Remember Long Division?

Was anyone else like me in elementary and middle school math?  I would take addition and multiplication over subtraction and division any day.  I don’t really know why, maybe they were easier, or maybe it was the budding optimist screaming inside me saying more of everything for everyone!  Either way, I especially could not stand long division.  It took too long and took up too much paper and sometimes you didn’t even wind up with an exact answer!  Divide 2041 by 33 and you get 61.8484848… with a remainder of the frustration over the loss of my hopes and dreams and time I’ll never get back.  The calculator is a beautiful invention and one I wish we were allowed to use early in our learning of mathematics.  Then we could push past the “how to do it” and get to the “real world application” of math that would have been more engaging and applicable later in life.

Note: I mean no disrespect to Math teachers.  Mine played a valuable role in my education but I’m just saying we are not going back to abacuses and slide-rules anytime soon.  As a teacher, I personally would have more fun focusing on the application piece of what I’m teaching.  Maybe I’m alone on that, maybe I’m going to get beat up by a bunch of math teachers until I have 5! bruises on me (120 bruises for those of you trying to remember what a factorial is).  Either way, technology helps us be more efficient in our lives and hopefully allows us to spend more time doing the things we love vs. completing menial tasks.As much as I love technology though, there is one area where we cannot rely on it.  Problem solving in our organizations will never being effectively fixed by texting or emailing. They are passive forms of communication.  If members are slacking off, not showing up for meetings/events, not paying dues, etc. a text message or guilt-trippy email will not cause them to suddenly change course.  The technique we must employee is the long division equivalent to text messaging, a face-to-face conversation.Talking face-to-face is hard.  It’s awkward. It’s time consuming. But, it’s effective.  Remember that nice text you got one time thanking you for doing something?  Yeah, me neither.  Remember that time someone asked you to go out for coffee/tea just so they could tell you how what you did made a positive impact?  Heck yeah I do!  The same thing works for developmental moments that leaders need to have with their members.  Texts can be deleted or dismissed with an Emoji reply.  Emails can be read and scoffed at then left to die in the inbox abyss.  Face-to-face conversations cannot be ignored. Next time you have a member not doing what they are supposed to be doing and/or going against your organization’s mission, invite them for ice cream or to go for a walk.  Get out of the residence hall, campus center, or fraternity/sorority house and share what you have noticed.  See if something bigger has been going on in their lives. Ask if they are still passionate about the organization and if not, ask why are they still in it?    If they do still care then together come up with a course of action to get them reinvigorated.   It will be awkward.  But if you approach it authentically and don’t attack them, then it will be effective.   Take the time, do it correctly and then in the end, just like with long division, you’ll get the right answer.