When Quiet Leadership Wins: A Management Parable from the Pandemic

There's a certain irony in discovering that your greatest leadership strength emerges during a global crisis that sends everyone else into isolation. But that's exactly what happened to me during the COVID-19 pandemic—a time when my natural introversion, disguised for years behind the extroverted demands of advancement work, finally became a professional asset rather than something to overcome.

When Caltech announced that most staff would work from home indefinitely in March 2020, I found myself in an unusual position: I was one of the few people who genuinely wanted to keep coming to the office. Not because I was eager to risk exposure, but because someone needed to be there. The Development office couldn't just go dark. Gifts still needed processing, deposits had to be made, and our suddenly remote workforce needed technical support to function from their kitchen tables and makeshift home offices.

As a manager, I faced a choice that would define not just my leadership style, but my understanding of what authentic leadership actually looks like.

The Anti-Hero's Journey

Most leadership stories follow a predictable arc: the reluctant hero discovers hidden courage, rallies the troops, and emerges transformed. My pandemic story is different. It's about an introvert who spent years performing extroversion finally finding a crisis that rewarded authenticity over performance.

You see, advancement work—fundraising, donor relations, event management—is built for extroverts. Or at least, it rewards people who can convincingly play one. For years, I'd forced myself into that mold, powering through donor dinners, schmoozing at cocktail receptions, and maintaining the kind of constant "on" energy that successful fundraising demands. I was good at it, but it was exhausting. I'd joke that I was "socially distant" long before the pandemic made it fashionable, but the truth was deeper: I did my best thinking, my most creative problem-solving, and my most genuine relationship-building in quieter, more intimate settings.

When the pandemic hit, suddenly everyone was discovering what introverts had always known: that meaningful work could happen in smaller groups, that technology could facilitate connection without requiring constant physical presence, and that sometimes the most productive thing you can do is give people space to think.

But someone still needed to be present for the work that couldn't go remote.

The Reluctant Office Guardian

The decision to keep coming in wasn't dramatic or heroic. It was practical, and it was right. Our gift processing couldn't stop—donors were still making contributions, and in fact, some were increasing their giving in response to the crisis. The university's financial stability depended on maintaining those relationships and processing those gifts promptly. Beyond that, our suddenly remote team needed technical support, equipment, and someone who could coordinate between the physical office and the digital workspace everyone was scrambling to create.

I could have asked one of my staff to take on this responsibility. After all, as a manager, delegating is part of the job. But something about that felt fundamentally wrong. How could I ask someone else to take on the risk and isolation of being one of the few people on a nearly empty campus while I worked safely from home? If the work was essential—and it was—then I needed to be there to do it.

This wasn't heroism. It was basic management ethics: don't ask your team to do something you're not willing to do yourself.

Enter the Four-Legged Co-Worker

The decision to bring Ace, my Schnauzer/Scottish Terrier mix, wasn't entirely planned. California's shelter-in-place orders meant that suddenly everyone was home with their pets, while I was spending long days in an eerily quiet office building. Ace had always been my companion during work-from-home days, so it seemed natural to extend that arrangement to the office.

What I didn't anticipate was how much his presence would matter—not just to me, but to the few colleagues who were also coming in and, eventually, to the team members who started venturing back to campus as restrictions began to lift.

Ace became the office therapy dog without any formal training or certification. Colleagues who were starting to feel stir-crazy at home would email to ask if they could come in and take him for a walk around Pasadena. These weren't just casual strolls—they were genuine mental health breaks for people who had been isolated in their homes for weeks or months, desperately craving not just physical activity but the simple comfort of interacting with a friendly, uncomplicated creature who was just happy to see them.

For an extroverted-introvert like me, Ace was the perfect icebreaker. People would stop by my office to pet him, and in those moments, real conversations would happen—not the forced networking chatter of pre-pandemic office life, but genuine check-ins about how people were coping, what they needed, and how we could support each other through an unprecedented situation.

