THE EXPONENT: Volume 2002, Number 5

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." - George Bernard Shaw

"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself -- and be lenient to everybody else." - Henry Ward Beecher

Welcome!

By now, you've begun introducing your new members to what it means to be a Brother in Triangle. You've undoubtedly introduced them to a bevy of new information. That undoubtedly includes all the banal stuff like Triangle history and Greek alphabet memorization. More importantly, I hope it truly includes things like what it means to be a Triangle, how to be a member of a real team, how to operate the chapter, how to communicate with others, how to get good grades, opportunities for friendship development, and what it means to be a social Fraternity and a member of the wider Greek community.

You're not trained, most likely, to be teachers. Thanks to our illustrious education system, you've probably learned that most learning is based on regurgitation, like multiple-choice tests. I think most Triangles are bright enough, however, to recognize that not all learning is that way. Sometimes there's more to it than reciting historical names, dates, and places. Those interesting things are important -- it's a good thing to honor the 16 Founders, for instance -- but the other things far outweigh the simple stuff. Fortunately, you're called upon to teach, or learn, them yourself. That's a good thing because that's where the real value of Triangle is.

One last thought -- don't forget that you have a knowledgeable group of other Triangles to whom you can avail yourself for help!

• Climb Every Mountain
• You've Got a Homepage, Why Not Use It?
• What's Really, Really Important?

Climb Every Mountain

Tim Eiler minn87, Exponent Editor

Building an effective team is not easy. That's true no matter whether you're trying to do it with paid professionals or a bunch of volunteers. There are a lot of ways you can go wrong -- probably as many ways as there are people who make up your team. Fortunately, "team" is more about the task at hand than it is about the people in it.

Very few of the obstacles are impossible to overcome. Some of the most common ways in which a team can fail are listed here, along with some ways to avoid or fix them.

The Weakest Link

In the ideal world, the leader would be the person who has a vision for how to achieve the task and then who communicates the vision clearly and directs the team to glory. Unfortunately, perhaps most of all when the leader hasn't a great deal of leadership experience, that may not be the case at all. According to Zachary Green, of the U of Md's Burns Academy of Leadership, "people with informal authority need to take up the slack." Those people aren't being insubordinate either -- as long as they handle the situation correctly.

Everyone on the team should first give allegiance to the team's goal or mission -- NOT the leader. That way the team can get the job done even when the formal leader isn't able to do a full job. It's a team member's right to compensate for the leader's, or any team member's, weakness. In fact, a team member should look upon it as his responsibility!

Personal Conflicts

Sometimes personal issues get in the way of playing as a team. When some team members are fighting, they may try to foil each other's progress, un/intentionally get in each other's way, or generally not work together. This is completely an ego-trip and has very little to do with the work with which the team is charged. Someone on the team -- hopefully the leader -- needs to deal with the problem by confronting the problem people to get them to either change their behavior where the team is concerned or to leave the team.

Free Riders

Mr. Pareto says that 20% of the people will do 80% of the work. I don't think he worked in a volunteer organization! Often it's more like 10% of the people do 95% of the work it seems. Unfortunately, some folks think it's just easier to sit back for the ride, letting the team's real go-getters take over. Well, as you know, this leads to burnout pretty quickly. That's true even for the folks who seem to enjoy being the shining star hard chargers. Once again, the leader, or even the team as a whole, needs to confront this behavior. Everyone needs to pull his weight or exit the team (maybe this causes the whole team's job to fail, but it is likely to have failed anyway with few doing the work).

It's all about trust

Sometimes members of teams have ulterior motives to their participation. Sometimes those ulterior motives lead to behaviors that cause the others to not fully trust the person. That leads to failure to share information and other conflicts. The team, probably the leader, needs again to confront such behavior.

In the book "Built to Last," the authors coined the phrase "The Nordstrom Effect." It describes the environment at Nordstrom department stores, in which the team is so gung ho that those who choose not to be as gung ho as the team eventually self-select out (i.e. quit). Here's to hoping you, as a leader or as just a team member, can build and work in such teams in you chapter and in your professional and volunteer lives!

You've Got a Homepage, Why Not Use It?

Tim Eiler minn87, Exponent Editor

Your homepage is ONE of the ways to show the world whom you are. You get to tell the university and community something about you. You might also get a new recruit or two from it. It's also a way you communicate amongst yourselves! Doesn't it make sense then to make sure you've made your site do those things well?

The good news is:

1. Doing the basics well doesn't take a lot of effort (it's unnecessary extra bells & whistles that'll kill you)
2. Tech-interested geeks like us will probably find this stuff fun
3. To do the basics well, you get some exposure to important non-tech concepts, too

The homepage is the most important page on most websites, and gets more page views than any other page. Even if the homepage isn't where a user comes in, it's pretty likely that it's where Joe Average will get shortly thereafter. Thus it's a good idea to spend a pretty high amount of attention there.

Some things you can do to improve/enhance your site are:

Make the Site's Purpose Clear: Explain Who You Are and What You Do

1. Include a One-Sentence Tagline

   Start the page with a line that summarizes what the site and Triangle do or could do for the user -- not everyone will know who you are, maybe not even what an American college fraternity is, and those who know the general stuff don't probably know about Triangle specifically.

2. Write a Window Title with Good Visibility in Search Engines and Bookmark Lists

   Begin the TITLE tag with the Triangle name, followed by a brief description of the site. Don't start with words like "Welcome to" unless you want to be alphabetized under "W."

3. Group all Corporate Information in One Distinct Area

   Finding out about the Fraternity organization is rarely a user's first task, but sometimes people do need details about who you are. Sometimes that's needed to establish credibility -- specifically where it shows that Triangle is more than just the chapter in question. An "About Triangle" section is the best way to link users to more in-depth information than can be presented on the homepage. You should do the same kind of thing for PR and any other grouped-by-concept information. That helps users quickly find what they need.

