The Kind of Leadership Students Never Forget

Jon Clifton:
[0:08] Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Donde Plowman, the distinguished chancellor at the University of Tennessee. With her insightful leadership and unwavering commitment, Chancellor Plowman has made an everlasting impact on the academic landscape.

Donde, it's great to have you here.

Donde Plowman:
[0:23] Thank you for asking me. I'm excited.

Jon Clifton:
[0:26] Donde, throughout your entire career, of your top five strengths, which ones do you think you've used the most in your leadership?

Donde Plowman:
[0:33] I honestly think Positivity. It's my third strength, but I think it, people tell me all the time, gosh, you're just, you have so much energy. You know, they've told me that for years before I even knew what strengths was. So I think Positivity is the one I just, it's just always there.

Jon Clifton:
[0:50] And how do you use it?

Donde Plowman:
[0:52] I use it by trying to like when I have, when I have a cabinet meetings, I start every meeting by having everybody go around the table and I, a different question each time, but it's something that's going to bring out the positive. So what one thing happened last week that you were so unprepared for and was great? And I do that to get people kind of in the mood to think positively about the issues in front of us.

Jon Clifton:
[1:18] Some of our research says that people with Positivity are among the most likely to be resilient to stress. Do you think that's true, and if so, why?

Donde Plowman:
[1:26] In my case, that Positivity explains a lot about, as I look back in my life, times when I really had to be resilient, and it came from somewhere. At the time, I didn't know anything about strengths 20 years ago, to be honest with you, and I look back on some important moments, and yeah, I'm a very resilient person, and I owe it all to strength number three.

Jon Clifton:
[1:50] Now, as a chancellor, you've been through a lot in terms of your leadership over the past few years, the pandemic being one of the biggest things facing higher education among many other issues. Is Positivity the theme that you think allows you and enables you to bring hope to others, or is that one of your other themes?

Donde Plowman:
[2:08] It's interesting you asked me that because at the very beginning of COVID, I set out like three principles. And the first one was to keep everyone healthy and hopeful. And there were signs all over the campus that said that. And as we got into it, I found that, honestly, the healthy part was easier than the hopeful part.

Jon Clifton:
[2:29] And why is that?

Donde Plowman:
[2:31] We were in the morass of we didn't even know what it was, and we were all so separated. So to say we want to keep everyone hopeful at the beginning of it, I didn't even know what I was saying because we were estranged, really, from life for a year and a half or so. So I think it did help. I was the cheerleader. We did live Zoom meetings with the chancellor twice a week for about a year. Update everyone and give the Positivity speech, to be honest with you.

Jon Clifton:
[3:02] You know, for those of us that have Positivity high, they say that our basement is that we can be Pollyanna. Do you face that?

Donde Plowman:
[3:10] I've heard that. I've heard that. I think about it every now and then because I don't want to come across as sort of superficial. So I've thought about that and I think I have to you know I can dial it back at times, but in my role as chancellor, a big role that I play is the cheerleader. I'm always talking about how great the University of Tennessee is and I talk about things that I mean it so I think it helps me in that regard. I think the CEO it's like that book The Chief Energy Officer was I can't remember who wrote it, but it was saying that your first job as CEO is really bringing the energy. So rather than saying I'm chief executive officer, I'm the chief energy officer. I bring the energy on days when other people can't.

Jon Clifton:
[4:00] What about when somebody is negative? How do you use your, does your Positivity confront the negativity? Does it reshape it, rethink it? How do you do that?

Donde Plowman:
[4:11] That's a great question. And I think it kind of depends on the person or the situation. When I first came to my role as chancellor, I remember I started on a Monday. There was a cabinet meeting scheduled for that Monday. And I decided I'm going to go into this meeting and just sort of lay out how I want us to start this journey together. And one of the things I talked about was I don't do well with just complaint sessions. You just should know that about me. And someone said to me, well, but sometimes there's real problems we have to solve. And I said, yeah, and we're going to do it in a way that's positive and gets to a positive solution. So just because you have a problem in front of you that's terrible, difficult, doesn't mean it has to be a negative situation. So that was how I started the job at Tennessee with those very words.

Jon Clifton:
[4:59] Assume that there was a student at the University of Tennessee that takes strengths and they find that they have Positivity in their top five. What advice would you have for them?

