In this episode of Roompact’s ResEdChat, Crystal talks with Kristen Rollins about how gatherings and various forms of communication in residence life can move beyond routine to become catalysts for change. Kristen shares lessons on leading transformation in student affairs, emphasizing the power of honoring people’s time, presence, and humanity to create lasting cultural shifts.
Guest: Kristen Rollins (she/her/hers), Managing Consultant, Propeller
Host: Crystal Lay
Listen to the Podcast:
Watch the Video:
Show Notes:
Books:
- The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker
- Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual by Luvvie Ajayi Jones
Video:
Pictures/Charts:
- Eisenhower Matrix (one example but many sources available)
- Kubler-Ross Change Curve
Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast is a platform to showcase people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. If you have a topic idea for an episode, let us know!
Transcript:
Crystal Lay:
Hello and welcome back to Roompact’s Res Ed Chat podcast, a platform to showcase people doing great work and talking about topics and residence life and college student housing. I’m your host, Crystal Lay, and I use a she/her as pronouns. Now, you all may know if you’re regular listeners that every person and every topic to me is exciting. Guess what? Today is no different because today we’re going to talk about how meetings, trainings, and events can move beyond routine obligations to become more meaningful, focused, and also tied to the why. Today, we’re going to talk about alignment and connection in the work that we do in housing and residence life. I’m very excited about our guests today, and I’ll have them introduce themselves.
Kristen Rollins:
Hey, thank you so much for having me. I’m Kristen Rollins. I’m super excited to be here and part of this conversation. I’ve spent a better part of my career in higher ed, including more than 15 years working in student affairs overall, so activities, involvement, et cetera. Even way back when I was an RA, I’ve worked in Res Life as a student, because that’s how we roll in any student affairs folks. My last role was a director of a student union at a large public institution. I supported anything from student orgs, to large scale campus events, to policies, strategic initiatives, all the fun stuff. But these days I’m actually working at a consulting firm as a consultant where I help organizations, especially in the public sector, really navigate, change, improve processes and stay connected to their mission through human centered strategies.
It’s fun to take my higher ed work and flip that over into more of a consulting role. I would say my sweet spot is really connecting that big picture to day to day and really helping people feel equipped to do great work, so I’m excited to be here. Also, just as a fun tip or piece of me outside of work, I chase kids around. I have a couple kids, so I know how to do a connection when it comes to six and eight year olds also. Then, I like to do things like have my book club and hang out and just do fun outdoor things in Colorado. I’m excited to be here and figure out ways to help create more connection amongst folks.
Crystal Lay:
Oh my gosh, I love that. Thank you for sharing those pieces and I really know you’re going to share some great content for our listeners and folks who may be viewing it. In your introduction, you said the C word, you said change, so I think we’re going to start there. You’ve had the opportunity to navigate change in everything from supporting large scale events, being the director of the student union, as you mentioned, supporting student organizations, student activities, and currently you’re a consultant. What’s one lesson from those different experiences that you think every housing professional could benefit from?
Kristen Rollins:
I’m going to give you two because I can’t hold it back. It’s really exciting, so bear with me, but it’s fun. I think the first one that’s super important to me when you think about change is that people don’t really resist change. Everyone thinks that, but they don’t resist change. What they do is they actually resist feeling powerless to change. Really, if we make sure that they don’t have the uncertainty and the lack of control and the fear of being left behind, which is that resistance, then change isn’t really inherently scary. Empowering folks, identifying the roles that really they would be serving and being really clear about those expectations, they can really be a part of it and it becomes less scary.
They’re not resisting, they’re trying to understand where they fit in the picture. When you’re doing that, you have to know that change is both logical, right? We’re like, “Here’s the new org chart. This is exactly what makes sense.” But it’s really emotional too. It’s not just logical. For me, I’m a direct communicator. I rarely tie emotions to work, and I know that that’s something that needs to not happen when we think about change, I need to be thoughtful on that. I need to be able to show people in the org chart, this is where you’re going to be, but then also say, okay, why does this matter to you, to your values, to your community? Because if there isn’t both emotional and logical buy-in, then it’s going to be a rocky road.
