Holiday Wishlist | Community Connections with Ryan
By Ryan Gray
There is one key aspect of my life for which the winter is the offseason… I’m a huge New York Mets fan. I come from a long line of baseball fans and have loved playing and watching the game my whole life. For Major League Baseball this is the time to focus on building your team for the coming season. It’s all about making trades and signing players to fill gaps so you can start the next season with a better group than you ended the previous season with.
As a Mets fan, this has been a hard time of year for a long time. The team owners were not spenders and rarely made the big moves to build a winning team. Often when they did bring in big players it was for the wrong reasons… trying to sell more tickets and hot dogs than win games. We watched beloved player after beloved player leave for better contracts elsewhere. However, in 2020 the team was purchased by a billionaire New Yorker who made his money in hedge funds. He doubled down on resources for scouting and analytics and is not afraid to spend big money when it’s the smart thing to do. All of a sudden the Mets are competing for every available player they think can help, and doing it in a smart way. They’re able to take a good critical look at the strengths and weaknesses of their team and bring in the additions necessary to take the franchise to the next level. It’s a great time to be a Mets fan.
The interesting parallel is, I’m getting to do almost the same thing with my team at Yavapai College. When the opportunity to move up into IT executive leadership arose I had to consider whether taking on responsibility for 3 more IT departments was something I wanted to do. I took a little time to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these groups and discussed this with college leadership. In the end, my answer was, “yes, I’m excited about this new role, but not to just do what we’ve been doing.” I prepared a written report of my analysis as well as a proposal for changes needed to take service and performance to the next level. While I didn’t get everything I asked for, I got enough, and that included the ability to add new positions, reclassify some and shift responsibilities. So I’m now in the middle of my own baseball offseason, making the changes to make us better. It’s a really exciting time.
In baseball, you will often hear players referred to as a “good clubhouse guy” or something similar. That means a player that gets along well with teammates, not every player does. However, the ones that do are often valued above what their on-field performance would earn because they make those around them better. This is a good lens to consider what genuine community in the workplace means, what is our commitment to making each other better. And… do managers and executives recognize this as a key part of the value of each individual. Most people would probably say that they do but might struggle to quantify how they do it. Do you have formalized mentorship or internship programs? Do you include how a person will invest in their teammates at the goal-setting time? Is this part of annual or other performance reviews? Are promotions or compensation changes tied to individual or team performance measures?
One thing I repeat in conversations constantly is that we’ll know we’re in the right place when every member of the team understands that they can’t succeed if their co-worker fails and vice versa. What we are charged with doing for our institution requires our collective effort.
We must strive for team success and we must all share in the credit for it. It is by our intentional efforts to build genuine community in our workgroups that we move towards this goal.
So my wishlist this holiday season for us all is,
1. Make sure you take time away to recharge. My 7 habits friends know this is prime “sharpen the saw” time. How effective you’ll be in 2023 may very well depend on how refreshed you are on January 1.
2. Reflect on the value you and your team place on your workgroup community. Do you truly value people that make those around them better? Those who uplift and magnify others? Those who invest in team success?
I have one more item on my own holiday wishlist.
3. Just like my Mets are working hard to bring in the players they need, I’m working hard to bring in the leaders that my team needs.
I’m really fortunate to have the support to add positions and am really excited about what this means for 2023 and beyond. I’ll paste the links to these job postings below. If you’re the kind of person that is invested in building team success, maybe YC is the right place for you? Even if you think you don’t match the description please remember, we all grow into our positions and our own strengths will mold them over time as we work in the context of our colleagues.
It is our ability to make everyone around us better as that happens that reveals our true value to the organization.
I wish the best for you all as 2022 comes to a close and hope you are all wide-eyed and enthusiastic about taking on 2023! Oh, and come join my team….