Episode 5: Mastering your Craft

Jacqueline James

Welcome to Season Eight of Centennial College Leadership Vibes podcast. In this episode of the podcast, we will be talking with David Ip Yam on his journey to leadership. David is the Dean of Students here at Centennial College. He is also an entrepreneur running his own podcast, Student Success Exchange, and a relationship coaching service with his wife on relationshipzen.ca. David, thank you for taking the time to discuss your leadership and entrepreneurship journey, so that it can inspire others.

Mebrat Bekele

Before we start, I just want to say welcome and thank you to our amazing guest, David Ip Yam, on behalf of myself, and my co hosts, Jackie, as well as the Leadership Academy team for making time for us out of your busy schedule, to discuss your leadership journey and share your experiences here on the leadership vibes podcast. So David, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role here at Centennial College?

David Ip Yam

Thanks for having me. And it's really exciting to be a part of this podcast focused on Centennial student leadership and how we can grow more leaders and leaders within. So for myself, specifically my role here at Centennial, I'm serving currently as a Dean of Students. And what that means is I have functional oversight over areas related to student life, engagement and development. So I get to support all the teams to the best of my ability and co-creating kind of like those conditions where when students can come in, they can experience this transformative learning from a personal career and academic success perspective. So students might know the teams within this portfolio as Student Life and Transition, Global Experiences, Advising, International Student Services, and the folks who they go to who are maybe not teaching in the classrooms or associated with specific schools, but are there to support them in system navigation, sometimes conduct cases, case management, athletics and recreation. So those are kind of, those are the teams, if I were to name them, that I get to support on a day to day basis. And of course, we work with so many partners at the college to realize that mission of educating students for career success and transforming lives and communities through learning. That's the vision of the college. And the first thing I give is the mission of the college. So nothing we do is without the whole community and with students.

Mebrat Bekele

Wow, you have such a big role. So much things they do. And so many areas where you where you can show like your leadership and showcase that. How do you define leadership? And what does it really mean to you?

David Ip Yam

Yeah, thank you. The portfolio is vast and deep and is only possible with just all the caring folks like you, Jackie, Mebrat, and Linda, who you work with and all the, all the individuals who make up the portfolio. So for me, leadership is highly relational. And it's about creating, building, creating conditions for more leadership to occur. So for people to step into their leadership, I kind of, if I were to split it up in two, one definition of leadership for me is around self leadership, leading without a title, focusing on being inspired in order to lead with an inspirational ways and then to create positive impact. So I get a lot of that learning from our early exposure to Robin Sharma's work. Robin Sharma is a leadership educator and coach, author of The Leader Who Had No Title, The Monk who Sold his Ferrari, 5am Club, and he talks a lot about leading without a title and the three eyes, the responsibilities of humans. So if you can breathe, you can lead and leadership is not really, is not reliant on your title, your, the money in your bank account, your status, your power. So this is something that really resonated with me from a young age. And it's really about, the first one, I was talking about inspired. And I think that's key, because a lot of times we talk about inspiring others, but I think that needs to come from a place of responsibility to be inspired. And so it's self, leaders take a look at what they consume, the media they consume, the people they hang out with, the books they read, the content they consume, the routines they have, the habits, they develop, what they eat, how they sleep, in order to be, come from a place of inspiration, right? So there's this responsibility in self leadership to be inspired. And sure, there's a lot of actions one can do themselves to do that, but I certainly recognize that it's in community. So this idea of filling one's cup and modeling the way as, as you might learn about in other leadership models, like the Kouzes and Posner model, modeling the way. One cannot model the way if one is feeling uninspired, unmotivated, unhealthy, right? So yes, you can be facing challenges, and we all do and at the, so it's about thinking about how we can build ourselves up with the support in community, recognizing that there are barriers to that, but like looking at what we can control and what we can influence, to be inspired in order to then inspire others to become, to step up and to create the lives that they wish to create in service of creating a positive impact. So that's the inspired, inspiring, and then positive impact. There's a lot of times I talk about leadership as an action. Self leadership is a lot about, if I just have knowledge on how to inspire and to be inspired, that is inert, it doesn't do anything, right. It's the knowledge and action, it's getting on this call, like you're doing and asking the tough questions, trying to disseminate knowledge on leadership from your various conversations. That's an act of leadership, it's getting up in the morning, and giving yourself some time to ground yourself before coming into the day. It's recognizing as one of you did earlier about the sun coming through. And even though I'm feeling cold, the sun energizes me, it's these little things, and also sometimes big things that can lead to what I'm calling self leadership and leaving, leading without a title. I also started by saying that it's highly relational, it's in service of others, it's about creating more leadership. So that's the self leadership. And then I can go into how I kind of view positional leadership, or leadership in an organization or community, but I thought I'd just stop there in case there's anything you want me to expand on or question?

