The easiest way to make someone feel important

I have a teenage son, and navigating the ever-changing norms of that relationship is a constant challenge. Can I ask about the girlfriend, or can't I? Do I praise the B on the test, or ask if he is disappointed? It never ends, and I seldom get things just right.

When you have a teenager, the most precious resource is his undivided attention, and you never get it. The iPod, the PSP, the cell phone – they all outrank me.

Yesterday, I drove him to school. He normally takes public transportation, so this was an unusual morning where we had 15 minutes together in the car for some real conversation. It didn't have to be anything serious or deeply meaningful, but I was excited about it.

We were barely out of the driveway when he began texting his girlfriend. I'd ask him a question, and he wouldn't hear me. I finally asked if he would put the phone away so we could talk. Competing for attention with a teenage boy's girlfriend is a sad and desperate battle, but I loaded my guns.

"What's so important?" he asked with a tone. "Nothing in particular," I said. "It would just be nice if you could put the phone away and focus on me for the next 15 minutes. You can focus on her the rest of the day."

He did well for almost a mile, but the vibrating in his pocket was too much to bear. "Don't do it," I said to him as I saw his hand move toward his pocket. He resisted, and resisted, and then had to look. "Two seconds, Dad," he said as his fingers began their task.

Then, I did something very mature. I just shut down and didn't talk to him the rest of the way to school. I was annoyed because he had made me feel unimportant. All I wanted was his undivided attention for a couple of minutes, and he absolutely could not provide it.

Why am I writing about this on my student leadership blog? Because I believe that giving someone your undivided attention has become the most rare and glorious form of respect. Have you ever been talking to someone at a bar or party, thinking you're making a connection, and they are busy looking over your shoulder at everyone else? You know how crappy that makes you feel? Don't be that person. Focus on who's in front of you.

And, let me be clear... it's not just the young people with their constant addiction to glancing at their phones. Us "old folks" are getting just as bad.

The other day, I was on a short phone call with a colleague who works in a busy student affairs office. He called me to set up a speaker, but about 20 seconds after we started talking, he said, "Hold on." I could then hear him shouting to someone in his office and laughing. I can't recount exactly what he said, but as I sat on the other side of the line ignored, I remember thinking, "Wow, that sounded critical." Remember – he called me. For a good 15 seconds, I'm sitting there, waiting for him to focus on the call that he just made.

Put the phone in your pocket. Close the door. Draw the blinds. Put the barriers up so that your cluttered, over-active, attention deficit disordered brain can give the person in front of you your undivided attention for two minutes. Or ten, or 15. Whatever's appropriate.

This holiday, you will probably be home with your family. Lay off the Facebook. Put the cell phone in your room instead of your pocket. Make a conscious decision to give your family and friends the one gift that will truly make them feel special... your undivided attention.

The answer to Greek morale and unity lies in supporting small events

If you find your fraternity and sorority community continually struggling with member morale, junior and senior attrition, and a lack of Greek unity, there is something you can do. But, it's going to require a major change in how your community does business.

Many fraternity and sorority chapters, and their council communities, remain focused on doing huge events targeted to all of their members – large scale service events, big step shows, "sing" competitions, Greek Weeks. While these appeal to many (and in many cases can be a lot of fun), they don't appeal to all members, particularly for upperclassmen who have already done them more than once.

These people who don't get all jazzed up by a third year of "Greek Sing" wander away from your Greek community in search of something that fits them.

Here's what I suggest you do. This year, take a portion of your budget and invite small interest groups to apply for funding for special interest activities that will be open to all fraternity and sorority members. Maybe some Greeks will be interested in planning a small live music coffeehouse event for those members who love acoustic music. Perhaps a group will want to do an interfraternal rock-climbing trip for the outdoor enthusiasts. Whatever your members get excited about, invite them to create an avenue within your Greek community – everything from ice carving to environmentalism to book clubs.

But wait... all of this is available on our campus through other organizations. Why should we fund these niche interests within our Greek community? Because fraternity and sorority members who find these special connections within your community will STAY in your community and increase their commitment to it.

I recently came across an example of how enabling smaller, niche interests can have a powerful impact on a Greek community.

Many fraternity and sorority members at Gannon University in Northwest Pennsylvania desired a stronger connection with other Greeks who shared a strong commitment to their Christian faith. Some of these leaders recently started "LETtERS," a group open to all fraternity and sorority members seeking Christian fellowship.

