We are in the midst of an upskilling crisis. Rapid industrial changes and an increasingly competitive global environment, with countries like China and India emerging as technology superpowers, mean millions of workers need to upskill to remain economically viable.
Community colleges play a crucial role in this transformation. Aspen Award winner Russell Lowery-Hart, Chancellor of the 50,000-student Aspen Community College system, believes educators must move beyond being mere gatekeepers.
He believes that educators need to love their students to success.
If this sounds idealistic or naive, consider Russell’s impressive track record. As President of Amarillo College, he boosted completion rates from 19% to 62% in just five years. Now at Austin, he faces an even greater challenge: preparing the workforce to meet the skill demands of one of the world’s leading technology hubs.
Russell’s Biography: https://offices.austincc.edu/chancellor/biography/
About the AustinCommunity College system: https://www.austincc.edu/about-acc/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
[00:00:02] This podcast is a Roifield Brown production.
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[00:00:08] All right.
[00:00:09] Yeah, Adam!
[00:00:10] Instead of helping companies shrink, I wanted to help them grow.
[00:00:12] In Twin, we say never leave serendipity to chance.
[00:00:14] Mobilizing people is only useful if you can channel it to influence institutions.
[00:00:19] If I want to change that person's mind, it's much more useful for me to find a way
[00:00:23] to have a one-on-one conversation with them.
[00:00:25] And then that becomes this positive loop.
[00:00:27] I wasn't even the smartest kid in my neighborhood.
[00:00:30] One death is a tragedy.
[00:00:31] Ten thousand is a statistic.
[00:00:33] But I was hungry.
[00:00:34] I was really hungry.
[00:00:36] I'm Greg Satell, author of Mapping Innovation And Cascades.
[00:00:40] And I'm with Roifield Brown, Pajisa.
[00:00:49] Hey Roifield!
[00:00:51] Hello Greg.
[00:00:52] Did you see what I did there, Greg?
[00:00:53] Yes, yes, you called me Greg.
[00:00:55] My mother will be very happy about that.
[00:00:58] And hello to everybody else.
[00:01:00] This is the Changemaker Mindset Podcast.
[00:01:03] We're building a community to make positive impact on the world and we hope you'll join us.
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[00:01:29] So Roifield, you're going to love our guest today and he gets to the heart of one of the
[00:01:36] reasons why change in a society is so difficult, especially technology changes in the economy.
[00:01:44] There is an enormous need for upskilling and upskilling the workforce.
[00:01:50] And Russell Mayer Hart is at the forefront in enabling us to do that.
[00:01:58] Anybody who is somewhat of a visionary in terms of equipping people for change through education
[00:02:05] and helping the most disadvantaged is mostly definitely somebody who I want to hear from.
[00:02:11] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:02:13] And in particular, the Community College system where because community colleges are the best
[00:02:20] position to work with employers to get them the skills that they need.
[00:02:25] And Russell has been an absolute pioneer with this.
[00:02:30] And the thing about Russell and the thing that does your heart good, the reason why he
[00:02:36] gives me so much faith in the future and in humanity is that to be honest, he sounds a
[00:02:43] little bit corny and naive.
[00:02:46] He's always talking about loving his students to success.
[00:02:49] But you can't argue with the results and he definitely gets them.
[00:02:58] Hey, Russell.
[00:03:00] Good to see you as well.
[00:03:01] Thanks for having me.
[00:03:02] We're just thrilled to have you on.
[00:03:05] So when we met, you were the president of Amarillo Community College.
[00:03:11] And now your chancellor of the entire Austin Community College system, which is about
[00:03:16] 40,000 students.
[00:03:18] And that is a much different community, a big job.
[00:03:22] So I want to start with what you did at Amarillo because you had this feeling that the
[00:03:29] community needed skills and the place to build those skills was at the Community
[00:03:36] College level.
[00:03:37] So you went from a four year college to Amarillo College, a Community College in
[00:03:42] 2010.
[00:03:44] Four years later, you became president and you moved completion rates from
[00:03:50] somewhere.
[00:03:51] I'm going to get these numbers wrong.
[00:03:52] 15% to something like 57%.
[00:03:56] Is that about right?
