Stephen Colbert on Service and Love

Bill Hogue, Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, University of South Carolina

Stephen Colbert is a famous comedian and satirist. It’s easy to imagine that he was an overnight success. But like many other great performers, Colbert spent years honing his skills and developing his craft in relative anonymity before he emerged as a cultural phenomenon. His preparation for stardom included several years studying improvisational theater (improv), first at Northwestern University and then as a member of The Second City in Chicago, one of the most influential comedy theaters in the country.

In his commencement address to the Northwestern graduating class of 2011, Colbert notes that “service” to other performers in the troupe is an essential ingredient for successful improv. He says: “There are very few rules to improvisation, but one of the things I was taught early on is that you are not the most important person in the scene. Everybody else is. And if they are the most important people in the scene, you will naturally pay attention to them and serve them.”

Colbert suggests that the power and the beauty of improv are most fully realized when everyone in the troupe is operating with a common understanding: I am not the most important person in the scene; everyone else is. He goes on to say: “No one is leading, you’re all following the follower, serving the servant.”

Then he makes another provocative statement: “Life is an improvisation.” Let’s play with that idea. Our lives include a mix of personal and professional activities. If life is an improv, and if improv is best when everyone is serving the servant, then perhaps service should be at the core of how we approach our commitments and responsibilities. He explains:

If we should serve others, and together serve some common goal or idea—for any one of you, what is that idea? And who are those people? In my experience, you will truly serve only what you love, because, as the prophet[1] says, service is love made visible. If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love community, you will serve your community. If you love money, you will serve your money. And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself. And you will have only yourself.

So, how might Colbert’s comments about service and love help us become better team members, better leaders, better people? Even if you don’t entirely buy his logic, maybe there’s some evidence that his ideas are worth exploring.

The San Antonio Spurs are the defending champions of the National Basketball Association. If you Google “San Antonio Spurs teamwork,” the search results feature a remarkable array of videos, articles, and commentary. Try it. You don’t have to know anything about basketball to appreciate the Spurs’ selfless teamwork.

The Spurs don’t have a roster stocked with basketball’s biggest stars, and they don’t reside in one of the country’s glitzy, high-profile media centers. And yet, they consistently defeat teams that have more raw athletic talent. As one article put it: “They are living proof that ‘We’ is greater than ‘Me.’”

Colbert himself might say that the Spurs serve others and together serve a common goal. That idea helps us understand why so many of our friends and colleagues invest time and effort and—yes—love in support of each other, our community, and the goals of EDUCAUSE.

I see evidence every day that our vast and diverse community is living up to the promise of the EDUCAUSE slogan, “Uncommon Thinking for the Common Good”:

• The rich content of the resource library
• The wealth of experience and knowledge shared in EDUCAUSE Institute programs
• Ideas shared through listservs and blogs and policy papers
• The iconic “7 Things You Should Know About” series
• ECAR reports and briefs
• The work of EDUCAUSE staff and leadership
• Conferences and webinars
• Speed-dialing, texting, tweeting, or using semaphore flags to reach any number of trusted friends and colleagues we’ve met through EDUCAUSE—to ask about any topic, at any time—and getting answers that invariably remind us that we is greater than me

The list goes on. As we serve and support each other, so too are we served and supported in return. And let’s remember the challenge that is implicit in Colbert’s questions, the challenge to be aware of and engaged with each other and our profession: “If we should serve others, and together serve some common goal or idea—for any one of you, what is that idea? And who are those people?

Speaking of we, we would love for you to join us next time in The Professional Development Commons. We will follow up Colbert’s advice on following your dreams and serving others by continuing to explore his notion that life is an improv.