Tod Treat

Many years ago I was working with a colleague on an adult accelerated program. To my colleague’s credit, he had independently sought funding from a foundation, and received it. When the funding came, I was asked to help supervise the project, much to his chagrin. As we negotiated our collaboration, he alluded to a shared past as cross-country runners by stating “I’m a fast runner” to address his desire to implement the proposal without administrative oversight. I explained. “Seth (not his real name), there’s nothing wrong with a fast runner but if you’re running off in a different direction than everybody else, that is a problem. We need is to work together like we are on an Indian run.” (Disclaimer: Presumably rooted in the requirement for hunting parties to stay together, I never considered whether the term is a cultural misappropriation, but I’ve now come to believe it is. At the same time, I am not sure what to call it, so I will refer to this as a ‘line tempo run’.)

Whatever we call it, line tempo runs refer to a team run in which runners form a long line and run in single file. At a point of his or her choosing, the runner in the back of the line sprints past the rest of the line and takes the lead, setting tempo for whatever period she or he would like., and line tempo run serves two important tactical purposes in training. First, it reinforces the idea that a team’s ultimate competitiveness is based not on individual scores but on team scores. Second, it clarified that the tempo is the responsibility not of those in the lead but that those in the back. Paradoxically, the impact of such team cohesion is to increase everyone’s pace leading to a faster average pace, even if the top one or two runners feel held back for the portion of the run in which the team must act together.

Line tempo runs thus train a team to pack together and elevate everyone’s performance.

This week, without forethought, I found myself referring to this very principle on two different occasions.

My president and I were working through the logistical issues of advancing a new degree. Under consideration for the dates of approval by the faculty curriculum committee, the necessity of a first and second read by the Board of Trustees, and, importantly, the need to include the new degree in a catalog and unassociated effective date. While the conversation was about logistics, we inadvertently slipped into a philosophical conversation about how deadlines are set. One worldview would suggest the setting of hard deadlines and a requirement that all affiliated workgroups, teams, and recommending bodies work backwards from that point to ensure a smooth workflow and “on-time delivery.” The second worldview would suggest that when bodies are at work, they should set the pace, ensuring that due diligence results in a high quality product that will advance whatever goal has been set. In defending this latter view I noted that, as chief academic officer, “I cannot move faster than my faculty.”  Or if I do, I risk losing the very followers that are so needed to implement anything that is worth doing.  It is better to lead from the back.

Later, the library director and I were discussing long-term plans for advancing the institutions open pedagogies initiative and the need to bring the steering team in alignment with the vision. Our common lament was that sometimes boutique initiatives lead individuals or small groups to run off in particular directions when what the institution really needs is for those boutique initiatives to be swept together into something common and more impactful.

I immediately thought of Seth and of our fast runner conversation and realized that what institutions sometimes need is to go on an line tempo run to band together, lead from the back, and elevate everyone’s performance along the way. We cannot run our own individual directions and we cannot run faster than the least of us, we have to stick together. When we do good things happen.

There are times, of course, when what the team needs is to replace team members who cannot keep pace, cannot keep running in a straight line, or insist on running the wrong direction alone. But everyone is better served by developing those already on the team and already running.