[00:03:58] 19 to 62.
[00:03:59] 19 to 62.
[00:04:01] 1962 was one of my favorite years.
[00:04:04] And you won the Aspen Award.
[00:04:07] Yeah.
[00:04:07] Or the best Community College in the country.
[00:04:11] Yeah.
[00:04:11] Could you tell us about that and what you learned?
[00:04:13] Well, one, when you're clear on who you're serving and what you're trying to
[00:04:21] accomplish on their behalf, it melts away a lot of the typical higher
[00:04:26] edding and bureaucracy and politicizing that gets in the way of
[00:04:31] transformation.
[00:04:33] And what I learned in that process is listen to your student, understand
[00:04:38] who she is, ask her what she needs from you, and then build yourself to
[00:04:42] what she's told you she needs.
[00:04:45] And ultimately, that's what we did in Amarillo.
[00:04:47] We built a culture of caring that was committed to loving our typical
[00:04:52] student, Maria, to success and had a clear theory of change that guided
[00:04:57] that transformation in a community that needed it desperately.
[00:05:04] And now that you're at Austin, how are you applying those lessons
[00:05:10] and how are the challenges the same or different?
[00:05:14] Greg, it's so fascinating because I came to Austin, a dramatically
[00:05:18] different community.
[00:05:20] I went from a rural isolated community that wasn't growing population
[00:05:26] with real challenges and economic diversification to Austin, which is
[00:05:32] one of the fastest growing communities and economies in the country.
[00:05:36] And so I came here expecting to meet really different challenges.
[00:05:41] And I certainly done that.
[00:05:43] But what I found in this transition is with all of this explosion
[00:05:47] and growth, fundamentally our students are the same.
[00:05:51] They're having the same challenges and the community college,
[00:05:55] even though it's much larger in context, struggles with the same
[00:05:59] challenges of becoming effective and efficient and ensuring our
[00:06:05] bureaucracies are responsive and figuring out how to love our students to success.
[00:06:12] Here in Austin, I feel like as a college, as a district, we're having
[00:06:18] to work really hard to keep up with the economic growth and
[00:06:22] ensuring that we are responsive to it.
[00:06:25] And in Amarillo, I felt like we had to create the economic growth
[00:06:29] and lead it.
[00:06:30] I don't feel the pressure to lead it here.
[00:06:32] It's diverse and fascinating and innovative and moving quickly.
[00:06:40] The pressure I feel here is to ensure that we're certain that we can
[00:06:45] ensure that our typical student can be a part of that exploding economy,
[00:06:50] that she has the skills that are hireable in a community that needs her skills
[00:06:57] but she doesn't necessarily have those skills yet.
[00:06:59] One of the things that's always impressed me about your approach
[00:07:03] and certainly something that I've taken and that served me well with my
[00:07:09] students at Wharton is you see yourself not just as an educator but as a
[00:07:16] servant and somebody who tries to, and I've never heard an educator
[00:07:21] speak like you before.
[00:07:24] Usually when you listen to educators they talk, it's more about
[00:07:28] setting standards that the students are supposed to meet.
[00:07:33] Where you flip that approach around where you have the students set
[00:07:40] the standards that you need to meet and you'll have such a servant level
[00:07:46] focus.
[00:07:47] And I think just as we've spoken over the years, that really comes
[00:07:53] from your experience with the school system because for you,
[00:08:00] school wasn't just school.
[00:08:02] It was something of a safe haven.
[00:08:04] Yeah.
[00:08:06] It was by lifeline.
[00:08:08] Yeah, I grew up in an isolated really small community and a
[00:08:13] challenged broken dysfunctional family.
[00:08:17] And school was where I found my safety.
[00:08:22] I found my purpose.
[00:08:23] I found my identity.
[00:08:26] I found community and as I went through and got to university,
[00:08:31] I found a world that was so much bigger and broader and diverse
[00:08:37] than what I understood it to be.
[00:08:41] And so every step of my educational journey, the educators and the
[00:08:45] institutions broaden and shaped my worldview and affirmed who I
[00:08:51] was as a person in ways that I wasn't getting in home or in
[00:08:57] community.
[00:08:58] And I don't think I'm alone in that.