Mebrat Bekele

Yeah, yeah. Can you, that was our next question, like to tell us about your professional, like leadership journey. So you can expand on your professional leadership journey, how you got to where you are, and what it means to be a leader within like an organization as well?

David Ip Yam

Yeah. Okay. So I'll start, I'll start there. Just so, because I'll talk about my journey, probably through these terms. I, one of the, when I started becoming a formal student of leadership, I was in my last year of university, I ended up fifth year. So normally, I would have graduated in four years. But I learned through academic advising that I was missing a credit. Actually, I was, I was over in credits, but I was missing a specific class I was supposed to take in my third year, but didn't realize, that's, that's my bad. And so I stayed for an extra year. And it was great. Because, I mean, in the moment, I wasn't happy about it. But it turned out to be great. As with lots of things in life a great, or lessons learned, you know, where in that fifth year I had, I was able to work as a leadership educator formally, in, as in a student role that then translated into a part time, well, actually, it was like a 30. Sorry, it was a full time but temporary role. So for like, eight, nine months to build a leadership program, renewal of the leadership program, and grounded in what is known as the social change model of leadership. I've really adopted like, I felt like when I read, you know, sometimes when you read something, you're like, wow, this put into words, something that I feel and believe in. And so the SCN did that, for me, this Social Change Model of leadership and it views leadership as A: Purposeful, so leadership is for a purpose. And that positive impact? Collaborative. It's a process between people, it's not about a person. So I talked about self leadership as actions you could do in relation to others. Now, I'm talking about leadership within groups. It's values driven, it's about living, being, doing, as opposed to one's title, or position as well. It believes that leadership is concerned with effective change on behalf of others, with others, in fact, and society. And so they define it, come up as an team. They define leadership as a relational process of people together, attempting to accomplish change, or make a difference to benefit the common good. So if I relate that to my work in Student Affairs and my professional journey, my leadership is an expression of a relational process of people like us on the Student Life engagement development team, or like my academic colleagues, or any peer that I work with attempting to create conditions and make a difference to support student development, learning and engagement. Right? So that's, that's kind of like how I view the work I do. To answer the the first part of the question, my professional journey started, I think I have to ground it with my personal journey. My parents immigrated from the island, tropical island of Mauritius, part of the African continent. So I was made, and made in Mauritius but born here, I went to school and started off really, really shy and anxious all the way up to my preteens. So extremely shy, anxious to the point of not being able to participate in class, talk to, talk in any kind of semi public forum, I had to recite, you know, that at the time I was growing up, we had to recite poems sometimes or do some, even like read a paragraph to demonstrate that you can read out loud and so I had to do that during the recess when everybody was away, one on one with the teacher, and I'm thankful for the teachers for accommodating me. And what happened is I had you know, parents thankfully, and teachers who pushed me. I want to say pushed me and gradually influenced me but first pushed me in a good way to get involved in sports and different hobbies. And so that gradually exposed me to opportunities, to take risks and challenges and build confidence in myself. There was always this like, challenge and support that now we know, now I know as being a student affairs professional, there's like actual theories around this around adult development, but there is always this like, on the cusp of challenge, wherever would get crushed and feel very anxious, but then associated