The Infamous “FRIENDS” couch scene
Pivot. Hear the word and some people can only think of the Friends couch scene with Ross obnoxiously yelling, “PIVOT! PI-VAWT!” As Ross shouts, Rachel and Chandler struggle to hold on to a heavy couch while moving the piece of furniture up a twisting staircase. If you haven’t seen it, it is a guaranteed laugh out loud. There’s no hope of getting this sofa up the staircase…especially with one person shouting directions, louder and louder. As if volume was the issue.
When I hear pivot, I think of business strategy and the elbow room the word gives to entrepreneurs and business owners. I think it is less intimidating, honestly, and more elegant, than the word change. And making change less intimidating is certainly something good for higher ed these days.
PIVOT: A Vision for the New University, by Joanne Soliday and Mark Lombardi
To me, pivot suggests a tweek, an adjustment without judgment. It’s encouraging, like taking a taste of a new food or giving a listen to a new song. The word suggests a bridge from what was to what can be. Even when the pivots are dramatic and multi-faceted, as the examples provided in PIVOT: A Vision for the New University, by Joanne Soliday and Dr. Mark Lombardi, the word imbues positive action. I find that same infusion of positive, call-to-pivot, throughout Soliday and Lombardi’s book. It works to impress upon us – we higher ed leaders and communicators – the great import and opportunity for pivoting. Now.
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Karen Black and I caught up with Joanne Soliday on the first-ever two-part series of 31Minutes’ podcast. In part one, “Pivoting Toward What’s Possible,” the two Kare/yn’s interview Soliday (who is both co-author of PIVOT and co-founder of Credo, a higher ed consulting firm) about some of the book’s challenges to institutions, such as a new way of looking at consensus and how to find your school’s “Disruptor-in-Chief.” Part two, which will launch in early September, finds us sitting down with Credo’s Chief Brand Officer and Co-Owner, Emma Jones, and the firm’s Senior Vice President and Co-Owner, Joretta Nelson, about how they’re making the lessons of PIVOT accessible and implementable through their Thriving 2.0 framework. We promise you’ll fill up your post-it notes with ideas and begin strategizing for ways to instigate some of your own campus pivots.
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