Polly and the Guitar Player

We were at the Laugh Out Loud comedy club for the Project Access fundraiser and Polly mentioned that she was delivering her initial sermon. She has been in “boots on the ground” ministry for years, so this was just her latest assignment. I love her because “Pretty Polly” is authentically beautiful inside and out.

I spent a New Year’s eve with her and her husband counting piggy bank money and making merry. I have two happily divorces; our marriage didn’t ruin our friendship so Keith will always be my BFF and Mr. Michieka checks in between girlfriends and sings in the choir and plays guitar. Ernest and shug puddin’ were so cute together. I celebrated their commitment to each other. Just being around them made me warm inside.

Service at First Missionary Baptist Church started at 10:00 AM. Different. Like it. I arrived at 10:08 AM and some people were still outside; either transitioning from Sunday School or just arriving like me. After service, I found the website of the church “Where Love Makes the Difference.” First Lady Delectra referred to kingdom-building as a process – no wonder I felt at home. In fact, the banner in the church actually read, “Welcome Home!” I absolutely enjoyed the service and we were in and out in 2 hours flat. I will definitely will visit again, though I didn’t stand with the visitors. I never do.

When I was preparing to go, I made sure to take some information architecture work to help me through the rough spots. As the Granddaughter of a Pentecostal Pastor, Reverend Ella Langston Mitchell, I can feel like I have reached my lifetime maximum of hours in church, but this service was actually refreshing. I checked out of several portions of the service including the Parade of Benjamins (AKA march-around offering), the announcements, visitor recognition (AKA hug fest), the Veterans Parade, the greet the Minister Parade, etc. I managed to get the data types mapped for the database. Yay.

Polly was her sweet, authentic, informed and inspiring self and I reflecting on how proud I was to know such a powerhouse woman. Her message was “I’m a Witness and You Should Be a Witness Too.” --- or something like that. I heard all of what Polly is in that message, i.e., a sharecropper’s daughter born in a farmhouse near Princeton; a community advocate; a biblical and business scholar; a confident, witty, and sexy soul sister; a truth defender; a confidant and friend; a dedicated mother, wife and Granny; and a servant of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She is something like 60 years old with the body and brains of a 30 year old. You go girl. She has the discipline and grace that I hope to have if I ever grow up.

We sang Hymn #644 “Count Your Blessings.” The verses got lost somewhere in the mumbling of a mostly older congregation that seemed to desperately need their reading glasses. I asked the guy next to me, “Are they singing this song?” as I pointed to the page trying to sing it from my lips like I heard it in my head from back in the day at Holly Street Holiness Church in Goldsboro, NC. He said, “Yep, that’s it.” I thought, “Nope. Not really.” I checked out and sat down. The Saints were still painfully working their way through the four verses when I turned on hotspot, flipped out the stylus and ipad, launched the HootSuite app; and simultaneously tweeted (@lorrindam) and FaceBook posted, “Count your blessings; name them one by one.”

I checked in at one point and found Polly bouncing in the choir singing, “I Am Souled Out!” Gospel music must be in her DNA and I expect she just couldn’t help herself. My favorite part of Hezekiah Walker’s “Souled Out” is at 2 minutes 24 seconds: “My heart is fixed, my mind’s made up. No room, no vacancies - I’m all filled up. His spirit lives in me and that’s the reason I’m souled out!”

The guitar is my favorite instrument. My Grandpa Deacon Hezzie Lee Mitchell who is 96 still hauls the guitar and duct taped amplifier to church at Saint Delight Holy Church. During the announcements is when I first noticed that the guitar player was wooing me. I watched him a good bit during the service and he didn’t fall asleep like Grandpa does. Sister Della told us about the upcoming events and the food drive and introduced us to Little Miss Black USA – or something like that. Surely that little girl will be a profound leader one day. She commanded the microphone wearing her tiara and pixie braids. The guitarist wore an unpretentious grey, long-sleeved sweatshirt amongst seemingly tediously fashioned ladies in hats and frocks. He mastered the strings stirring a praise in me that would not let me check out during one of my least favorite parts. I expected the music to be loud and painful. I remember thinking that I should have taken some pre-headache medicine to be able to recover quickly from the experience, but the music at “First Church” was meaningful, soothing, reverent, harmonious and beautiful.

In one part where the Senior Servant (AKA Pastor) asked us to rest on our feet, I decided that if I had to be standing up, I might as well get a light jog going to try and relieve the something like sciatica pain in my left buttock. A lady across the aisle in the blue suit and slightly more permed hair than my mini-fro, had her hands up and hankie waving; gyrating even more than I was, so I assumed nobody would even notice me. We were resting on our feet again when the guitar, the voices, and the lyrics touched me and I found my face twisted in an ugly cry deep in worship. I can’t remember exactly what was happening during the service when I was having this wonderful moment, but I remember it started when we were all standing. I cracked one very wet eye and everybody was sitting back down! --I was alone, standing, crying, holding my red sweater on my sleeveless shoulders with one hand with the other raised high in the air. I thought, “What are they doing? Don’t care… this feels good so I’m staying until the guitar stops.” We were singing Kirk Franklin’s, “Oh, I know that I can make it, I know that I can stand. No matter what may come my way, my life is in your hands.”

