Seeking advice

“All hands” now meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This is a staff meeting at which all the staff are invited. To start with, I focused on learning about the work of each person. Then we moved to seeking advice. Can we remove the gate on 21st Street? What communication messages do they consider important? And coming up, how can we best use the Library space? And if you were showing a guest around the campus, what highlights would you make sure we include?

Seeking advice is a key theme of this season. We have all heard of James Surowiecki’s classic The Wisdom of the Crowds. Early on in that book, he describes an agricultural fair where individuals are asked to guess the weight of the ox. All 800 individuals got it wrong, but the average guess of the 800 people was pretty close. So, ask individuals for advice and you are more likely to get things right.

Our goal is to get GTS right. So, we need to listen to the crowd. Give us your advice please.

The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and President of The General Theological Seminary