A Leadership Huddle: Focusing on the Fundamentals with Vennie Gore

In this episode, we sit down with Michigan State’s Executive Vice President of Administration, Vennie Gore. He leads a vast and diverse campus portfolio with a simple playbook: master the basics, align on what matters, and expand only when the team is ready. From the story behind his one-of-a-kind name to the 14 Golden Rules he wrote as a hall director—and still follows today—Vennie shows how consistency beats complexity in high-stakes operations.

We unpack his “20-mile walk” for building alignment across units with different definitions of “the basics” and explore why a football season offers the perfect analogy for organizational maturity: start simple, earn trust through execution, then open the playbook. He also shares why he treats careers as portfolios, not ladders, and how pattern recognition helps leaders “slow down to hurry up.”

Along the way, we dive into systems thinking through sports: why even “individual” sports like golf are deeply interdependent, how leaders switch hats between partner, supplier, customer, and vendor, and why emotional energy is a leader’s most contagious signal. Vennie makes the case for marrying student development theory with the business of higher education, building organizational readiness, and reducing unforced errors through direct communication, trust, humility, and a no-surprises culture.

A grounded, practical guide for anyone steering large teams through long seasons.

Transcript

Probably the only Venceslaus you will meet!

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Welcome back to On Campus Off the Record. We're so glad you're with us for these new fall episodes. Today's guest, Venny Gore, isn't just Michigan State's vice president for administration. He sees himself as the head coach of a team supporting more than 50,000 students and 12,000 faculty and staff. His roster? Housing, hospitality services, HR, IT, police and public safety, campus facilities, and more. That's quite the portfolio. And that's exactly how Vinny describes his career as a portfolio, always adding new plays and trying new things. Today we hear the story behind his unique name, the simple skill he believes matters most, and the expectations he set for his team way back when he was a hall director that he still uses today. So let's get into it. Let's go on campus and off the record with Venny Gore. Recording. All right. Well, welcome, Venny, to On Campus Off the Record. Super excited to have you. Uh, you were kind of a guest when I started this that I really wanted to reach out to and and bring into the conversation. So glad to have you.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

You go by Venny, but that's not your full first name.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

I don't want to mispronounce it because I'll butcher it, I feel like. And so what is your full first name? And then is there a story behind that?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yes. So um I'm in the Army Bratt.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Uh Sergeant Major, my dad was stationed in Berlin, Germany. No, Stuttgart, Germany.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

I was born. And um, so my full name is Venceslos. So if you know the Christmas Carol, Oaking Wentzislaus can down a feeder, Sweden. Yeah. That's what I was named after it. And so when I was born, my parents wanted to give me a European name. So to put this in context, my sister who's older, her name is Lisa. My brother who's younger, his name is Fred.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

So those fit nicely on like backpacks and you know, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, you can't even, I can't even, you know, when you were a kid and they would have the key things and they'd have names on them.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

There was never anyone with my name on it. Never. So uh there were my parents nailed it down to three names. Um Wolfgang, Pierre, or Vensworth Boss.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

And they're just sitting there being like, let's let's take the most complicated spelling, like national spelling B name we can.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Yes. Very nice.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

That's very, that's very German. Let's do the most complicated thing ever. But you know what? At least you were always unique in the only one with that name. Have you ever met anyone with the same name?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Never.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

I mean, I lived in Germany for four years and I don't I I had to ask you about your name.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

So Yeah, never. I've never met it.

Falling Into Housing, Finding a Calling

SPEAKER_02 3:04

So how did you start in housing?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Believe it or not, all through undergraduate, I was never an RA.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Oh, me neither.

unknown 3:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

I was never an RA. And when I went to grad school, the only assistantships that were available were were in housing. So that's how I just got started. And my initial thought coming going to grad school, I was going to be in advancement, be a fundraiser.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Or student activities.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

One into two.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

And um, I started doing housing and then came out of grad school and and uh just kind of fell in love with it. I mean, I don't, I mean, it's kind of it's sort of gets in your veins, and you know, next thing you know, yeah. I'm a self um professed housing geek.