It's not a Bible study, said Jackie Oesmann, a member of Alpha Sigma Tau and the Panhellenic Vice President of Public Relations. It's more of a discussion group. Recently, the members watched a clip from the movie "Elf" and used it as a discussion starter about finding your place in a group where you sometimes don't feel like you belong. It usually winds back to some relevant scripture readings. Sometimes, they even sing. Mostly, it's about giving fraternity and sorority members a safe place to share and enjoy their Christian interests.

"I think that overall, even though we've only had a few meetings, the group is a great new thing for the community and has a lot of potential," Jackie said. "Our councils ahve been working hard to promote Greek unity this year, and having people come together in a group like this definitely helps that."

Her campus offers six other faith-sharing groups, but the Greeks weren't participating, she said. "The solution was to create our own group where we could discuss things relating specifically to issues we deal with as Greeks."

Six other faith-based groups in their small campus community should have been enough, you might think. But, when an opportunity was created within their own Greek community, these fraternity and sorority members at Gannon became energized.

Imagine a dozen or so special interest "clubs" existing within your Greek community. Imagine four dozen. Imagine Greeks from all different sorts of chapters building relationships across chapter boundaries around shared interests. Imagine your members placing a higher value on their memberships because their personal needs are being met in a more meaningful way.

Imagine all the good that could come from that.

Add a little sizzle to your service

In a perfect world, everybody would love volunteering – getting their hands dirty, so to speak, by helping others. In a perfect world, our service projects would be our most popular events. Our members and other students would pick up trash, spend time with seniors, paint the local Boys and Girls Club, and walk pets waiting to be adopted. We all know that service makes you feel good, and it helps others. Should be the biggest no-brainer in the history of the Earth.

But anyone who has organized a service event knows that it's not so simple. People treat community service like tax planning and eating right – we know we should do it, we know it would be good for us, but it's not something we necessarily want to do right now.

As a student leader charged with organizing a service activity, you have two choices. You can either stomp around, pout about the apathy of your members, guilt people into showing up, and plead for them to see the good they can do in the world. Or, you can make service projects more fun and appeal to other motivations. I assert that the latter works a lot better.

For several years, I worked for Push America, the national service project of my fraternity. One of the first lessons I learned was that young men had the capacity to care deeply about serving children with disabilities, but sometimes you had to get them in the door another way. Today, Push America runs three summer-long bike trips with hundreds of young fraternity men riding their bikes coast to coast. Along the way, they interact and serve people with disabilities. I believe it's the most amazing example of collegiate service in the country, and the men who participate emerge profoundly affected by the experience and the people they serve along the way.

But, the people at Push America will readily admit that the "sizzle" of spending your summer biking across the country is what gets most of the guys in the door. They are drawn in by the challenge, by the achievement, by the cool uniforms, by the once-in-a-lifetime experience. They are drawn in by 20 years of photos like the one above of my friend and fraternity brother Patrick hoisting his bike above his head in front of the U.S. Capitol. The service "high" is what they take away, but the sizzle brings many of them to the table.

There are countless other examples. You may be raising money for the amazing work of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, but the idea of being "Up Til Dawn" having fun with your friends is part of the motivation. You might be helping end leukemia or breast cancer, but the challenge of running that mini-marathon is the fuel in the engine.

You have to find the sizzle! People like to work out, but there's a reason why they sign up at the shiny new 24Hour Super Mega Fitness that just opened. It looks so cool, doesn't it? You could work out at the rec center, but that wouldn't be half as fun would it?

If you want to boost participation and interest in your community service events, consider these suggestions:

• Consider giveaways to people who participate. Everyone who shows up gets a coupon for a free burrito from the place down the street who agreed to cosponsor the service event. What about tshirts, or water bottles, or even ribbons the participants can wear the rest of the day?

• Make your service event a coed event, if it isn't already. It's terrific that your men's basketball team is going to visit the residents at the local seniors center. But why not involve the cheerleaders, and the women's hockey team? Adding a social element makes it more fun for everyone.

• End your event with some sort of meal or a gathering at a local watering hole. Again, adding a social element is very motivating, as is promise of food and drink. Especially if it's free. Go out and get that co-sponsorship from the local joint that would love to be full of students eating and drinking at 4 pm.

