Looking Forward, Looking Back
Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, has the ability to see the past and the future simultaneously. We mortals have a similar ability – vision, hope as well as fear are all residents of the future, while perspective, pride, and regret dwell in the past. As we look forward and as we look back the good and the bad weave together inseparably.
This series, Housing 360, is focused on documenting multiple perspective of a housing department in transition. At Ohio State, the university as a whole is amid a cultural transformation so our transition within housing exists in a broader context of university transition. We see the future: Our president sees an Ohio State that functions far less based on the bureaucratic ethic of fairness and operating with far more focus on common sense and the individual experience of the student. Our department is transitioning from a two-year period of being governed by numbers (i.e. counting the number of student programs) to a model of student engagement more akin to student affairs than accounting.
While we see the future, we also see the past: The “CYA” behavior of assigning blame and distancing ourselves from our mistakes, have hindered us from learning from our errors – dooming us to repeat them. If a shift in the culture has indeed taken place, the difficulty is in convincing people who have been formed by the culture of the past, that it is now safe to take chances and make mistakes. While the future direction of the organization is largely a function of the vision of leadership, the cultural change brought about on the ground is largely a function of individual choice. To commit to look forward and let go of past perceived transgressions of colleagues, who were operating in the context of a different organization.
My “default” settings, like most people, are set to avoid pain, but yielding to the fear of future pain is a prescription of paralysis. The question for myself is to what degree am I willing to blindfold myself to the past and re-invest in fractured relationships and understand that individual behavior is largely a function of the organizational culture? A shift in the direction of an organization’s culture is an opportunity to begin again, focus on the students we serve and our role in assisting them in defining and reaching their personal, academic and career goals.
As you think about your work setting, what cultural aspects of the past must be left behind in order to move forward? What responsibilities does university leadership have to set the create and implement cultural change and where do our responsibilities lie?
Tags: Management, Staff
I agree that there is risk of pain or disappointment when putting oneself out there again. However, the support being given to leaving the past behind and starting anew is truly being promoted up, down and across many areas of the university. In order to grow we need to promote and embrace the idea that what’s past is past. While learning from the past, we will only get to the future as we look forward.