Donde Plowman:
[5:07] First of all, I would say, so do I. I have it in my top five. And here's how I think it is so helpful to you and to me. Most other people wake up every day not feeling that positive. And your Positivity is you bring it every day. You can choose to bring it. You can wake up and be positive because it's there right below the surface with you. And you can, in fact, help change other people's attitudes. Other people want to feel positive, and they want to genuinely be positive, but they kind of don't know how, and so you can lead the way. It's a great strength to have. It is a great strength. People want to follow someone who is thinking good thoughts and who's positive about the future.

Jon Clifton:
[5:52] Now, you had said that you started your journey with strengths 20 years ago.

Donde Plowman:
[5:56] No, no, no. Twenty years ago, I didn't know about strengths. I would say I started it, well, more like 15 years ago when I was at the University of Nebraska.

Jon Clifton:
[6:06] And can you tell that story?

Donde Plowman:
[6:07] Sure, I'd love to. It really began with getting to know the Clifton family, your dad, your aunts, and talking to them about what they would like to do, honestly, in a campaign that we were, you know, a giving campaign. And the idea came up, well, how could we honor your dad? And then we decided to, it just went from there, and we got so creative, and everybody was throwing around ideas, so we started the Don Clifton Strengths Institute. And honestly, at that point, I was still a learner about StrengthsFinder. And we implemented it in the College of Business there. Every student since then has taken it. They're still doing it. And as a way of learning more about yourself and how to be successful at college. But for me, I found it to this incredible leadership tool. And I got my, I didn't call them a cabinet, then my leadership team, we all took it. And we started learning about one another in ways that was just really exciting and gave us a language to talk to each other. And I've been using it ever since. With my leadership group now, every time I get a new person on my team, we start again. And that person takes strengths and then we go, we look at the grid again. And now what is this? Where are we now as a group? And so I just have used it, you know, every day of my leadership lives since the first time I was introduced to it.

Jon Clifton:
[7:33] Now, of all the challenges that that leadership team has faced, when you think about all the themes that they have, how have you collectively used those to overcome or overcome an obstacle or face a challenge?

Donde Plowman:
[7:46] Well, you know, I think let's go back and think about during COVID. COVID was a period for so many of us, but at universities, we all became like logistics managers. It was, do we have the testing? Do we have enough dorm beds? Are people spread apart? It was just logistics. And in that period, the people with the Deliberative strengths, that was really helpful. And the Analytical strengths, like who's where, how are we going to get students, the roommate's sick and the other roommate's fine. What do we do with this? I mean, it was just a morass of logistical challenges. So honestly, the people on our team that were Analytical, Deliberative, and then at the same time, you know, the Harmony, relatedness, those kinds of things were super important. But we had to do it in a different way. We weren't face-to-face with people. So it was, we worked hard at that. And I think we succeeded, especially on the communication part of it, which is interesting because it's the area where day-to-day circumstances were a little bit light in that area. But we had our values on signs all around the campus.

Those live broad updates I did became sort of the thing. Everybody's tuning in to see where, and we would show the data. Here's how many cases we have today. Here's how many we had yesterday. So what are we going to do about that? You know, it was remarkable how I think the skills that in other times we sort of think, oh, you know, Deliberative, especially for someone like me. That's like my third from the bottom. Like, I want to go. But it was very important at that time.

Jon Clifton:
[9:27] Your number one is Strategic. How do you use your Strategic in your leadership every day?

Donde Plowman:
[9:31] Well, it's really important because when I think about Strategic, I find it really easy to connect things together. Like this might be causing this, and this could affect this. And the challenges that are in front of us, people leading higher ed these days, they're complicated. And there's a lot of stakeholders that all have different views about what we should be doing. And so I think the Strategic is really helps me every single day in trying to keep focused also on the North Star and what's important and trying to figure out what does affect what. So I'm really happy that that's a top strength of mine. I'm not surprised by it. It's a top strength of quite a few of my cabinet. So we're all thinking along the same lines.

Jon Clifton:
[10:24] Well, and I think thinking ahead is your other strength that we haven't talked about, which is Futuristic. When you are using Futuristic, how far into the future are you thinking?