That’s one, is that people don’t resist change, they resist the fact that they don’t have any control and you didn’t give them any part of involvement in this. One big lesson. Lesson two, which I think we probably all know, but always worth reiterating, communication is not the same as engagement. When we’re emailing folks a plan, that’s not them being engaged, that’s them getting some information. Announcing the plan is not enough. True engagement is getting folks to be a part of the process. It’s listening, it’s co-creating, it’s allowing people to shape what’s being built. As you go through change, you have to think about how do you include people, but note that when you’re doing that, it’s going to be a little bit messy and that’s okay, so early wins do matter.
Seeing that you’re trying to listen, even if it’s not perfect, that’s going to help more than a perfect plan, is to say, how do you get people engaged early on throughout that process? You’re building that momentum even if you’re stumbling along the way and this small victories help that happen. That’s the piece. Then, Crystal, because I’m talking about change and I really like change, I’m going to geek out for a moment, if you don’t mind.
Crystal Lay:
Let’s do it. Let’s do it.
Kristen Rollins:
Okay. Now that I spent more time in consulting, we’re always trying to explain to people what change looks like to people when it comes in, and this is the geeky part. There is a change curve that maybe a lot of people know about, but it’s the Kübler-Ross Change Curve. You start up here and people go through all sorts of emotions. It’s the idea of you’re denying the change, your anger, bargaining, depression, all that fun stuff, less fun stuff, I guess. Then, you’re trying to make way to acceptance. Acceptance is up here. You’re going through that whole process. Everyone really wants to say, okay, let’s just start with shocking people with information and hopping over to acceptance.
How come there’s no specific bridge here? Because we have done nothing to get them through the rest of the parts of the process. Really, when you’re thinking about engagement versus just communicating, you’re helping build that ladder so the curve isn’t as deep. You’re always going to have the process of people going through those stressful moments, but you’re not going to have as deep of a curve if you’re using those tools to get them moving forward. Does that make sense? That’s my geeky part.
Crystal Lay:
It makes sense because I think we want folks to get over it, right? This happens. It’s a part of our work. Get over it. We were asked to do this thing, just make it happen. Without acknowledging that I think it can be hard, and that’s different than the resistance piece you talked about. Change and transition can be hard. There are theories about how to navigate transition and how do we make sure we’re leaning into that more. That’s really powerful. We could stop here, because I’m like, “I need to go. This is great.”
Kristen Rollins:
I could spend days on change alone because it’s so fascinating and fun.
Crystal Lay:
Great. I want to transition out and talk a little bit about, again, the fast pace we’re moving. We’re always doing stuff in housing. It feels that way. We also have a lot of meetings, Kristen, you might remember. Gatherings are constant. We have staff meetings, we have training, we have quick huddles in the hallway. How do we make sure that these moments feel meaningful and it’s just not another thing on the calendar?
Kristen Rollins:
Yes, the blocks and blocks of meetings, oh my goodness, the calendar is full. Then, between meetings, you’re like, “Oh, yeah, let’s just chat in the hallway real quick and get this thing done and it’s fine.” What I would say is what we’ve listed, there’s so many things on that, the staff meetings, the training sessions, the huddles, et cetera, it’s to be intentional. There are so many gatherings, but they all should truly have different purposes. A staff training is not the same as a meeting. We have to think about what’s the purpose of a staff training session? Is it to learn specific skills? What are those skills? Why do they need those skills?
We should be really intentional in outlining all of that. But then, we also shouldn’t say, “Okay, we know the purpose. We hear you saying it.” The training session is to train. That’s great. But then they’re like, but also, could we do a team building exercise in this? We have some announcements. Everyone’s here, so could we tell them that? The answer should be no, right? The answer is never no. The answer is, sure, at the end of it let’s do that. Or, at the beginning, let’s do this. But that wasn’t the purpose of that gathering. We need to be really, really clear to say the intention of this gathering is this one thing and it’s not other things.