4. Emphasize the Site's Top High-Priority Tasks

   Your homepage should offer users a clear starting point for the main one to four tasks they'll undertake when visiting your site.

5. Include a Search Input Box

   Search is an important part of any big website. When users want to search, they typically scan the homepage looking for "the little box," so using an actual box is a good idea. Make your search box at least 25 characters wide, so it can accommodate multiple words without obscuring parts of the user's query.

6. Show Examples of Real Site Content

   Reveal Site Content. Don't just describe the content or pages below the homepage. Specifics beat abstractions.. Show some of your best or most recent content.

7. Begin Link Names with the Most Important Keyword

   Users scan down the page, trying to find the area that will serve their current goal. Links are the action items on a homepage, and when you start each link with a relevant word, you make it easier for scanning eyes to differentiate it from other links on the page. A common violation of this guideline is to start all links with your name, which adds little value and impairs users' ability to quickly find what they need.

8. Offer Easy Access to Recent Homepage Features

   Users will often remember articles, products, or promotions that were featured prominently on the homepage, but they won't know how to find them once you move the features inside the site. To help users locate key items, keep a short list of recent features on the homepage, and supplement it with a link to a permanent archive of all other homepage features.

9. Don't Over-Format Critical Content, Such as Navigation Areas

   Use Visual Design to Enhance, rather than define, how the user interacts with your site. Think like a user! Many users dismiss graphics as advertisements, so don't splash your important items all over illustrations in boxes. Users want to quickly focus on the parts of the homepage that look more likely to be useful.

10. Use Meaningful Graphics

    While users may tend to dismiss smallish graphics as ads, it's a good idea to not just decorate the page with stock art. Use the power of images to show items of interest to users. Recognize, however, that image use will backfire if the graphics seem frivolous, irrelevant, or too much like ad copy. The site shouldn't be an excuse for someone to practice Photoshop! ;-)

What's Really, Really Important?

Tim Eiler minn87, Exponent Editor

Anson Dorrance, head soccer coach at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill since 1979, has racked up an impressive, staggering really, 95% win record (520-23-13). To what does he attribute his success? First, the fundamentals: telling the Truth, loving the team and the individuals, loving what you do, reading people, and being enthusiastic. Dorrance introduces a critical new dimension of success, though: the need to be humbled and humble. In his own words:

"To be successful a team has to have a collective will," Dorrance observes. "The best teams we've ever had here had a sort of collective power that was almost unbeatable. And we had this collective power, irrespective of talent. There were some teams with very average talent that collectively were just so overwhelming. That was the key. It's tied into team chemistry, really. And it's tied into a philosophy that we've encouraged from the beginning -- the concept of playing for each other."

"I think most people don't understand this. Playing for championships or titles is very overrated. It always stuns me when someone outside our team fabric comes up before a critical game and assumes that the team's going to be motivated because of the event. In my experience, teams aren't motivated for championship games; they're motivated for each other. And the motivational factors go beyond the event they're playing for. They basically relate to connecting with all the people that surround them on the team. Team chemistry is a critical element -- perhaps the most critical element in a championship season."

"That's why the first thing we do, especially in my environment where we are losing and gaining players every year, is to reestablish the connection, the chemistry. It's almost like a rite of passage for a new player to come in and be accepted by the group that's won before."

"For that to happen, every player that comes in really has to humble himself for the task. It's impossible to be a consistent winner without humility. And a lot of the humility is accepting first of all that you can get better -- the player himself, can get better, and also that you're going to sacrifice yourself for the team."

"Once players and the group have accepted humility individually, then we try to create a collective confidence where everyone plays a certain role to help the team win. That's why it's so critical for everyone in the organization to have a role and for everyone to be valued for his humanity. It's not a hierarchy of talent within the team fabric; it's a collection of human beings. Understanding that has been the key to our success."

"Perhaps that's why my greatest satisfaction in coaching has not been winning championships but just listening to what my players have to say. This was a real epiphany for me. Early on, I thought winning would make me feel on the top of the world. But even winning a world championship didn't do that."

So what's all that mean in terms of Triangle? What's the "Really, Really Important" part to take away?

In my opinion, there are a few key items:

1. Be humble as individuals. Those who are already members need to recognize that they have more to learn from each other and the experience -- they aren't "da man" quite yet. Any potential new member should have his "humility quotient" explored, too. Triangle, like Coach Dorrance's teams, is more than just the individuals involved. Seeking humility in new members will also help with the problem of the constantly rotating membership problem. When the Founders spoke of always seeking out and listening to the advice of older, more mature members, this is what they meant, I think. Older members mentoring -- sharing experience and Knowledge with -- younger members humble enough to accept the mentoring.

2. Be a team. Find ways to develop what Dorrance calls "collective will." A chapter, indeed all of Triangle, must be more than a loose grouping of individuals with a similar set of interests. To be truly successful in the long run as a chapter, and as individuals in the chapter, everyone needs to pull together. This doesn't mean being the same, being "cookie-cutter" individuals. Instead, it means finding the fundamentals and then doing them well, with the interests of Triangle, each other, and oneself in full balance.

3. Seek true success. Success in life is about more than winning any single contest. Graduating with a 4.0 is a nice victory, but if there is no wider balance to the man than his success in academics, then it is a battle won with the war lost. The same is true of the man who can socialize his way anywhere and any time. If he cannot handle the fundamental work to which he is called, then again the battle is won, but the war is lost. If you think about it, you'll find that imbalance in Triangle hurts just as badly.

Hope you enjoyed this issue!!! If you have questions, feel free to email the editor ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

Tim Eiler
Exponent Editor

Relentlessly pursuing excellence!