In Part 2 of a 3-part series, Adam and Christopher share keynotes and interviews from the 2023 College of Chapters. In this episode, the team shares Mu Chapter (Georgia) alumnus Wells Ellenberg’s keynote speech, delivered to College of Chapters attendees in Roanoke, Va.
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The Gavel Podcast - Ep 26 - A Charge to Collegiate Chapter Commanders with Wells Ellenberg (Georgia)
[Intro Music]
0:00:42.7 Adam Girtz: Hello and welcome to the latest episode of The Gavel Podcast. I'm Adam.
0:00:45.9 Christopher Brenton: And I'm Christopher.
0:00:47.1 Adam Girtz: The Gavel Podcast is the official Podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity and is a show dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to the stories from our brotherhood.
0:00:56.2 Christopher Brenton: To find out more from the Fraternity, you can always check out our website at sigmanu.org. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at @SigmaNuHQ, or by searching for Sigma Nu Fraternity.
0:01:06.9 Adam Girtz: Well, well, well, fancy seeing you here again so soon. I feel like we've had a flurry of podcast activity the last couple of days and weeks here since we got back from College of Chapters.
0:01:18.3 Christopher Brenton: Yes, I think that our weekly listeners are probably like, What is going on? There's all of a sudden more content than ever in a short period of time.
0:01:31.4 Adam Girtz: Well, our weekly listeners now are a newfound breed and very excited, our monthly listeners might be shocked to see how many...
0:01:40.1 Christopher Brenton: A Freudian slip.
0:01:43.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Well, yeah, and I think both of us, we've talked about this, but both of us listen to podcasts in our free time, and I think there's a lot of terminology there that we've kind of picked up on, and I think weekly is one of those, is a more standard podcast for those who produce a podcast for a living, or for a company like that. Maybe someday we'll get to that point, but for now, monthly, I think is where we're at, and... But for the time being, we are almost weekly, at least right now, from the view of the present. So I guess let's tell everyone why we're weekly right now.
0:02:29.4 Adam Girtz: We are weekly right now because we have so much great stuff to deliver from the College of Chapters that happened at the beginning of January 2023 here. So this is actually part two of a three-part limited run series on College of Chapters. So I captured a couple of keynote addresses as well as something coming next week, which is going to be a series of interviews with some commanders at College of Chapters and specifically, men who have served a full term as Commander that were there at College of Chapters and have some good advice for our incoming commander. So I'm very excited for that kind of a new project for us, which is collecting some of these interviews, short interviews in the wild, in the field, and delivering those to you all, it is something I'm very excited about. So that will be incoming soon, and if you're listening to this in the future, it should already be released. So go check that out. But today we have a part two of our College of Chapters series here, which is a keynote address delivered by Wells Ellenberg. So Christopher, would you care to tell us some more about the context of this keynote speech?
0:03:55.5 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. So brother Wells Ellenberg should be a familiar name to many who have been involved in the Sigma Nu circles, leadership circles, volunteer circles for a while. He has been an incredible alumni volunteer for the fraternity, and a long-time keynote speaker for the College of Chapters, although he has taken a break for a little while. We were really happy and excited to be able to bring him back to College of Chapters for this year's event. So Brother Ellenberg is a former commander of our Nu Chapter. He was a 2013 graduate at the University of Georgia, also joined our Nu chapter there, and then he was actually a part of the class of officers who led Nu Chapter to its second consecutive Rock Chapter award. They've gone on to since win several more, but during that time and under his leadership, the chapter was awarded in North American Interfraternity conference chapter award of distinction. So Wells had, as an undergraduate officer, quite the pedigree in performance, and so it obviously makes sense than to bring someone to College of Chapters where we're literally developing the next generation of Collegiate chapter commanders to have someone who was in their shoes not too many years ago, who can provide perspective on that experience and then deliver a charge for them to be motivated to go into the new year and really chart a course for excellence in their own chapter.
0:05:33.5 Christopher Brenton: And then also just to acknowledge a few other awards, so in addition to helping his chapter earn an award of distinction from the NIC, Wells himself was actually awarded undergraduate award of distinction, and was also awarded the 2012 Sigma Nu Man of the Year. So we are... Wells is both an alumnus and previously an undergraduate that we are incredibly proud of and are excited to be able to host him for a keynote speech at our College of Chapters. So you're going to be listening to audio from that speech here shortly. Of course, in context, he's not speaking to us, the listener or us, the interviewers, he's speaking to the delegation that attended the 2023 College of Chapters, but hopefully, the context is still relevant, and if you are interested in either re-sharing this content or seeing it visually, this is actually one of the key notes that we were able to capture on video, and so we're going to provide a link to the YouTube video that we recorded, and are we... The video we recorded and uploaded to YouTube, we're going to make that available to you. So if you prefer to enjoy this content that way, you're more than welcome to do so, so you can find that in the show notes to quickly access it.