Donde Plowman:
[10:35] Really, not that far. Trying to think too far in the future just scares me. But I would say, a lot of universities are so far behind that just thinking about five years out is what I use. So we've developed a new strategic vision a year ago that's pretty exciting, kind of bold, but it's really based on what are we going to try to be in five years. I honestly, I used to teach strategic planning. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to try to plan out much further than that. And I didn't even use the word plan in this. It's called our vision. Because it's a living, breathing document, and it really more answers the question, who do we want to be? Who is it that we're trying to be as an organization? And what do we need to do to try to become that thing? And that is more motivating to me than here's 10 action items and here's how we're going to measure them. We have metrics, but trying to inspire people with thinking about the future. So, yeah, I use that and engage. One of the ways I, sometimes it's like I have to wake other people up in a way because we're just, we're grinding, you know. And so when we started our strategic visioning, it was reading a few articles that were very provocative and disruptive about where's higher ed going. And then people wake up and are like, wow, okay, we need to talk about that. And how do we want to confront that?

Jon Clifton:
[12:12] What is the answer to that?

Donde Plowman:
[12:14] I wish I knew. Where is higher ed going? Well, it's going in a way we have to be more accountable than we've ever been, especially in public higher education. And we owe people, we owe students career paths, not just jobs, career paths. Universities don't talk that way very often. And we've got to start doing more of that. It's no longer just a place you can you know parents are gonna pay this money to come and I don't know play around with different ideas. I mean that's a nice luxury. We've also got to help assure parents and students that we are their partners in trying to help this young person be ready for a career.

Jon Clifton:
[12:59] And it's not just the cost. It's not just declining enrollment, again, not at Tennessee, across the board. But it's also that, you know, today, according to the Gallup poll, confidence is now in decline for higher ed.

Donde Plowman:
[13:13] I know, and that makes me so sad.

Jon Clifton:
[13:15] And what's the future of that?

Donde Plowman:
[13:16] Yeah, well, we've got to turn that around. And I think we do it by working more with industry and helping students in every discipline. Let's just take the humanities, see their path to a career. There's a lot of great options for students who study humanities, but they're especially taking a hit these days in, well, what are you going to do with a degree in classics? And so I think, you know, we all have to answer that question. We can't just say, well, I don't know. I mean, we have to answer the question. And in the past, I think when, I don't know, there was a lot more slack in the system, there was less stress societally, maybe universities could get away with not being as, I don't know, as good of partners with industry and with helping kids think about careers. But I think it's on us now. We've got to do that.

Jon Clifton:
[14:12] And what gives you, with your Positivity, most hope about higher education right now and in the next five to maybe 25 years?

Donde Plowman:
[14:21] I'll tell you where I get my hope. I'm sorry, I'm pointing my finger. Every single day is from the students. And I like to teach and stay involved. But the fact, just what we were talking about, the fact that their eyes light up about trying to solve problems, that Restorative strength of theirs. I have great confidence in it. They don't carry the baggage, the hurts, the guilt, the exclusionary ideas. Older generations carry. They don't. They want to just be with one another. They want to learn things. They want to make changes. They want things to be better. And that inspires me. They're going to do it. I know they will.

Jon Clifton:
[15:05] Achiever is your number two strength.

Donde Plowman:
[15:08] Achiever. And I'll tell you, I can be dangerous because combined with, I also have Activator and I have, oh, there's one other it starts with A. I mean I can get things done and I like to get things done quickly but I can I remember a criticism given to me by my husband who's my greatest critic because he'll be honest with me. I remember when I was dean, he goes Donde, you're going to exhaust people here pretty soon. Oh we can do this and we can do this. I like to get things done and I don't again I don't like to, take forever to plan every little detail. Let's get it about 70 percent thought out and then let's go. And in fact we used to we had a motto at the college of business Nebraska it was called start something. Come here and start something and in a way that reflects my management style. I think you could say let's think it through then let's just get started and see what we can learn and figure it out as we go. Arranger, that was what it was. Arranger, Activator, Achiever, Woo. I mean, I have to dial it back sometimes. Like my husband said, I can wear people out.

Jon Clifton:
[16:19] You and I were briefly talking about when Arianna Huffington and I chatted about her Achiever. And her Achiever actually may have gone so intense that it is what caused some of the burnout that she's now written about and spoken about extensively. How do you ensure that your Achiever doesn't go overboard not just to protect against your own burnout but that you're not burning out your colleagues?