Football Playbook for Campus Operations

SPEAKER_02 3:50

I mean, uh so as you kind of think about yourself as maybe a head coach, what sport are you coaching right now in your current role?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah, um, I'm coaching football. So um when you're when I was at University of Washington, Don James was the head coach there.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

And I got to know Coach James very well. So coach would say our program's based on three things. We're gonna run a balanced offense. You gotta be able to run the ball and pass the ball, we're gonna have a very stout defense, and we're gonna win the kicking game. If we do those three things, our chances of winning are are really high. Yeah. So what I do is like, okay, what are the things that we gotta do to give us a chance to be successful? And those are the things we gotta we've gotta work on the, we gotta do the basics and we gotta think about critical mission. You know, so if you're the police, the critical mission is community policing, keeping people safe and being responsive to the community. We do those things really well, you keep the community safe.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

And do you have you ever experienced where there's friction in between people think like, hey, this is this is our basics, and then another is like, hey, this is our basics. Yeah. And and how do you what advice would you have for leaders uh around that?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

So there is what I call the 20 mile walk.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah, and what that means is you have to be patient.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

And so you bring people together and they talk about those things.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

And you get it on our table. The next time you go, okay, what do we have in what do we have in common here? And they talk about those things.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

And then the third meeting is, okay, let's sort of see we can scope these things together. How do what are the overlaps? What are the things? And then what you find is we have similar interests. My basics are similar. I want to have a good team. Everybody wants to lead and wants to have a good team. Right. So we can unite on we want to have a good team.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

We can unite on that there's safety and IT. And it's called cyber safety. Yeah. And safety, physical safety. Yeah. So we could we could agree to those things.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

We we can agree that if I'm um at being on time and doing other stuff, we should do those things.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

We can start to agree those. We may experience them differently, but we can agree on what the basics are.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

You know, here's the other thing too. And this is why I put myself as a football coach.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

I I assume you watch football.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

I do. I do. Roll tide. Roll tide.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Roll tide, right. Okay. So what's the difference between the first game of you watch their offense and the fifth game?

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Well, they know they know what they're doing more. And they're they're more they're more cohesive as a unit because they've been playing, they've got minutes together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

So if you know, so uh if you if you watch the tie, for an example.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

The first two games, their playbook is rather simple. I mean, they don't do a lot of, they're just executed so well.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Yeah. Well, that's what I mean. He talks about doing the little things right and the trust the process. I mean, that's a big that's a bing for for St. Nick is what I can call him.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Um by the time he gets to the fifth game, he's they have done the basics. So they start to open up the playbook. And they start doing a little bit, some other things a little bit differently, and they start doing some other things differently.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

That's the 20-mile walk. So in the 20-mile walk, you get to, you know, like let's sort of agree on. We get to, you know, the the third, fourth conversation, we agree on what the basics are.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Then we can start talking about, okay, what does time mean?

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

What does that look like? And do you still get the stuff done that you're supposed to get done? And then you start to you start to open up the playbook a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Yeah. The basics of that is you still have to do your job.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Right. And some days we're, you know, some days we're knocking it out of the park. And some days we're, you know, oh for four just to mix all of our sports metaphors. And um, I think that's a really because that was also that's a big thing for for Coach Saban, right? It was like you got like do your job. Don't worry about the other people. We're not worried about the other team. We're worried about doing what we do really well. It's a very interesting piece of like, just do your job.

unknown 8:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Just do your job.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah. Do your job. You know, and and when you do your job and you do it consistently, you do it really well, then you have success.

unknown 8:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Yeah. And then with that success, then you add a little bit more to it. And then you do your job, you do that, and that you get some success. Uh and what we this this took me until I was probably in the profession 12 years.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Tennis are you familiar with Patrick Lancioni's work? Yes, yeah. Right. So there's the there's the five dysfunctions of a team, and then there's his book, The Advantage, which talks about that. And and I've been digging into that lately. And this idea of, you know, I love a sports metaphor, of uh like a I'm gonna say tennis, you might say golf because you're a golfer. I'm a I'm a I'm a tennis, I'm a tennis player with who likes to pretend she can golf. Yeah, and versus a football, basketball, I would say softball because I played softball team, right? And this idea of individuals performing, playing their round, playing their match, and then combining that and calling it a team versus a systems approach with inter, you know, interdependent uh pieces. Is it okay to be a tennis or golf team?

unknown 9:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Over the years, what I like to do is I go out and meet with leaders in different fields just to sort of over the summer.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Can I pick your bride? And so there was about five years I would go and visit our um athletic coaches. Yeah. And what I found is their approach to a team like tech like golf. I'll just use golf as an example, the golf coach, how she approaches her team is very similar how the football coach approaches their team.

unknown 10:26

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah, so the the um the golf coach looks at everyone's everyone from one to twelve are important on the team. Because during a round, one person may be your number 12 rank, your 12 position golf and may be hot that day. They may be hot, and your number one may be down. So you got to make them feel that they're all part of the same team. Yeah. Um, and it's the same thing in football, where everyone has a role on that team and they have to depend on that team. And so when I look at a diverse portfolio, what we have to do is be very clear about what we're trying to get accomplished in supporting the institution. And if we're really clear about that, then we could move and make things and change things and influence things to change and to become cover customer focused. I think one of the things that I learned in my last five months in this role is that every leader wants to make a difference. Their organization wants to make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Our job is to help translate what that looks like. My expectations that I share with my team now have not changed since I was an RD.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Okay. I'm I'm gonna read them off to you because I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

I love it. I love it. All right.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Um, the 14 golden rules.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

Okay.