The Introvert's Advantage

Here's what I learned during those long, quiet months in the office: sometimes the best leadership happens in the spaces between the big moments. While everyone else was adapting to Zoom fatigue and trying to recreate their extroverted work styles in a digital format, I was discovering that my natural preference for one-on-one conversations, my comfort with silence, and my ability to focus for long periods without constant stimulation were exactly what the moment required.

The few of us who were regularly on campus developed a different kind of team dynamic. Without the usual office buzz and constant interruptions, our interactions became more intentional, more focused. When someone stopped by to walk Ace, we'd end up having the kind of substantive conversation about work challenges, family stress, and pandemic anxieties that rarely happens in the rush of normal office life.

I realized that I'd been trying to lead like an extrovert for years—rallying teams through high-energy meetings, maintaining constant communication, and always being "on" for my staff. But the pandemic created space for a different kind of leadership: steady presence, thoughtful response, and the kind of quiet reliability that introverts often excel at but rarely get credit for.

The Management Parable

Every good parable has a lesson that transcends its specific circumstances, and the lesson of my pandemic experience isn't really about working through COVID-19. It's about authenticity in leadership and the dangerous assumption that there's only one way to lead effectively.

For too many years, I'd operated under the belief that good managers needed to be perpetually energetic, constantly communicating, and always "available" in ways that felt natural to extroverts but exhausting to introverts. The pandemic forced me to question that assumption—and what I discovered was that my team didn't need me to be someone I wasn't. They needed me to be genuinely present, reliably supportive, and authentically myself.

When colleagues came to walk Ace, they weren't looking for a pep talk or a motivational speech. They were looking for connection, for someone who could listen without judgment, and for a brief escape from the intensity of everything happening in the world. My willingness to simply be there—physically present in the office, emotionally available for whatever they needed, and comfortable with the kind of unstructured interaction that often makes extroverts uncomfortable—turned out to be exactly what people needed.

The Ripple Effect of Authentic Leadership

The most surprising outcome of my pandemic leadership style wasn't how it affected my team's productivity (though that remained strong) or even their morale (which, considering the circumstances, was remarkably good). It was how it changed my understanding of what management could look like when it aligned with rather than fought against my natural temperament.

I stopped trying to manufacture energy I didn't feel. Instead, I offered the kind of steady, reliable presence that came naturally to me. I stopped forcing constant communication and instead made myself available for the kind of deeper, less frequent conversations that actually moved projects forward. I stopped treating my introversion as a professional liability and started recognizing it as a leadership asset—especially in times of crisis when people need stability more than enthusiasm.

The result was a kind of leadership that felt sustainable in a way my previous approach never had. More importantly, it was leadership that my team could trust because it was genuinely me, not a performance of what I thought a manager should be.

Lessons for the Post-Pandemic World

As organizations continue to grapple with hybrid work models and the lasting changes COVID-19 brought to workplace culture, my pandemic experience offers a few lessons that extend beyond crisis management:

Authentic leadership is more effective than performed leadership. Your team doesn't need you to be someone you're not. They need you to be reliably, genuinely yourself—especially when everything else feels uncertain.

Different situations call for different leadership styles. The high-energy, constantly-communicating approach that works in some contexts can be exhausting and counterproductive in others. Sometimes the most powerful thing a leader can do is create space for others to think, process, and respond at their own pace.

Small gestures can have big impacts. Ace's walks around Pasadena weren't solving the pandemic, but they were providing real mental health support for people who desperately needed it. Never underestimate the power of simple presence and availability.

Crisis reveals authentic character. The pandemic stripped away a lot of the usual performance aspects of professional life and forced everyone to figure out what really mattered. For leaders, it was an opportunity to discover whether their management style was genuinely effective or just well-rehearsed.

The Quiet Revolution

My pandemic experience taught me that some of the most effective leadership happens quietly, in the spaces between dramatic moments, through consistent presence rather than grand gestures. It taught me that authenticity isn't just a nice-to-have in leadership—it's essential, especially when people are scared, stressed, or struggling to adapt to unprecedented circumstances.

