ACM SIGUCCS 2025 Conference

Picture this, May 2020 and the semester is wrapping up - classes were 100% virtual, students had vacated their dorms in March and commencement has been postponed - for a year??

My institution, a small liberal arts college in New England, was trying to balance financial obligations with the want to continue to provide for its employees. With the campus on lockdown and hundreds of thousands of dollars returned for room and board, there needed to be a way to cut costs. I was approached by my leadership and told that I would need to furlough one full time employee.

With a small team of only 4 people, I knew the team would never recover if 1 single person had to bear that weight. I shared this concern and suggested that each position be cut 10 hours per week - equally sharing the weight of the furlough.

It was then up to me to develop a plan that still provided the coverage needed for our department. Often as leaders, we feel like we have to have all the answers. Why is that? Is it because leaders feel a strong sense of responsibility and accountability to their direct reports?
Are they afraid of being vulnerable in front of their team? Are they supposed to have every answer and work in a vacuum? Is it all decisions or just these personnel decisions that we wrestle with having to have the right answer.

In this talk, hear a real world example of how empowering your team to devise a solution improved the overall outcome of a difficult situation.