0:06:58.9 Adam Girtz: Yeah, absolutely. And so I will say definitely relevant for our incoming commanders or other officers within the chapter, and relevant for members that are interested in seeing the success of their chapter, and I would say also just relevant for our alumni that are part of a team for work or interested in seeking out leadership in their own community. I think anyone with eyes on a leadership role can definitely gain a lot from following in Wells' footsteps, will find success from following those footsteps. Alright, well, let's dive into the audio from that keynote from Brother Wells Ellenberg.
[Transition Music]
0:08:10.0 Wells Ellenberg: It's really an honor and a privilege to be with all of you this evening. He said it was just a few years ago, but horribly, that's actually been 11 years now since I was sitting in your seat as the newly elected commander of my chapter. I remember coming to College of Chapters a little disappointed that my winter break was over and my last round of golf for a little while had been played, but I also came here with an incredible amount of optimism and excitement for the fact that I had just been elected by my peers to lead my chapter for the next 12 months. It was a hard-fought battle, something that I had worked toward for over a year, and I had finally attained it and accomplished it, and I was ready to hit the ground running. Now, I left College of Chapters still optimistic and still excited about the year ahead, but that optimism and excitement was tempered by the responsibility of the role that I had volunteered to shoulder. You all are soon to find, if you have not already, that this is about to be one of the hardest, most challenging years of your lives this far. But I do believe that when the risk is high, so too is the reward, and what I love about College of Chapters is it is all about helping you maximize the experience that you will soon have over the next 12 months.
0:09:35.7 Wells Ellenberg: And so when Tim and Brad were kind enough to invite me to share a few minutes with all of you, I said, What in the world do I want to talk about this evening? And I think what I want to share with you are a few thoughts about what I maybe know now on the other side of serving as commander that I wish I had known then that would have helped me better navigate the challenges and the opportunities before me. Now, I know you've all had a long day and that day is not over yet, and so I'm going to keep this very short and simple. I've tried to boil it down to essentially five characteristics that I think will serve you well, and that I would recommend to you as you chart the course ahead, the first of those five characteristics is leadership. A lot of you are probably feeling right now like the dog that finally caught the car, and you don't have any idea what to do next. I would recommend that a good starting place is to ask yourself, What is leadership? What does it mean to be a leader? Now, everyone you talk to will have a different definition of what it means to be a leader, but from where I sit, I think a leader is someone who leverages his strengths and the strength of his brothers to create value for his chapter and for our fraternity.
0:11:00.2 Wells Ellenberg: That then begs the question, how does one create value? At our company, we talk about value as being a function of both risk and return. Math was never my strong suit, functions and equations I don't honestly know much about, but what I understand the statement to mean is that you can create value for your enterprise by either increasing return, decreasing risk, or doing both of those things simultaneously. Conversely, you can destroy value for your enterprise by reducing return or increasing risk. Let me tell you, most of the brothers in your chapter are almost solely focused on the return component of that equation. As commander, because of the responsibility you have volunteered to shoulder, and because of the liability that now rest at your feet, you must be just as if not more focused on the risk component to that equation. Number one, leadership. Number two, accountability.
0:12:12.5 Wells Ellenberg: If being a good leader is someone who leverages his strengths and the strengths of his brothers to create value for his chapter, then I think there are also three levels of responsibility and accountability, the first of course, is to be responsible and accountable for yourself. Past Regent John Hern, his father, George Hern, who we miss dearly, and I think about him often, any time I'm in the context of Sigma Nu fraternity. He used to challenge us to STE, Set The Example, because if you as Commander don't set the example for your brothers and for your chapter, who will? You're responsible for yourself, but you're also responsible for your teammates, in this case, your brothers.
0:13:01.3 Wells Ellenberg: We've all heard the saying, you are your brother's keeper. There's a famous statue of a young boy on the shoulders of his older brother, and the inscription under that statute reads, "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother." Now, I bet a lot of you now or will soon feel like the burden you carry for your brothers is a lot and perhaps too much, but I actually think this notion of being your brother's keeper is one of the strongest components of the Sigma Nu and fraternal value proposition that we have to share. It used to be you could go to college, make mistakes, learn from them, be better for them, and sail off into the rest of your life and career unscathed. Gentleman, that's no longer the case. 24-hour social media, provocative headlines. There's very little room for error in today's college environment. But when I think back about being Commander of Nu Chapter, we probably had about 150 men.
