Whales and Sharks
I won’t ever forget the first day of Graduate Teaching Assistant training at Auburn, in August 2003. To say I was excited would be a complete understatement. I couldn’t believe my luck - that not only had I gotten into a grad program, but had just gotten my first apartment - no more concrete block dorm rooms for me! - AND in less than a year, I’d be a somewhat official college professor teaching my own public speaking classes. I was super happy.
I also didn’t know anyone else in the program and couldn’t wait to meet new friends, nervous as I was that I’d not make any friends at all. It seemed easy at UNA. Between sorority, the many other student organizations I was part of, and living in the dorms with a roommate just as extroverted as I was but with a totally different social circle, it felt like I knew everyone. Here - no sorority, no friends, and no idea if I’d even make any.
I got to the third floor conference room of Tichenor Hall, and took a seat among the other TAs, already gathered for orientation. They all seemed way cooler and smarter than me. They just looked like they had everything together, way better than I did. None of us were speaking; we were all experiencing our own version of culture shock and nerves. Knowing the group as well as I do now, we probably all had the exact same thoughts at the time about being nervous and anxious (except about everyone else being cooler; I was easily the least cool person in the room).
The graduate director walked in and the first thing he said ended up being the best advice anyone ever gave me, not just about academia but about life in general.
“You should know that there are two types of academics. There are whales, and there are sharks. The sharks are out to get each other. They actively prevent others from succeeding. If they see something that might help you in your research, they hide it from you so you can’t find it. They cut others down. They don’t care who they have to attack on their way to the top. They are out for themselves.
The whales, though, swim together. They help each other. They build people up. When they see something that could be helpful, they share it with you. When they get to the top, they reach back down and help the rest of the group get there, too.
You need to decide. Are you whales, or are you sharks? This will make a big difference in how the next two years go for everyone.”
We glanced around, started to nod our heads at each other and silently mouthed “We’re whales, right? Whales? Yes? Whales.” It was decided. We would be whales.
Over the next two years, we bonded. Those strangers, and the professors there, became my Auburn family. We worked so well together simply because we agreed to be whales - we knew it would be better for us all if we helped each other, rather than competed against each other. As it turns out, I was right about the people in that room: they were absolutely all cooler than me, we were all crazy smart in different ways, and that group also happened to be full of genuinely kind, friendly, witty, and outgoing people, who made my time at Auburn some of the best years of my life. We are all still friends.
This is some of the crew, from a tailgate & game about 4 years ago.
We had a very strict no-tolerance policy on sharks. They just didn’t fit. We built a little micro-culture around helping each other succeed. This meant we did the following, without giving it a second thought:
Shared notes we took in class, if someone needed them
Asked and answered each other’s questions about classes we were taking
If we came across an article that looked relevant to someone else’s research, we saved that .pdf and sent it right to the person who might need it
Studied for our comps together (and, on one particularly difficult day - maybe 3 days in to hard core studying? - bailed together to go to the bar at 10 am, agreeing we’d had enough and would regroup the following day.)
Met at Panera Bread Company on Opelika Road the night before any big paper was due, with printed out copies of our work, to drink coffee, eat snacks, and line edit/make suggestions to help improve our papers (these edit sessions and super smart friends taught me how to be a better writer!)
Tailgated together for football games
Congratulated each other when we got good grades, or internships, or jobs, or stable-ish boyfriends/girlfriends
Talked openly about what was, and was not, working in the public speaking classes we taught
Created, and then shared, all the activities we came up with to make our classes fun and engaging
The whales/sharks thing helped me countless times during my career in academia. I learned how to work under a whales model. It’s the only way I was able to function happily. For a while, I was even able to help create similar mini-cultures everywhere I went. When I first got to Kentucky, I talked about whales and sharks. It took on there, too, though I don’t know if it stuck past my generation of TAs. I also brought with me a giant binder of teaching activities that Meredith created and gave to me (a very whale-like move). The binder eventually found its way back to me in the form of other UK grads who interviewed for jobs with me and unknowingly used the exact same original activities for their teaching demos that Meredith put in the binder. I love it when things come full circle. This gives me hope that if the binder lived on, so did whales/sharks.
At my last job, I had a little collage of whale and shark pictures hanging up in my office, as a constant reminder of who I was, and who I wanted to avoid. I talked about whales and sharks often. It seemed to resonate.
However, it became clear, eventually, that I was swimming in shark-infested waters. I knew that if I couldn’t change that culture, I would not survive.
The more I learned about corporate culture, the more I realized that it truly starts at the top. If your very top leadership isn’t fully invested in culture change, it will never happen.
When I realized there were more sharks than whales, and top leadership was ultimately facilitating shark-based behaviors, I knew I had to leave. The ocean feels really small and threatening when it’s overcrowded with sharks who are out for themselves, who don’t consider others, and who make decisions that negatively impact workplace culture. It directly impacts the whales, who by nature want collaboration, a spirit of helpfulness, and encouragement.
One of the reasons I went out on my own is to try to foster more whale-like cultures in other environments. There are plenty of ways to be a whale, no matter where you are in an organization. But, true whale culture has to start at the top, and I hope to be able to help others foster that type of organizational culture for the benefit of their employees.
Anyone else ever experienced a whale or shark culture, particularly in academia? I’d love to hear from you!
