Well, this is it. It's time to make new signs for the office, hang some signs around the new officers' necks, and start handing off my responsibilities to my replacement. I'm not quite sure how it will feel once it's February, I don't have a desk anymore, and I'm free on Sundays at noon for the first time since March 2008. But for now, I'm just excited for the three people who are about to have several years worth of management training over twelve months. Sadly, I won't be around for much longer to see where they take this company, but I know that many of you will be, and it's going to be a great year.
I'm trying to balance this excitement against wondering what we could have done with another year. In some ways, that would be good, for all the boring reasons--continuity, comfort with the job's responsibilities, cultivated relationships. But, this is the Corp. I had my year. And for all the exciting reasons--new ideas, unpredictability, energy--it's someone else's turn. But even still, I'm understanding the Corp better every day, learning new perspectives and adding depth to the ones I already have.
On the first day of Fundamentals of Finance, I learned what a CFO does and what a CEO's responsibility to the Board is. It made sense, obviously, because Phil's been doing all that for a year and I've been fulfilling those responsibilities, but I hadn't really understood it in a macro sense until I heard it in class. That's a gratifying experience, to know that we're doing things right and that we really are running our own healthy and legitimate business.
But beyond the facts, there's the Corp imagination. I'm in a class that discusses the Catholic imagination, which our professor said goes something like the following. So something happens, or you're told something, and you won't, at first glance, think it's possible or plausible. Maybe you don't think you're equipped enough or good enough to understand it or achieve it. But how would you act if you did believe? How would you act if you signed up for what they have to say? What would be different and how would you be different? Could you do things you couldn't otherwise or would you do things you wouldn't otherwise if you stopped focusing on what couldn't be or shouldn't be and instead, just let it...be?
And I was sitting there listening, thinking only about the Corp, and its vibrant personality. I've phrased it different ways before, here on this blog, in General Meetings, and thought about it in so many of those great discussions that I've had with so many of you. Every time we dig in and argue tooth and nail for one initiative or another, we're expressing the belief that we know how to run this large and complex organization, and that we're not afraid to make mistakes. People at other universities wonder...shit, how do they do that? They shouldn't be doing their own accounting. They couldn't have a student-only Board. How could they possibly survive with every position turning over every year? Let them wonder.
The Corp imagination is to embrace the organization as it is and to let it be, every year anew. We let ourselves sacrifice time, tears, and effort to believe that not only can we keep it going, but we can make it better. We let ourselves dream and we let ourselves fail so we can give those dreams, well, the old college try. I may be leaving my leadership position in the Corp, but there's one thing that I won't ever walk away from, and that's a Corpie's imagination.
It has truly been a pleasure to work with you all and to write my reflections here, and even if the entries were at times, long, rambling, or entirely nonsensical, the therapy of writing and the reflection it encourages have, I think, helped me to do the job as well as I could. Best of luck in the next year.
Love isn't extinct,
Ryan