Most importantly, it taught me that being an introvert in a field designed for extroverts doesn't mean I need to become someone else to be effective. It means I need to understand how my natural strengths can serve my team and my organization, especially when the usual playbook doesn't apply.

The pandemic was a crisis that revealed what really mattered: not the ability to work a room or deliver inspiring speeches, but the willingness to show up consistently, to listen more than you talk, and to create the kind of environment where people feel supported enough to do their best work even when everything else feels uncertain.

And sometimes, apparently, it helps to have a friendly dog around to remind everyone that not all problems require complex solutions—sometimes they just require a walk around the block and someone who's genuinely happy to see you.

The quiet leaders—the ones who lead through presence rather than performance, through consistency rather than charisma—often find their moment during crises when authenticity matters more than energy. The pandemic was my moment, and Ace was my inadvertent co-teacher in the lesson that sometimes the most powerful leadership tool is simply being genuinely, reliably yourself.

The Sweet Tradition: Five Years of Donuts and the Unexpected Power of Showing Up

Sometimes the smallest gestures create the most lasting traditions.

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It started with a box of donuts and a team that needed to remember they weren't alone.

A "standard" Friday box.

June 6th, 2014 was National Donut Day, and our CRM conversion team was drowning. These were the "back of the shop" folks—the ones who kept our systems running while the rest of us went about our daily work, blissfully unaware of the digital architecture holding everything together. They'd been pulling long hours on what felt like an impossible project, dealing with frustrated internal clients, and facing technical challenges that seemed to multiply faster than they could solve them.

The mood in those basement offices was heavy. You could feel it when you walked by—the weight of stress, the quiet frustration, the sense that they were fighting a losing battle. I'd worked with some of these people for years. I knew how good they were, how much they cared about getting things right. But here they were, toiling away on critical infrastructure that everyone depended on, yet somehow invisible to the broader organization. The irony wasn't lost on me: the people keeping our entire operation running were the ones feeling most forgotten.

That morning, I made a decision that would unknowingly become part of our office DNA for the next five years. I stopped by Foster's Family Donuts in La Crescenta—a small neighborhood shop that had become a regular stop along my commute to work. These weren't mass-produced donuts from a chain; they were the kind of fresh, made-that-morning pastries that only a true family bakery can produce. I brought in a few dozen for the team.

It wasn't a grand gesture or a calculated management strategy—it was simply a recognition that these people deserved to know their work mattered, that someone saw the long hours and appreciated the sacrifice. And if I was going to make that gesture, it should be with donuts that were as thoughtful as the intention behind them.

The History Behind the Gesture

National Donut Day has roots that run deeper than most realize. Created in 1938 by the Chicago Salvation Army, the holiday honored the "Donut Lassies"—brave women who served donuts and coffee to soldiers during World War I. These volunteers worked close to the front lines, often in dangerous conditions, bringing comfort food to troops who were far from home and facing unimaginable challenges.

The parallel wasn't lost on me. Here was our own team, working in their own kind of trenches, dealing with the pressure of a massive system overhaul while everyone else depended on them to keep things running. Those Salvation Army volunteers understood something fundamental about leadership that transcends military conflict: sometimes the most powerful support comes not in grand gestures, but in simple acts of recognition. A warm donut. A moment of connection. The acknowledgment that someone sees your struggle and values your contribution enough to show up for you.

This wasn't about the food itself—it was about visibility. About making the invisible work visible, even if just for a moment.

What Happened Next

The response surprised me. What I'd intended as a simple morale boost became something more—a moment of genuine recognition in the middle of chaos. People lingered in the break room longer than usual. Conversations started flowing between team members who'd been heads-down at their keyboards for weeks. Someone cracked a joke. Someone else shared a breakthrough they'd had the night before.

For the first time in months, the team felt seen. And feeling seen, they began to feel like a team again.