Donde Plowman:
[16:43] You know I've been thinking a lot about that and reading articles on change fatigue. We're implementing a lot of change at Tennessee and my strengths are helping me do that. But at the same time, people are caring a lot, and they're a lot of responsibility. And so I was looking at an article recently about how to use your strengths to avoid change fatigue. And I think one of the first things I read in this article was at least acknowledge it. So we've had some conversations around the table.

So what do we mean change fatigue? And how are we observing it? So what are we going to do? I know one of my vice chancellors said, we picked a week in July and just said, we're just backing off. We're just going to not work on this big project this week. So trying to acknowledge it. But I think that that's a serious issue that I have to continue to work at because I can think of a lot of new ideas that would be perfect. And you're the perfect person to do it, but, oh, you're already doing 10 other things. So I think that's a challenge that I've always had that challenge, is people get tired. So I think more socializing, stopping, taking a breath. We've tried in the summer wellness Wednesdays, no meetings on Wednesday. We did that last summer. I didn't institute it this summer because we honestly, it was hard to do. Wellness Wednesdays, no email, no meetings. Well, it was kind of impossible to do no email, but I just think we've got to work at it. And it's partly a reflection of I want to get things done. I so want to make things better. But you have to pace it with people.

Jon Clifton:
[18:34] Yeah, Achiever is such a fascinating strength because we get energy from getting things done, which kind of causes an ongoing cycle where then you keep going. And so how do you keep it in check for yourself personally?

Donde Plowman:
[18:47] Well, I'll tell you, you know, it can just be exhausting. And so I'm trying really hard to ... Draw a few more lines, boundaries, between work and home. My husband will laugh when you hear me say this, but putting the phones aside a little bit more often and just trying to be in the moment. Live in the moment is actually a pretty good way to try to live. Achievers are always planning the next thing, so it's very easy to never be in the moment. And so I think those are the challenges for me that I think my team would say, you're right, Donde, those are the things you need to work on.

Jon Clifton:
[19:32] Now, one of the strengths that really knows how to bring out the strengths of others is Maximizer, which is, of course, in your top five. Can you talk a little bit about how you've brought out the strengths in others?

Donde Plowman:
[19:44] Well, so when I think about Maximizer, I think about in my own journey. I've always wanted to get the most out of every moment, the most out of every meeting. I don't want to have inefficiencies, and I think that kind of came from the Maximizer idea. But when I look at the people that are helping me lead this huge university, every single one of them is gifted, and I need their gifts in action because they have strengths that I don't have. And so now that I know what everybody's strengths are, I'll ask them, okay, what is your Harmony strength saying to you right now? I like to joke about that one because Harmony is like next to the bottom of mine.

So, you know, just being upfront about it. And we're all really comfortable with the language and we all know what it means. And when we get stumped sometimes, we'll say something like, okay, Mr. Deliberative, how would you help us with this today? You've been sitting there so what are you thinking? And it just helps it brings some levity but it also brings attention to the things that need to be looked at and identified so it's been great as a language that we all use. So I okay this is just something is true about me. I don't like long meetings. I don't like inefficiencies. I don't like anyone wasting, I don't want to waste anyone's time. I'm always asking people after meeting, was it worth your time being here? And I think that relates to maximizing. I want to maximize the moments we have. People are busy.

Your team is busy. My team is really busy. So to carve out and say, I need 90 minutes of your time for a meeting every two weeks, that's a lot of time. And so I just think about getting the most out of it. And I want everyone to feel like it was worth their time. So I've always thought about maximizing the moment, maximizing the opportunity, maximizing the situation. And the Maximizer strength has begun to teach me about, well, you want to maximize, get the most you can out of the team you have. But I think I could be better at that, to be honest with you.

You know, when I first started, I got a new job at Nebraska. I went from the business school up to the executive vice chancellor role. And there was someone in that office that I had thought, as a dean, I had to work with a person. And the person seemed slow, seemed kind of bureaucratic. And I remember thinking, oh, gosh, that doesn't mix with me very well. Slow, bureaucratic, I don't like rules. I want to move and get things done. I got to the office, began to learn about this person and Context was her number one strength. And I be immediately went that's what it is and then I learned she became the most valuable person to me because I would be able to say to her are we going to speed this up just a little bit but I never went jumping off a cliff not knowing what rule I was breaking or what I should know before I did it. And I came to value that so much. So I misunderstood. I think without strengths, I might have gone over there and thought, you know, our personalities are not going to mix. And so that was my real first eye opener, like how valuable it can be as a language to talk to one another. And I remember being in the middle of conversations with her and either she would say, okay, it's my Context thing going, but just go with me here. Or I would say, okay, let's get this going. Context is getting in the way. So it's been wonderful that way.