supports to kind of balance out that challenge and help me move through. And I remember some of my earliest professional, paraprofessional or voluntee, because I stand, standing on the shoulders of giants, but also on these buildup of experiences. Yes, I'm Dean of Students today. But there's just so many experiences that built it up. And the earliest ones were being appointed as a peer mediator in my junior high school. So where I would get to volunteer to mediate conflicts with people, I dove deep into summer sports camps as a counselor and coach, martial arts coach. I've been a martial arts coach for 20 plus years. And then finally, in my final high school year, I took on this role as student trustee representing the entire South Western of Ontario's Francophone student population in Francophone schools, public schools, I should say Francophone public schools, and that was huge. Like I was traveling to Ottawa to lobby, I was going to downtown hotels to do conferences and host them. And that was like a crash course in quote unquote, adult job at the age of 16, 17. And so that was an early exposure to what positional leadership and community leadership could look like. And honestly, I was, though we accomplished so much, I was flying by the seat of my pants. Then when I went to university, I was pretty burnt out after that intensive high school year, didn't want to participate in anything, didn't want to do anything, because I was, I was actually burnt out. Sorry, I was, I was, I was having symptoms of burnout. I wasn't clinically burnt out. But I was having symptoms of burnout exhaustion, but again, I met some fun, good people in university, and they encouraged me to join initiatives that I cared about, that would support others to thrive on University campus. And that was always a draw for me, right? It's like, where can my skill set support others and work with others to thrive, right? And so that's how I kind of started getting into Student Affairs. As you can see from my history, peer mediation, sports camps, martial arts coach, student trustee, none of that is really dissimilar to Student Affairs. I didn't know about student affairs. So then fast forward, I'll just kind of fast forward throughout the whole university, I did student government and that kind of thing. I was a commuter student. But going back to that first role I had in leadership education, I kind of just asked my boss like, how do you do what you do, right? And he explained to me, like, hey, there's at the time, and there still is right now. But I'm asked, he recommended a master's program in student affairs or higher education. And so I pursued that route. I was originally going for law school, actually mediation. I was originally going for law school, then I decided to do mediation, then I decided to do student affairs. I did do a certificate in mediation, but then I loved the Student Affairs masters. I just loved it. And I love the work I was doing in Student Affairs. So I stayed here working through the various positions in student leadership and conduct case management, International Student Services, broad based services, specialized services, Career Education, development, service excellence, I'm probably missing some, joined Centennial on February 2021. And it's been a challenging fun and great experience so far. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that the values the values at Centennial, and at York that I had before, but I was a student there and it was the time I was a student there. And I worked there for 10 years. The change to Centennial has been again, challenging and fun. And Centennial values just really are so strong. And the community here is really focused on that that mission and the division of transforming lives and communities through learning. So it's been a super experience so far, long answer, but I'm happy to dive in.

Mebrat Bekele

Yeah, that's very good. Speaking to you, I wouldn't think you'd have like any challenges at public speaking or like, like scared to do it. But it's nice that you shared that part of yourself with us, and tell us more about like, how the challenges like you experience like growing up or while in school, how did they like shape and form like, the leadership you are today? Like the leader you are today?