Or, it could be two things, whatever those two intentions are, but then be ruthless about sticking to that intention. One of the books that I read recently and I love is The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. She reminds everyone, don’t confuse a category with a purpose. A wedding, a meeting, a happy hour, that’s a format, that’s not a purpose, when we think about that. A wedding can look so different based on who may be choosing to get married and how they’re wanting to have that, but the purpose of it is very different than the activity. The purpose is to unite two people. Maybe it’s to have families celebrate and bring this group together, whatever it might be. That’s different than the format, and so we need to think about that.
If we can’t clearly articulate our purpose, could we cancel it? Could we just cancel it? We as leaders in organizations have ownership and could say, “You know what? Let’s cancel it. Let’s figure out ways to show that we value people’s time and we understand that if we can’t articulate a purpose and be intentional, we shouldn’t have it.” If we don’t have time to develop that, maybe canceling some things would give us time to develop that for each of the areas.
Crystal Lay:
Now, Kristen, let me tell you, we don’t know how to do one thing. I do think it is time to have that conversation right on what is the purpose and how are we being really clear? If we can’t, like you said, if we can’t describe it or name it, why are we doing it? Sometimes we just keep practices and habits without really examining where they came from and why. It’s almost like that stop, start, continue exercise. I love that answer. We just like to do a bunch of stuff.
Kristen Rollins:
We do.
Crystal Lay:
We do. Now you’re getting into asking folks to rethink how we gather, or that feels like a big transformation for us. Can you share a particular time when you were able to rethink how people came together and how it changed the game for a team? Does that question make sense?
Kristen Rollins:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When I was working at Higher Ed… Wait, I say way back when, it was a couple of years ago. It’s not ancient history, but things have changed. One of my areas, I was over student activities and we were combining basically two departments. We were creating our center for student involvement, but the two departments for student activities and student orgs. It was a big transformation of like, “Hey, these organizations have been around a long time. They need to be together to serve students better.” How do we do that in a way that’s going to be effective, that’s going to get people bought in? Because it’s two different sets of organizational cultures,
It’s also so many other things. We’re thinking like facility space. We’re thinking about different humans and working styles. We’re thinking about processes, we’re thinking all the things, and really thinking about, “Okay, how do we bring people together intentionally within these organizations to be supporting the work we do, improving the work we do, and really going towards the purpose that we were combining for in the first place? Leading that, and I’ll say, I’m going to talk about this as great things, but there’s also always lessons learned and things I did wrong because I am a human and I am not perfect. People listening to this might be like, “Well, Kristen, this probably didn’t go well.”
You’re like, “Probably didn’t, you’re right.” But yeah, so I think we really worked on co-creating and saying, “Okay, this is how we’re going to do this with these areas.” We’re going to think about like, this is the solution, but the good news is we can iterate on it. Some things, when you’re deciding on a student org policy, might need to sit a certain way for a year with the academic year, the students sit that way, but then we can also say, you know what? That policy, this was bumpy for these reasons. How do we make it better? An example of that would be even just students getting recognized, organizations getting started. We discovered as we were combining that there were 17 manual steps for students to go through to create a student org.
That is bunkers, that is a lot of steps. Then, we also told them that anywhere between a week and three months later is when we’d officially be able to recognize them. We couldn’t tell them how many days. We were just like, it might be in this range. That is also bunkers. How come we can’t tell them, “Hey, within 15 days you’ll hear from us or something.” Really, it was us going back. It was, we’re thinking about our team, we’re changing our team and we’re saying, “Okay, we’re going to make adjustments, but they’re going to be student focused.” Our purpose, our intention is to be student focused. We want to make sure that our goals are the same as two teams becoming one, so it’s students first.
It’s making sure the staff culture is something that we want to be here and show up for and be a part of it. Then, we found ways that we could help people feel safe contributing. When you’re doing in a reorg, it’s not comfortable, as you talked about before, right? If people don’t know their role, then they don’t know where they fit. Is this new reorganization? Is this going to remove my job? That’s scary. We have to start out saying, “No, this is how it’s set up, we think, for now, until you tell us this is not perfect. Because you are an expert also in some of the work you do and can provide feedback, but also let’s work on this together.”