0:14:08.2 Wells Ellenberg: There were days and nights that I made poor decisions, that I made mistakes, but on those nights or days that were not so great for me, I had a 149 other brothers who were hopefully having a better day or night than I was having, that could look out for me and keep me from making a mistake that could potentially alter my life or my career, or God forbid the life or career of someone else. That safety net is so unique in today's world, and particularly in today's college environment. And so enjoy it and appreciate it. And be better for it. We're responsible for ourselves, for our brothers, but we're also responsible for something greater, that's the enterprise, it's not you, it's not your brothers, it's your chapter, it's Greek life on your campus, it's our fraternity, it's our country. It's this notion of serving a cause greater than your own self-interest, being bigger than your own bottom line. When you think about it, each of us is a temporary steward of an enterprise that hopefully will last much longer than we will. I'll be back in Athens in a couple of weeks to celebrate Sigma Nu's 150th anniversary at Nu Chapter.
0:15:32.1 Wells Ellenberg: I served as commander for only one of those 150 years. It reminds me of an old piece of advice that my mentor, the retired Senior Vice President Of the Coca-Cola used to tell new folks on his team that were so proud and excited to get that business card with the Coca-Cola company logo on it, the world's most recognized brand, one of the most valuable brands in the history of the world, and they were so excited and so proud and felt like they could do no wrong, but Earl was quick to remind them that that company was the lamp, and they were just a lamp shade, and if something happens to that lamp, if that light goes out, there is no value in having a lamp shade. We talked about leadership and accountability, now I'd like to talk about communication.
0:16:23.2 Wells Ellenberg: I think communication is perhaps one of, if not the most important characteristics that a leader can leverage to the success of themselves and their organization. If you think about it yesterday, today tomorrow, you all are having the incredible benefit of the experience that is College of Chapters. The resources, the relationships, the network, the best practices, the folks back home have not had the benefit of that same experience, and so it is incumbent upon you to go back to your chapter and communicate to your brothers, communicate to your constituents what you've learned, how that's changed you, how that shaped your vision for your chapter and how you intend to achieve that vision. At our company, we talk about this notion that you have to define who you are or someone else will. So I encourage you to go back enthusiastically and optimistically and share who you are, what you want to achieve, how you're going to get there, and why it's important, not why it's important for you, but for your brothers and for your chapter. It's essentially this notion of creating a shared consciousness, where everybody is on the same page, in the same boat, rowing in the same direction.
0:17:46.9 Wells Ellenberg: Leadership, accountability, communication, ownership. If you think about it, you were elected to lead your chapter, your peers chose you to make difficult decisions that oftentimes they are not willing to make, but while you were elected the leader of your chapter, you are an equal shareholder in that chapter, and so you have to be mindful of the folks around you. I truly believe that your obligation to excellence, your obligation to your chapter and this fraternity is at it's heart, an obligation to others. It means you have to share equally in credit, and it means you have to take the lion's share of the blame when that blame may or may not be well deserved laying at your feet. I had the opportunity to serve on the athletic board of the University of Georgia many years ago. Go Dogs. Looking forward to being in LA here in a few days for National Championship Redo. And I remember having lunch with our athletic director at the time, a guy named Greg McGarity, one of the few Florida Gators I have ever met and actually liked. And Ole Miss, The University of Mississippi had just put out a study of 100 game day improvements that they were going to make before the next football season, based on feedback from their season ticket holders and other fans.
0:19:10.0 Wells Ellenberg: And I remember telling Greg, "Hey, I hate to admit it, but I think that's a pretty good idea. We ought to try that at UGA," and I will never forget what Greg told me. He said, "Wells, it may be Ole Miss, but nobody has a monopoly on good ideas." I think one of the most important characteristics as a leader, especially as you move from chapter leadership into your career, is to know what you don't know, and surround yourself with people that compensate for your deficiencies, one, because it makes you a better leader, but two, because it achieves that buy-in, where they feel like they are a shareholder, and they feel a responsibility and an accountability to support you in getting the job done right, and getting it done the right way. Leadership, accountability, communication, ownership. Finally, I want to talk about humility. I already mentioned this is going to be one of the most difficult and challenging years of your life, if you think about it, all of you, at your relative age and professional experience, are not in a great position to lead an organization, some of which are over 100 or 150 individual strong, with budgets and the hundreds of thousands, perhaps the millions of dollars, there is no way to prepare for this.
