Leading from Loss with Dr. Angelia Griffin
Dr. Angelia Griffin [00:20:30]
A whole lot easier, my son, to me. Can’t stress enough that encouraging words. People don’t realize how important that is when you feel like you on that island by yourself, because they can do the work. You have to do the work, right? That’s right.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:20:45]
No. One. One of those students, the first time I talked to her, she she called me up and she said, yeah, I need to talk to you about something. OK. So you know what I said, my husband last night, I said. I don’t know why you’re trying. She said. She said, I told him to shut the hell up. He didn’t know what he’s talking about. I said, “I think you’ve got the wrong doctor.” She said, and I wish she was nothing on what she would point out. But it says right here you’re the dissertation doctor. But she said, no. You know what he told me? No, go ahead. She said he told me I was having problems, my dissertation. It’s frustrating. He told me, Honey, you know what? I know you’re smart enough. You can do this. And that’s when I said, look, you don’t know what he’s talking about. And for me, the light bulb went off because it was true. He didn’t know what he was talking about. He hadn’t been through it. He hadn’t lived that experience. And she needed somebody who had because later that day just for fun. I told her, you know what? You’re smart enough. You can do this. She didn’t tell me to shut the hell up. She told me thank you. Right. Right. But you know that difference you.
Dr. Angelia Griffin [00:21:54]
You could speak the language. You understood her pain. Her pain wasn’t one of somebody hitting you. But it felt like it was hitting you when you couldn’t get the critical thinking skills. Really have to take off.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:22:05]
Yeah. And there’s more to it. I mean, there are folks there so sad that are literally bullied, psychologically bullied. I mean, you could almost go so far as terrorized by members of their committee. Not everybody who was on a dissertation committee is nice and not everybody is helpful and uttered by cares whether they graduate or not. And unfortunately, that’s something that some students have to deal with. Not everybody has to deal, but some do. And and that’s really hard for a family member who has never been through that to understand what that means to a student who’s invested so much in terms of time, in terms of, you know, identity, in terms of money invested so much in that process.
Dr. Angelia Griffin [00:22:47]
Having been a chair more recent, I’m one of my students in the program for several years. The first thing I let her do is cry. I said, you got to get it out. Yeah. The sheriff in town has changed. I get it. A lot of and sometimes just needs reminder to say, do this, do this, do that, do that. They don’t appreciate it. Granted, some people said, well, it’s your dissertation. It’s ours. We’re family. We’re a team. And I would call her team blank her name, but I had to meet her where she was. Yeah. No two students are alike. I know that the program is set up. You’ve got to go through the first couple of years to get the foundation. But after that, you get on the bus to the road to the dissertation. You have to individualize it and it’s no way around it. And you can meet the person where they are. Some you can say rewrite chapter one and they go do it. And then some you go. Did you not read this? Did you not proof of it. Right. You’re thinking I gave everybody the same instructions and I just realized that it’s a diff different stroke. They’re totally different places and you have to meet them where they are.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:23:58]
And that’s amazing that you understand that the chair. Unfortunately, their chairs don’t. And so when you say it’s our dissertation, I tell my students, it’s your committee’s dissertation. This is not your dissertation. It’s got your name down as the author. But they’re all signing that signature page. And until they’re happy with it. What’s the old saying, if Mama’s not happy, nobody’s happy.
