Smart, simple, on target. An important concept for all student leaders to understand before they start banging their heads against a wall, trying to engage every member. The practical ideas will transform how they work, achieve results, and avoid burnout.
Lori Hart, Ph.D., Atlanta, Georgia
A workshop that helps your student leaders better fight apathy and better motivate and activate members at all levels of engagement and involvement.
The most actively involved student leaders in your campus organizations (your “top-third” members) get frustrated and burned out, trying to lead members who are less motivated and engaged than they. If only there was a way to teach these committed student leaders smarter strategies to lead those whose commitment levels varied from their own.
Now there is. The “Motivating the Middle” interactive workshop from is based on the book Motivating the Middle: Fighting Apathy in College Student Organizations, published by CAMPUSPEAK co-founder T.J. Sullivan in 2012. Facilitated by some of the agency’s most talented professional facilitators, MTM will help your most dedicated student leaders understand that their fellow members respond to different motivations and engage in different ways
Too many top-third student leaders spend all their time focused on the bottom-third members – the ones who don’t attend meetings and events, fall short on their promises, and detract from the mission and goals of the organization. As the battle wages between the top-third leaders and the bottom-third members causing problems, the middle third gets ignored.
By shifting their leadership efforts to the middle-third members, your organization’s leaders can make change, improve morale, and tap into new productivity. In a few short hours, your leaders will learn the truth – that people at different levels of engagement are motivated in very different ways – and will learn how to act on this knowledge to strengthen their club, chapter or organization.
Participants will learn the concept and strategies highlighted in Sullivan’s book and will engage in both discussion and action planning to put those strategies into action. Student leaders will also learn how their personal leadership style inhibits or encourages the middle-third leadership strategy, enabling them to adjust their approach to some of the most pressing issues facing their group.
Learning Outcomes
- Understand that different things motivate different members, and how to engage them based on this knowledge.
- Develop a list of core characteristics of each third, specific to each organization participating.
- Shift focus from bottom-third members causing problems to middle-third members who are largely ignored in most student organizations.
- Strategize around chronic organizational problems using a middle-member approach.
- Strategize the best ways to deal with bottom-third members without spending valuable energy and resources on a group that is the least engaged.
- Develop rewards strategies for each third of your organization.
- Develop basic membership criteria for your organization.
- Develop strategies/predictors for recruiting more top and middle third members.
Workshop Details
- 3 -hour interactive workshop
- Weekday evening or weekend day
Who Is This Ideal For?
- Club and organization officers
- Leadership training events
- Student government leaders
- Fraternities and sororities
- Campus programming board leaders and committees
- Residence Life staff training
- Campus cultural groups