Tennis vs. Football: Teams and Systems

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Direct, open, honest communication. Trust. Trust means do what you say. So I need to be able to trust that when you do what you say.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Devotion and commitment to the job. That doesn't mean working eight hours. That means being devoted to what you're doing and you're and what you're doing while you're here. Deal with the appropriate supervisor, always keep the door open. So what that means is if you got a complaint, go to that person. Don't go over here and come back because that just causes messiness. Um, willingness to try something new. Um, have a good understanding of the operation. So you gotta know how the how the thing works.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Uh do no evil. Channel complaints to the person's intended for.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Oh, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Yeah. Follow through with your task and responsibilities. Don't be afraid to say, I don't know, I made a mistake, or I need help. Make things easy on yourself by making easier on others. What that means is I can't read your mind. So if you want me to do something, you gotta tell me, make it easy for me. Tell me what you expect. You know, no surprises. So if something's going bad, just let me know. I'm okay. The no surprise rule.

unknown 13:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Um, no enforce or errors. Think think think through the implications of your decision.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Always a good one. And not just for individuals, but I think also for organizations themselves.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah, remember when you we used to say to RAs, you know, make good decisions.

Clear Mission, Customer Focus Across Units

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Keep our perspective. You know, it's like, you know, we have 15,000 people here, and one thing goes bad, it's not the end of the world. Did anybody die? Nobody died, so we're okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

And show goodwill. Look at positive intent.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

These haven't changed since I was an RD.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Has your maybe how you interpret them or your depth within them evolved at all?

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Yes. Okay. Yeah, because it means the higher you go, it means more.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Okay. Are these in order for you of importance or just are these really?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

They build on each other.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Okay. Like a John wooden pyramid sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah, they build on each other. So you if you think about no surprises, if you're what was the first thing? Direct open communication?

unknown 14:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

No surprise rule.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Say I made a mistake. I need help.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Yeah.

The 14 Golden Rules of Leadership

SPEAKER_00 14:59

I don't know. No so no surprise rule. I mean, you know, they sort of build on each other.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

These have served you across your career. And so how would you describe your career path?

SPEAKER_00 15:11

You know, if I look at my career, I think about it as a portfolio. And as you grow and develop in your career, you get this experience, you get that experience, you get this experience, you get this experience. And each one is build up as you move on. And for those people who are like you and I, who are in the housing profession, we're sort of generalists. We kind of learn to do a lot of different things. Yeah. And so as long as you start to build your um portfolio of stuff, it just gives you a cognitive map. You know, you you in the back of your head, something comes up and you go, I think I've seen this before.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

You do a lot, a little bit of things. So so I would say uh it's it's much more like a portfolio. So if you're if your gig is um is going to national parks, you know, you may go to Arcadia Park up in Massachusetts, go to Sierra over in California, go to Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons. Each one of them are very different. So you learn different ways to hike and appreciate nature. So it's very simple.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

As you built that portfolio, what has been one of the hardest lessons that you've had have learned?

SPEAKER_00 16:32

The biggest lesson I learned is slow down to hurry up.

unknown 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

And you know what I mean by that, you know, we get in a hurry to do things. And so we start going down the process and then we get a little sloppy. And planning and thinking through before you execute become very important. And a lot of that is asking all the right questions.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

So how do we do that? Like how do we slow down, particularly in these you know, giant complex enterprises?

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah. So I think when when we think about this, is most of us at the beginning of the year and in our college life, we get to Maine and we're just like, love you dearly, but go home. You know, it's been it's been nine months, and you know, it's been a great experience, but and then we're just exhausted, right? I mean, you know, we're just like, I just need some time to recover. Then this conference season in the summer. And then there's vacation season, and then all of a sudden August 1st shows up and go like, what happened?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

So um I had a friend when I was living when I was at the University of Washington, and she was employee 39 at Microsoft.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Wow.