0:20:32.8 Wells Ellenberg: Now, College of Chapters helps, but I think you have to acknowledge that the task before you is greater than what you will likely be able to accomplish on your own. So one, you've gotta have the humility to lean on others, including your alumni, and the fraternity, and the folks who will help you along the way. But you've also got to be willing to stomach the grace of knowing that you will make mistakes, and you will fail, and no matter how smart you are, how hard you try, how good you think you are, on occasion, you will fall short. I remember when John Hearn and Michael Barry told me that, at the beginning of my career as a commander, I said, "No way, I'm going to knock this ball out of the park, piece of cake." They were right. Times come, of adversity, and challenge, you make mistakes, you fall short, but I'll never forget, they told me, "Wells, if you lead with vision and courage, you choose the harder right over the easier wrong. If you do your level best, we will support you and stand with you every step of the way." And they did. Another example where I think fraternity is such a special opportunity to learn and grow and be a better person and a leader as a result.
0:21:54.6 Wells Ellenberg: Having shared those five characteristics, I want to leave you with two stories, and one closing thought. I have been so fortunate over my life and career to have some incredible mentors, and a lot of the lessons I've shared with you today are not original or unique. These two stories in particular, are not, but I want to share with them 'cause I think they are so relevant to the conversation we're having this evening. My chairman, and president and CEO likes to talk about the three rules for winning a fist fight. Rule number one, pick the time and the place, and get ready. For those of you who have read Sun Tzu, The Art of War, he says something to the effect of, "The greatest determinant of success in battle is being able to influence the conditions under which that battle will be fought." In standing for election as commander, you have picked the time, and you have picked the place, and now you're here at College of Chapters to get ready. Because the second rule of winning a fist fight, is to hit first. And it better be your best shot. Because you may not get another one. This is now your opportunity to step up and to lead and to shine and to leverage the relationships and the resources and the perspective that you've gained here in Roanoke to make these next 12 months your best possible effort.
0:23:24.5 Wells Ellenberg: Pick the time and the place and get ready. Hit first. Number three. Kick 'em while they're down. In business school, they call this building a sustained competitive advantage. What I love about this third rule is that it's not necessarily about you or your term as commander, it's about culture, it's about building on sustained success that will last long past your 12 months as commander, it's about nurturing the talent behind you, giving others an opportunity to step up and learn, make mistakes, be better for it, so that when you leave office, you know that your chapter is in good hands, that your temporary stewardship is over, and it's time for others to step up and take the reins and lead. The second story I want to share, I had the privilege of working for a federal judge many years ago, and on occasion, had the opportunity to hear her offer remarks during commencement ceremonies. Granted this is a different type of ceremony, but I think the key theme that she shared with soon-to-be graduates is incredibly relevant still. She talked about commencement as being one of the singular moments in your life where you get to start off fresh when you wake up the next morning. To me, College of Chapters is very much that kind of experience, no matter what you have said or done or mistakes made in the past, when you leave Roanoke, and you go back to your chapter, you've never made a mistake.
0:24:57.9 Wells Ellenberg: You've never told a lie, you've never betrayed trust or confidence, you never chosen the easier wrong over the harder right. Your record is unblemished when you leave here, your moral compass points true north, use this opportunity to recalibrate and reset and then strive every day moving forward to keep that moral compass right on true north.
0:25:29.1 Wells Ellenberg: In closing, let me share this, when Tim and Brad were kind enough to invite me to spend a few minutes with all of you this evening, I probably ought to have said no, for those of you who are paying attention, there's a lot going on in Washington, DC right now, but I had to say yes, I needed to say yes, because I think what you all are doing here, what this fraternity is doing here is perhaps more important now than it's ever been, when I think about the chaos in Washington, when I think about how polarized and divided our country has become, how we're tearing at our social fabric, throwing out the window this notion that you love your neighbor and you respect one another, and you listen and you learn before you judge. Oh, and by the way, throw on top of all of that, a global pandemic, that we've been suffering through for now over two years, where folks feel lonely, isolated, disconnected. How is it then that now is not the perfect opportunity for something like Sigma Nu? Now is absolutely the perfect opportunity for the connection, the relationship, the values, the character building, the leadership lessons. I think what we are doing here, I think what all of you are going back to your chapters to do, may be what at the end of the day saves us, from the chaos and the division and the polarization and the isolation that we've all experienced increasingly over the last several years.
0:27:06.9 Wells Ellenberg: That's why I'm so glad to be here. I look forward to meeting and getting to know many of you this evening, please count me among the 180,000 Sigma Nu alumni out there, most of whom want nothing more than to see you succeed. We are a resource, in good times and bad, leverage us, go forth, lead with vision and courage. And make us proud. Thank you so much.
