Too many Indians and Not Enough Chiefs

As we briefly discussed in class on Tuesday, one of the major obstacles we have encountered is the lack of individuals willing to lead service activities. Contrary to the popular phase “Too many chiefs and not enough Indians” we couldn’t seem to find any chiefs. To solve this problem our team brainstormed and used a combination of effectual logic, the principle of bright spots, and the necessity of motivating the elephant.

Applying the principle of bright spots, we asked ourselves the question “Where are there already successful examples of leadership that are worth emulating?” Quickly we were able to pinpoint the fact that student run clubs and organizations on campus were great examples of bright spots. We thought that these clubs and organizations were a great resource to explore because there were successful examples of individuals leading projects and (as a bonus) along with these leaders came a dedicated group of individuals. Here we were applying both the principle of bright spots and three of the principles of persuasion: consistency, authority, and social proof. Students had already committed to these clubs and therefore were willing to align with their pre-existing commitments. Students were also willing to defer to the “expert” (aka their club leader) and follow the lead of others.

Another applicable principle from class is motivating the elephant and that what looks like laziness is often exhaustion. During the study break I talked to several individuals who were passionate about different service activities but nearly all of them were not willing to lead the project. After delving deeper into why they were not willing to lead this project, I found that the reason for most of the students was they had attempted (either once or multiple times) to lead a project or a club and had some poor experience which ultimately led to them abandoning the idea. These individuals were exhausted from trying to rally students around their idea and others were just simply exhausted whether it was from school or other extracurricular activities. These students showed one of the problems involved with motivating the elephant they appeared lazy but in reality they were exhausted.

Overall our group has talked at length about the lack of individuals willing to lead. We’re working on fixing this problem by finding bright spots through on campus clubs and organizations but eventually, in order to make our change sustainable, we will need to reach out to those students not already leading clubs and motivate them (and their elephants) to lead service projects.