We still have rules, we still have policies. We still have to be audit compliant, but we also got the space to dream. I think the nice thing is when you have some rules and guardrails, it also gives you a chance to really feel free and plan in a realistic way. We can all do these brainstorming activities where we come together and we’re like, “Wouldn’t it be great if… ” It’s like, well, no, we still have a certain number of resources. We still have all these things, and so here’s our parameters and here’s our goal, serving students better, creating a great campus experience. How do we do all of those things or these three things and say, “We don’t need to do 20 things. We need to do three things really well. How do we do it as a team?”
Like I said, focusing really on our team culture. We brought together, one team has a Friday morning dance party, but the other team loves March Madness. How do we combine those traditions so people aren’t feeling left out in a way that they can still show up and feel supported? I think it’s just, going back to your question of rethinking how people come together really when it comes to a team is saying, “Okay, there’s not going to be one expert. There’s going to be a leader that does need to say, okay, let’s figure out the direction we’re going and align folks.” But it’s also making sure people feel valued and supported and really intentionally present, and they have a purpose and a role in the whole process.
Crystal Lay:
Wow, I like that. You’re talking about, again, the purpose, the communication pieces, making sure that people can connect themselves to these shifts and movement. You talk about the leader’s responsibility in that. I’m hearing this, I want to ask you about connecting the big picture to the day-to-day, because the leaders usually are operating at this 10,000 foot view. They’re thinking big picture. Then, the folks who are doing a lot of the work are doing the day-to-day, right? How do you think leaders in housing or residence life can do a better job of linking the why of a meeting or day-to-day operations to the what and how?
Kristen Rollins:
Yeah. We could all do a better job at that, because I think we get stuck in the grind of, we have this meeting, we have this training, we have this thing. Of course, everyone knows why we’re doing this in the big picture because it’s all here. As a leader, that’s our day-to-day head space. It’s not the day-to-day head space of people potentially in the front doing the more intricate detailed work. I think it’s the realization that it might not be the day-to-day thought process, but then I think it’s also, as the host, as the leader of, say, a training event, whatever, and you’re asking the question at a meeting, the host has the power. They need to own that.
They need to say, “Okay.” The quote I think is something along the lines of, neutrality is not hospitality. If you’re showing up and saying, “Hey, here’s the meeting.” Nope. You set the tone as the host. You’re creating the conditions. You’re enforcing the norms. You’re taking responsibility really for shaping that experience before the meeting, during the meeting, and after. Before the meeting, have you sent the agenda? Do you have the purpose of the meeting on the agenda? Are you talking about maybe even why that purpose links to the bigger picture? Is everyone going to read it? Maybe not, right? We know that they’re busy, but it’s one step in the picture.
During the meeting, how are you doing that? How are you thinking about during the meeting, creating that intention and being very specific, and then after? I think that really goes to the during and the after. It’s like you need to open with purpose. You need to close with intention. That opening needs to be like, are there opening rituals that you do to set the tone, clarify expectations. Don’t just come in and be like, “Hey, everyone, we’ll start the meeting. Hey, everyone, we’ll start the training.” Whatever. We want them to feel like they understand why they’re here, they’re excited, or if they’re not excited, which is okay, that they are passionate and see the importance of the work that’s happening in that room.
Then, when it comes to closing, closing with intention, we’re not ending a meeting saying, “Oh, thanks for coming. This has been great.” We’re not ending the meeting with, “Oh, I’ll just give you two minutes back. Have a good one.” Nope. We are ending a meeting with, “I’m grateful that you came to attend, and I am excited to see these action items come to fruition to achieve X, Y, Z purpose. I appreciate that you all in this room are contributing to X, Y, Z.” Like purpose of organization, purpose of whatever. It’s not much different. They were all through that meeting, but you’re closing it. Same even thinking about an event.
It doesn’t have to be just meetings, but an event. Instead of ending the event saying, “Thank you for coming to our concert, committee, and whatever event it is.” We’re ending the event, which it might sound silly, but we’re saying, “We’re grateful you attended the event. We’re excited that you’re part of X, Y, Z University, and that as you move forward in your day, this makes you feel more connected to whatever.” Whatever the purpose is, let’s reiterate that. It sounds really silly because, why are we doing that? Especially, can you imagine students rolling their eyes when they’re hearing that, right? But they don’t have to necessarily… they can think it’s cheesy, but they are hearing inside that we want them to be part of something.