Dr. Angelia Griffin [00:24:20]
And I feel like that’s what she was getting. It’s unfortunate. But she went several chairs before me, which happens a lot. You can get that fit. You need some money that fills you. I hate to use hangtime, but that’s what you need. Somebody that feels and understands they’re not trying to make your study theirs, but it becomes the committees until you can convince them that it’s yours.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:24:44]
Right. And I even go so far as to tell them, don’t don’t try to convince the committee that you’re gonna do it your way when they sign off on it, when they are happy with it, you’re done. If that dissertation wasn’t exactly what you wanted. You know what? Now you’ve got complete permission to do whatever you want to. You can go write an article. You can go, you know, start a TV show or podcast. I mean, we have a lot of our students, after they graduate, we help them with getting their book written. You get that out the world so that they can express their understanding and authority in that way. So there’s a lot of things you can do after you graduate. But until then, that committee’s holding the keys and you want to get those keys from that committee. So you convince them that you can do what they ask you to do. They’ll say yes. And then you don’t have to deal with anymore. Right. You’re lucky you had a good relationship with them. You might work with them in the future. You might continue to talk with them in the future, but you certainly don’t have to. And you can you can do just fine with the committee that you never talked to again after you graduate. I got all my committee pretty well, but I didn’t talk to anybody on that committee. Maybe a year or two after I graduate. I haven’t talked to him. That’s just the way things are. So they’re very important to you for a while. But after that, you go on to live your life and do whatever you might want to with it, because that D.R. for your first name, it says a lot. It opens a lot of doors. It has its privileges. So. So you finished your dissertation, graduated. Tell us what’s next. How did how did life change for you. Once you graduated?
Dr. Angelia Griffin [00:26:16]
Well, once I graduated and realized what you said previously, I didn’t have to talk to my committee, although I stayed in contact. At the same time, I realized it was time to apply what I had been working on. I’m a firm believer that knowledge has no power until it’s applied. So in my mind, I had to begin to leverage. What did I get from the journey? Where do I want to go? And I have a saying and my parents really instilled in me. I said, I have to grow now. I have to set goals. Long term, regardless of everything that’s happened to me to get me to this point. Right. Right. I only have two options. And those are obstacles and opportunities. And at the end of the day, I am going to choose to win because it’s my choice. Now, the in from my name. So for me, I knew early that I wanted to do something in management and or business. I wasn’t exactly sure exactly what I think the doctor position me for people to listen. Right. And people started listening to me. I started out thinking, OK, I’ve got this doctor. I can go get the job that I want. I learned the hard way. Having a doctorate doesn’t guarantee you a new position. It’s main effects. Companies don’t want to be bothered with you because they know you’re going to cost more. Alleged that intellectual property that you come with is not free. Right. That’s right. It shouldn’t be. Mean those student loans back. I said it. You know what? I’m going to stay in the corporate arena for as long as they’ll have me. But with that, I’m going to start looking at what did I like to do? What’s my passion? And so from that, I began to leverage. And I said, I like corporate. Maybe I can become a consultant. And I started thinking, what is it that I do? Good. What is it that people are willing to pay for, right? Oh. Rather than. My dissertation was beneficial in that I learned not so much of telling people, but asking people, asking they want. And for people who would tell me what they want. Oh I can do that. Or I could. Before I knew it, I had a grocery list of all the things that I can do. So I had to package that up. Right. So I began to package it up and offer it to people depending upon what they want and the amount of time it’s going to take me to do it, not by determined what I would have to charge. Right. And then I became a consultant. Honestly, I think I’m going to always be a consultant, even as an adjunct professor. I was recruited into teach because of my passion for empowering other people. But on the nonprofit and the profit side, I think the common denominator is I’m in it to win it. Meaning I’ve got to help you. I want to find out where are you ready to go to? And how can I strategically help you achieve that goal?
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:29:06]
And then if you are if you’re what I would consider a good dissertation chair, that is your role. You’re a consultant. Exactly. This is what a good dissertation chair should be doing. Not everyone does that. But so there’s overlap between faculty roles and that that consulting role, I think.
Dr. Angelia Griffin [00:29:23]
Absolutely. And when I hear that consultant hat, I am freer to empower people.But if you come only a teacher. I’m not a teacher. I don’t know everything. I’m rolling with you. You’re learning. I’m reading. I’m learning new things. And at the same token, when I’m doing my nonprofit, really the nonprofit is giving me the greatest joy because I get a chance to talk to people without gloves on. If you will share my story of how I even got to this point. And then through that, people are saying, you know what? Maybe I should consider the profit or the nonprofit. Give them options. Right. That’s done.