The database conversion was still challenging. The technical hurdles remained formidable. The internal clients were still impatient. But something fundamental had shifted. There was a sense of camaraderie that hadn't been there before—and more importantly, a recognition that their work mattered not just to the project, but to the people around them. They weren't just fixing systems; they were the guardians of our institutional memory, the architects of our future efficiency.

When One Day Became Every Friday

Foster's on Foothill Boulevard
in La Crescenta, CA

The following Friday, I found myself back at Foster's. Not because it was a holiday this time, but because I'd seen what a small gesture could do. The team's response was immediate and enthusiastic—and they specifically commented on how good these donuts were compared to the usual office fare. Word began to spread beyond our database group to other departments. People started asking if I'd be going to Foster's again for "donut Friday"—it had become "a thing."

What began as a one-time act of support for a struggling team evolved into a weekly tradition that started defining our Development and Institute Relations (DIR) office culture. Foster's Family Donuts became our unofficial bakery partner, though they never knew it. Fridays became something people looked forward to. New employees learned about "donut Friday" during their first week—and quickly developed preferences for Foster's glazed old-fashioned or their surprisingly perfect raised chocolate donuts. The tradition grew beyond the original database team—now staff from multiple floors and different departments within DIR make their way to our break room for their Friday morning "fix."

I kept bringing the donuts, week after week, because I could see what it meant. Not just the sugar and caffeine—though those helped—but the ritual of gathering, the informal conversations that happened over glazed and chocolate frosted, the way it created space for connection in the middle of busy workdays. And yes, the quality mattered. Foster's donuts had that fresh, made-with-care taste that reminded everyone this wasn't just about convenience—it was about doing something thoughtfully.

The Ripple Effect

Over the years, I've watched this simple tradition create ripples far beyond what I ever expected. Team members from different departments began mixing during Friday morning donut breaks, leading to cross-functional collaborations that might never have happened otherwise. New hires found their footing faster, welcomed into conversations and inside jokes over coffee and pastries.

The tradition has morphed in wonderful ways. We've expanded beyond just donuts to include bagels some weeks, accommodating different tastes and dietary preferences. People have gotten comfortable making special requests—someone might mention they're craving an apple fritter, or ask if I could pick up those cinnamon sugar ones that Foster's makes so well. These little requests have become my informal barometer for reading the team's mood and stress levels. When someone specifically asks for comfort food, I know they're dealing with something challenging. When the requests get more adventurous—"Could you get some of those maple bacon ones Foster's had last week?"—I can sense the team is feeling confident and playful.

Foster's became such a fixture in our office culture that when well-meaning colleagues would occasionally bring donuts from Winchell's or Krispy Kreme, people would politely partake but inevitably comment on how much they missed "the Foster's quality." It became a running joke—and a testament to how even small details matter when you're trying to show people they're valued.

The tradition has become so embedded in our DIR culture that when I'm out of the office—vacation, travel, whatever—someone else automatically steps up to make the donut run. It's not assigned or mandated; it just happens. People understand instinctively that Friday morning isn't quite right without that gathering, that moment of sweetness and connection to start the weekend. The tradition has become bigger than any one person because the principle behind it—recognizing and valuing each other's contributions—has become part of who we are.

The CRM conversion project? We completed it successfully, though not without its struggles. That team that had been drowning found their rhythm, supported not just by technical expertise but by a sense of belonging and appreciation. Many of those team members are still with Caltech today, and they often reference those difficult months not just as a professional challenge overcome, but as the time when our department culture really took shape around the idea that everyone's work matters, especially the work that often goes unnoticed.

More Than Sugar and Caffeine

Looking back, National Donut Day 2014 taught me something important about leadership and recognition. Sometimes the most powerful gestures are the simplest ones—not because they're easy, but because they cut straight to what people need most: to know that their contributions are seen and valued.

In any organization, there are people doing essential work that rarely gets acknowledged. The folks who keep the lights on, who maintain the systems, who solve the problems that others don't even know exist. They're often the most competent and least recognized members of any team. The lesson of that struggling CRM conversion team wasn't about donuts or morale boosting—it was about learning to see the invisible work and finding ways to make those contributions visible.