We did this in a way that felt thoughtful and intentional, and that we want them to be part of our community. We want them to know why. I think that whether it’s a meeting, whether it’s an event, I think you can do that, and it’s not hard. It’s just a small twist of language that could really create those meetings to tie that how and the what and the why altogether.
Crystal Lay:
How affirming, right? You make people feel like spending time together felt good.
Kristen Rollins:
Because it did, right?
Crystal Lay:
Right, it felt good and it was thoughtful, and it feels like an honor that we shared this space together. Then, as a leader, to model what a meeting could look like, because I think we just assume, “Here’s the job. Go lead this meeting. Go facilitate.” There are some folks who are just making stuff up because they haven’t seen a good meeting structure, don’t have anything to pull from, or they’ve been in bad meetings and they replicate that because they haven’t seen any different. I think you just shared a really beautiful opportunity for leaders to model with the intention how to be in community with others when you’re bringing folks together.
I want to talk about, as you know or may remember from your time in housing, everything feels important. Everything is priority. How do you stay focused as a team when you’re pulled in what feels like 100 directions?
Kristen Rollins:
My first knee-jerk answer to that is don’t, don’t give teams hundreds of priorities, right? Don’t. Because that’s part of it. It’s like nothing’s going to get done well if you have all these priorities. I also understand the world that we live in and how work comes in. But I do think if I don’t answer this question with part of this answer, at least, it’s not fair to say… Leadership needs to do a better job of slimming down the list of priorities. They just need to do a better job at that. I understand particularly we have all different levels in an org. If you’re a middle manager or even… It’s hard, there’s a lot of compressing needs. But I would say taking stock in, we have this list of all these priorities.
Are they true? Are they real? I remember I had an employee once that came to me and was like, “Here’s the annual report for blah-bitty-blah-blah-blah thing.” She’s like, “I pull it every year and it takes so long.” I was like, “Cool, what do I do with this?” Because I was new in the role. She’s like, “Oh, well, leadership really wanted me to pull it.” I said, “Okay, who do they pass it along to? Who normally looks at it? What is this like?” She’s like, “Oh, well, I don’t know that.” What I discovered after looking up is that, nope, nobody above was reading it. The person who was in my role previously, not even previously, at some point in time in this history, took three bullets from that report that took her a week to pull and used it for something.
Okay, can I just get those three bullets? Let’s be iterative not additive with the work that we’re doing. I think first and foremost, when you’re pulled in a hundred directions, make sure those are really the hundred directions they need to be. As leadership, we should narrow that down. Now, I also know the real world, and where we are. That we don’t all have the power to do that, depending on our role, depending on everything. When you sent me this question in advance, it made me think of a lovely podcast that I listened to last week. I don’t know, but I’m a Swiftie. I got to watch the lovely Taylor Swift and she said something that was like that moment of, yeah, of course. I don’t know if you watched it, Crystal.
Go back and watch it. But she said, “You should think of your energy as if it’s expensive, as if it’s a luxury item not everyone can afford. What you spend your energy on, that’s the day.” In my head I was like, “Yes, that is the, be ruthless with your time.” In the context of housing, what’s the most important? You got students, you got safety, you got facility, you got belonging, you got connection. All of those are important, and it’s going to be really hard for you to say, “Okay, it’s only safety today or it’s only… ” I get that, because it can vary day to day by leader in their role. Again, to geek out, because I love theories and formats and et cetera.
There’s decision matrices. In your head, you’re not going to write this down every day, but it’s the idea, it’s the Eisenhower matrix. I’m sure you’ve used it, where you’re talking about not important, important, urgent, not urgent. If you find something that is not urgent and not important, you just shouldn’t be doing it in your day. You’re really going to spend this time on the urgent and important or the not urgent and important part of this chart. If you’re spending time in anything that’s not important, you need to ask why, and really push back and say, “Okay, I’m communicating to my supervisor. This is overwhelming. There’s too many priorities.