[Transition Music]
0:28:04.6 Adam Girtz: Alright, welcome back, everyone. A wonderful keynote. I do encourage everyone, like Christopher said, this is a key note that's available visually, so definitely go check out the YouTube video, the link is going to be in our show notes for this/ and I believe Christopher, now, our YouTube channel, you can tell me and the listeners here, but our YouTube channel is, or has keynotes from the past and other relevant videos, or are those all kind of like private links that they'll need to find the source or from us? Or if they go to our YouTube channel, can they just go from there to the other keynotes that there might be or what else is there?
0:28:48.2 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, well, one, we are going to make this video along with the keynote from Dr. Victor Boschini as well as Dr. Don Weiss who did delivered incredible keynotes to our College of Chapters participants, those are going to be uploaded to the event materials for the College of Chapters. Again, that will be included in the show notes and then in... Well, at the time of this recording, in just a few days, participants will be receiving an email that includes a link to all the resources from College of Chapters, so participant manual, PowerPoint slides and handouts from the various breakout sessions that they attended. And of course there'll be links there as well to the video recordings. This is actually kind of a new thing for us to have uploaded the keynotes to YouTube. We don't always do that, we're trying new things, and so we wanted to make sure that these were available as a resource if individuals were interested, so go there. YouTube, for us, we're not necessarily interested in people stumbling upon the content, just because we're not a for-profit, we're not trying to generate clicks, or, I guess, gain ad revenue. So we typically don't list a lot of our videos, but then we make them available through the website, so if people are interested in finding a specific resource, they can find it there.
0:30:28.9 Christopher Brenton: But we'll make sure we're heavily publicizing the keynotes from this College of Chapters, including the Wells keynote, and then in the future, if you want to subscribe to the YouTube channel, please do, not discouraging you from doing so, and certainly you will be notified if there is any new content, but we do a lot of uploading a video and video preservation behind the scenes, it's just not necessarily made publicly available on the account.
0:30:57.3 Adam Girtz: Okay, yeah, that was my understanding. That's what I wanted to clarify for our listeners, and for myself, I guess, is, should I follow the YouTube channel and the answer is yes, yes, please do. Big things to come. Well, awesome, so another great keynote delivered via podcast here, and again, this is part two of our three-part limited run series on covering keynotes and other interviews captured at College Of Chapters 2023, so very exciting, and we're very grateful to our listeners for, for humoring us on this wonderful journey and indulging us in sharing some of this wonderful content that we were able to capture from that live event. I really think this is kind of a neat way to get some of these limited experiences you normally would be limited to having attended live out to a wider audience, and I really think that embodies the spirit of College of Chapters in the last couple of years, 'cause my understanding is that we've increased the number of participants year over year, every year for the last probably five years-ish, with College of Chapters. So I think this medium for it allows us to continue to expand that, and it really is just, I think, one of the most impactful things that the fraternity does for its officers outside of the consultation program, I would say.
0:32:34.3 Adam Girtz: But to be able to share that on a wider venue, I think is awesome. So yeah, so part three, coming next week will be a series of short interviews that I was able to do with some of our commanders and, yeah, I'm very excited to share that with you all, very soon, but thank you for listening, in the meantime, Christopher, anything else you'd like to say to the wonderful listeners.
0:33:00.7 Christopher Brenton: Other than... Probably, nothing other than I was... This particular interview, the one we were able to capture from Wells was, is one of our most requested post-event resources, so we're really excited to bring this content again, to retaliate Adam's point, in a new format, and we hope that... We're hopeful that people enjoy it. I would just say, if you like this type of content, if you want more of this, let us know at news@sigmanu.org, news@sigmanu.org, we're trying to, in the new year, a new year, new podcast. Not really, but we're trying to mix things up a little bit and bring in some different types of content to the podcast beyond just our typical interviews, and so we're hopeful that if people like this type of stuff, more of what the fraternity is doing and capturing that and making it available for maybe an audience that doesn't get to attend those events normally, that we can do more of that in the future.
0:34:06.4 Adam Girtz: Yeah, absolutely. And as always, guys, listeners, guys, gals, who, anyone who's out there listening to us, if you enjoy the show and like hearing the stories from our fraternity and to experience these things that otherwise you might not be able to, please share the show with a brother, that's one of the best things that you can do to help spread what we're doing here, at least in the podcast, and we really appreciate it. Love our listeners, so thank you guys very much, share with a brother, and we will talk to you next week, and that is not a slip. We will talk to you next week. Bye everyone.
[Outro Music]