Our Most Valuable Resource
Joe Way, PhD, CTS
2020 can be defined as the year of innovation; or in layman’s terms… the year of “installing a bunch of stuff.” Many institutions saw the purse strings loosen and the money start to flow. In attempting to answer the pandemic call, we began the mad sprint to upgrade our spaces with new cameras, microphones, and zoom integrations. We all seemed to get our holiday wish lists filled early and due to no doing of our own. The pandemic caused the greatest AV uplift in higher education in decades.
But in doing so, have we neglected our most valuable resource: the human one? As I think of all the things I would “wish” for, it’s easy to come up with cool toys that would improve the classroom experience or make our administrative lives easier. But then, I am then brought to think about my team. How much can I make them do before I start to trade classroom benefits at the expense of team culture and morale? It is easy to justify our workload because the ultimate customer is the faculty and student experience, but at what cost?
This year has been a challenge, and not just because of COVID difficulties. We have been impacted by social justice issues, a contentious presidential election, depression, loss of work and hurting economy, sick family members, lack of resources due to closed campuses, homeschooling our kids, and many more individual concerns facing our team members. As a boss, I often look at what isn’t getting done, but in reality, as a leader I should be praising what is. Some days, just getting out of bed is a win for many people. We need to recognize that. Grace up grace needs to be our motto.
There is no more valuable resource than our people. Just as we have maintenance schedules with our equipment, we must also have maintenance schedules for our teams. Everything from a simple “good job” or “how are you *really* doing today” can serve as a much-needed power cycle for an individual who is struggling internally. When we take the time to offer professional development—even through free virtual conferences while travel isn’t possible—we tell our employees that we value their growth and contribution to our goals. When we go even further, cancelling everything on the calendar just to order lunch and have team building activities, we are telling them we care about them as people more than as employees. This is the key to long-term mental health and team health.
Nothing I have stated thus far is rocket science. We all know we need to do it, but how many of us have focussed on this during the COVID pandemic? How many of us think about work-from-home as stressful as work-from-office? It’s easy to invest in our teams when things are going well, but harder when we ourselves are being bombarded from all sides: our leadership, our bosses, our staff, our vendors, our faculty, our family, and every other external influence. Yet, nothing lets your team know they matter to you than making them your work priority. The strength of a team is not measured by what they accomplish by the end of the week, but by the morale of the weakest person on the team. We can never be stronger than the person suffering the most. That suffering may be from areas outside of our own view and from outside the workplace, but in the COVID reality the lines between home life and work life are blurred. Therefore, order to accomplish tasks, we must first demonstrate compassion and empathy.
Showing true empathy and compassion for the wellbeing of the team takes sacrifice. It takes stepping away from the computer screen and paying undivided attention to the people you are charged with leading. It may even mean sacrificing some of yourself. One of the first things that got cut when COVID came was our discretionary budget for meals, gifts, team building, etc. And that’s understandable considering most of the university is working from home. Yet, because my team members are considered essential workers, I saw a toll being taken on them mentally and physically as we pushed through 250+ room upgrades. This meant that I had to sacrifice personal money and petition with the administration to allow me to continue to invest in them. There were many times I felt that I was going to lose some team members because of workload stress. They saw everyone else in IT and the university working from home, yet they were in laboring hard each and every day.
Team bonding became more important than ever. It had to become intentional. Due to COVID, I could no longer just grab the team near the end of the day and walk across the street to grab a cocktail. I could no longer bring everyone into the office at the same time for a shared meal. Creativity becomes a necessity. Focussed and regularly scheduled planning of either virtual or socially-distanced “thank you” meetings in compliance with the health protocols at the time is the key to success. This pandemic does not mean we have to burn out. It is an opportunity in waiting if we view it in that light. While other teams working virtually may be distancing themselves, we have an opportunity to strengthen, investing in the group and each person individually. My prayer for my team is that we look back post-pandemic and view this as a time of great accomplishment, both in work performed and team connection. And that starts with focusing on our most valuable resource, demonstrating grace upon grace.
About the Column
The higher ed AV vertical is over a five-billion-dollar sector of the commercial AV integrations industry. Add in the live events, and higher ed accounts for over ten-billion-dollars annually. That’s significant, and why tech managers in our vertical must treat our departments like big business. Every month, Joe Way, PhD, CTS, explores important aspects of business operations, sales, negotiation, finance, and strategy based on over 25 years’ experience in business development, founding and managing several multimillion-dollar companies in the entertainment industry.
The Author: Joe Way, PhD, CTS
Joe Way, PhD, CTS, is the Director of Learning Environments at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, CA and AV Nation 2019 AV Professional of the Year. He is the host of the Higher Ed AV podcast and co-founder of the Higher Education Technology Managers Alliance (HETMA.org), aimed at connecting the higher ed tech manager community and advocating for their common audiovisual needs. He is the author of the bestselling book, Producing Worship: A Theology of Church Technical Arts, is a regular contributor to leading AV-industry media outlets and podcasts, and serves on the AVIXA Tech Managers and Diversity Councils. Joe is an Orange County, CA, native with over 25 years’ experience in education, technical production and the arts, and organizational leadership and management. Over his career, Dr. Way has received diverse awards in the areas of education, the arts, and business, and is a regular keynote speaker and writer for AV-industry and higher ed conferences and media outlets.