The Salvation Army's Donut Lassies understood this during World War I. They knew that acknowledgment and comfort could provide hope in the darkest times. In our own small way, our Friday tradition carried forward that same spirit—using food as a vehicle for recognition, connection, and community.

I think about those World War I volunteers often when I'm standing in line at Foster's on Friday mornings. Their work was obviously more dangerous, more consequential than mine. But the impulse was the same: the recognition that people doing hard work need to know they're not alone, that their efforts are seen and valued, and that someone is willing to show up for them, consistently, with the best you can offer—not just the most convenient.

A Sweet Legacy

As I write this on National Donut Day 2019, the tradition continues. Five years and hundreds of Fridays later, those weekly donut runs have become part of who we are as a department. New team members quickly learn that around here, we believe in marking small victories, supporting each other through challenges, and never underestimating the power of showing up with something sweet to share.

What strikes me most is how the tradition has become self-sustaining. It's no longer dependent on my initiative alone—it's become part of our collective identity. When I return from time away, people eagerly fill me in on who covered the donut run, what varieties they chose, and which new person got initiated into our Friday morning ritual.

The database conversion team that started it all has long since moved on to new projects and new challenges. But the culture they helped create—one donut at a time—remains. It serves as a reminder that building strong teams isn't always about formal programs or grand initiatives. Sometimes it's as simple as showing up with a box of donuts and saying, "I see the hard work you're doing, and I appreciate it."

Every National Donut Day, I'm reminded of how a single moment of thoughtfulness can grow into something lasting. And every Friday, as I watch colleagues from across DIR gather in our break room, sharing stories and sugar in equal measure, I'm grateful for that struggling database team from 2014 who taught me that sometimes the smallest gestures create the biggest impact.

The tradition started with a team that needed to know they weren't forgotten. It continues because we've learned that recognition—real recognition—isn't something you save for annual reviews or formal ceremonies. It's something you practice weekly, with intention and consistency, especially for the people whose work makes everyone else's possible.

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What started as support for an overlooked team became a cornerstone of our company culture. Sometimes the best leadership lessons come not from business books, but from the simple recognition that everyone deserves to feel valued—especially those whose contributions often go unnoticed.

The Eisenhower Matrix: How I Break Down My Professional (and Personal) World

There's a moment every Monday morning when I sit down with a Coke Zero, open my laptop, and stare at the tsunami of emails, calendar invites, and sticky note reminders that have accumulated over the weekend. It's the same feeling I used to get looking at a pile of green bar paper reports back in my Atlantic Richfield days—overwhelming, urgent, and somehow both crystal clear and completely incomprehensible at the same time.

That's when I reach for my mental Swiss Army knife: the Eisenhower Decision Matrix.

My path to discovering this framework was about as circuitous as my college career. When I was eighteen, fresh out of high school and convinced I was smarter than everyone else (as eighteen-year-olds tend to be), I marched into college dead set on engineering and mathematics. My mom, in her infinite wisdom, gently suggested that maybe I didn't have the personality to be an engineer. Being eighteen and knowing everything, I naturally ignored her advice completely.

It took me too long to figure out that she was right. Again. (Mothers have this annoying habit of being correct about their children, even when we're too stubborn to see it.) I thought that Aerospace Engineers were "airplane architects" which would demand both creative and systemic thinking. The rigid, systematic thinking that engineering demanded felt like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I was good at the math, sure, but I craved the messy complexity of human behavior and decision-making that engineering courses conspicuously avoided.

So I pivoted—hard—into Economics and Political Science. And suddenly, everything clicked. Economics gave me frameworks for understanding how people make decisions under constraints and competing priorities. Political Science taught me how those same people navigate power structures, build coalitions, and manage conflicts. The juxtaposition of these disciplines—one quantitative, one qualitative, both fundamentally about human behavior—created a lens through which I started seeing patterns everywhere.

