The Transition to Management
By
Doug Hartnagel
Many of us who have made a career out of the admissions profession, never started out
with this intention. Some of you entered admissions as recent graduates and became
admissions recruiters for your institution. It was a safe choice. You knew the institution,
maybe you were a student tour guide or involved with student life, you enjoyed talking
with people and it was a paycheck. For others, it was a "bus stop" until something better
came along. Regardless of what motivated you to get involved with admissions, you
found yourself and realized that this was the career you wanted. A few years have passed
and now you find yourself in the position of management, perhaps as a supervisor, an
associate director or even as a director. You are no longer just responsible for your own
daily activities, but now you are part of management. This new responsibility requires a
new way of approaching your job. The following principles will help you make a
successful transition.
Understand your environment
Up until now, your world has probably been defined by your assignments and
responsibilities. Stepping into the world of management, your world has now expanded.
It includes your entire institution and everything it touches. Does your institution have a
strategic plan? Do you know the plan? Have you seen a copy? If you have not, make sure
you get yourself a copy. There is no way you can be successful in developing your
department's strategic plan if it does not compliment the institution's plan. If the
institution's plan calls for an increase enrollment in left handed students and you
emphasized in your recruitment plan attracting students with green eyes, you will never
be seen as having a successful year, no matter how many green eye students you enroll.
Everyone has to be on the same page. Has your administration articulated a vision for
your institution? Have you shared this vision with your staff? How do the vision and the
strategic plan translate into how your department interacts with others on and off
campus?
Do you ever go to a football game and wonder what they are talking about in the huddle?
You must have that same attitude with regards to the goings on at your institution. While
it is impossible to attend every meeting held on your campus, there are some basic
information gathering techniques that you can employ. For example, make sure you are
on the distribution list for the minutes of key governance organizations (Board of
Trustees, faculty senate, president's cabinet, academic deans' council, etc.). In many
cases, such minutes are posted on the web, but if they are not, ask for a regular
distribution of paper copies. The better you understand what the thinking is of key
players on campus and what plans are in various stages of development, the better you
can charter a correct course for your department. Never assume that these entities will
inform you, you must take the initiative to be informed.
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Most Fortune 500 companies spend millions of dollars test marketing a product before
launching it. As part of their test marketing, they listen to their clients. In admissions, we
must do the same. For this exercise, I am assuming we have three different types of
clients: prospective students, parents and academic units.
An admissions office should never produce a web site, publication or organize a campus
tour without first listening to what prospective students like and dislike. The use of focus
groups is an ideal way to gage what excites these students. To believe we can think like
them is making a big mistake. Organize focus groups at area high schools and community
colleges to find out what they want to see within admissions recruitment material. Create
focus groups of new freshman on your campus to learn how to improve your campus
visits.
Parents have very different needs than their children. Listen to them. If safety is a
concern, address it before the question is asked. If they are concerned about what their
children will do upon graduation from your institution, get your Career Services
department more involved in the recruitment phase. What is important with parents is that
they get their questions answered. If a parent asks you how many seats are in your
theater, don't tell them how great a program you have in theatre arts, tell them how many
seats are in the theater.
Academic departments are clients as well. They need to be heard. Go to them; don't wait
until they come to you. You want to convey to them a simple statement, "How can
admissions help you?" You may be surprised by their answers.
Be a leader
As a leader, it is your job to surround yourself with persons who are better at their job
than you are at yours. It is your responsibility to create working conditions which enable
them to achieve their full potential. Be willing to share the limelight. After all, the
successes of those who work under you are your successes too.
Whatever success I have had in this business, I owe to the people who have worked with
me. They have made me look good. When I hired staff, I always looked for people who
had the potential to one day take my place. By having good people with strong leadership
skills on your team, you have the freedom to be more creative, develop and achieve
higher goals, and to be a more forward thinking organization.
We all have different formulas for what constitutes the right person to be a member of
our staff. The hiring of staff can be a challenging experience. Many people in a director's
or supervisory position feel pressure to fill their vacancies as quickly as possible. None of
us ever had enough staff even when we were fully staffed. However, that should not
compel us to hire a person just to fill a vacancy. You live with your mistakes.
Once you have hired the right staff, the next challenge is to keep them. While many
believe that lack of proper compensation is the main reason for the attrition of staff, I do
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not support this notion. Yes, in some cases, financial consideration is a reason, but
equally important are such factors as: boredom, limited opportunity for promotion, and a
lack of appreciation. People are capable of astonishing levels of contribution, but only if
we learn how to open the door, provide encouragement, and get the heck out of the way.