• Make sure there is a goal and a sense of achievement at the end of the project. By the time those cyclists ride up to the Capitol, they are in ecstacy! All those miles totally feel worth it for that amazing final moment. How does your service event end? Is it with cheering children outside a freshly painted facility or with a lame fizzle? When you're planning your service event, you need to know how the event will culminate. Make the ending exciting. Very important.

• If you can, involve the people you are serving in the project. Painting the Boys and Girls Club is so much more fun and rewarding when you're painting it with the kids who go there.

• Add games and an element of competition. Have contests throughout the service event. Spontaneous dance contests during breaks. Awards for groups who turn out dressed in costumes. Use the uneaten donuts from the morning in a donut toss contest.

• Make it seem like a party. Why is it that you hire photographers to walk around snapping pictures at parties, but you don't hire a photographer to walk around snapping pictures during your cool service event? Always have a music. Hell, hire a DJ!

These are just a few ideas. Leading service projects is one of the coolest student leadership opportunities available, particularly when you understand that there is a large degree of salesmanship in the job done right. You need to get people in the door with the sizzle, give them a fantastic feeling while they are participating, and send them home excited about the next opportunity to serve.

Give under-utlized officers something to do!

Regardless of what student organization you are in, there are probably officer positions that don't have a lot to do. Some, like president, have so much to do they can't keep up. Some others seem to have no specific role and they spend time twiddling their thumbs. This is a problem.

It's hard to stay motivated when you have very little important to do. And, it's hard for the overworked officers to stay motivated when their counterparts aren't carrying the same amount of weight.

And remember the most important rule of student leadership motivation: PEOPLE SUPPORT WHAT THEY CREATE. If your officers are constantly feeling like they are helping to create a successful organization, they will not be motivated.

Here are a few suggestions for energizing those under-utilized officers.

1. Don't be hemmed in by the job descriptions in your bylaws or Constitution. Just because your bylaws say that the Secretary's only job is to keep minutes at the meeting does not mean that he or she can't do other things. Put your Secretary in charge of a long-lingering problem and put some deadlines and expectations on him or her. So what if your Historian is only supposed to take pictures at events. Put him in charge of upgrading your risk management. Maybe even ask these officers if there is a significant organizational problem that they would like to tackle this year? As president, you should not feel constricted by your bylaws with regard to offering opportunities. In fact, your executive board will run better when everyone on it feels like he/she is making an important contribution.

2. As a fall-back, constitutional revision is always a great way to keep someone busy. Not to say it isn't important, but it is time consuming and can be tedious. Most busy officers don't have time to sit down and do it. It's a great thing to delegate and the discussion it produces in your organization will fire a lot of people up.

3. Assign under-utilized officers to help the overworked officers. If your Parliamentarian doesn't have a lot on her plate, then make her 2nd in command to the officer in charge of Homecoming. Have them work as a team. If your officer in charge of Homecoming protests, tell him that you don't want him burning out or feeling overwhelmed, so you've asked another officer to back him up. This is also a great defensive move against having one person in your organization totally responsible for a big thing, then flaking.

4. Put one of your officers in charge of your executive committee goals (this assumes that your exec actually has a set of goals for the year). Each week at your exec meeting, this officer is in charge of spending some time reviewing pertinent goals and helping the exec committee, as a whole, to make progress on the goals. Many of you have goals, but no one is staying on top of them after they are set. Assigning an under-utilized officer to manage their progress is a great, meaningful leadership opportunity. You can even say that you are putting this officer in charge of the organization's "strategic plan." That sounds very important.

5. Put an under-utilized officer in charge of "External Relations." This person is now in charge of finding co-sponsors for events, creating networking (social) opportunities with the student officers of allied organizations on campus, etc. This might not be necessary for a student government, but for special interest student organizations, it can make a big difference in terms of campus image and member recruitment.

You can really tell a lot about what kind of officer someone will be by how enthusiastically they seize or avoid these requests. Someone who seizes the opportunity to be the "strategic plan manager" might end up being a good future president. The officer who does nothing with a delegated set of responsibilities is probably at the peak of his or her ascension in the organization.

Be aware that giving under-utilized officers meaningful sets of responsibilities is an exercise in delegation and relinquishment of control. If this is a problem for you, then it's something to work on. You should trust your organization and your fellow officers enough to spread the important and critical work around.