That's where the Eisenhower Matrix first made sense to me. It wasn't just a productivity tool—it was a decision-making framework that bridged the analytical thinking I'd learned in economics with the strategic thinking I'd absorbed in political science. A way to quantify the qualitative, to systematize the human elements of priority-setting in a world where everything feels urgent and someone is always convinced their particular request is the most important thing in the universe.

You know the one—that deceptively simple 2x2 grid that supposedly helps you sort your life into four neat quadrants. Urgent/Important. Urgent/Not Important. Not Urgent/Important. Not Urgent/Not Important. It sounds like MBA buzzword bingo, but stick with me here. Because after years of wrestling with competing priorities in advancement work, I've found that Ike's framework isn't just useful—it's become my professional (and personal) salvation.

The Upper Left: Where Heroes Are Made (And Stress Lives)

Let's start with Quadrant II: Urgent and Important. This is where the real work happens, but also where most of us live far too much of our professional lives. It's the donor who needs a proposal by EOD for tomorrow's board meeting. It's the database that crashes during year-end giving season. It's the emergency meeting to discuss why our gift processing is behind schedule.

During Caltech's CRM conversion project, my team was drowning in Quadrant II work. Everything was urgent because the old system was literally dying, and everything was important because without functional technology, our entire advancement operation would grind to a halt. Those were the weeks when I found myself bringing donuts to the office, not just for National Donut Day, but because I could see the stress eating away at people's souls one TPS report at a time.

The thing about Quadrant II is that it's seductive. It makes you feel heroic, indispensable, always fighting fires and saving the day. But living there too long is like being the office's "go to tech guy"—a trap I fell into early in my career. You become so good at crisis management that people start manufacturing crises just to feel your expertise.

The goal isn't to eliminate Quadrant II work—some fires are real, and some heroes are needed. The goal is to not let it consume everything else.

The Bottom Left: The Delegation Sweet Spot

Quadrant III is where I've learned to park other people's emergencies that somehow became mine. Urgent but not important—the kind of work that feels pressing but doesn't actually move the needle on what matters most.

Take font changes. I still laugh about the time I was instructed to change fonts on thirty reports because "that's the font our executive prefers for internal documents." The request was urgent (he was reviewing them that afternoon), but decidedly not important to the actual content or function of those reports. It was a classic Quadrant III moment—something that could have been handled by literally anyone with access to the Format menu.

This is where delegation becomes an art form, and where I've had to get comfortable saying, "Let me connect you with someone who can help with that." Not because I can't change a font—trust me, I've shown the same person how to sum a column in Excel six times—but because my time is better spent on work that actually requires my particular combination of experience and expertise.

The volunteer work I did in Faith's computer lab taught me a lot about this quadrant. Parents would sometimes ask me to fix their home printer or troubleshoot their Wi-Fi during school events. Urgent for them, sure, but not really what I was there for. Learning to redirect those requests politely while still being helpful was like a master class in professional boundary-setting.

The Top Right: The Strategic Zone (Where I Should Live)

Quadrant I—not urgent but important—is where the magic happens. This is strategic planning, relationship building, long-term thinking, and the kind of work that prevents Quadrant I crises from happening in the first place.

When I started PRSPCT-L back in my UCI days, it lived entirely in Quadrant I. There was no urgent deadline, no emergency that forced the creation of a listserv for advancement professionals. But it was important—the field needed better ways to share knowledge and support each other. The fact that it became a cornerstone of our professional community happened because I was willing to invest time in something that wasn't screaming for immediate attention.

The same goes for the weekly donut runs that became part of our office culture at Caltech. Nobody was demanding pastries, and Foster's Family Donuts wasn't exactly mission-critical to our advancement goals. But recognizing and supporting team morale? Building the kind of workplace culture where people feel valued? That's Quadrant I work that pays dividends for years.

Here's what I learned the hard way: if you don't deliberately protect time for Quadrant I work, you end up living permanently in crisis mode. During that CRM conversion project, we were so buried in urgent tasks that we nearly missed the strategic planning needed to prevent future system failures. It was only when I forced myself to block out time for non-urgent but critical work that we started getting ahead of problems instead of constantly reacting to them.