Career as Portfolio, Not Ladder

SPEAKER_00 17:53

And uh they used to, I'm old enough to remember when we would get uh updates, you know, software updates, they come in a floppy desk and you put them at. And so all you Gen Z and late millennials, you don't remember those days. But I remember those days. But they had this philosophy where they did 8020. So they got 80% of it right and they put it out to market because they knew the customers would sort of uh figure out what they really need in their software product and and tell them, well, if can you add this enhancement? Can you add this enhancement? This doesn't really work really well. And so what I learned from that is during our planning process that we're gonna get 80% of it right. And the last 20 when people show up, we'll we'll just go with the flow.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

That's good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Yeah, we just go with the flow. And the last 20% are the little things, right? You know, those are the little things. Like we were talking earlier. Uh, it's about like having elevators.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

You know, the build a building for Christmas and in Easter.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

No, so when moving comes, you have enough, you don't have enough elevators.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

So then what you learn over time as you iterate uh is that you then have appointment times so they're staggered. Or you have appointment times that you have two, then you do the upper floor, the lower floor, and then you sort of you sort of learn to go with the flow. So you iterate as you go along.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

What is like was there an area in your current portfolio that you're like uh this is the area I know least about? So I'm gonna dig into it.

Hard Lesson: Slow Down to Hurry Up

SPEAKER_00 19:37

I I would say in my portfolio, I had I have a general understanding of each one of the areas.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

What I had to figure out with each one is to get a deep understanding. You know, so I mean I knew enough to be dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

And so each one of these last five months has really been spending time understanding. And now I have a very I have a greater appreciation for the hard work that everybody does. Yeah, you know, because before, you know, we were we would collaborate, we'd be partners, or we're, you know, we'd have with each group, we had multiple different relationships. Right. Sometimes we're partners.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Sometimes they're a vendor that we get service from.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Sometimes we're a supplier or we give them services.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Sometimes we're a customer, so we're buying something from them. And you have to always think about what hat you have on when you're talking to someone.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Right. Yeah. As you have seen your career and you you've seen different. Do you think that there's an area that we're missing, particularly on the student affairs side, of making sure that folks know the whole scale of what we do?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

There is a little bit of organizational readiness.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

You know, and a personal readiness. You know, so you know, entry-level role is really focused if you're going coming in and residence wife is really focused on that student interaction, the community, and doing that. Um, and that's sort of your your role in it. I think what we, as you move up, the skills you need are different. Yeah. And so that's when NHTI and SHO comes in, comes in. Um what we haven't done is really sort of married the theory and the business side in a in a in a um in an analytical pedagogy way. You know Connie Carlson.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Yeah, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah. And Connie and I are probably the two when we both have an EMBA.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

And so those two have met, have come together, and they've served me really well because I understand the theory of student development, but also understand the business of higher ed. And the higher you go, you need to have both.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Do you think that there should be like more of a business of higher ed in master's courses?

SPEAKER_00 22:11

I don't know if I don't know if people are ready for it. That's the reason why I say there's a readiness.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Ah, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

I mean, when you're coming out of undergraduate and you're going into a master's in student affairs, yeah. Typically, the typical person who does that, um, when they were an undergraduate and majored in student leadership.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Yeah.

Plan 80/20, Iterate the Last Mile

SPEAKER_00 22:30

I mean, they they were going to school, but the real thing was, you know, they were an RA or they were student leader, they were in their fraternity sorority. Right. And they got into the work. They they're going into profession because of that experience.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

And so they're not ready for that part of because their next job going in as an entry-level professional, they'll be frustrated because they're not, they're not doing budget stuff. They're not coming.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

So they're not ready for it. I think um what we could spend more time on is organizational development. What does it mean to work in an organization and to get um a group of people to function and work together in in knowing how organizations come in uh the storming, norming, forming part of that, and what your role is in leading through that. I I think one of the things that I've learned over the years is as a leader, your energy infects your impacts your staff.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

And so if you walk in and you're down and you're or you're not doing it, they become, okay, yeah, it's storming, the boss is upset. I don't know what he's upset about, but he's upset about something. Yeah, you you have to, you know, you have to know your emergen your own emotional uh uh energy level and your own emotional intelligence.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

And there there are times in which I just go, you know, silence is okay. I may say something that I can't bring back.

Learning the Portfolio in Depth

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Well, that's a great lesson to end on, Vinny. Thanks so much. Any last words from you?

SPEAKER_00 24:16

We're we're done with preseason. Now it's game time.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

So let's get after it. And that's a wrap for today's episode of On Campus Off the Record. Huge thanks to Vinny Gore for sharing his insights and his stories with us. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and make sure to share with your friends and colleagues. Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Elizabeth Cox, and we'll see you back on campus and off the record.