My Nantucket neighbor, Susan Sandler, is a well-known screenwriter. She wrote the play Crossing Delancey and its film adaptation. Her feature documentary, Julia Scott: Funny That Way, has been highly acclaimed at numerous film festivals, including The Nantucket Film Festival, and released commercially on major streamers. She is also a professor of The Arts at New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts. Susan recently asked me if I had seen the new Netflix mini-series about Nantucket called The Perfect Couple. I told her that I had seen it and that I had the sense that the screenplay had a high level of anticipation and suspense—it held my full attention. Susan responded, “Ah! In my screenwriting class, that’s what I call building and achieving the “Dramatic Arc.” Hers was an enlightening remark.
I was struck by the recognition that the “Dramatic Arc” is what we as coaches work to achieve as we coach a candidate to be the successful candidate of choice at the end of a search process. The “Dramatic Arc” is also what we all want to strive for as we tell our stories as examples of who we are, what we believe in, and what we have accomplished.
Within the overriding “Dramatic Arc” you have many other arcs, stories and events, that make up your overriding success story.
Let’s take a moment and think about constructing a cover letter that will cause your audience—your search consultant and committee members—to say after finishing the final sentence, “Wow, I want to MEET this person.” Your opening paragraph creates the framework that focuses on and speaks to why there is an alignment of values between you and this prospective institution. Your next paragraph or two focuses on the institution’s successes and aspirations. The middle part of your letter outlines, through storytelling, your accomplishments. It is the arc of your stories that your audience will remember. Align your accomplishments with the institutional aspirations articulated in the first part of your letter. The final part of the arc brings together explicitly what you can do in service to the institution. A cover letter with a “Dramatic Arc” and good storytelling will get you to the interview table.
Next week, we will offer a framework to create the “Dramatic Arc” for the initial interview process.
For more details check out our book, Opening Doors, The Higher-Ed Leadership Playbook, co-authored by Josefina Baltodano, J.D., on Amazon -
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