"required reading" for chairs
 

I am the new VP for my colony and I was thinking about how to go about getting all my chairs on the same page for winter quarter when they take over their positions. I have read many of the popular self improvement books like "7 habits of highly effective people" and "how to win friends and influence people".

I was wondering if anyone has participated in something similar to this and how it went as well as any suggestions you may have for material along these lines.

My goal is to unify my chairs on the importance of organization, delegation, and timeliness. By giving them the same book to read over winter break, and we can return and talk about it - maybe share notes or whatever we will grow together and expand based on a point of common knowledge.

We are at a critical point either we are going to explode this quarter, charter, and be the best new fraternity on campus or ... we aren't and a lot of us will have wasted a lot of time and money.

Thanks for your help and suggestions!

Did you find the colonizing materials from your national insufficient? That's something that definitely all the chairs should read.

As far as the self-improvement books...some people really like them and get a lot out of them, and some people can't stand them and think they're a lot of hooey. If you're the only one that's jazzed on them, "requiring" them to be read isn't going to endear you to anyone. But you know your guys better than I do to know if they'd be receptive.

Everyone is going to do things a little differently and you all have to find a way to work together - that's part of being Greek.

Members are extremely overprogrammed as it is between sorority obligations, other activities, family, friends, and oh yeah... school.

Don't make them do a book report. If you want everyone on the same page, plan and facilitate an interactive workshop at officer transitioning. At most, pass out a one sheet where you summarize those 7 habits. Although these seven habits are common sense. You might get a more inspired response if you invite the officers to participate in a collective brainstorming session where you take their ideas and draw up on a white board the "7 Highly Effective Habits of a Sorority Officer." People are more inclined to go with the program when they are allowed to participate in the program. Be sensitive that these officers are volunteers.

(Psst....he's a guy...);)

I would definitely shy away from making the reading required... it just isn't the best way to motivate others. Maybe the best thing to do would be to come up with a program presenting the 7 effective habits and either present this to the executive/chapter council or to the entire chapter. Make sure you have visual diagrams and handouts, and then at the end of the program, let people know where they can buy/borrow the book from if they get really excited about the material and want to learn more.

Unless you're one of the rare people gifted with the ability to use PowerPoint effectively......no.

I would say a good 90% of the population should not use PP. Sure, any moron can put a few slides together and read the info off of them at people, but that's not how PP should be used. You should use it for MAIN points, charts, graphs, graphics, etc...but generally, people slap their speech outline, or heck, even their whole speech on there and then read it to the audience like a 1st grade reading lesson. B-O-R-I-N-G. Just as bad as having to read selfhelp books and do book reports on them.

I totally agree -- PP should be used as an aid, not as a documentation of everything you're going to say. I recently had to sit through a Powerpoint presentation that was little more than taking information and adding bullet points. The presenter pretty much just read the slides. In the end, many people in the meeting stopped listening, and then all the information ended up being repeated afterwards when people were given the chance to ask questions. In the end, the entire presentation was a waste of time because the info had to be represented in a way that everyone could digest.

PP can be effective, but only if you're going to incorporate some type of multimedia content into the presentation or you have some other reason why having one will be really powerful. PP is not just an excuse to show that you know how to find silly graphics online and know how to use a projector.