[00:09:01] And so I think my whole career as an educator is informed by my
[00:09:09] own personal experience with educators and education.
[00:09:13] And the great joy I've had in my professional life is to be
[00:09:18] able to build culture of institutions around that identity
[00:09:23] that we are here to love students to success, not here to hold them
[00:09:29] accountable to a standard.
[00:09:31] Industry will help us do that.
[00:09:33] The students will help us do that.
[00:09:35] But we're not here to judge.
[00:09:39] We're here to teach and to teach in this day and age in the
[00:09:44] brokenness that our communities and society are struggling with
[00:09:49] requires us to love the students into the classroom, love them to
[00:09:54] learning through the classroom and love them to family sustaining
[00:09:58] wages after the classroom.
[00:10:01] And I'm excited to do that here.
[00:10:04] I feel like we did a great job of that in Amarillo.
[00:10:07] And I'm seeing the foundation of that being built here in
[00:10:12] Austin in ways that I am so excited about that I can't even sleep at night sometimes.
[00:10:18] Russell, it's wonderful listening to you speak.
[00:10:22] I want to pull you up slightly on one thing.
[00:10:24] And then I'm going to go back with slightly.
[00:10:26] You said it's not your position to judge.
[00:10:29] But if you can recount that you took the completion rate from 19 to 62,
[00:10:38] that is judging some level of quantifiable success, isn't it?
[00:10:43] Well, but the judgment is placed differently.
[00:10:46] I think a lot of higher education and education itself is structured to judge our students.
[00:10:52] And I think we're better equipped to judge ourselves and to hold ourselves to standards that honor our students.
[00:11:01] And I'll just say that I think education is really good at taking credit for the student that was always going to be successful.
[00:11:11] And we're really adept at blaming the student for failure.
[00:11:16] And we can't have it both ways.
[00:11:18] There are students that need us to reimagine what education looks like.
[00:11:24] They don't need our judgment of them.
[00:11:26] They need our understanding, love and care.
[00:11:28] And they need us to reimagine how we can love them to a skill set that makes them hireable,
[00:11:35] that makes them a leader in the community.
[00:11:38] But instead what higher education often does and what society may be doing is that we will look at someone without knowing them
[00:11:46] and decide whether they're that they're not capable.
[00:11:50] And my guiding philosophy is that everyone has skills and gifts that need to be unlocked.
[00:11:56] And education often judges compliance or historic familial understanding of systems and bureaucracies
[00:12:05] and misplaces those understandings and compliance as equating to intelligence and skill.
[00:12:11] And they're not the same thing.
[00:12:13] And our jobs, I think, are to love our students to success.
[00:12:19] And to do that we have to judge our abilities to know who they are, our systems to respond to who they are
[00:12:26] and ensuring that our community is aware of and ready to embrace who they are.
[00:12:33] I think it's amazing that you use the word love so freely within this context.
[00:12:41] A watered-down version could be care, but you're saying no, it is that is love.
[00:12:46] It is love.
[00:12:47] Why do you think that you singularly had this approach to have education?
[00:12:54] So I think many people go into the higher rest lines of education wanting to care and to educate students.
[00:13:03] I think caring is important and can be a powerful execution of love.
[00:13:13] But here has to be rooted in something deeper, and I think love is it.
[00:13:19] And I talk about love very directly and openly because we know what it's like to have it
[00:13:26] and we all know what it's like to not have it.
[00:13:30] And it is personal, and the work that we're doing in education is personal.
[00:13:38] And I think we often try to wrap our work in what I call higher ed.
[00:13:43] We higher edit and we want to wrap it in words and theories that depersonalize it
[00:13:50] so that we don't have to take responsibility when people are struggling and potentially failing.
[00:13:57] And for us to be successful, the work of transformation has to be personal.
[00:14:03] That was rooted in my own experience.
[00:14:06] It's rooted in Bell Hook's book All About Love.
[00:14:10] Her philosophy didn't create my understanding of love,
[00:14:15] but it certainly gave me confidence that I could voice it directly,
[00:14:22] where she talks about love is not romantic or familial,
[00:14:28] but that our societal systems and relationships can be and should be rooted in love as well.