Jon Clifton:
[23:30] Do you think there's something about strengths? Do you see this in your leadership that sometimes when somebody is exhibiting a particular behavior, that we as humans have a reaction that it might be something negative that they're doing, but in fact they have the most positive intentions and it's actually one of their strengths coming out?

Donde Plowman:
[23:48] 100%. I think that's exactly what happens. And I think without knowing what I do now about strengths, we all have them, when somebody does something that just doesn't sit well with us, we ... we put that on them, something out of whack, when instead, actually, it was one of their strengths that I can come to appreciate. And I have really experienced that time and time again. And I'll pull out, I have the grid for my whole team. I keep it in a certain place where I know right where it is. It's laminated. And if I'm troubled with someone, I'm going to have a one-on-one meeting with one of my team. I'll pull that out, and I'll go, okay, I'm going to talk to him this way because I remember that Significance is really big with this person. Or I have one person on my team with Command, only one. And sometimes we need a little more of that. And so, yeah, it's just a great tool. And I hope that you don't mind the word tool, but I think it's phenomenal.

Jon Clifton:
[24:56] What does the makeup of your team look like when you look at that team grid?

Donde Plowman:
[24:59] Well, if you look at that grid, and every group I've ever been part of, influence category, is the one that has the fewest strengths in that category. So if you think about what that means, and we've talked about it as a team, so what do we have to do to compensate for the fact that it could look like nobody here is paying attention to communicating with people, trying to sell them on something? And at the same time we do a great job of that so but we have to be intentional about it because it's the category and I and this is kind of stunning I've got a cabinet of 12 people, and I think that category if you count up all the strengths in there it's probably about eight or 10 and I have four of them wow so that's another thing because it can't be all be on me to, you know, make sure that we're selling this and we're communicating and thinking about how to get, how to move people. So I've thought about it a lot. And actually one other person has three. So if something happened to the two of us, there's no influencing happening in that group.

Jon Clifton:
[26:07] And the other thing you said that dominates is what? Or the domain?

Donde Plowman:
[26:11] The other domain is execution and strategy. And usually strategic is, I don't know what it what it is about university leadership, but we're all strategic.

Jon Clifton:
[26:21] Does it mean it's low with relationship building themes?

Donde Plowman:
[26:24] Yeah, that's where we're the lowest.

Jon Clifton:
[26:28] How does that present itself? Does it create challenges, opportunities?

Donde Plowman:
[26:34] I think it creates a lot of challenges because we get really far removed from, I mean, at my university there's 9,000 employees. There's 34,000 students. So I think we sit in a tower in a room talking about all the problems we got and forget to, you know, bring the people along. And so it's in some ways, the fact that it's sparse is a wake up call. The old, it takes, what is it, seven times that you have to express something before people hear it. I remember saying, well, I sent an email. I don't understand why they didn't get that. You know, so it's kind of a reminder there.

Jon Clifton:
[27:15] Now, I think those that know you very well know you for your charm, your Woo, which is your number six. How do you use that as chancellor?

Donde Plowman:
[27:23] So I think in some ways the Woo is probably the single most important strength I have. And I was initially upset that it was six and not five until I learned more about it. But, you know, part of what winning others over, that's all I do is I am trying to get students to accept this idea. I'm trying to get elected officials to understand this part of what we're doing. I'm trying to get alums to, you know, view us in a certain way. I'm constantly, I don't like to use the word sales, but I'm constantly trying to influence the way people think about the university. And so it is incredibly important to me. I love to talk about it. I'll grab the microphone and talk about it ad nauseum, but I think it's my job. And so it's probably the most important strength that I have is trying to help other people see there might be a different way to look at this and to kind of push people along.

Jon Clifton:
[28:26] But what you're saying is those with Woo, oftentimes, it's they are trying to win them over for themselves individually. But what you're saying is, is that you use your Woo to win people over, not for you, but for the institution. Is that right?

