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One thing I love about having been trained as a coach is that difficult conversations — where people are deeply frustrated and talking past each other — don't feel like dead ends. They feel like problems that haven't yet found their solution. And finding that solution, in my experience, tends to open up conversations that nobody knew were possible.
Recently I found myself in exactly that kind of conversation — twice in the same week. Two colleagues, both tenured, both deeply committed to their students, expressed vehemence about what they understood the administration to be asking of them. The message they were hearing, by way of conversations about student success metrics, was this: keep students enrolled at whatever cost to academic standards.
I don't think that is what the administration was actually saying. But I understood completely why it was what my colleagues heard.
This gap — between what each party hears and what the other actually means — suggests something critical is missing in these interactions. It isn't quite a communication problem. And it isn't quite a values problem. It's more a curiosity problem — or more precisely, a certainty problem. Both sides have become so sure of what the other believes and is committed to that conversation feels so unnecessary that it never occurs to anyone to have it. Certainty is the enemy of curiosity.
Faculty are committed to standards because standards are what make a degree worth having. Administrators are committed to retention because an institution shedding students cannot fulfill its mission at all. Both are right. And yet the conversation that could surface shared ground and paths forward isn't happening — because certainty has crowded out curiosity.
This kind of impasse is exactly the sort a coaching intervention can interrupt — not by adjudication or mediation, but by doing something simpler though more difficult: restoring curiosity. The coaching strategies that follow are not scripts for resolving the retention debate. They are moves for lowering the threat level enough that both sides might become interested in what the other is actually trying to protect.
Coaching strategies for initiating curiosity across the divide:
- Let go of certainty first
Curiosity cannot take hold while certainty is in the room. A leader who openly acknowledges "I'm not sure I've been hearing both sides clearly" models what it looks like to trade certainty for genuine inquiry — and makes it safe for others to do the same.
- Separate the data from the diagnosis
When retention conversations turn adversarial, ask "What are we each actually trying to protect here — and do those things have to be in conflict?" The answer is almost always more complicated than either side has assumed.
- Surface the shared commitment
Both faculty and administrators are, at bottom, committed to students leaving the institution better prepared for their lives. Ask "What does that actually require of us — and where do we diverge versus where are we simply talking past each other?"
- Reframe standards as a retention strategy
Ask "What if high expectations, clearly communicated and supported, were themselves a retention tool — because students who are growing tend to stay?" That reframe doesn't resolve the tension, but it opens a conversation that pure metrics cannot.
- Lower the threat before raising the question
Curiosity requires safety. Before asking faculty or administrators to reconsider their position, ask "What would it look like to take both of these commitments seriously at the same time?" That framing signals that nobody is being asked to surrender — only to look a little further.
Retention, like most important issues, will not be resolved by better data or clearer memos alone. It will be resolved, one department at a time, by leaders who can interrupt the pull of certainty on both sides long enough for curiosity to do its work. That is a coaching skill — and it can be learned.
Reach out to LifeBound to learn how we partner with institutions to develop leaders who can have these conversations productively.
To learn more or explore which option is right for you, visit www.lifebound.com.
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