[00:14:37] And so when I read her book, I'm like,
[00:14:39] that is such a direct affirmation of how I feel about myself and the world that I live in
[00:14:46] and the people that I work with.
[00:14:48] And so her philosophy has created a deeper commitment to the leadership philosophy of love
[00:14:58] and helped deepen it and broaden it.
[00:15:01] Russell, we've talked about this before,
[00:15:05] that you are so mission driven and so positive,
[00:15:10] but one thing that as you know is always first on my mind
[00:15:16] and I think is a change maker's very first responsibility
[00:15:21] and something that you've learned along the way
[00:15:25] is the first thing you need to do is to think clearly about resistance
[00:15:32] and that anytime you set out to change anything that involves what people think or what they do,
[00:15:40] there's some who aren't going to like it
[00:15:42] and they're going to work to undermine you in ways that are dishonest
[00:15:46] and underhanded and receptive.
[00:15:49] Can you talk maybe a little bit about your experience with that?
[00:15:53] Do I have to?
[00:15:54] I'm just kidding.
[00:15:56] See, I was trying to change your behavior and I felt a little bit of resistance there.
[00:16:04] Nicely done.
[00:16:05] Anytime you're leading change,
[00:16:07] I think we're naturally wired to question it if not naturally wired to resist it.
[00:16:14] And so instead of judging it, instead of being afraid of it,
[00:16:18] I've always tried to do two things.
[00:16:21] One, double down on explaining why I'm doing and we're doing what we're doing
[00:16:27] and then trying to fully understand and listen to why people are resistant
[00:16:36] because sometimes resistance can be powerful in improving what we're trying to accomplish.
[00:16:44] Sometimes it's rooted in deep personal or professional fear
[00:16:50] and so when you find out the root of the resistance,
[00:16:53] there are ways that you can understand and engage and move beyond it.
[00:16:59] And then sometimes in my own personal experience,
[00:17:02] the resistance is just rooted in out and out.
[00:17:05] I definitely, dignity, sense of self.
[00:17:09] Yeah, and it's also rooted in one of the things I've learned more recently
[00:17:14] is the power of norms and rituals.
[00:17:18] And you can't replace something with nothing.
[00:17:22] So when we talk about change, we usually mean some change in behaviors,
[00:17:27] whether that student behavior or administrator behavior or teacher behavior or whatever.
[00:17:33] But underlying those behaviors are norms and rituals.
[00:17:38] And that's why I think it's really important to not take resistance personally,
[00:17:44] even if it is irrational or knee-jerk or identity.
[00:17:48] First of all, you can't take it personally. Understand it.
[00:17:52] Right, because the status quo always has sources of power
[00:17:56] and those sources of power have an institutional basis
[00:17:59] and those sources of power are networked and manifest themselves in existing norms and rituals.
[00:18:07] And those things need to change before behavior can change,
[00:18:11] which is why incentive-based initiatives usually fail.
[00:18:17] Yeah, they don't work.
[00:18:19] Man, there's so much richness in what you just articulated and reflected
[00:18:25] and captured my own growth and transformation as a leader.
[00:18:31] I used to think, Greg, that transformation,
[00:18:36] especially in a higher education context and an education context,
[00:18:41] was finding the right set of initiatives.
[00:18:44] And if you could find the right set of initiatives
[00:18:46] and put them in place and scale them, then you could transform your outcomes.
[00:18:53] And I'm not diminishing the importance of initiatives,
[00:18:57] but I have grown to understand in my own journey
[00:19:00] that when you can get a culture set with a shared set of values and beliefs
[00:19:07] and a shared commitment to what we're trying to accomplish
[00:19:11] with a clear understanding of how we're going to get there
[00:19:14] when the culture is unified and I use unity and air quotes around that,
[00:19:19] it almost doesn't matter what sets of initiatives you use,
[00:19:24] they're going to help be transformational.
[00:19:27] That the culture and the people are more important than the initiatives
[00:19:32] that they might execute.
[00:19:35] In the beginning of my leadership career, I thought it was the things
[00:19:38] and then I found out rather quickly it was the people
[00:19:42] and that there are ways that you can understand, empower,
[00:19:46] challenge, listen to, engage people to build some unity.