Encourage creativity. At each one of the institutions where I worked, my first talk to my
staff began with the words "It is ok to fail." I went on to tell the staff that what I meant by
this statement is that we must consistently be looking for new and creative ways to reach
our goals. I was not advocating carelessness, or poor preparation, or not paying attention
to detail, but rather that even the greatest among us have had failed experiments.
We are no longer gatekeepers, but a profession of creative, marketing experts that must
think strategically in a highly competitive industry. Be willing to try new ideas.
Remember, imagination is more important than knowledge. More importantly, be an
advocate among your staff of trying new ideas. Make the people working for you feel
comfortable about promoting a new idea, running with it, with the knowledge that you
will be supportive and without the fear that someone will not point the finger at them
saying, "You messed up." You will be surprised of the productivity that will be released,
when the fear of failure is not a part of your office's culture.
As a leader, it is your responsibility to provide the right opportunities for your staff to be
ready to accept a promotion when it becomes available. Think of developing a career
ladder for each member of your organization. Use your annual evaluation of them as an
opportunity to keep them on the right track.
In the 34 years that I was involved in admissions, I do not believe a year went by that I
did not at sometime during the year, man a table at a college fair, present an information
session, help set up tables for an open house or stuff envelopes. Just because I became a
dean or associate vice-president did not mean I should no longer be willing to "chip in"
and help when an extra pair of hands was needed. If the staff sees me rolling up my
sleeves to help, their morale is boosted. They realize that I appreciate the work that they
must do on a daily basis. The benefit I gain from doing this work helps me in my decision
making and helps me keep a pulse on what is happening in "the field."
Finally, make sure you take time out of your busy schedule to stop and thank staff for
their contribution. You would be surprised how far a simple "thank you" will go to make
that staff person feel appreciated. A favorite axiom of mine is, "Keeping morale high is
80% of your job. When a group/organization shows good or bad morale, it is the leader
who should know why and be responsible."
Admissions is a team game
To be successful in admissions requires more than a good set of recruiters and some wow
looking publications. Admissions alone can not bring in the class the institution is
looking to enroll. It requires the cooperation of many other departments. Departments
such as financial aid, orientation, residence life, career services, information technology,
physical plant, etc. play a key role in attracting new students to your institution. I believe
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that every single person on a campus has some role in the admissions of students. Even
the clerical person in your Purchasing Department plays a role. If you have submitted a
purchase requisition to have your view book printed and he or she does not process that
requisition in a timely manner and you do not receive the publication when you need it,
who suffers? Does the purchasing staff person understand their role in your mission? Or
do they simply see the requisition form as another piece of paper that must be processed?
Have you ever sat down with the folks in financial aid or career services to show how
you all can work together to accomplish the mission? To think that departments, such as
physical plant realize their role without you discussing it with them is being naïve. Have
you discussed the route you take prospective students on campus tours with physical
plant to make sure the route is well maintained?
How often do you say thank you to these departments? An activity we initiated at one of
the institutions I worked at was called the "Tip of the Hat" celebration. Each member of
the admissions staff was allowed to nominate people from different departments that was
deserving of our thanks for their support and cooperation during the past year. These
people were invited to a Friday afternoon celebration where they enjoyed food and drink.
The invitations that were sent were in the shape of a top hat. During the celebration each
person was individually recognized and received a certificate of appreciation. We average
about 150 people at this annual event. There were deans, directors, clerks and
maintenance people all mingling together. It was a simple, rather inexpensive, but very
powerful way of saying we could not have had such a successful year without you.
Anyone, want to guess how cooperative these people were the next time we needed
them?
Communicate, communicate, communicate
Jan Carlzon in his book, Moments of Truth, says, "An individual without information
cannot take responsibility; an individual who is given information cannot help but take
responsibility." There is no other department on campus besides Admissions, where the
public assumes you know everything about your institution. While recognizing that it is
nearly impossible to be an expert about all that is happening on campus, we can provide
the staff with as much information as we can.
Start by making sure that all the staff know and understand your department's purpose,
goals and strategy. You must explain your goals openly and often. Share with your staff
what you have learned at institutional meetings that you attend.
The biggest challenge most management people have is not the willingness to share
information with their staff, but the most efficient method. For me the best method is
face-to-face. As a director of admissions, I would hold a weekly meeting every Friday
morning with my entire staff. When I became an associate vice-president and had nine
departments reporting to me, I insisted that each one of my directors hold weekly
meetings with their staffs, except for one week a month, when I held a division-wide
meeting for the nearly 200 people for whom I was responsible. When you hold the
meeting is not important. Obviously, it needs to be during a relatively slow business
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period. Early Friday mornings worked for us, perhaps another time is better on your
campus. The advantage of a meeting as opposed to other methods of sharing information
is that it also gives the staff an opportunity to raise questions and concerns. I also invited
periodically different people from the campus to come and speak to the staff on what is
happening in their respective areas. This way, staff heard first hand about new
developments and felt more a part of the institution. How do you handle the fact that
some recruiters may be out on the road at the time of these meetings? Have a person take
notes and then summarize the notes into an email to the recruiters. This way, they do not
feel left out.