David Ip Yam

Yeah, thanks for that question. I think I grew up being, so my parents had, I would say like healthy high expectations. You know, they weren't, if I got a decent grade, you know, 75% and above, it wasn't like where's the 90, you know? It was more about being well rounded. Now the, every strength has a has a push to the limit, can become a weakness or risk. So this message of being well rounded was interesting, because then that meant that the way it worked out and I enjoyed it at the time, you know, was every evening or weekend I was involved in some kind of community program, whether it's like keyboarding, or swimming or whatever, tutoring, and as much as it helped me grow because again, I had that strong anxiety. And at the beginning, I think that I carried it through life, and almost interpreted it as like, needing to sprint through life instead of seeing life as more of an adventure akin to climbing a vast mountain, and I'll explain that. So what I'm learning and what I've learned is through challenges of,I explained, like, exhaustion. I think I've experienced that two or three times now because, you know, they say life is a marathon, not a sprint. I kind of partially agree. I also don't agree that it's a marathon, like yes, it's a marathon in the sense of, it's not a sprint, but there are periods where you sprint, and then there are periods where you kind of coast and there are periods where you maintain a bit of a consistent pace as a marathoner, but I actually see it as like climbing a vast mountain where I, again, there are periods where I have to climb hard. And then where I can pause and look at the scenery, Look down, look around, meet people look at the nature, right and then take a different pace or encounter a barrier and walk around and find different ways to continue on the journey or up this mountain. And when I say up, it doesn't have to be up, it can be through a valley, too. I'm just picking a mountain because I, that's just how I relate to my life. Like, I like the idea of every day, every year, change. I'm changing. And I'm in a sense, adopting, integrating learning, trying to become a better person, better citizen of the world. So I kind of prefer the analogy of a mountain. But I think yeah, the first challenge is was mindset, right mindset and health, realizing that my energy is limited, I can't do everything. So that's the first one. The second one is kind of related. It's seeing life as nonlinear, seeing life more as a cycle, cyclical processes, right? And knowing and acknowledging that there are seasons in life, there's a summer, there's a winter, there's a spring, there's a fall, especially where we live, but also in my days, and in my weeks, and in my years that I can have, I don't have to be operating at 110% every minute of the day. Even right now like as you know, I'm under the weather right now. I hope I'm coming across like sensical, but I know that I have to be gentle with myself and compassionate that maybe I can't fire on all cylinders today. Cuz I need to devote some of my attention to healing. But I also enjoy this conversation. So how can both be true and leave space for the healing and this great conversation with with you, Jackie and Mebrat? So seasons versus constants? I think I had a propensity to see myself as a bit more like a machine before. Just work harder. You know, I think at some point, I was even trying to fit more into like my sleep. Okay, well, how can I birth these business ideas in my sleep and like journal, you know? And then I realized, like, oh, if you're trying to sleep, just sleep. If you're trying to meditate, just meditate. If you're in this podcast, just do the podcast. If you're, you know, like mindfulness has been a great piece. And yes, I had it through martial arts and all that. But we live in this colonial kind of westernized society where there's sometimes this push to do doo doo doo doo. Right? Where I think that rub, for me, the challenge has been like balancing that with being, just being. Every time I'm reminded of it, like my body knows. It's like, Yeah, that's right. Right? So that's been fantastic. And the last thing was, and it's connected to what I just said. The other challenge was when I was early days, positional leader, like in high school, and as a student trustee, and I was like, representing the Southwestern Francophone public schools, students, I think I approached leadership as mainly, if I was to use the body analogy, head and hands. Like, for me, it was like, if you have the knowledge, and you know what to do, then you're a good leader, I communicate to people like that, well, we have to do it because of this. And here's how you do it. Here's the why. And here's the how you do it. And then in my mind, it's like, then everybody should just be on board. It just makes sense. It's rational. And here's how to do it. Right? Let's improve this system for Francophone students, snd here's how you do it. But through that one year experience, I love that I had that one your experience before going into into university, before becoming a professional in the field, because I quickly learned that leadership is equally and even more importantly about the heart and spirit. The heart being believing, and, you know, acknowledging that humans, we humans are emotional beings, that making sense of things is actually through perception. I'm a bit of a constructivist in nature, too. And spirit! Like connectedness and purpose, connectedness to our world, connectedness to others, even others we're not in the room with and so I try to lead now, intentionally through heart, spirit, then head, then hands. So connect with the heart and spirit, engage the head, the why, and then, and then provide the hands with the tools to move forward. The challenge was, I thought it was only about heads and hands, and I was losing people. And it wasn't working. We were burning out myself. And then learning how to integrate the heart and spirit and even forefronting it.