[00:19:53] What I see in my own self historically and in my colleagues in higher ed
[00:19:59] is that we don't understand the historical trappings of how faculty
[00:20:05] and staff in higher education are wired.
[00:20:08] I think I don't have numbers to prove this,
[00:20:12] just my gut and history,
[00:20:14] that there are always going to be about 25, 20 to 25% of higher ed employees
[00:20:22] that are just wired to push back against anything leadership does,
[00:20:28] whatever it is.
[00:20:30] And then you've got 10 to 15% that are just wired to be supportive
[00:20:34] of leadership no matter who it is and what they do
[00:20:37] and that an organizational health and effectiveness
[00:20:40] is really captured in that 60% of your employees
[00:20:45] and how you engage, understand and empower them to love students to success.
[00:20:51] Russell, just to interject quickly, there actually are numbers to support that.
[00:20:58] That the tipping point for change is about 10 to 20% in most contexts
[00:21:04] and those sort of laggards.
[00:21:07] We know the diffusion curve, but there's decades and decades of research.
[00:21:12] Exactly what you just said.
[00:21:14] So sorry to interrupt, but I thought...
[00:21:16] No, no.
[00:21:17] It's important.
[00:21:17] I mean that your experience is very much rooted in what the research says.
[00:21:24] You get your early adopters, you get that initial buy-in,
[00:21:28] but then I think what people focus too much on are the naysayers
[00:21:33] and not the people that are saying nothing.
[00:21:36] And to root the transformation, it's those voices that are typically ignored
[00:21:41] and unheard that I feel determine the future of an institution.
[00:21:47] And the lessons I learned in Amarillo, I'm reflecting in how I'm leading in Austin
[00:21:52] and I feel like I'm going to be able to save myself
[00:21:55] and my new institution years of heartache by just spending my first 100 days,
[00:22:04] my first six months listening, learning, connecting, and understanding.
[00:22:12] Russell, I'm totally fascinated by your philosophy
[00:22:17] and totally bowled over by the metric of success.
[00:22:21] I'm judging you.
[00:22:23] I'll judge you in that way.
[00:22:25] But if I'm going into a higher ed establishment in the United Kingdom
[00:22:32] or in Germany or in Jamaica, what are the top three things that people should do
[00:22:39] so that they can have your measure of success?
[00:22:43] No, their students who may have become disadvantaged backgrounds
[00:22:46] maybe they're from somewhere in Leipzig or Dredsen in Germany, economically disadvantaged
[00:22:52] are going to have a good shot.
[00:22:53] What are the top three things that an education professional should do?
[00:22:58] What an important question and I mean that deeply
[00:23:01] because what I started to see with the transformation
[00:23:05] that got a lot of attention in Amarillo is that people would come
[00:23:09] and they would want to see it and they would walk away thinking,
[00:23:12] oh, if we hire more, if we hire social workers and we train people in poverty
[00:23:17] and we do eight week classes and those things are important.
[00:23:22] But you can take them back to your institution and implement them
[00:23:26] but if they're not rooted in culture, communication, and scale,
[00:23:33] they'll never be effective.
[00:23:35] And culture has got to be built around empowering the student voice
[00:23:40] to identify what they need from you.
[00:23:44] They can be built into values that are actionable for every single employee at the institution.
[00:23:50] And so I'll say the first thing is values that are end user driven.
[00:23:57] The values in Amarillo were while innovation family fun, yes,
[00:24:04] students told us what they needed from us.
[00:24:06] Those values were written in every job description, every evaluation process
[00:24:10] and we're part of every hiring process.
[00:24:13] In Austin, I expect the students to identify different sets of values.
[00:24:17] They're different and similar, courage, compassion, joy, and yes.
[00:24:22] That's what they need from this institution.
[00:24:24] So then you've got to clarify them, define them,
[00:24:29] and define them in actionable behavioral terms.
[00:24:32] So values are number one, data is number two.
[00:24:36] The data from your student voice that informs your values
[00:24:40] but having clear understanding of how your students are succeeding and failing
[00:24:49] and where and why and then using that data for predictive value
[00:24:53] that if students do this and this, they will be successful with this.