This is confusing, this is unclear. This is how I’m prioritizing. Does this align with your needs?” Because we’re only human and we can only spend so many days on the work that we’re doing in so many hours. The leaders need to listen to that and then make adjustments as well. I think really as you’re thinking about how are we prioritizing, how are we making sure that people can stay focused when they’re pulled in a bunch of directions, it’s saying, what’s truly important? How do I spend my time? My time is valuable, and the university that I work for knows my time is valuable. How can I make sure that they understand the asks they’re giving me? Because sometimes that’s part of it too, is where leadership doesn’t understand the time it takes.
I didn’t maybe know that that person was spending a week pulling a report that I would take three bullet points from. If I’d known that we can shift things, and so how are we communicating really the time spent? Those priorities can be really centered on the work that we’re doing and the timing that it needs to be taken care of.
Crystal Lay:
Yes, because I don’t know all the intricacies of my assistant director’s day to day. I don’t. I have an idea.
Kristen Rollins:
Well, and you shouldn’t.
Crystal Lay:
Right? That’s not my job.
Kristen Rollins:
Yeah, you have great folks.
Crystal Lay:
Micromanaging, that’s not fun for them or me. With that said, I need them to be able to tell me the things that they want to lift up. I also have to ask the right questions because otherwise we’re going to be making stuff up. They also don’t know what I’m doing in my day, and they can look in my calendar, they can guess. But also, how am I as a leader thinking about succession planning? How am I making sure that if this is something they want to do or if I’m out, they can also respond? I think there’s a lot of things wrapped up in there in addition to the prioritizing pieces. It’s really communicating the pieces that need to.
Then, also being open to listening to your folks. When they ask questions A and B, are we really open about their time and how it’s being utilized, so we can definitely support them differently and better. I want to ask you, do you have any thoughts, any quick thoughts about how can we function in different and better ways to make people want to stay? We’re talking about, there’s a ton of stuff happening. There might be good communication, trust, there might be stuff that we need to do different and better. But at the core of it, what are your thoughts on getting people to stay, especially in what’s happening in higher ed, all the things happening?
There’s morale pieces, people questioning value and worth. The list goes on and on, but what would be your advice on what makes people want to stay in housing or just being a part of a team?
Kristen Rollins:
It is such an interesting time right now too, right? Over the past years, the transition of people in and out of the field and just different ways we’re looking at higher education and different stresses from all aspects of things. Great question about how can gatherings really help people make them want to stay? Again, prepping for this, I was like, “These are the people… ” I don’t want to quote something or say something that I’m not accrediting to the right people. I’m like, “Who is this person that said this thing?” One person that I love learning from is Luvvie Ajayi Jones. I don’t know. She’s an author. She wrote the Professional Troublemaker.
She’s got a great TED Talk. She’s got a couple other books as well. But one of the things she says is that too many people are out here acting like their existence is not a revolution. When we’re designing gatherings, taking that into context. Like, okay, so we’re designing gatherings in higher ed and housing and we’re connecting our staff, we have to understand that some people just showing up is that radical act, and that the space needs to be worth their presence. We need to make sure that we’re centering purpose and belonging and not just checking boxes to say, “Hey, come to this meeting because you’re an employee.
Come to this meeting because you live in this hall. Come to this event.” No, you are important and we are here doing this thing. You are here because we know you should be here, because we want you to be part of us. That means that we are showing up authentically, we’re being supportive. We’re in an environment that’s going to receive authenticity as well, and we’re okay with that. Thinking about that, it’s almost like saying generosity and popping, taking off your cool kid hat is what one of my employees used to say, is like, we’re not going to be chill. We’re going to be over the top generous with our space, with our planning, with our way to connect.
Because we want folks to feel like they are a part of something and that it’s not just an off-handed thing. If I’m bringing the staff some snacks, it’s not just, “Okay, here’s some snacks.” I have thought about what they can eat. I have put out a tablecloth, because you know what? It feels nicer and it’s not as grubby, right? We’re doing things that make people feel supported and feel connected and feel like they’re okay to be there. I think sometimes we don’t want to look over the top, but I think when people say that they’re almost too nervous to own, that they’re really trying to be generous and support their colleagues and their team, and I want people to feel that I’ve thought through something.
