Expectations

12/14/15 Expectations?

 

Psychologist and author, Randy Carlson is noted for saying, “Expectations minus reality equals disappointment.” Have you ever experienced a sense of dread for a long time ahead of an impending, negative circumstance only to have it not happen? Did you find yourself oddly both relieved and yet disappointed? You had put so much mental energy into worrying about this upcoming badness and then it didn’t happen. You had steeled yourself and, maybe, built specific contingencies to accommodate any craziness that might arise from this tough situation… and it didn’t happen. Like WINTER IN MICHIGAN? There is literally no indicator in the long-term weather models that we will have a winter!

What will this do to our favorite past-time: complaining about the snow, cold, school snow days and bad drivers in terrible road conditions? It’s a little weird for us to think that we won’t have that tough situation. What will we do with ourselves? What do we do with unmet expectations? Truly we need to reset our mind and readjust our expectations. We help our students do this throughout our day- evaluate their situation and adjust their expectations to their current reality. Are we continually, also, doing this for ourselves? What will we complain about? Probably about not having snow. Or, maybe we won’t complain. Yeah. I know. I laughed, too.

Service from a Distance

2/25/13 Service from a Distance

 

Increasingly, we conduct business with and provide services to our students in online environments. We utilize the obvious email and web-site help forums but also social media and now Skype. For those of us who have been working in face-to-face student service and customer service jobs for a long time may find these virtual communications mediums a little uncomfortable. But this is the reality of the expectations of our digital native customers. We are used to “connecting” with our students in-person. We know and see the benefits of that personal connection. Yet, students don’t always feel the need to connect interpersonally with a human. Frequently they just want their needs met and have a built-in expectation that we would provide just as excellent and comprehensive service online as we do in-person. This, then, leaves us with (at least) two challenges… Provide outstanding service online and be cognizant of the consideration that many of our F2F customers might not be comfortable interacting in online environments. Are we meeting that challenge and exceeding those expectations?

To Resolve To...

1/25/16 To Resolve to…

 

So, how are your New Year’s Resolutions going? Did you make any? Why, or why not? Most people I know who don’t make them believe that they are more of a fad or the result of peer pressure than anything necessary. Certainly, we know that almost no one fulfills their resolutions. “Resolution” is a word with several meanings. We use the term relevant to New Year’s to describe our resolve to accomplish something. Consider author Alex Morritt’s thoughts, “Making New Year resolutions is one thing. Remaining resolute and seeing them through is quite another.” We could also use it to describe the solution to a problem. I have observed that we make “resolutions” to resolve a concern that we perceive plagues us; our health, our thought life, our habits, etc. Considering that we frequently use resolutions to end bad habits, I remember the classic Mark Twain quote, “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.”


Quitting a bad habit does, probably, require several attempts. Changing something significant about our lives DOES take intention and a particular moment when we try to steel our resolve to tackle it. Find a resolution to your problem. Use all of your other faculties to control a really big one in your life/body that is holding you back. Use the same intelligence I see you use in your work to resolve the problem you are looking to fix. As Dejan Stojanovic quipped, “Now that we are all so smart, we don’t easily find resolutions.” The solution isn’t easy, but it’s worth working on. So, don’t quit quitting, and don’t stop starting! Never stop improving.