The Lower Right: The Time Sink (Where Good Intentions Go to Die)

And then there's Quadrant 4—neither urgent nor important. The email rabbit holes, the meetings that could have been emails, the busy work that makes you feel productive without actually accomplishing anything meaningful.

I'm not immune to this trap. I've spent more time than I care to admit perfecting Excel formulas that saved thirty seconds of work, or following interesting but irrelevant research tangents because they were intellectually satisfying. There's something oddly comforting about Quadrant 4 work—it's controllable, measurable, and low-stakes. But it's also where good intentions go to die.

During busy December gift processing periods, I'd often pitch in to help my team enter donations into our database. What should have been straightforward data entry would inevitably turn into elaborate prospect research sessions. I'd spot an interesting company name on a check, notice an unusual address, or see a gift note that sparked my curiosity. Before I knew it, I'd be deep in Google searches, updating donor records with employment history, board affiliations, and family connections I'd discovered along the way.

It felt productive—after all, I was enriching our database with valuable information. But while I was adding fascinating biographical details to one donor record, dozens of other gifts sat unprocessed in the queue. My team would politely ask if I needed help with "my" pile, not realizing I'd fallen down a research rabbit hole that had nothing to do with the urgent task at hand.

The key is recognizing when you're there and having the discipline to climb out. Sometimes that means closing the browser tabs and returning to real work. Sometimes it means admitting that the "research" you're doing is really just intellectual curiosity disguised as productivity.

When the Matrix Makes Life-Changing Decisions

Sometimes the Eisenhower Box forces decisions that go beyond daily task management—it becomes a framework for life-changing choices. I learned this firsthand in 2014, when I found myself in one of the most professionally awkward situations of my career.

Cal Poly's CLA Building

I had just left Caltech after nearly a decade to become Executive Director of Advancement Services at Cal Poly Pomona. On paper, it was a great opportunity—more responsibility, a chance to lead a database conversion project from the ground up, and the perfect solution to a family logistics challenge. Faith had been accepted to a performing arts high school in Pomona, and taking the job would eliminate a daily commute for both of us.

But life, as it tends to do, threw a curveball. Faith decided to stay in La Crescenta for high school instead. Suddenly, I found myself driving past Caltech every morning and evening—a daily reminder of the professional relationships and institutional culture I'd left behind. Those twice-daily drives became an unexpected opportunity for reflection, a forced meditation on what mattered most.

Caltech's Millikan Library

Then Caltech called. They needed help. The database conversion project I'd initiated before leaving had hit complications, and they realized they needed someone who understood both the technical challenges and the institutional context to see it through. It wasn't just about technical expertise—it was about institutional memory, relationships, and the kind of deep understanding that only comes from years of working within a particular culture.

Here's where the Eisenhower framework proved invaluable for something far beyond email prioritization. Was returning to Caltech urgent? Not in the traditional sense—Cal Poly Pomona was a good job with good people, and I was learning a lot. But was it important? That was the harder question.

I applied the matrix to my life: Staying at Cal Poly was neither urgent nor particularly important beyond professional courtesy and short-term comfort. But returning to Caltech? That felt both important (helping an institution I cared about complete critical work) and, given the timing of their needs, increasingly urgent.

The decision to return to Caltech after only nine months at Cal Poly wasn't just about career strategy—it was about values clarification. It was about recognizing that sometimes the most important thing you can do is acknowledge when you've made a mistake and course-correct, even when it's professionally embarrassing.

Where the Personal Creeps In

That experience taught me that the Eisenhower Box isn't just a workplace tool—it's a life tool. The same framework that helps me manage donor relations and database conversions also helps me navigate Little League politics, school volunteer commitments, and the endless logistical juggling act of single parenting.