Donde Plowman:
[28:39] Yeah, I think in my job, I am the steward of the university's image, its brand, its actual curriculum that we provide. And I want people to feel good about that and to be proud of it. I say to alums all the time, my job is to make your degree more valuable every single day. And I like it when they say, well, you're doing that. And it's a metaphor, but the truth is that is the biggest part of the job. And so I'm really comfortable with that and grateful that it comes easy for me to kind of push you into thinking about things slightly differently than you were before.

Jon Clifton:
[29:22] And if a student found out that Woo was one of their top five, they didn't know what it was, what advice would you have?

Donde Plowman:
[29:28] I would say use it. People need to be pushed. Use it carefully. Be deliberate about it, but it's a great strength to have. Now, I will tell one story about it. I was working with the softball team at Nebraska. Their coach, I love her to death, Rhonda Revell, she uses strengths all the time. So I would come every year and just talk to them about their strengths. Like, let's look at the softball team. Let's look at your coaches. And one year, she literally had, I don't know, half her team had Woo as their number one strength. And she's like, I don't think I can do this. And I just remember talking about, so what does that mean? You know, when you've got a substantial portion of your team that's, you know, willing to be right there all the time, you know, with a and it was something she had to manage. It wasn't a negative thing, but you don't typically think about wow a big part of your group is Woo.

Jon Clifton:
[30:27] Well, especially athletes. I think there are a lot of times when, you know, we perceive athletes that they might have Competition number one, it's not necessarily the case. So what did she do about that?

Donde Plowman:
[30:38] Well, she really had strong relater skills. So she used those skills to try to help the group see how you can dial back one of your strengths. Like it doesn't have to always be on high speed. And so, you know, I have a great respect for Rhonda. The fact that she was interested in all of it made me love her even more.

Jon Clifton:
[30:58] That's fascinating. Now, you talked about the communication that you did through the pandemic. We've found in our research with respect to the demands of leadership that clear communication is one of the most important competencies, if you will, for leaders. And as you mentioned, you had a fantastic communications plan. You're an effective communicator on platforms like Twitter. What is that theme that drives that?

Donde Plowman:
[31:25] The thing that drives our communication and the way I try to use it is we talk about I'm the people's chancellor, to be honest with you. And I feel that way. I mean, the university, it's a public university. We're the state of Tennessee's university. I'm your chancellor, I say to people, even though they're not in school there. And I want them to know what a chancellor does, how the citizens' money is being spent, kind of. And so people feel like they know me. And that warms them up to the university. And it's been really a significant part of how we function. I tell the story. I'm the storyteller. I'm sort of the brand in a way. I carry the brand, but I'm also a steward of the brand, but I become kind of the brand in a way. So the communication has been something. I've got a great team that really helps me with it. And during COVID, it was really significant to be able to boil it down to what we said was, if you don't know what to do, do one of the following three things. Be flexible, be compassionate, be creative. If you follow that, you'll make a good decision. Because at the outset, we were, everyone was dispersed. They were working from home. If you don't know what to do, be compassionate, be creative, be flexible. And I would say we're pretty good at universities about compassion. We're not that good about flexibility. I think creativity, we think, well, that's just for these people over here. Actually, we all had to be creative.

Jon Clifton:
[33:01] Now, when you talk about compassion, you know, in strengths-based leadership, we talk a lot about the needs of followers, that compassion is one of the most critical elements. What is it that makes Tennessee a leader in compassion?

Donde Plowman:
[33:14] Well, I think the fact that we're even using strengths as a basis for student success. So every single new student to Tennessee, freshman or transfer, takes their assessment, and they have a coach who works with them, who is there for them, an academic strengths coach. That's different. I mean, I don't know universities in the country where everyone's ... we've had 18,000 students, we started this three years ago, take their strengths. And so one of the things I love about strengths is it's a language that lets you get right to a substantive conversation with someone. You don't have to work through the ... It's like, what are your top five strengths? And all of a sudden you're talking about, the person, the real person right there. And I love that. And so, you know, when I see students on campus, I'll ask them, what's your top five strengths? And, you know, there's a lot of them have to get their phone out and look at it. But I taught a class this spring. I taught it with former governor. We shared our strengths with the class. We looked at their strengths. It's just kind of a way of making us all more human and more honest with each other about who we are, but not in a way that's, oh, I'm going to self-disclose every bad thing that's ever happened to me. And I think that's one of the things I really like about it.

