to spend nights in my office trying to complete projects.  There was no remote access back then and so I had to drive to my workplace and work from there.  I was learning how to code and I was in a rush to complete the project. The particular project I was working on involved emailing a couple of thousands of customers about a satisfaction survey for one of the departments I supported. It involved writing a program that would loop through a list of emails and sending an email one at a time. I came across an email component on the web I had never used before but decided to use it on this project.  Although I tested my program using a few of my personal emails, apparently I did not test it wide enough to notice what could go wrong, and ultimately, what actually happened. The error went something like this –  the first email on the list received one email, the second email received  two copies of the same, the third email received three and so thousandth email received thousand copies. What I failed to do is to include a command that erases previous emails in the program’s memory, one line of code.

I was very lucky because there were some systems in place on our email system that prevented most of the emails from being sent out. When I came back to work a few hours that morning, I was informed of what had happened and what was still going on. I went on a panic mode, thinking I will be fired for what I had done. I had to contact our email administrator to delete the emails that had not been delivered. I also had to go talk to my supervisor at that time to inform her of the mistake I had made. While I was in her office, she patiently listened to me describe the situation and while I knew she was upset, she was calm and offered to make a phone call to the head of the organization affected. She calmly said “it happened, let’s learn something from this and let’s move on.” While she was on the phone, another colleague of mine came into her office and told her about another situation involving another system that had accidentally authorized the transfer  of thousands of dollars. At that point, she looked at me and excused me from her office so she could deal with the seemingly bigger problem. When we reviewed the situation a couple of days later, I found out the head of the organization was not really too upset about it. As a matter of fact, her response was “These things happen. My husband also works in the tech industry and I’ve seen this happen before.”

I have never forgotten this incident and I use it to this  day as one of my reminders with my projects.  After that project, I took testing a lot more seriously by taking the extra steps to double check my work. In addition, I became more critical of new components I am using for the first time.  I also share this story to my staff in making a point that it is okay to make mistakes from time to time as long as they learn from them.  I also shared the fact that my supervisor did not punish me to a point that I stopped experimenting. The last thing I want them to do is to stop improving themselves for the fear of being punished from the mistakes they make.  As a developer, I was constantly learning and applying new techniques and that was how I developed my skills. I also think we put more significance to the mistakes we make than what they really are. I certainly felt as if it was the end of my career when the mistake above happened until my other co-worker had a bigger problem than mine.

How do you view mistakes in your organization and your career?

On your current or last job, what kind of welcome did you receive from your supervisor? Did he/she take the time to spend hours with you on your first day to go over your department, projects? How about take you around your campus, take you to lunch and introduce you to your co-workers?

One of my co-workers welcomed a new member to his team this week. He is busier than most people I know, working on multiple projects and managing a team with several members.  Despite his busy schedule,  he took a big part of his day to welcome  his new colleague, patiently explaining how our organization works and current projects we are working on. He works right next to my office and so I could over hear everything he was sharing and I kept on telling myself how I could be more patient like him. I saw him sometime that afternoon and he told me that he had taken his new colleague around the campus, even going to the highest floor of our library, one of the tallest building on our campus so he can show him a view of the entire campus, including the lagoon and the Pacific Ocean nearby. He also walked with him around the small town adjacent to our campus where students live.  He then took him to lunch where he and I, along with some of our colleagues frequently eat.

I thanked him for all that he had done to welcome our new colleague that day as I know all the things he took time to do was a start of their working relationship, a positive one. Taking time to welcome new employees or just to chat with colleagues we’ve worked with for years seems such a simple thing to do yet I know I don’t do often enough. The actions of my co-worker in making sure his new staff feels welcomed reminds me of this. I had made a commitment when the year started to spend more time with all of my staff, even if just having lunch or coffee from time to time to connect with them, exchange stories beyond what they’re working on.

What have you experienced or seen in your career we could all do to make new colleagues feel welcomed?

credit – The Aesop for Children

I came across an Aesop’s fable about “The Miller, the Son, and the Donkey” which illustrates the point that one cannot please everyone and one cannot satisfy all. This is a lesson I came to realize as I moved up the IT management chain and as my scope of responsibilities increased. I value a harmonious workplace. If I can avoid conflicts, I do whatever I can to avoid it or to resolve it early so it doesn’t escalate. Early in my career, I was very sensitive to criticisms and took them personally. I wanted to be liked by everyone, who doesn’t? What I’ve come to experience is that even with the best efforts and intentions, there were and still are those that will find my actions not to their liking. What I’ve also come to realize is that it’s all part of my job and I cannot take the criticisms personally. I’ve also accepted the idea that everyone I work with view me and my work from different perspectives. What one person sees as progress, another one will surely see the same action as something else. My work responsibilities involve having to weigh priorities, examining risks and benefits, and thinking about short vs long term goals. It involves having to accommodate the needs of our customers and what my department and my team can offer, given the lack of resources for the amount of work that needs to be done.

I’ve learned one definition of success/failure of my work is based on where the people looking at me are coming from and what they are focusing on.  I worked on a very critical project a few years ago that had a very aggressive deadline and it was driven by a federal mandate. In my effort to meet the deadline, I had to develop as quickly as I could to make sure our organization did not face any possible penalties.  In addition to my coding responsibility, I was also the project manager and performed requirements analysis, amongst other tasks. I remember working long hours, during weekends and holidays. When the project was completed, I was told several times that we came under budget, within the deadline and the users found it very usable.  Based on our customer and my supervisors’ feedback, it seemed as if the the project was considered a success. What I didn’t realize was that in trying to meet the goals of the project, my code was not considered satisfactory by some individuals and that became a focus of heavy criticism of my work for that project. I took those criticisms very hard and I began to think the project was a failure. For awhile, I doubted my abilities and internalized my emotions. It took me a few months of personal convincing with some help from those who know me to bring my confidence back. I also developed thicker skin.

Moving forward, I have come to realize that my motivations,  actions I take, decisions I make  in my current leadership position will be interpreted differently. Some folks will view them positively, some negatively while others will be indifferent.  In taking a stance, I will gain both praise and criticism. In the past, I would have rather not heard any criticisms. Now, even as uncomfortable they are at times, I need feedback, at least I could address them. There are values to having different perspectives. Nothing is as simple as black and white.

The only thing I can do is to follow the advice of my mentors – be kind and act with integrity,  stick to the high road, stay positive, and stay humble.