Communication also works upward. One of the principles I always followed was to never
let my boss be embarrassed. The best way to do this was to keep him or her informed
about what was going on in my organization – both good and bad. I always made sure my
boss heard the good news and any bad news before others did. I also provided my boss
with a monthly report summarizing the activities of my organization. I never had a boss
ask me for one, but nearly all of them were impressed that I initiated this on my own. It
kept them informed and helped me reflect back on what happened this past month.
Embrace Data
The successful admissions programs are the ones that use data to tell them where they
have been successful and where they need to improve. With today's technical ability to
collect data, there is no excuse not to have critical data for your decision-making. In fact,
most institutions are so data-rich that it can be overwhelming to know where to begin.
Every thing you do in admissions should be tracked and measured. A note of caution: do
not go out and collect data for the sake of collecting data, know how you are going to use
the information before you collect it. What do I want to know about a particular subject
and how will I use the information? The answers to these questions will dictate what data
you collect and how you collect it. For example, if you want to know whether your
annual fall open house is a success, you first have to define what success is. You may say
it is that we reach our target attendance, or that the program goes off without a hitch or
perhaps it is how many prospective students who attend the open house eventually apply
to the institution (this is my definition of success). By having the students complete a
simple registration form as they arrive at the open house and then eventually matching
that information against your admissions file, you can determine what your yield was
from the event. Another question where data can help is, "How much does it cost to
enroll a freshman at your institution?" If after taking into consideration your departmental
budget, including salaries, recruitment and marketing, processing, etc., as well as
auxiliary help from other departments (for example, you may not control the publications
budget) and compare all this to the number of freshman in your entering class, you will
arrive at a figure as to what it takes to enroll a freshman. Let's say that figure is $300 and
let's say national studies show for similar institutions to yours the national average is
$800, you would be in a good position to argue for additional budget.
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For every question you have (or your boss has), there is data to help you answer it. The
more data you are armed with, the better positioned you are to make strategic decisions or
to request additional resources or to influence institutional direction.
Never stop learning
In 34 years, I never stopped learning. I was constantly looking for ways to be a better
professional. Can you imagine how admissions has changed in the past 34 years? We
went from a "gatekeeper" profession to a highly competitive, marketing profession.
Think of the technology changes: quill and pen to online applications. Where will the
profession be in the next 34 years? The fact that you are taking this course is a positive
step. In addition to online courses such as this one, AACRAO offers conferences and
workshops, both regionally and nationally that allow you the opportunity to learn from
experienced professionals. When I sent staff to a conference or workshop, I always had
two rules: first, try and come back with at least one new idea. Second, add to your
network of colleagues.
Not every course, conference or workshop will be chock-full-of-new ideas. There will be
no magic formula revealed, but some presenter or it could even be another attendee will
say something that you could adapt to improve your institution. Networking is so critical
in our profession. It is great to call or email a colleague with a question or as a sounding
board. I continue to keep in touch with colleagues that I have met at conferences years
and years ago.
I realize in your new position, it seems like there is not enough hours in the day to get
everything done, but I would urge you to find the time to keep up with reading
professional journals and papers. To be successful on your own campus you must know
what is going on throughout the profession. That is just part of being in admissions – it
goes with the territory. The same is true with the senior administrators at your institution.
They assume you know what is going on in your profession, nationally. Keeping up on
your reading will never put you in an embarrassing position of not knowing.
Reading should extend beyond the admissions arena. As management you need to be up
on what is happening in management, marketing and personnel relations in general. Here
are four books I suggest to add to your reading list. Some are older, some more recent,
but all can be applied to the work you do in admissions.
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The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
Moments of Truth by Jan Carlzon
In Search of Excellence by Peters and Waterman
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Finally, don't be afraid to look over the fence at the other guy. If you are looking at
improving an area within admissions, find other institutions that are doing it better than
you and see what they are doing. What is remarkable about our profession is that no
matter how competitive we are, we are always willing to share ideas with each other.
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Visit other institutions seeking out colleagues, ask questions. You will be surprised at
how much you can learn. You don't have to mimic another institution's idea exactly. You
can adapt it to the needs of your institution.
You are now a member of the leadership team. If I had to reduce leadership to one word
it would be influence. You must demonstrate the kind of influence that will get and hold
the support of the people on whom you depend to get the job done.
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