Making It Less Lonely at the Top

By Kathryn Mohrman

When I accepted the presidency of Colorado College, I received some very good advice. A good friend suggested that I create a private advisory group that might help me deal with the inevitable difficulties that face a new college president -- issues that I could not discuss with anyone on campus.

That's exactly what I did. My experience may be most valuable to new college presidents but it's relevant to provosts and deans as well.

I asked eight friends, none of whom had any connection to Colorado College, to serve as my confidential advisers. I promised them several things: a free trip to Colorado (paid for by the college), no obligations except candid and confidential advice, and a chance to interact with other interesting people whom they might never meet otherwise. My advisers were current and former college presidents from both public and private institutions, association executives, Washington types -- all colleagues with whom I had worked in previous jobs. The common element was smarts.

I have been fortunate in my career to work in a variety of settings, from the Ivy League to land-grant campuses, liberal-arts colleges to flagship state universities, Washington associations to think tanks. As a result I know a broad range of people. But individuals with a narrower range of experiences could capitalize on this idea equally well.

The friend who suggested the advisory group was aware of the difficulty of being a new person in a "buck stops here" position. Suddenly you are faced with a number of thorny issues, but no peers on campus with whom to discuss the problems. That's where the advisory group comes in. Savvy people with no vested interest in your institution can often see things more clearly than you can.

I asked my advisers to agree to a few simple ground rules: All of our conversations were confidential, their advice was to be as candid and honest as possible, and they were to think about the long-term well-being of Colorado College. Their task was to help me be successful as president of this wonderful institution. Since none of them knew much about the collge, I sent them a boatload of background material. More importantly, I wrote to them about the issues that were on my mind, the issues that we would discuss when we congregated. In many ways, the thought process that preceded the writing of those memos was probably the most valuable part of the entire experience.

The eight individuals were never all together. Six of them were able to come to campus the first summer. I convened a smaller group in Washington a few months later when I was on the East Coast attending a conference. I telephoned some of them individually to talk about particular issues.

The kinds of questions we discussed as a group were obvious ones for a new president: How do I take a group of senior vice presidents, devoted to the college but not necessarily connected to me, and build an effective leadership team? How do I allocate my time when everyone wants a piece of me -- and the sum is greater than 100 percent? What are the questions I should be asking that aren't on the agenda? How should Colorado College position itself, and what can I do as a new president to make that happen? What if people find out that I really don't know as much as I should about topic X?

My advisers were invaluable. They could often think clearly and creatively about an issue that seemed intractable to me because I was too close to the topic. They could frame the issue in a new way that suddenly put additional options on the table. Because they didn't know much about the college, they weren't bound up in the details of campus politics, which freed them to consider things with a different form of objectivity than I could muster. And they could say, as only good friends can, "Suck it up, kiddo!"

My first years were immensely more successful because of my advisory group. Our face-to-face meetings tended to occur in the summer when they had more flexibility and (not incidentally) Colorado is a glorious place to be. We would spend a day in discussion of issues that I posed to them in advance. The interplay among the members of the group was exciting and dynamic, full of practical ideas as well as creative thinking. We would eat a good meal somewhere, and those who wished to stay for the weekend joined me on hikes, rafting trips, opera performances, and contemplation of the mountains.

The letters I wrote to them at other times of the year were at least as helpful to me as the discussions we had in the summer. It was wonderful discipline to try to frame the issue that was nagging at me, to describe my frustrations to friends who would sympathize with me as a person, even when they thought I was too worried about details. On several occasions the phone conversations that followed one of my letters helped me resolve a genuine issue that could have become a dilemma. And on more than one occasion my advisers saved me from making stupid mistakes.

After three or four years, my invitations grew fewer in number. Those individuals who repeated the visits to Colorado continued to be very helpful and of course we enjoyed the time together in one of the most beautiful locations in the United States. But I found myself writing to my advisers less often, talking to them less frequently, and seeking their support infrequently.

I didn't need them anymore. But one of the reasons I had moved beyond the need for their advice was the success of that advisory group in the first critical years of my presidency. I hope other new presidents, provosts, and deans are equally fortunate to have such good friends.