What if Pledging Programs Sounded Like This?

Check out some of these clips of Steve Kerr (head coach of the defending NBA champions the Golden State Warriors) talking to team superstar Stephen Curry.




Coaching. It's not just for sports anymore.

Coaching is a term that is readily used now to describe any relationship in which someone with knowledge or understanding imparts that knowledge or understanding to someone who needs it.

Coaching is a term in the modern workplace. Good managers no longer just manage, they coach.

Coaching is a term in leadership development. To train and prepare an emerging leader is to coach him or her. Executives of Fortune 500 companies now routinely have personal coaches with whom they can seek advice and be pushed to improve their leadership and strategies.

In fraternity and sorority life, coaching can play a large and present role each and every day. But perhaps there is no more apparent place for coaching than in the new member education / pledging process. Here we have young men and women for whom fraternity life is a new concept (or one pre-loaded with incorrect assumptions and expectations). On the other hand, we have those with experience and knowledge (albeit maybe only a year of experience) and can now pass those learnings along.

Many fraternities and sororities use a big brother or big sister program as part of pledging, which can become a built-in mentoring relationship even after the new member is initiated. Like many things in Greek life, it seems to me that the truly powerful opportunity of a big brother / big sister relationship is being squandered. It is mostly seen as "cute" extra connection between brothers or sisters resulting in gift-giving and little else.

So what could be done instead of or in addition to that reality? Feedback.

The best thing a coach can provide to a "player" is feedback. There are two kinds of feedback: developmental and appreciative.

Developmental feedback is for those times in which a person needs to be confronted or provided with constructive criticism. While there are many examples in sports of coaches that do this is an attacking way, in productive mentoring relationships this is done in a way that builds up a person, and not tears them down. Some phrases a good coach might use would be: have you considered doing it this way, or what do you think the impact of that choice had on others, or what decision might have created a different outcome? Truthfully, developmental feedback is the hardest for me and it turns my stomach into knots. I don't like confrontation, but I've also realized that it's essential if I want to get the best out of others. I'm still getting better at it, and a few tips I'll pass along:

1. Prepare ahead of time. Do not go into a developmental feedback conversation without practicing how you phrase your comments, and without considering what kind of response you'll get.

2. Focus on the behavior, not the person. You are providing feedback on a choice or decision they made, not on their personal character. This makes it easier for the person to receive the feedback, plus you can remind them that you too have made dumb or wrong choices before.

3. Do it in private and do not embarrass the other person. Developmental feedback is private and the goal is to help the other person. Being publicly shamed or humiliated (even if the coach has good intentions) can create anger and defensiveness.

And now...for my favorite. Appreciative feedback. This is the stuff leaders live for. This is an opportunity for you to make someone's day and in turn, make your own spirit brighter. Appreciate feedback is noticing an action or behavior, praising it, helping the other person make sense of it, and encouraging him/her to do more if it. The video above is full of appreciative feedback, and it's truly what makes that coach get the most out of his all-star player.

Let's say your little brother in the fraternity arrives to a chapter meeting early and is spending time talking to each brother, shaking hands, and being friendly and conversational. You like this behavior and want to see more of it. Here is a formula to follow:

• Observation: what positive action, behavior, or demonstrated quality did you observe?
  "I noticed that you went out of your way to give greetings to each of the brothers."
• Acknowledgement: reflect back on your observation.
  "I think this was a great way for you to meet more of the members and to help create a good environment for the meeting." 
• Appreciation: add meaning to the person’s behavior from your point of view.
  "I appreciate that you want to build relationships with the other members and be an active presence in the fraternity. This is exactly what will make this fraternity stronger."

Powerful stuff. And all you had to do was notice it and comment on it. 

Choose to be a coach to those younger members in your chapter. But not just any coach. Be the kind that gets the best out their players by giving life-changing feedback. You will be amazed at how rewarding it can be to help a young person grow and improve. And you might even by surprised by how much you grow and improve in return. 

Fraternity and the Power of Reception

Let’s visit about the topic of new member education.

Recruitment numbers for Greek organizations are still rising, and from that standpoint, fraternity and sorority life seems healthy.  There now exists an opportunity to build the largest and greatest generation of fraternity and sorority members our movement has ever known.  Or, we could squander this chance. Will all these new recruits become an energizing and life-giving force that brings us closer to the true purpose of fraternity, or, might they do the opposite?  

For all the boasting I see from one national fraternity to the next about the record-breaking size of their initiate class, can even one of them boast that these new men or women are record-breaking in terms of being values-centric?  Or that their fraternities are meeting mission more than ever before? There are more people coming in the door, but can we truly say our movement is changing in any significant way? 

Other than it’s quantifiably bigger? 

For this next generation to bring fraternity closer to its ideal, they need to be the ones brought closest to the Ritual.  In support of this vision, it’s time to rethink the purpose and value of new member education.  

If the pinnacle of the fraternity experience is the Ritual and hence the revelation of her truths, then something very significant stands between a young man or woman’s decision to join and this profound moment: new member education. 

It’s time to truly examine the concept of new member education in fraternity and sorority life and frame it in terms of its true purpose.  Which of course begs the question…what is the true purpose of new member education?   

