Do Not Worry About The Numbers

For many years, I worked at an institution that prided itself in its competency-based model, which then drove data-based decision making. It’s easy to draw the A to B on this one. Faculty were held responsible for the completion data of their students: how many students completed the course within 6 months. The data was direct and succinct. But my leadership policy was to not hold my faculty responsible for this data. I would de-emphasize this when the topic came up.

Actually, nearly every year, I was known for saying this:

There was a reporter once that asked Mother Teresa, “We always seem to have the problem of poverty. We never escape it. What can we do about it?” She replied “Turn to the person closest to you, and love them.”

Of course, this is a story, based on her lifetime of interviews, actions, and what she shared of her beliefs. But I find the story rings true so I don’t blush in sharing it.

And I would encourage my faculty in this way…

“Don’t worry about what your completion rates are. Students will be students.

But the email at the top of your Inbox--that is the person closest to you. Help them. When your phone rings, and it is a student struggling and they can’t understand how to be successful, that is the person closest to you. Help them. When it is your turn on a Help Line and a call is routed to you, take the call. Help them. Help them like they are the only student you’ve ever met. This is how you approach numbers. If you do this with each student that appears in front of you, I’ll provide cover from every other force at this university. I’ll provide resources, time off, and respect for your work."


And none of my faculty were ever fired or let go for their performance numbers.


Indeed in the 14 years I was at that university, the Satisfactory Academic Performance rate (SAP) never moved from 72%. Students always completed, on average across the entire university, about ¾ of their work each term.

And I’ll share this tidbit with you–just to show you that it’s all fine to boast but…was there really any danger?

Yes. Every year I was a leader, I only met half of my goals. 50%. Every year I submitted my own performance evaluation, I’d laugh and feel like I was tossing my own “oh well” paper into an inbox of some class I just would not master. That 72% held firm. We weren’t going to move it and I wasn’t going to make my faculty die on a battlefield that we were not going to win. It was an infinite game and I played to keep my faculty going (to stay employed) so that they would keep helping students, so that students would keep being successful. Yeah, not every student, we could not save them all. But we did not fall on our swords so that performance numbers would go up. The courses were hard and we were teaching math and science to non-majors. Said another way, our student could not have cared less for the material. Just passing was their goal and I respected that.

(Another leadership rule, after EVERYONE IS A LEADER and GROW UP MORE LEADERS is PICK YOUR BATTLES. Don’t fight all of them. This one—the numbers, the data—wasn’t worth fighting. So I refused.)

Want to learn more? I suggest you research The Infinite Game, by Simon Sinek, research the phrase “deficit thinking” (and if you like, the short rabbit trail of “growth mindset”) and of course, there is much more about this in the Holy Bible, if you care to venture in. Oh, and do the math on what I just wrote; I was doing this years before the 2018 video I just referenced. I was doing the Infinite Game play before it was called that. In my book, it’s just called leadership.

 Photo by Ahmet Sali on Unsplash