[00:24:59] So values, data that gives you a clear theory of change
[00:25:04] and then you've got to scale it.
[00:25:07] And the other mistake that I see a lot of institutions make is they'll pilot something,
[00:25:11] it will have tremendous impact but it's not enculturated
[00:25:15] and it will serve 50 students rather than 5,000 or 50,000.
[00:25:22] And so if you can't scale something for at least 25% of all of your students,
[00:25:28] quit wasting your effort on it and redirect those resources and that talent
[00:25:34] to the things that can be scaled for impact.
[00:25:38] Obviously you've worked at Ambril and Aaron in Austin, these are two places in Texas.
[00:25:43] So what's the risk to the educational system in Texas, in the United States,
[00:25:50] in the world if we don't have this love-based system of education?
[00:25:58] Is it just fundamentally more of the same?
[00:26:01] So then some people say, well, you know, we can kind of carry on.
[00:26:05] Or have we gone past the point and actually our societies
[00:26:11] in some level of chronic danger because fundamentally they're excluding so many people.
[00:26:17] For the first time in the history of Gallup survey tracking,
[00:26:23] more people distrust higher education and don't think degrees are valuable
[00:26:29] than trust and think the degrees are valuable.
[00:26:33] Sorry Russell but just on that because this is the reason why I mentioned
[00:26:39] the United Kingdom, Germany and Jamaica before
[00:26:42] because I think this distrust in higher education is a uniquely American phenomena
[00:26:50] around exorbitant fees.
[00:26:53] We don't have the same distrust in Germany, higher education is totally free.
[00:26:59] So with that in mind run through your answers
[00:27:03] because I honestly believe that you're completely onto something here
[00:27:07] which can be extrapolated into the UK.
[00:27:10] Well, I think the basis of distrust in America is the affordability issue.
[00:27:16] We made it inaccessible to a swathe of families that could benefit from it
[00:27:21] and change their pathways through it but can't access it.
[00:27:25] And so everything I'm doing in Austin like we're piloting a free tuition and fees
[00:27:31] first dollar in program to change that equation.
[00:27:35] But affordability aside, if we can't produce the outcomes that the students
[00:27:43] that enroll with us need and then employers are asking for,
[00:27:48] if we can't produce those then we're going to be replaced.
[00:27:53] And you can see examples of it already happening like in Austin,
[00:27:59] Tesla has started Tesla University.
[00:28:01] Like you see corporations dipping their toes in,
[00:28:06] well if I can't get the worker from you or if their skills aren't aligned
[00:28:10] with what we're needing, we'll just hire them and teach them ourselves.
[00:28:14] We will be on the verge of a corporatization of education
[00:28:19] that cuts educators out of it
[00:28:22] and there could be really destructive outcomes from that
[00:28:27] but if we can't produce enough people that can finish what they start with us
[00:28:34] with the skills that are hireable and sustainable
[00:28:37] we'll miss some of the very fundamental core purposes
[00:28:43] around citizenship and personal development
[00:28:47] because it will then become just focused on skills.
[00:28:50] But if we can't figure out the ability to help students finish with us
[00:28:55] not just get enrolled with us and then get a job
[00:28:58] it doesn't matter what kind of liberal education we're providing
[00:29:03] we won't be relevant any longer.
[00:29:06] So Russell, just before we wrap up
[00:29:10] I just want to widen the aperture a little bit
[00:29:12] because one of the things that you've shared with me in the past
[00:29:16] is that one of the key challenges at Amarillo
[00:29:20] was that so many of your students had bad experiences with institutions
[00:29:25] and one of the first things that you needed to do
[00:29:30] in order to be able to support those students
[00:29:33] is have them feel comfortable at your institution
[00:29:37] and I remember one of the things that you did
[00:29:40] I mean the value of yes
[00:29:41] figure out how you can get to tell that student yes
[00:29:45] but one of the things that struck me
[00:29:48] was how you posted faculty members in the parking lot
[00:29:53] for the first two weeks of every semester
[00:29:55] because so many students would come in the first day
[00:29:59] get intimidated and drive right back out
[00:30:03] and never go to their first class
[00:30:06] and by creating a welcoming experience in the parking lot
[00:30:12] that was the first step to actually getting to completion
[00:30:17] obviously students can't complete their degree
[00:30:21] if they never get out of the parking lot right?