To get there, consider this thought which someone passed along to me recently: in order to receive a gift that is profound, one must be willing and prepared to receive it.  If they are unwilling, then the gift is dismissed.  If they are not prepared, then the gift loses its significance.  This is the power of reception.   

The Ritual is a gift.  It is the most precious gift the fraternity can bestow upon a member.  It is the gift that needs to be willingly accepted and received in order to attain the other gifts of fraternity, such as brotherhood and benevolence.  

And could it be that one of the fundamental problems in fraternity and sorority life these days is that we do not adequately prepare young men and women to receive this gift.  For most chapters, Ritual seems to act like a punctuation mark on pledging, but is not treated as the reason why we have new member education to begin with.  We cloud new member education with all sorts of ineffective and tangential elements and then leave the Ritual to stand alone in itattempt to be a watershed moment.  

And so, in my view, the primary purpose of new member education is to prepare men and women to receive the ultimate gift of the fraternity/sorority experience, the Ritual. 

If at the end of a new member education, a new member cannot say he or she is ready to receive the Ritual, and furthermore, after receiving the Ritual, cannot identify its lessons and the power behind them, then your new member education is worthless.  It doesn’t matter if the new member could stand on his head and recite the Greek alphabet backwards while juggling bowling balls with his feet. A powerful reception to the Ritual is the ONLY way to judge the effectiveness of your new member education. 

It’s not to say some of the areas you already focus on do not matter. 

New member education can teach the history of fraternity, for context is important for preparation. 

New member education can introduce the members to each other, since a supportive community can help aid in reception. 

New member education can focus on the development of self-awareness, since knowing oneself can more fully open one’s heart and mind to the Ritual.  

What it cannot do is weaken the will or fortitude of the new members through hazing or ridiculous and pointless activities. To enter into the Ritual in a weakened, broken-down, or inebriated state does not allow one to receive its power.  You can walk through the motions, but make no mistake what you have done through hazing, hell weeks, or the like: you have profaned the very essence of fraternity because you have stripped away an individual’s ability to be receptive to its core message.

So, what does a new member education program look like that prepares a person to receive the Ritual? One simple way to view it is to imagine that Ritual is like the Bible, and new member education is a Bible study.

Consider some of these “radical” notions:

What if the Ritual book was the textbook for new member education? And, the book was read and analyzed entirely before the ceremony of initiation? You could still hold a few of the secrets back. But the language in our Rituals is so verbose and carefully written, it's a lot for someone to absorb and appreciate by just listening.

What if our new members rehearsed the Ritual ceremony prior to it taking place? Weddings have rehearsals, and it doesn't make the actual wedding ceremonies any less important. It just makes participants more prepared and thus more able to comprehend what's happening.

What if the a new member's big brother / big sister was required to attend all new member education sessions as well, and their role was redesigned to be similar to someone sponsoring a new member into a faith community. In other words, their role is to help prepare the new member to receive the Ritual.

In previous posts I have argued that pledging is unnecessary and should be eliminated. My extreme position was based upon pledging and new member education continuing to be what it is today, and has been for decades. If it can be reformed to be an experience that equips a new member to have a powerful reception to the Ritual, then my argument changes from unnecessary to essential.

First Graduate, Then Initiate

I am an advocate for eliminating pledging from the fraternity experience - an idea that gets a lot of opposition whenever it gets raised.  Undergraduates and alumni alike seem to really like the idea of pledging, and most seem to consider it a critical element of fraternity life.  I still don’t like it, but if we need to have it, let’s make the most of it.

What if, instead, we doubled-down on pledging?  If it is truly a critical piece - the preparatory period for a young adult to learn how to live the values of the fraternity/sorority - then let’s not leave it to just 4, 6, or 8 weeks.  What about 4 years instead?  I’m not joking.

What if fraternity and sorority members weren’t officially initiated into their fraternity or sorority until the day after they graduated from college?  That’s right - undergraduate students would be “pledging” their organization for the length of their undergraduate years (or at least from whatever point as an undergrad they accept their bid for membership).

Graduating seniors would go to commencement, walk across the stage, flip the tassel, have a nice lunch with family and friends, and then head over to the chapter house for the initiation Ritual.

Here are some intriguing benefits of such an idea:

• If everyone in the undergraduate chapter is a “new member” or “pledge,” then the power dynamic of pledge vs. active is removed.  All are striving towards the same goal: initiation.
• Undergraduate members would learn the values and expectations of the organization, and their initiation could be contingent on how well they lived those values during their college years.  Perhaps someone could not be initiated unless their peers and advisors vouched for their character.  The deadbeat Seniors would drift away and would never be allowed into full membership.
• Fraternities and Sororities could set a GPA requirement for initiation that takes the entire 4-5 undergraduate years into account.
• Once initiated, the recent graduates would receive information on getting involved in a young professionals chapter of their organization in the city/town to which they relocate.  And, the excitement of initiation could mean they are more inspired to be involved as a recent alum.
• If it turns out a particular fraternity isn’t a good fit - there is more flexibility to change one’s mind.  If I accept a bid to one sorority as a freshman, but then discover as a sophomore that another sorority is more congruent with my values, then I move on.  No letter to the headquarters promising that I won’t divulge secrets would be required.  Does that make you nervous that people would be jumping from org to org in a chaotic fashion?  What are you afraid of?  Shouldn’t we embrace the goal of matching personal values with organizational values, no matter how long it takes to figure that out?
• Because of that same flexibility, national fraternities/sororities would be more accountable for providing a quality experience.  In a way, they would need to make the case to the undergrads for four years that the fraternity or sorority is something to be proud of.