Jacqueline James

That was my next question. That was with your extensive leadership experiences. You know, I was going to ask how do you become an effective leader? All right. And so what would you say is your strongest strength as a leader?

David Ip Yam

Oh, wow, that's a, that's a, that's an interesting question. Strongest strength as a leader. So I think leadership requires different skills in different situations, especially when it's combined with the discipline knowledge one might need in management. So for example, I think management or any job, I just said, management because that's the kind of field I mean, strategy management and administration of higher education. If I don't, so I think you need to, I do think you need a healthy level of vertical skills. I know we talk a lot about horizontal skills, soft skills. And that is super important. And I focus on that. I will say that right now, but I just wanted to take a minute to talk about the importance of vertical skills, discipline, knowledge, skills. I think it's important because I speak with a lot of students, or just folks upcoming in the field who, there, they have entry level jobs, like I did, I was the assistant of Student Affairs at the office, like, in my first job in 2012, I came with certain soft skills, like interpersonal skills, active listening skills, things like that. But I aimed to be the best filer if I had to file, I aimed to be the best data, data entry person, like literally entering data into spreadsheets that I can be, I aimed to clean the office so that the reception area was amazing for students to the best extent possible, I aimed to provide the best customer service and a welcoming environment to students, to 300 students lining up to book a locker through me, you know what I mean? And I think that we sometimes underestimate the vertical skills. In those cases, it was customer service, it was data entry, it was attention to detail, it was processing reconciliations and payments, those were not my, I didn't grew up being like, I want to do those things. But that was my job. And I took it seriously. And so, so a sense of duty is really important. And then the vertical skills associated with your job. So if I was an accountant, then learning all the things to be an accountant. Okay. And right, so there's that. Now I want to talk about the horizontal soft, and I say soft, quote, unquote, because I actually think they are highly important. The relational skills, I think a strength I bring is the ability to create space, either  with individuals or communities to be themselves. I, when I talked about the importance of leadership, creating conditions for more leaders, it's highly relational. For me, it's ensuring that folks can have enough psychological safety in a place that requires brave bravery to be authentic. Because when we're feeling more safe to be authentic, we can then take the necessary risks that learning requires to grow. Now, I'm not saying that anybody in the room with me will feel comfortable to do so, it's all a process, and we all mesh and jive differently, right. But generally, that is a, that's a strength that shows up in my assessments and that people will report I also have this way of trying to balance conceptual, it may not be coming across in this podcast, because I'm actually focusing on conceptual, but in a project or team environment, blending the concepts with the problem, like understanding the problem, and then generating the plan towards solution. I feel like I'm constantly balancing the three. So what's the framework? What's the issue? What's the framework we're going to use? And then what's the plan to action? And so I think that's helpful in leadership. So that, because we all have a tendency towards one or the other, right, like head, like the why, or the heart, like the connectedness, and spirit, and or the hands that doing, you know, some of us are drivers, some of us are champions of ideas, I tend to be more of a champion of ideas, but I have great respect and learn so much about planning and project planning, and agile planning, because I want, because I focus on impact. Right? So, so I'm not the best. I'm just saying that I think one of the strengths I bring is that, is being able to balance between the head, heart, hands, or the doing, being, thinking.

Mebrat Bekele

Yeah, so to be like an effective leader, as you said, you're naturally I guess, more of like a champion. Do you think like most leaders are like more of like a champion instead of like a doer? Or like, what was the other one? You said?