[00:30:25] But I want to widen the aperture a little bit
[00:30:28] because we have in this country a crisis
[00:30:33] with institutional credibility
[00:30:36] so what would and that's whether it's a private institution
[00:30:42] like a corporation or public or academic
[00:30:46] certainly courts justice system across the board
[00:30:51] nonprofits institutions are at a historically low level of trust
[00:30:57] so as we wrap this up
[00:31:00] what advice would you give to other leaders
[00:31:04] to restore faith in their institution?
[00:31:08] It's such a salient question
[00:31:12] and such a profound acknowledgement of where we are
[00:31:15] and I think one of the reasons we're there is
[00:31:19] the way we've executed our jobs
[00:31:21] have created a level of cynicism that's hard to recover from
[00:31:25] because we focus on our
[00:31:28] we focus on marketing and brand awareness
[00:31:32] when what our neighbors are hungry for
[00:31:35] is relationship and help
[00:31:39] I had my students in Amarillo
[00:31:41] whether they were secret shoppers
[00:31:43] or just focus group participants
[00:31:47] and then affirmed in ways that I was not expecting here in Austin
[00:31:51] describe repeatedly I would I ask them
[00:31:54] what is the perfect college look and feel like for you
[00:31:57] what do you need from your perfect college
[00:32:00] and universally what they need are people that know them
[00:32:05] and who care about them and will help them
[00:32:08] and so I would tell my leaders
[00:32:09] cut through all the bullshit
[00:32:12] cut through all of the leadership theories
[00:32:17] and the wearing worrying about your personal brand
[00:32:23] and get down to the root of understanding
[00:32:26] how your organizations are connecting
[00:32:29] how they're caring and how they're helping
[00:32:36] rooted in the personal and the practical
[00:32:40] and then I think you'll be able to affect
[00:32:43] and change the theoretical
[00:32:45] when you say cynicism
[00:32:49] it's clear that you're referring to to to Ruefield
[00:32:52] and yes he is a quite a nasty piece of work
[00:32:57] but even Ruefield I can tell you have inspired
[00:33:01] thank you for that Russell
[00:33:04] you've made my job just a little bit easier
[00:33:08] what a pleasure to have this conversation
[00:33:10] these are conversations we need to be having
[00:33:13] throughout the world and I'm honored to participate in it
[00:33:17] thanks so much for coming on
[00:33:18] Loathe me Russell
[00:33:19] you as well
[00:33:27] Ruefield will I tell you is Russell not just a breath of fresh air
[00:33:34] a breath of fresh air but he also said at incredibly old school
[00:33:38] this culture of love and caring
[00:33:41] and he speaks about the importance
[00:33:44] yes love but it's hair in education
[00:33:47] I think that's an easier word for us to get our heads round
[00:33:50] and how you'd like to nurture and understand your students
[00:33:54] and the inherent problems and difficulties that they have
[00:33:58] just physically even getting to college
[00:34:00] they've learned getting through college
[00:34:02] and I thought he was incredibly inspiring
[00:34:05] yeah especially in a place like like Austin
[00:34:07] where the price of housing is so high
[00:34:10] and many of the students live far away
[00:34:13] but I think that gets to the root of it
[00:34:15] one of the things that Russell said there really had an impact on me
[00:34:18] and I've noticed it with my own students
[00:34:22] it's very very easy for an educator to take credit
[00:34:26] for talented students
[00:34:30] when actually the job of an educator is helping the students
[00:34:34] that are struggling
[00:34:36] and that's what Russell I think has really really excelled at
[00:34:40] understanding for instance that some students
[00:34:43] have not had good experiences with institutions
[00:34:48] and if you see yourself as a gatekeeper
[00:34:51] you're just going to be one more obstacle
[00:34:54] in that student's life
[00:34:56] where if you see yourself as somebody who isn't in power
[00:35:00] who can make a difference in that person's life
[00:35:03] then you can actually not only help that person
[00:35:07] but help them contribute to the economy as a whole
[00:35:11] the other thing which I thought was really insightful
[00:35:15] was he talked about leadership and responsive leadership
[00:35:18] then also the ability to understand resistance to change
