Ivory tower-wise, what is an elevator speech? Let’s first examine its purposes in higher education and then its salient characteristics.
ACADEMIC PURPOSES
In higher education, professors are not selling a product. Instead, they are promoting, to some degree, themselves as teachers, researchers, or clinicians, their scholarship, and their institutions. They’re selling their professionalism.
As an academician, the primary purposes of the elevator speech are to build professional relationships in:
1. your teaching strategies or discipline
2. your research area
3. your clinical specialty
4. anything I forgot
Got it? Certainly, those of you who are in recruit mode may use that opportunity to entice faculty, administrators, or students to your institutional lair.
WHAT IS AN ELEVATOR SPEECH?
So what is this speech all about compared to what you’re already doing?
DEFINITION: It is a concise, carefully-crafted, and well-rehearsed description about “Who you are” and “What you can do for the contact” that your mother would understand, delivered in the time it would take to ride up or down to your hotel floor in an elevator. (Note: If your room is on a low level floor, you’ll have to talk really fast.)
It shifts the emphasis away from you and your credentials, which are already visible on your nametag, to what you can do for the person to whom you’re talking. Rather than promoting you and describing what you do, it’s about spinning what you do for the benefit of that person. And, certainly, who is in a better position to write and deliver that speech than you? Well, maybe your mommy.
CHARACTERISTICS: It’s just a short, mini-spiel, sound-bite of 30–60 seconds to succinctly and memorably introduce you to people or livestock you don’t know. Granted, for professors to speak less than a minute can be an excruciatingly painful, restrictive, and nearly impossible task, especially when they’re talking about their fave subject. It’s like a 100-word abstract (5–8 sentences) of YOU to spotlight your uniqueness and how you can help the contact. Is there any characteristic worth mentioning that distinguishes you from the rest of the pack?
What is the role of the elevator as well other modes of transportation? What constitutes an appropriate elevator speech? What are the key ingredients that will make a lasting first impression and showcase you as a professional? Stay tuned.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
“Are you kidding me? Bending over to pick up the newspaper in the driveway is a major athletic event for me. I’m so glad it’s not timed.” I’m not referring to athletic conditioning. Consider the athletes’ preparation and performance as a professional. Do you share any characteristics in common with those super-athletes? Can you learn anything from their work ethic and practices?
OLYMPIC JOB REQUIREMENTS
Their journey to the Olympics involves the following dozen attributes. These are the job requirements of an Olympian:
• major work commitment and ethic
• commitment to excellence (aka “to be the BEST”)
• unwavering focus on the prize
• ability to overcome obstacles and setbacks
• ability to deal with pressure and stress
• ability to persevere in spite of physical pain and injury
• engaging in your quest because you love doing it
• positive attitude toward attaining the ultimate outcome
• commitment to years of rigorous training
• serving as a role model for the next generation
• willingness to make significant sacrifices
• obtaining financial support for training and preparation
YOUR JOB REQUIREMENTS
Although the Olympians get to march in the opening ceremonies and you don’t, think of the above list as your job requirements. Do you possess any of those attributes as a professional in academia, business, or a semi-illegal activity on 24? Let me ask this another way: Which of those requirements DO NOT apply to you? They seem relevant to faculty and administrators. If some of them don’t apply, you might need to carefully examine what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
What are the differences between Olympians and YOU? The next blog will answer that.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
I’m sorry to interrupt my blog series on “How to Put Pizazz into Your PowerPoint Conference Presentations,” but an article was just published that might be useful to some of you.
Are you struggling with issues related to student ratings of teaching, peer evaluation, teaching portfolio, and which gifts to buy for your family for the holidays? Well, have I got a deal for you. I have 2 articles recently published on a faculty evaluation model that might interest you. They are an extension of the model described in my Thirteen Strategies to Measure Teaching book (see Stylus Publishing link in right margin), applied specifically to formative and summative decisions about faculty. The model can be used to evaluate teaching performance and professionalism. Here they are:
Berk, R. A. (2009a). Beyond student ratings: “A whole new world, a new fantastic point of view.” Teaching Excellence, 20(1).
Berk, R. A. (2009f). Using the 360° multisource feedback model to evaluateteaching and professionalism. Medical Teacher, 31, 1073–1080.
The 1st article above is a brief description of the model; the 2nd is a full-blown presentation of the model and lit review. Although the latter was written for professors and administrators in medical schools, all of the characteristics are generalizable to any discipline, department, school, or kingdom. The model is simple, straightforward, and easily applied to impress even accreditation reviewers of your evaluation plan in your self-study. An abstract of the article is given below:
This MT article provides an overview of the salient characteristics, research, and practices of the 360° MSF models in management/industry and clinical medicine. Drawing on that foundation, the model was adapted to the specific decisions rendered to evaluate faculty teaching performance and professional behaviors. What remains unchanged in every application is the original spirit of the model and its primary function:
Multisource Ratings→Quality Feedback→Action Plan to Improve→Improved Performance.
Although the ratings were intended for formative decisions, in many cases they have also ended up being used for summative decisions. All of these applications of the 360° MSF model have advantages and disadvantages. In fact, it is possible to distill several persistent and, perhaps, intractable psychometric issues in executing these models. The top 10 issues are described. Although much has been learned during the 80-year history of scaling, 60-year history of faculty evaluation, and 50-year history of the 360° MSF model in management/industry, a lot of work is still necessary to realize the true meaning of “best practices” in evaluating teaching and professionalism.
You can download the articles from my Website (www.ronberk.com) under Publications. They are intended for your own use and research purposes. Please do not distribute to family members or farm animals. The latter may eat them and get sick. Enjoy!
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