David Ip Yam

Yeah, you could be like a champion, a driver. Like a heartbeat, like a coach, you can be more of a coach. And then you could also be like, more of like, like a visionary. You know, you just you have these amazing ideas all the time. I think, actually, there's research on this, and I just don't want to misquote them, I believe when you look at CEOs, they tend to skew towards the visionary, the ideas. Yeah, they do that. That doesn't mean it's the right thing. It just means like there's an over, there could be a over representation. And there's many reasons for that. Just like for example, if you were to look at CEOs, they're overly balanced towards males. And just because that's true, doesn't mean it's right. And it isn't, right. So same thing. That's what I'd say about visionaries. I would say that with every strength, skill, strength, there are risks and liabilities. And for me, diversity is the key. I think that and that's why I present my attempts to balance between the three i skewed towards champion, which is a combination of coach and visionary. They, I tried to balance that but when I build a team, I look for the diversity, I look for the visionary, I look for the driver, I look for the coach and for the champion, I look for the, you know, all that. So diversity is important and, and humbleness, right. So if you know, you skew towards visionary or coach, then my question is, how are you honoring those strengths, using them, but also keeping yourself in check. So I know that might be, one of the things I don't like, is I like the planning, but I may not know the details, the details of the procedures of doing. So I ensure that I ask the right questions, that I bring in the right people. And if I don't have the people or resources to do it, then I have to check myself and be like, is this right? Is this the right expectation to have on the team? If none of us have these certain skill sets, vertical skill sets to implement? Because then you create stress and overwhelm as well, without, you need to look at different things, right? Is that helpful?

Mebrat Bekele

Yeah, very, very much. You wear like so many hats, you're involved in so many activities, even just, just being the Dean of Students, there are like so many things, stuff that fall under your umbrella. And on top of that, you're also part of like the anti black task force here, racism task force here, at Centennial College, you also have your own podcast, show your teach martial art classes, like tell us, how do you manage your time? Like we all get the same 24 hours, but like, how are you managing yourself? And like, how do you prevent like burnout? How do you do it? How do you do like all of that thing?

David Ip Yam

I think from a more, thanks for that question, that spiritual place, place, I think alignment is important. So aligning myself and realizing that we change and I think that's the, whenever I've encountered burnout, or exhaustion is less because I wasn't managing my time properly. But it's more because I didn't realize I either I've changed my interests or purpose, you know, and so you know how sometimes you could spend 10 hours on something you love, and it feels energizing, or you could spend some time 10 hours on something that's really draining you and has a different impact. Now, sometimes we do have to do stuff we don't like and I'm cool with that. But I'm just talking about the places where we have a choice, right? And the things you're naming or like the job I chose, the coaching I do, these are choices I have. So number one is to for me, is I keep a journal and a huge skill for leaders I think is self awareness, right and constantly checking in with how we're feeling, how we're doing. And the alignment between our goals, interests, values, people, the things we're consuming. So that's one, the activities you named, they all align with my, my where I'm at currently in my life. I'll give you an example. I actually recently stopped my PhD, you know, in education, higher education. So I stopped that recently. Is it because I can't make time for it? Is it because I just don't like it? No, it's because I realized that it's no longer in service of who I'm becoming, and the alignment. In fact, there's an opportunity cost to everything. And that's part of realizing that I'm not a machine who could just unlimitedly do things. I was realizing that the the 15 to 20 hours I'd put on my PhD each week, I could put into things that serve my community and serve myself better, whether that's watching an hour of Netflix, or doing an hour of teaching martial arts or attending an event as dean of students, meeting with you, right, things like that. So I did that calculation. And it was only through honestly, the year of reflection. Almost a year, it was like eight months of reflection to understand that. It is, I'm okay, this is a good choice to stop the PhD. So doing that analysis. And that wasn't easy. That wasn't easy, because like, you know, for me, at least initially, it felt like giving up something No, no, on the hands front, time management, I do a lot of like, you can call them hacks, stuff like that, like I have my morning routine that I entered. For me, time management is more about energy management, okay? So it's, it's how I eat, how I sleep, how I operate in the world, that gratitude to express, to provide myself with the energy to do the things I want to do. And it looks different every day and so that it requires a mindfulness. So yes, I'll do the time management stuff, like getting things done by David Allen to an extent. But more important for me is tracking my energy levels, and aligning the right energy for the right time of day for the right task. So I'll give you another example. In the morning is, I'm more creative in the afternoon. So in the morning, I'm more, I'm more focused and more creative. So I might do those like deeper dive tasks, like writing a business case, in the early morning, in the afternoon, I might be better in an interactive element with colleagues. So I will, I will learn to match the task or activity with my schedule wherever I can control it, as you can imagine, sometimes, like your schedule just gets packed. But yeah, it goes back to knowing oneself and then applying oneself where there's an alignment and energy time and, and things like that. I think some maybe, maybe my answer is also focusing on like, interests and passions, but there are also a lot of times when I feel I've done stuff that I don't enjoy, but I either, but I learned from, you know, and I think it's really important for leaders to stay curious, not to judge. And we know, neurologically and biologically that we are more creative, more productive when we have a spirit of curiosity like, oh, asking questions like, oh, how might this take place? Even the science of grit, Angela Duckworth, she says, for parents, she recommended to kid like, if kids start like a new activity, canoeing or whatever, that just because it's uncomfortable for the first two weeks doesn't mean that you should drop it, she recommends sticking with it for one year. And then, then you can talk right? Now, you might debate that, but I personally believe in that kind of thing. I think that sure if it's, if it's really not serving you, and it's clear, and it's detrimental, if it's harmful, okay, yeah, don't do it for a year. Sure. But there are times when we're exposed to new situations that are not easy. And that's where we stand to learn the most lessons and grow my opinion, it's case by case. But that's just a general thing that I believe in.