When Faith needed help with her science fair project, was that urgent and important? Important, certainly—but the urgency was mostly manufactured by our tendency to procrastinate until the last possible moment. When the Little League board needed someone to run for president, was that urgent? Not really. Important? Absolutely, if I wanted my kids to have a quality youth sports experience.

The personal stuff gets tricky because the lines between quadrants aren't as clear. Your kids' request for help with homework feels urgent to them and important to you, but maybe not both simultaneously. The school fundraiser volunteer signup feels important to the community, but rarely urgent until the deadline approaches.

I've learned to apply the same discipline to personal commitments that I do to professional ones. Not every volunteer opportunity requires my specific involvement. Not every school activity needs my attendance. And sometimes, the most important thing I can do is model healthy boundary-setting for my children by being thoughtful about what I commit to and why.

The Generational Divide

One thing I've noticed in my years of managing teams is that different generations tend to live in different quadrants by default. My younger colleagues often treat everything as Quadrant II—urgent and important—because they haven't yet developed the pattern recognition to distinguish between real crises and manufactured ones. Everything feels career-defining when you're early in your professional life.

Meanwhile, some of my more experienced colleagues have become so comfortable living in Quadrant I that they sometimes miss legitimate Quadrant II situations. They've seen enough manufactured urgency to become skeptical of all urgency, which can be just as problematic.

The sweet spot is developing the judgment to tell the difference—and that only comes with experience, mentorship, and probably a few mistakes along the way. Part of my job as a manager has been helping people calibrate their urgency meter, teaching them to pause and ask: Is this really urgent, or does it just feel that way? Is this truly important, or are we confusing activity with progress?

Beyond the Matrix: Values in Disguise

Here's the dirty secret about the Eisenhower Box: it's not really about time management or productivity hacks. It's about values clarification. When you force yourself to honestly evaluate what's truly important versus what just feels urgent, you're essentially defining what matters most to you, your team, and your organization.

Those Friday morning donut runs? They lived in Quadrant I because I valued team morale and workplace culture more than I valued an extra hour of email processing. My decision to keep coming to the office during the holidays? Quadrant II, because someone needed to be there, and I valued leading by example over personal convenience.

The volunteer work at Valley View Elementary? Pure Quadrant I—building community, supporting my daughter's education, and investing in relationships that would pay dividends for years. The decision to return to Caltech? A values-driven choice that prioritized institutional loyalty and meaningful work over career advancement and comfort.

The Ongoing Practice

Like most useful frameworks, the Eisenhower Box isn't a one-time sorting exercise—it's an ongoing practice. I find myself mentally revisiting it multiple times throughout the week, especially when I feel overwhelmed or when competing priorities start pulling me in different directions.

Sometimes I even share the framework with my team, particularly when we're facing competing deadlines or when someone seems to be drowning in everything-is-urgent work. It's a way of stepping back and asking: What really needs to happen today? What can wait? What should we be doing proactively to prevent future crises?

And yes, I've been known to sketch it out on a whiteboard during particularly chaotic meetings, much to the amusement of colleagues who've learned to recognize my "Eisenhower moment" expressions. These visual conversations often reveal how differently people prioritize the same tasks and help teams find common ground on what truly matters.

The Simple Truth

The truth is, most of us already know intuitively what's important and what's urgent. The value of the matrix isn't in the sorting—it's in the permission it gives us to act on that knowledge. To say no to Quadrant IV busy work. To delegate Quadrant III requests. To protect time for Quadrant I strategic thinking. And yes, sometimes to embrace the chaos of Quadrant II when the situation truly calls for it.

Because at the end of the day, whether we're processing gifts, coaching Little League, or just trying to get through another Monday morning email avalanche, we all need a way to separate what feels urgent from what actually matters. And sometimes, that way comes courtesy of a former president who knew a thing or two about competing priorities—and an eighteen-year-old who finally learned to listen to his mother's advice, even if it took a few decades and a career change to get there.

The matrix may be simple, but the wisdom is profound: not all urgent things are important, and not all important things are urgent. Everything else is just commentary.