Serve in the Light of Truth

Running a chapter might often feel like an overwhelming and impossible endeavor.  Two articles that I read recently, however, give credence to the notion that the best way to run your chapter might be to KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) it.

They detail the task of running a business; the first features Jerry Murrell discussing the success of his famous burger chain, Five Guys. The second highlights effective management techniques from some of the simplest small business owners: the Amish.

Three especially important techniques to note:

1.  Your best salesman is your customer.  “Treat the person right,” Murrell notes, “and he’ll sell for you.”  Thus, Five Guys boasts a simple decor: they spend their money not on fancy decorations or gimmicks, but on the one product they sell: food.  A valuable lesson for fraternity recruitment: huge recruitment events with all the bells and whistles won’t impress anyone; rather, the conversations and interactions that you have with potential new members selling the values of Sigma Nu will leave the most lasting impression.

2.  Everyone must feel ownership.  The example Murrell uses?  Cleaning bathrooms:

“…it’s definitely not macho to clean a bathroom.  But if the auditor walks in and the bathroom isn’t clean, that crew just lost money.  Next thing he knows, the guy who was supposed to clean the bathroom has toilet paper all over his car…”

If house duties aren’t getting done, don’t keep hounding the one or two individuals who aren’t performing.  Divide the chapter into house duty teams and if one individual fails to do a house duty, his team is penalized.  This creates a sense of shared responsibility and ownership.  Fraternity has never just been about one person.  This idea of ‘getting your hands dirty for the good of the team’ is especially apparent in small business owned by the Amish.  Erik Wesnar, a former sales manager who observed the Amish, noted:

“One thing I heard consistently was ‘I’d never ask an employee to do something that I wouldn’t be willing to do myself.’  It’s like a mantra.  They will exhibit that by jumping in sometimes and doing the dirty work.”

In fraternities, we often over-emphasize our ‘earnings.’  With age, we ‘earn’ the right to not do house duties, not attend social events or philanthropic events and, most importantly, we automatically ‘earn’ the respect of younger members simply by virtue of our age.  Any functional organization – fraternity or small business – will demonstrate shared workload by all members, regardless of age or position.

3.  Anything worth doing is worth doing right.  You can’t buy coffee or chicken sandwiches at Five Guys.  Why?  They tried selling those products and neither stuck.  But instead of continuing to sell mediocre products, Five Guys stopped and stuck to selling what they do best: burgers, fries and hot dogs.  What good is a Philanthropy Committee composed of two seniors who never come to chapter meetings?  How effective is a crisis management plan that hasn’t been updated since 2001?  If you can’t effectively implement a new idea or program, wait until you have the resources to do so.  For help in prioritizing your chapter’s needs, perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis, found in the Strategic Planning LEAD session.

Few television shows have drawn as much attention from the fraternity and sorority community as ABC Family’s Greek (airing Monday nights at 10:00 p.m. EST).  Perhaps this is because the show uses Greek Life at fictitious Cyprus-Rhodes University in Ohio as the centerpiece of many storylines and delves into issues that hit home to us like recruitment, pledge education, hazing and social functions.

Predictably, the show drew scrutiny from leaders in the fraternity and sorority community, who worried that the show’s portrayal of large parties and casual alcohol consumption diminishes the importance of Greek Life.  Indeed, the plot is a bit sensationalist at times and, undoubtedly, members of the Cyprus-Rhodes Greek Community face more unlikely situations than most Greek communities face in one year (or than this guy faces in one evening).

However, we should accept this fact of dramatic television: it will always trend to the sensational.  I’m sure most trial lawyers roll their eyes at shows like Law & Order and very few medical professionals experience shifts similar to those portrayed on Grey’s Anatomy.  And let’s face it: the themes that make us cringe – from loud and boisterous social events to the casual execution of hazing – are, unfortunately, regularly perpetrated by a few deviant members of the Greek community.  And while these aren’t your members, or students on your campus, they wear Greek letters all the same.

What we should recognize are the helpful lessons that are pulled from the show’s script.  In the first episode of Season 4, for instance, the Kappa Tau Gamma Fraternity needed to appoint a new pledge educator (Wade, the previous new member educator, was expelled for launching a police car off a parking ramp).  Rusty, the nerdy sophomore, is hastily appointed and begins the task of educating the new members on relevant fraternity history.

Super-senior Cappie, however, does not trust that Rusty will be able to handle the task on his own and appoints other senior brothers to oversee and oftentimes undermine Rusty’s legitimate educational efforts.  This textbook scenario of ‘too many pledge educators in the pledge meeting’ explodes when Rusty insists that his pledges are required to go to a campus event.  Cappie counters by telling the pledge class that they ‘don’t have to go’ and can instead stay at the chapter house playing video games.

Do older members undermine the efforts of your Candidate Marshal?  The topic of establishing a Candidate Education Committee – and weighing the pros and cons of utilizing assistant candidate educators – is explored in the new Marshal Officer Manual.

Additionally, an old interfraternal friendship is ruined when Evan Chambers, a senior member of Omega Chi Delta, abandons Cappie and other members of Kappa Tau Gamma during a campus prank (see: expulsion of Wade above).  Evan claimed that the move was necessary, an action that won him favor within his own fraternity, even with the cost of abandoning a close friendship with a member of another fraternity.

Can you name one chapter on your campus for whom members hold disdain?  Instead of focusing your efforts on ‘getting even’ or making life miserable for another fraternity on campus, dedicate your chapter’s efforts to improving campus relations with other student organizations (both Greek and non-Greek).  In fact, these efforts will serve your chapter well in the ‘Campus Leadership’ subcategory of the Pursuit of Excellence Program.