Mebrat Bekele

It's good you said that, because most of your experiences, the stories you're sharing, you're sharing from, like your perspective, and like how you, the things you learned about yourself, and that keep you motivated to like, being and staying like in a position of like leadership, like, you know, yourself, you know, like, why you can manage where you can handle, you know, where you need to, like, get more experience then and you go for, like, the things you want to accomplish. Yeah.

David Ip Yam

yeah. Yeah, thank you. And I think I should also want to share that my journey wasn't the result of hardcore planning. My journey was a result of doing the things where my skills aligned with the impact that a community needed. And so some people ask me about network, networking tips. And I generally start by saying, the conventional networking tip is, it's about who you know, but I like to say it's actually about, because I didn't know anybody growing up, I didn't have like a network at first, right? I say it's about. So I didn't relate to that advice, right. Like I didn't, I didn't have like these people on speed dial, or parents who could connect me with such and such opportunities. I say, it's about people who know you, as a result of the work and impact you have, and the way you make people feel. So in other words, if you do good work, and have impact, this was what I was saying to myself, Okay. And what I share with in certain cases, then people will notice and be grateful and want to work with you. People are gravitated towards working with people who get great things done together, people, a crude way of saying is people work with people they like, or can benefit from. So I think in a lot of my journey, it's been people reaching out to me to be like, hey, what do you think about applying for this? Or what do you think about doing this project versus me being like, it's in my plan to be Dean of Students, I'm gonna go do this, right. It wasn't like that. Actually, there were potentially one or two jobs where I was like, I want to do this. So I'm going to apply and some cases I didn't even get it. I think it's a bit of luck. It's the definition of luck that I like, where it's luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

Mebrat Bekele

So speaking of being liked, and being asked to be part of like a project, and things like that, I heard you were nominated to be part of the anti black racism task force here at Centennial. Is that true? Can you tell us more about that?