Of course the idea isn't perfect.  Would uninitiated men and women be interested in operating an organization they aren't fully members of?  Maybe the friendship and fellowship would still be enough of a draw to make that happen.  Many other issues would need to be worked out.  However, member apathy, hazing, and alumni engagement are perpetual problems we have no bold answers for.  Maybe there is a solution to be found in waiting until a young person experiences one of the proudest moments of their life - graduation - before they receive an experience equally as profound - their fraternity initiation.

(This post has been updated since its original post date of 10/11/2011)

It’s Time to End Pledging

The onset of recruitment activities in fraternal organizations across North America leads to the onset of pledging activities. The former involves the best of fraternity – self-governance, building friendships, creating connections, etc. The latter, in my view, represents the worst of fraternity.

I believe it is time to consider eliminating pledging from the fraternity experience. Of course, this is a decision each fraternity needs to make on their own. However, it’s become ridiculous to see how much we bend over backwards to keep some form of pledging alive. 12 weeks, 8 weeks, 4 weeks. Instead of shortening the pledge periods, or trying to soften their effect by creating elaborate “member education programs,” I think we’ll solve many problems by just scrapping pledging altogether.

At least a couple of national fraternities have tried to eliminate pledging. Typically, these attempts are thwarted by alumni who couldn’t go along with the idea of a pledge-free experience. Zeta Beta Tau continues to be pledging-free. New members must be initiated within 72 hours of receiving a bid. I would challenge ZBT to more actively promote this, since it is a very distinguishable selling point.

Most fraternities hold tightly to pledging as if it was part of our founders’ vision. Pledging was something added to the fraternity experience much later, and we existed for many years without it. It emerged in the early 1900’s. How it came about is unclear. Some sources point to the influx of G.I. Bill students who brought military-style rites of passage into fraternities. Other sources claim it to be just an outgrowth of hazing activities older classes inflicted upon new freshmen (imagine kids wandering the campus wearing beanies). The point is, pledging wasn't there from the start, although we act as if it was. Pledging wasn't a necessary change or evolution of fraternity - it was an add-on. Add-ons can be removed.

Pledging has never served a critical purpose. The best pledging programs can be useful, and perhaps even beneficial to the fraternity. However, can these benefits only be gained by pledging programs? Do the positives outweigh the negatives? I cannot think of any compelling reasons why pledging is necessary for the health and sustainability of fraternal organizations. I can think several reasons why it could continue to be our downfall. Chief among these is hazing, one of the single biggest reasons men will not join our organizations.

My biggest problem with pledging is that it leads to apathy. Why would we take committed, eager, energetic young men, and right from the beginning of their experience, give them a finish line? That’s what initiation has become in most fraternities and sororities. It’s viewed as the end, and not the beginning.

Those that cling to pledging argue that it’s the best way for a new member to learn about the history and values of the fraternity. Really? I’d bet that in 90% of fraternities that use pledging as the primary educational vehicle, 90% of the chapter forgets everything they were taught in pledging. History can be conveyed to new members outside of the pledging structure. Values are taught through Ritual, which is something used continuously – again outside of the pledging structure. Pledging is not the only (or even the best) vehicle to teach history and values.

Proponents of pledging also argue that it creates pledge class unity. Why do we care so much about pledge class unity? We don’t need to force unity upon a group of men who will likely bond anyway due to their similar ages, class year, and life experiences. As Dave Westol and others have taught me, individuals join a fraternity, not a pledge class.

Finally, those who argue for pledging describe it as the best way to test the commitment level of potential initiates. If this were true, we wouldn’t have member apathy as an issue of concern in almost 100% of our chapters. Commitment can be judged based on a recruit’s past experiences (the best predictor of future behavior). Pledging is a false test of commitment.

So what should we do instead? Recruit better. We should employ effective, well-designed, and disciplined recruitment processes that allow us to investigate a man’s character before we offer a bid. We should take time to get to know his past accomplishments and his future goals. Maybe we should even demand recommendation letters from high school teachers or coaches? After we give him a bid, we should immediately assign him a mentor (such as a big brother) who helps him learn fraternity history, policies, and responsibilities. We should immediately include him in all fraternity activities except for Ritual activities. We should then initiate him as soon as possible.

I believe that the national fraternity that eliminates pledging, gains buy-in from alumni and undergraduates by arguing the points described above, and then promotes a pledging-free experience to potential members, will see immediate benefits. Alumni may be angry. Give them a fraternity that grows and excels, and they will get over it.

Let’s quit tinkering around the edges and instead, show boldness that would make our founders proud. It’s time for pledging to go. We don't need it anymore. Actually, we never did.