I think the other piece, and I know, Crystal, you’re like, “Quick answer.” I’m trying, I promise, is the idea of making people know that you’ve thought about them and creating… My example, so creating a gathering that everybody gets them out of their roles and routines. Once a year for us, we would always do a retreat and it goes through, and just my annual retreat, we’re creating this temporary world that every year you didn’t know what was going to happen. You knew that Kristen as the leader was going to give you a secret activity. Half of the day was a secret activity that no one knew. I booked it. People didn’t see my credit card receipts till later, whatever.
It was like, we went to a trapeze class, we went curling, we went to a cooking class, we went painting. It was something not related. It was something that no one was probably good at, right? We were all going to be together creating this space where everyone could feel a part of it. I think doing those things show like it’s going that every year tradition where we’re part of something, of the secret activity. We’re removing our cool kid caps and we’re going to all learn something together and be connected. We’re going to show up in a space that we all feel like who we are, but also slightly uncomfortable because we’re doing something we’re not used to.
I think those are the things that help build a team, but really showing up and saying, “We understand that you’re here and we value your presence as who you are, not just because you work for us.” That’s how you build a team. That’s how you keep people connected and keep them staying.
Crystal Lay:
I am already thinking about this large meeting I’m leading next week for my team, and I was like, “I’m going to get a tablecloth.” How do you make people feel that they’re part of something and that they matter? Because I tell my team, I say, more often than not, I want you to feel joy when you come to work. How do you take that from a concept to reality? You’ve given me a lot to think about. I got seven days. Seven days, Kristen, this would be great.
Kristen Rollins:
It doesn’t have to be nice. It has to be something that you’ve thought about. It doesn’t have to be nice and fancy, it’s just, when they walk in the room, they feel cared for, right?
Crystal Lay:
Oh, I love this. I love this. My team thanks you. They thank you. Future Crystal thanks you. I want to talk about boundaries. We’re shifting. We spend a lot of time at work and housing, and then the majority of our staff, they live on campus. They live where they work. That can be a little tricky. I think sometimes there’s this implication that because we spend so much time together, we have to be friends. There’s all this stuff that make things blurry. How can leaders set the tone for healthy boundaries while still building connection?
Kristen Rollins:
One, it’s so hard living on campus. There’s those boundaries I think between students and staff, and then to your point, staff, you don’t have to be besties. But I think a lot of the staff that maybe live on typically are moving to a place that they don’t have a big network. They’re trying to find their network in a lot of the ways because they’re working so much, they’re finding it through work. Not a bad thing, but also finding ways to expand that so that there’s a bigger network for someone. In my mind, when it comes to setting boundaries, I think that clarity is kindness. Setting those boundaries, holding them consistently, it’s kind, and it removes confusion.
If you are holding those and you’re clear, no confusion. I like to think of it as a structured empathy. You can model healthy boundaries by protecting your time, by ending meetings early, by encouraging time off, and then being away on time off. Making it okay to decline optional invites. There’s a lot of like, “Oh, well, there’s this thing if you want to come.” Well, now I live here, so I guess I have to go to the thing. No, you don’t. You don’t. But within that structure, so we’re thinking about structured empathy, the idea is that we also need to still offer care in a way that makes sense. It could be a handwritten note, a shout-out. Having those regular one-on-ones and talking through certain things.
You can still create the empathy in a different way, but connection doesn’t require constant availability. It requires intentionality, and so really that’s how you draw those lines. It’s hard. I think also the piece is, you can communicate. I say hold those boundaries, if you don’t one time, how about you let someone know, “Hey, normally that’s my boundary and I didn’t really hold it. In the future, I’m going to change it.” Now, it sounds like a super awkward conversation because it probably is, and it sounds uncomfortable, because it probably is. But I also think what’s more uncomfortable is not keeping those boundaries in the long term and then digging yourself into this hole that you can’t get out of.