Jon Clifton:
[34:41] Now, a few years ago, you gave a really powerful speech to the campus. And in that speech, you mentioned the strength that students at Tennessee are most likely to have. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Donde Plowman:
[34:54] And they still have it. So every year for three years, the top strength of our students has been Restorative. And honestly, it's down at the bottom of my list. I had to go look it up. What is Restorative? They've all got it. The way I talk about it is we have all these kids that come to college at the University of Tennessee, smart. They're in all these great academic programs, but they want to solve problems. They want to fix things. And every time I see them, and the class we had this last spring, yep, Restorative is up there at the top. And I always say I'm so hopeful about the future because of you all. There's a lot of problems that need fixing, and they want to do it. They want things to be better. And I just think that's really powerful. They're Tennessee Volunteers. They've learned a lot about service and leadership while they're there. They've experienced it. They're getting a great degree in an academic area, and they want to solve problems.

Jon Clifton:
[35:52] Now, one of the big reasons, as I understand it, that you implemented strengths for all freshmen was to accelerate their development. But there's another aspect of it that you and Amber Williams have both talked about, which is inclusion. Can you talk more about how strengths presents itself in a way to accelerate inclusion?

Donde Plowman:
[36:09] Well, I think just like what I was saying about when you begin to talk about what are your top five strengths, all of a sudden I'm talking to you as a human being. There's nothing else that matters. It's like, oh, Restorative, Deliberate, Analytical, where did that come from? And so it just brings us together. I think it creates a sense of community. That's the way I would say it, a sense of community that otherwise takes a long time to get there. And I think it levels the playing field, and it says there's no one set of strengths that make you fantastic. You know, the key is figuring out what yours are and then using them proudly. And so I think the sense of community is more positive. And I think it is an opportunity for inclusion because we're all human and we're all good at stuff. We just don't know it sometimes.

Jon Clifton:
[37:05] Now, Tennessee is taking a lead kind of in the entire academic community when it comes to retention rates and a number of other important academic metrics. And you've talked about the impact that strengths has had on those indicators. Can you talk about why you think that's happening?

Donde Plowman:
[37:24] Well, one of the things, here's what we know from the data, is that all of our students, new students, are assigned a student success team. So it includes an advisor and an academic strengths coach, a peer mentor, and someone to help them with financial aid and that kind of thing. And what we know from the data is the students who will visit somebody in that group of four at least once, do better on everything we measure. Their GPA is better, their sense of connection and engagement at the university is better, and so the likelihood they're going to stay in school is better. And our retention rates, we're working really hard at them, and they've gone up significantly in the last three years since we've started this approach really to student success that says, you know what, rather than thinking about what's wrong with people, sort of a deficit mindset, we try to think about student wellbeing and everybody's wellbeing. And we've just seen great increases. And I'm really, I want to knock on wood because as soon as I start talking about it, you know, something could happen. But it's important. It's how our performance as a university is judged. It's also, it's not the only reason to do it, but we have a formula of funding. So we're funded based on hitting certain metrics, number of graduates, graduation rates, that they matter. And so we've been really thrilled with the success of it.

Jon Clifton:
[38:48] But what do you think it is about those conversations? I mean, clearly these are talented young people that are getting into Tennessee. They've been told at various times in their life what's right with them, what they're good at. Why is it that that conversation separates and helps accelerate their development so much?

Donde Plowman:
[39:04] Well, I think they've never talked about themselves that way. No one's ever looked at them and said, I'm going to tell you five things about you that are just off the charts. I think it's mostly to get through high school. It's like you correct everything that's wrong about yourself. Try to get there. And so you come to the university, and you're with all these students, and they're all doing it and beginning to talk about it. And then you go to, we have a first-year studies class that every student takes. It's one hour. And you've got a professor in there that's talking about it. It just changes how you think about yourself. And I think that's part of the success of it. We're going to keep building on it. I mean, we've just really been at this for not even really three years, and we've got a long way to go, but we're continuing to build it out, and I think we're making a difference, and I hope we get to the point where I think we've got a model now people could look at, but we've got more we want to do, and then we've got something I'm really proud of. I want the world to see it, to be honest with you.

Jon Clifton:
[40:04] Now, as the people's chancellor, and I, by the way, I think that might have something to do with your number six strength, Woo, but do you have any stories about when there were some students that went through it where they were really surprised by it where it made a change with them in a very significant way or even someone that that happened with on your team directly?

