Eight Brothers Walk Into a Bar…

Sorry – I read it as after we leave, because while we’re still there, well, that’s part of membership ed, so far as I’m concerned. Getting the feet wet so that prospectives can figure out what they like/dislike/are good at doing. Delegating to see what they can do, etc while the older brothers are still watching over their shoulders to make sure that they understand reasons and history and all the rest.
However…Turf Herder’s list?

1. The Old violently resists change and makes the New feel unwelcome and thwarted.
2. The New disrespects what has been and makes the Old feel defensive.
3. Someone with a really bad, pushy attitude and drastically different priorities comes in and bulldozes their way through the chapter with no regard for peoples’ feelings, focused only on their own agenda.

Been there, done that, got a COUPLE shirts.

1 and 2 lead into a nasty feedback cycle. Which, IMHO, leads to some of the problems alumni have when we leave – because the newer brothers do a bit of “whew, they’re FINALLY gone, so we can do what we want now”. I think if they have better supervision when they’re new (NOT micromanaging) that they get a chance to really understand and respect the brother who came before – which tends to make this less of a problem. They feel trusted by the older brothers, and the older brothers learn to trust that the “new kids” aren’t gonna kill their chapter. I’ve only ever seen it *really* work that way once or twice though…it involves a LOT of preparation and open minds on the active chapter side, when bringing in prospectives.

And then there’s 3. This one hurts a place in my heart that never does seem to heal. When I think about the vision set forth by the founding brothers…and see someone pulling political BS? It makes me want to run screaming, to hide in a country that’s never heard of KKPsi, to give up all hope for the future of the organization. A couple years ago, there was a brother who aired all the political “dirty laundry” – and it made me sick to read it – because those stories should not represent who or what WE are.

I think that good brothers will hold to a chapter somehow and that weaker ones will “weed themselves out” at some point. But how does a chapter figure out who the political ones are, before it’s too late?