It was over. I dried my face with my bare hands. I said to the lady next to me, “I’m glad I didn’t wear any make-up.” She said, “I know what you mean. It was already hot when we first came in. I don’t think the air conditioning is on.” Hmmm… that wasn’t exactly the experience that I was having so I smiled politely and went back to work.

When I checked in again, I think Polly was getting gifts and the “you’re legit proclamation.” We were invited to come shake her hand. You guessed it. Time to check out. But instead, while everyone was hugging and wishing Polly well, I made my way to the guitar player where I learned that he played there every Sunday! I told him that his talent was amazing and checked out and went home; thankful to God, to First Church, to Polly and the guitar player.

HBCUs should PLAN --> DO --> CHECK --> ACT

When it suits me, I consider myself a HBCU insider since I worked at one for several years and I took some classes while there. Shaw University in Raleigh, NC is in financial trouble. Many other schools are in trouble too, not just HBCUs, but this hits close to home for me.

From where I sat the amount of planning that was allowed to happen could have increased dramatically. I worked in the Business and Finance office for a while before ultimately becoming the Director of Administrative Computing and it seemed we stayed in emergency mode more than anything else. Stephen Covey’s “First Things First” analogy with the jar, the marbles and the golf balls was hauntingly true for us it seemed. Since administering a college is as cyclical as the college academic year itself, when things did show down we ‘shut down’ from sheer exhaustion. It is humanly impossible to be effective AND work at that pace long-term.

We are all familiar with the Academic Calendar. My unique contribution was the Administrative Calendar. I knew (and published) what had to be done in January to have the student information & financials system (Datatel) ready for incoming freshman. My sole daily work was that preparation. If I hit a showstopper in that prep, it was easy to shift gears and help others with their goals since I knew that system inside out and by default was cross-trained on every position in order to successfully migrate the system to a new major release. Cross-training employees is critical.

This morning, the Interim President of Shaw University, Dr. Dorothy Cowser Yancy said that she has an Abraham Lincoln-like management style; managing by moving about (MBMA). I really hope her enthusiasm is contagious, but more than that, I hope that her MBMA turns up documented cases and scenarios that bring about real change instead of an elaborate silent alarm system when she’s on the prowl. Dr. Yancy is making a great personal sacrifice to delay her retirement to fill this role for Shaw U so I believe her when she says, “Shaw has been around too long to fail. I believe in higher education, but I am totally committed to black higher education. I believe in HBCUs. I believe they should exist. And I believe that if they were not here, they would have to create us this morning.”

Raising $145 million during two capital campaigns while president of Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, NC is truly admirable, but did she teach them to fish? I hope so. Is the $39 million increase in their endowment still growing?... or have they ‘shut down’ from sheer exhaustion ? How did she do it? I, like a lot of other people, am hoping she does it again at Shaw. This is what I recommend happens at Shaw:

1. Take a hard look at every department, process and practice and decide how it feeds into the bottom line.
1. The ‘look’ should be extremely detailed and written.
2. Decide ‘What we do and why.’
3. Put everything in one of two buckets; (1) must-have and, (2) Nice-to-have.
4. Immediately halt spending for each “nice-to-have”
5. Analyze each must have and document processes and prioritize them.
1. Re-write and/or create job descriptions based on must haves.
2. Match employee skills to must-have positions.
3. Empower employees to own and do their jobs with built-in accountability.
2. Create measurable, repeatable processes and workflows that directly relate to university goals.
1. Each department/office should have weekly, monthly and annual goals that are transparent, monitored and measured.
3. Improve internal communications and reporting using technology & standards.
1. Leaders should be able to monitor, communicate and tweak departmental goals and progress.
2. Tweaking should be managed, documented and justified.
3. There should be a systematic way for customers (students) and employees to complain and/or give praise.
4. Faculty & Staff should know exactly how their role(s) contribute to revenue streams. They should absolutely be able to see and focus on the big picture through the daily grind.
1. Tie bonuses to performance.
2. Create incentives to motivate employees.
5. Take inventory of supplies, procurement practices and equipment.
1. Cut waste… who is using all the paper, ink, toner, pencils?
2. Are we paying too much for goods and services?
6. Account for and justify each incoming/outgoing dollar.

THEN… check all you’ve done, tweak, repeat.

Welcome Madame President. Good luck Shaw! I believe in you too.

Sincerely,

LORRINDA STEWART MICHIEKA, MBA Business Analyst Process Rengineerist (made that one up… [smile]) Total Quality Manager Lifelong Student Creative Effectiveness Guru http://www.movemymountain.com/ http://www.lorrinda.com/

Links: http://www.shawuniversity.edu/press_releases/Dr_Yancyl.htm http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5260644/ http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1552170.html