Donde Plowman:
[40:25] Well you know I taught one of those first year studies classes a couple years ago and we had a veteran in the class. It was a small group 20 people and he was amazing but when you think about a vet coming back to school ... Now, he wasn't, he was probably 10 years older than all the students. And he'd been deployed three times. And he told the class one night, you know, you all are scared of certain things. And you think, because the class was saying to him, boy, you're a hero to us, you know, and we were talking about our strengths. And what he shared with was, you know, I'm scared of things too. Like, I'm not 18.

I don't talk about the things that you talk about. And it was just this sort of moment when it was a leveling of the playing field. You know, like he has strengths. He's got some of the same strengths I have. And another student sang. And the students were looking at him going, wow, if I have some of his strengths, he's brave. So maybe, you know. So it just was created a conversation where I think he felt more accepted. And they were in awe of him. And they felt kind of empowered. And that's one that stands out in my mind. I personally witnessed it. I was right there. It was just a moving moment. And that's another area that we've really been focusing on is attracting more veterans to come back to school. What they need when they come to school is really different than what somebody else needs, the support they need.

Jon Clifton:
[41:56] Absolutely. Now, since your time as chancellor, the athletics program has been having unusual success with a number of teams.

Donde Plowman:
[42:05] I'm glad you've noticed.

Jon Clifton:
[42:07] How is strengths being used with athletics?

Donde Plowman:
[42:11] You know we have it's called the Thornton Center, which is where they go especially when they're freshmen for advising, and our freshman athletes take the strengths assessment. We're not yet there in athletics that I would say you know people are walking around talking about what your strengths are. I can say I won't, but I can tell you what our AD's strengths are because he's part of the group. But I think what's happened there is just this focus on positive culture, building a positive culture, and doing it with adults who are trying to do the right things for the right reasons. So we've had a lot of success. It came out of, you know, kind of a dark moment a couple, three years ago when we had to make some changes. But it's been wonderful. So yeah, we're excited. And I think the way our athletic director would say it is, you know, when you have coaches and everybody's talking about competing, and they see the department putting resources behind non-revenue generating sports, wow, all of a sudden everybody's working hard. And so this last year we were ranked, I think sixth in the Director's Cup.

That's a big deal. We're proud about that. Usually, schools, you're only talking about football, maybe basketball. But this year, we went to the College World Series in both sports. That was exciting. So I've always believed, maybe this is my Positivity strength again, that positive energy creates more positive energy. And I really see that happening in the athletic department. I wish I could say it's all due to strengths. But that story's yet to be completely written. So check back with me on that.

Jon Clifton:
[44:01] Well, I don't know if this was your Strategic. Maybe it was another thing. But one of my favorite stories that I've ever heard you tell was at the University of Nebraska because I said, now that you've done strengths here, what have you done with it? Can you talk a little bit more about that story? And was it your Strategic or was it a different theme that inspired that?

Donde Plowman:
[44:19] So I think the story you're thinking of is we had all our students have been taking the strengths. And we were starting to use it conversationally. And then we got some faculty to take it and encouraged faculty to take that. And one of the first things we observed, of course, we immediately were like, okay, the faculty's top five strengths are this, the student's top five strengths are this. Well, right away, we saw the number one strength for faculty was Learner. And that was nowhere to be found in the students' top 10 strengths. And so initially you could look at that and say, okay, see, that's the problem. They're not interested in learning. We're the ones that are interested in learning. Well, the number one strength of the students was Competition. And so we had this really rich conversation about, okay, wait a second. It doesn't mean they want to learn. But if you want to enhance it, you need to make it more competitive. Like think about what you can do in the classroom, that you get to an understanding through some competitive kind of experience. And that was sort of an aha moment. I wish I could say we overhauled all the curriculum around that, but it was a moment where we, it's just, it's the same thing I was talking about earlier. Their lacking learning looks like something wrong with them instead of they're going to learn a different way.

Jon Clifton:
[45:39] Wow.

Donde Plowman:
[45:41] I'll never forget that. It was just really important observation.

Jon Clifton:
[45:44] Donde, thank you for spending time with me today and talking about your strengths.

Donde Plowman:
[45:48] Thank you. I love the topic. Yeah, thanks.

Transcript autogenerated using AI.