I think figuring that out and working with even a trusted colleague, trusted friend, trusted whoever to figure out, okay, how do I do this? It’s going to take time, especially if you’re entrenched in a certain way right now, and maybe it’s picking one thing and then making that change, and then the next thing. Or, at the start of the school year is a great time to restart and say, “Hey, here’s where we’re going to land with things.” I think people understand and they say, “You know what? You were clear. I get it. I’m fine.” I think that’s my 2 cents, is really clarity is kindness. Hold your boundaries.
Crystal Lay:
Yes. Okay.
Kristen Rollins:
Be empathetic.
Crystal Lay:
Yes, and I like the structured empathy piece that you talked about too. Okay, so I have one more question for you. I’m sometimes not a fan of the magic wand question, but I want to do it today because why not? If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about how we gather or how we function in housing, as we’ve been talking about intentionality and structured empathy, et cetera. What would it be? One thing.
Kristen Rollins:
You’re going to get me on my soapbox, Crystal. For me, I would say, if I had a magic wand, I would tweak, I’d shift an entire mindset around why we gather. Higher ed and housing, we default to gathering as our way to inform. We’re pushing out updates, we’re distributing logistics. We’re meeting some requirement, that we have to have this meeting or training. What if instead of that, we approach every gathering as a chance to transform. We’re transforming relationships, transforming perspectives, teams, culture. Maybe that’s what we do instead of passing out information. That magic wand, because it’s magical, would embed the idea of purpose and belonging as non-negotiables in the meeting or the training.
Before inviting anyone, I would be like, how do we want people to feel during this meeting or event or training? What do we want them to do differently afterwards? What do they need to know? Who needs to be in the room? Who doesn’t need to be in the room? Who do we feel like we’ve been inviting only because we felt like we’ve had to, but really they’re not the right person to be here and let’s give them their time back? How do we design that gathering to create connection? We over index on format. It’s a meeting, it’s a training. Instead of thinking about why. Really that systems level shift is my magic wand, where we normalize the opening rituals that we talk about.
We use principles, design the meeting around inclusiveness, especially those who maybe don’t get the chance to speak up or feel like they’re a part. We structure for depth not just efficiency, so that we’re creating good tension, brave conversations, joy, as you may have mentioned, right? All those things. Those meetings and those gatherings are really places that we’re practicing our values. If we want our programs, higher ed, housing, et cetera, to be places of inclusion and meaning and growth, then our gatherings should model that. It’s not about getting the right people in the room, it’s about making that room really worth being in. That’s my magic wand.
Crystal Lay:
Come on now. I would pay for that. That’s why you’re in consulting. This is good stuff.
Kristen Rollins:
It’s so exciting.
Crystal Lay:
Yes. We are coming to the end of our time. You’ve shared some amazing resources already. I have been writing stuff down, and if folks wanted to learn more, are there additional resources? What would you recommend? Where should they start?
Kristen Rollins:
There are plenty. I listed some in this, so I will definitely make sure you get those because The Art of Gathering with Priya Parker, I was just thinking she should just keep preaching to me about all of the amazing ideas when it comes to how to have an event and a gathering that makes sense and is purposeful. I think that the work from Luvvie Ajayi Jones really just speaks to me and the ability to make people feel connected and show their worth and know their worth. I think those things aligning with meeting and gathering are two top ones. Then, some of those nerdy curves and whatever, just applying it to theory I think really blends it all together, so I’ll send those over.
They can dug into further, and then if something else pops in my mind, it’ll be added to that list too. It could be a surprise resource number seven or whatever.
Crystal Lay:
I love a good surprise resource. These are so great, and we’ll definitely get them to add it to the show notes so we can share them out with folks. This was such a delightful conversation, tons of great information, things that I know I’m going to add to my toolkit. I just want to thank you, Kristen, for joining me today.
Kristen Rollins:
Thank you. It was so much fun. Great chatting with you.
Crystal Lay:
Yes, and thank all of you for joining us on this episode of Res Ed Chat. If you have an idea for a topic or a person that you would like us to have on the show, please let us know for reaching out. Please let us know and reach out to Roompact. Thank you so much and take care.