David Ip Yam

Yeah, so that one was when I was hired on to Dean, to be the Dean of Students, the task force had already been created about two months in I think, so they created it in December, and I joined in February. So, and they had done so much amazing work. They already had draft recommendations. And so I joined stellar co chairs Yasmin Razak, and Veronique Henry, and I joined as the Dean of Students. So my, I joined because of my role, like so I was asked, it was already in, I knew, in the interview process that one of my functions would be to co chair this task force for my responsibility for student affairs and student experiences and outcomes. So, and the task force was created against the backdrop of, as you know, social unrest following George Floyd's murder in May 2020. Again, and really as a as a response to, against police brutality and racialized inequities, particularly for black communities and members of the African diaspora. So the taskforce, its purpose was to develop a set of actionable recommendations, right, to transform and then to decolonize the work of the institution. It was made up of 60 students, faculty, staff, so my role was to support that taskforce and really to learn, because I saw myself as certainly like a guest because actually, I didn't come in as co chair yet. I actually intentionally, and I spoke with my fellow co chairs that came in as a Dean of Students advisor, and then became co chair when Yasmin moved on to a different institution. And then Michael Charles, who's our AVP of, he's got new title, new title now I don't want to make a mistake we can put in the show notes. Michael Charles those few minutes, AVP and co chair of the Taskforce. And then so that's when I became co chair so a few months in, but that, for those first few months where I wasn't the co chair were, were really important, because I wanted to understand where each individual in the task was coming from. So I joined thei working groups along with different recommendations. And we had, and I was brought into really vulnerable conversations about inequities, about institutional recommendations that were being formed. And so my role, again, was to, kind of what I brought up earlier, is to create that space for truth to be told, and to translate into recommendations, and then to then champion, using the word champion, those recommendations to the executive team and board of governors, who were so supportive. They, you know, and our President Craig Stevenson, huge champion, have enabled this work. So I would say, you know, then bring those recommendations forward to the board for approval into commitments, along with my co chairs on behalf of the task force. And so, yeah, we just celebrated a big milestone where the recommendations were, were approved as commitments, institutional commitments, along seven, sevenkind of sections and 47 actions. 47 actions. Yeah.

Mebrat Bekele

Any advice or recommendations, anything you want to say to encourage future leaders?

David Ip Yam

it's challenging times, right? With inflation and with political and socio economic divides. And that's where I go back to Robin Sharma's wisdom of creating spaces and places to stay inspired, personally and in community. Because we can't let these bring us down, we have to recognize them, we have to recognize them, acknowledge them, so that we can address them and take care of ourselves and collective as we can. So that's the first thing staying inspired, and filling one's cup with that energy, that energy required to do one's best craft. So the second one is to perfect your craft, right, whatever that craft is. I didn't talk about it much, but as a martial artist, like, we do this a lot. Like there's like a Bruce Lee poster behind me right now, it says, knowing is not enough, one must apply. And willing is not enough, we must do. And that connects to what I was saying earlier, like knowledge is ignored, it doesn't do anything, unless you have an impact. So knowing is not enough, one must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do. So that's kind of my advice is take care of self and community, focus on solving problems and exploring opportunities by perfecting one's craft in relationship with others. I have to emphasize that. Like it's, we don't work unto, we work with. And when we talk about problems and opportunities, ask yourself to whom and with whom? We're social beings. And the problems that we are and the opportunities that we're, that the world needs to explore are complex ones, and no one person, no, and that goes back to the day of diversity idea. I think the leaders of today and tomorrow are the ones who can operate in, with diverse perspectives, even if it offends you, even if it, you know, is uncomfortable. We need to be able to work across boundaries, create bridges, to acknowledge the truth and work towards, you know, humanity, to a humanity that is connected. And my sphere is student affairs right now and the little things I do, but your sphere will be different, whether, whether it's, you know, whatever your sphere is, start there.

Mebrat Bekele

Great. That's nice.

Jacqueline James

Yeah, that's a wonderful advice. Perfecting on our crafts is what we try to do every day as students, and thank you for sharing with us your journey, your personal journey as well as your professional journey to leadership. Thank you so much for your time.

David Ip Yam

Thank you, Jackie and Mebrat for taking the time to craft these thoughtful questions and I look forward to continuing to work with you.

Jacqueline James

Thank you for joining us for episode five of the Leadership Vibes podcast. In the next episode, we are coming back with our guest, Ajané Adams, to hear about his leadership journey and what that looks like as a student. Make sure to subscribe to the Centennial College Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts and Spotify.