[00:35:23] within the organization
[00:35:26] and that resistance to change is actually is natural
[00:35:29] and you shouldn't necessarily see it as something to be feared
[00:35:33] but even that is something to understand
[00:35:35] and the root of that resistance
[00:35:38] well yeah and it's important not to make resistance to change
[00:35:43] as some sort of moral issue
[00:35:45] that just because somebody might be fiercely resistant
[00:35:51] often irrationally resistant to change
[00:35:54] it doesn't make them a bad person
[00:35:56] the simple fact is we all have attachments
[00:36:01] and when those attachments are threatened
[00:36:03] we tend to act out in ways that don't reflect our best selves
[00:36:07] and I think anybody who's ever been married
[00:36:09] or part of a family knows that
[00:36:11] amen to that brother
[00:36:13] and Russell's been incredibly successful
[00:36:17] he made such an impact on the community in Amarillo
[00:36:21] and I have no doubt he will do the same in Austin
[00:36:25] and the way that city is growing from the technological
[00:36:30] they really need a guy like Russell upskilling their workforce
[00:36:35] now Greg it's that time of the show
[00:36:38] where we go to our listeners and we ask them for their contributions
[00:36:42] and we have a question from Adele from Atlanta
[00:36:46] and the question is this
[00:36:47] how do you effectively address resistance to change
[00:36:50] within an organization while maintaining team morale
[00:36:52] and alignment with your vision for progress
[00:36:55] it's a great question
[00:36:56] I would say two things Adele
[00:36:59] the first is that you need to work to anticipate change
[00:37:04] I would say two things
[00:37:06] the first is that you need to work to anticipate resistance
[00:37:11] one of the things we do when we first start working with an organization
[00:37:17] is we go through a resistance inventory
[00:37:21] we go through five evidence-based categories of resistance
[00:37:25] lack of trust, change fatigue, competing incentives
[00:37:29] switching costs and then resistance related to identity, dignity
[00:37:34] and sense of self
[00:37:36] and we just talk through how we expect those different categories of resistance
[00:37:42] to manifest themselves
[00:37:44] and then what strategies we can use to mitigate
[00:37:47] so even before we encounter the resistance
[00:37:50] we're already trying to anticipate
[00:37:53] and think through how we're going to deal with it
[00:37:57] you can't anticipate everything
[00:38:00] but sitting down and having that conversation beforehand
[00:38:03] can really work wonders
[00:38:06] the other thing is
[00:38:08] we focus on shared values rather than differentiating values
[00:38:14] when we're passionate about an idea
[00:38:16] we want to talk about what differentiates it
[00:38:19] because that's what makes us passionate in the first place
[00:38:21] but if we want to bring other people in
[00:38:24] we need to focus on shared values
[00:38:26] so I would say those two things Adele
[00:38:29] first try and anticipate
[00:38:32] and build strategies for the resistance you're likely to face
[00:38:36] and second focus on shared values
[00:38:38] rather than differentiating values
[00:38:41] Thanks for tuning in to Changemaker Mindset
[00:38:46] If you enjoyed today's episode
[00:38:48] don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review
[00:38:51] and follow us on social media
[00:38:53] to stay updated on all the latest episodes
[00:38:55] Your support helps us bring more insightful conversations to the table
[00:39:00] and don't miss out on our next episode
[00:39:02] where we'll be chatting with Whitney Johnson
[00:39:04] who emphasizes the power of personal and professional disruption
[00:39:08] as a catalyst for growth
[00:39:10] she believes that taking calculated risks
[00:39:12] stepping out of comfort zones
[00:39:14] and fostering individual progress
[00:39:16] are key to achieving transformation
[00:39:19] Whitney's journey from a secretary
[00:39:20] to a top equity analyst
[00:39:22] showcases how disruption on a personal level
[00:39:24] can lead to significant impact in the world
[00:39:28] And I have this almost in-co-it sense
[00:39:31] that if I'm going to do what I feel like I'm meant to do in my life
[00:39:35] whatever that is, because we don't know for sure
[00:39:37] I'm going to need to disrupt myself
[00:39:40] Until then, keep making change happen