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Kevin Buisman is Director of Athletics at Minnesota State University-Mankato, which won the 2008-09 Northern Sun Intercollegiate All-Sports Trophy and was second in the NCAA Division II Directors' Cup standings. The Mavericks women's basketball team won the Division II national championship while the wrestling team finished third.

What are the three things you have control over that make your program successful?
One of the things that has been at the heart of our success is doing things the right way. We put an emphasis on honesty and integrity. I think the coaches understand that we have a pretty unwavering commitment to compliance, and they understand that we're not going to cut any corners to ensure our success. We're going to do things the right way and represent the athletic department and the university in a very forthright manner.

Secondly, I'd say nobody can do this by themselves. We pride ourselves on surrounding ourselves with good people and that includes our staff, our coaches, and our student-athletes. I think you've got to have high quality individuals in all those areas to be successful. We talk about building champions as a branding slogan for our department and that's not really aimed at just athletic success--instead it's really intended to connotate our emphasis on total student-athlete development. We want our student-athletes to come here in and excel on the court, in the classroom, and throughout the community. We talk about having them be successful both in sports and in life.

Another thing I think that we really emphasize is supporting one another. There are enough opportunities to compete with others, and we talk about not competing against ourselves--not having those petty jealousies or backbiting that can really destroy a department. We talk about this idea that a rising tide raises all ships and that when we're successful in one area, it raises the bar internally in terms of others aspiring to have that kind of success. When the women's basketball team won the national championship this year, the exposure of being on ESPN brought notoriety not only to that program, but also to the entire university and our whole athletic department.

Have you always had this approach and philosophy to the program or has it changed over the years?
I think it's been a constant. I've been here seven years and this is my first opportunity to lead a program, but those are things that have always been important to me individually and things that I believed in when I was a student-athlete. They're the ideals that I had modeled to me by other athletic directors as the way to lead a successful program and those are the things that I wanted my own athletic program to embody and personify.

It's taken a bit of time to implement, and it's something we don't want to stand still on. We're always looking for ways to improve, and I think we've found a better way to get the message out about what our student-athletes are doing off the field in terms of their academic success and their community service. But as far as the core approach, that's been pretty steadfast during my seven years here at Minnesota State.

Have there been times when you had to step outside your comfort zone in developing your program?
Anytime you're in a position of advocacy, you sometimes have to step in and compete for resources for your program, especially now because of the economy. In that context, you can feel like you're sticking your neck out a little bit, potentially at the expense of others, and that can challenge your comfort zone.

The way I've dealt with that is to demonstrate a certain level of confidence in myself and our program. If you're competing for those resources, you've got to be able to step up and deliver what some people refer to as their elevator speech--where you tell a success story of your program concisely, confidently, and with a great deal of passion. In some of those forums you don't always have a great deal of time.

I think sometimes faculty will look at athletics as an extracurricular activity and maybe not at the core mission of the institution. But when you're able to back up that athletic performance with success in other areas I think it's a lot easier to win those folks over. They know that there is a commitment to academics and the student-athletes understand exactly why they're here. There's all kinds of great stories about our student-athletes accomplishing at a high level academically and going on to be great leaders and professionals in the work world.

What is the key to working with today's athletes and their parents?
I think that continues to evolve. We're working with student-athletes who are labeled as the millennial generation and parents labeled as helicopter parents and that can definitely be challenging at times. But it's not always the case. A lot of them understand lines have to be drawn and are able to operate within those parameters. On the other hand, sometimes you'll see those lines blurred a little bit.

My best advice is to approach each circumstance as unique, not to presuppose that this set of parents is going to be like the ones you dealt with last week. Give everybody a chance to share their concerns without prejudging anything. But I think it's also important that you define the boundaries. When you can say 'Here is the role of the coach, here's my role as the athletic director, here is your role as the student-athlete, and here's your role as the parent," it usually helps avoid a lot of further conflict. Now they're not always going to agree with you, but getting those roles defined is a great starting point for resolving any issue.

Have you changed the way you deal with parents?
Most conflicts need to be worked out between the parties directly involved. Sometimes mediation is required and that's the role of the athletic director. Most of the time, I'm going to ask a parent or student-athlete, 'Have you talked to the coach about this?' And if the answer is no, I'll have them do that first. I'm more than willing to have them come back and talk to me afterward. But I've found they can usually resolve the problem if they talk to the coach.

However, if they've talked it out amongst themselves, then after they've both had the opportunity to talk to me independently, I'll get everybody in the room at the same time. Otherwise you just become a go-between and end up going back and forth trying to reconcile what everyone has said. The best opportunity to reconcile those varying accounts is when they're looking at one another from right across the table. Earlier in my career, I think I was willing to listen to both sides independently.

How do you manage the work-life balance?
That's an area I need to continue to improve on. But I'm very fortunate to have a family that enjoys sports. They enjoy being up here at the games and I like having my family around people who I think are pretty good role models.

My family came to San Antonio for the women's basketball championship, and what a stellar group of young women for my kids to be around. Collectively, the team carries about a 3.5 GPA. And then a week or so after winning the national championship, they were involved in a community service activity here in Mankato planting trees. I took my kids out of school for a week for the tournament, and I wondered if that was really the right thing to do, but some of the best learning experiences come outside the classroom. And the lessons my kids learned from those young women--the kind of commitment and passion and dedication that showed--were invaluable.

What skill set do you think athletic directors will need in the next decade that maybe hasn't been as important in the past?
Clearly we're seeing more of an emphasis on fundraising and development. But hand in glove with that fundraising skill is friend-raising. It's not always about getting into somebody's pocket. Not every engagement can be one where you're asking for money. So fundraising and friend-raising skills are going to be paramount in the future.

I also think there's going to be an even greater emphasis on leadership as a key quality in the future. You would think that leadership comes with the territory, but leadership is little bit different than management. There are subtle, but distinct, differences between administering a program and leading a program.

There are a lot of moving parts when you think about 600 student-athletes, 23 sports, and a $7.5 million budget. Management is about dealing with the complexities of an organization and that's an important skill. By contrast, leadership also entails dealing with change. We're all experiencing a lot of change now because the financial environment. The people who are going to be the most effective leading athletic departments in the future are going to be those who have good leadership skills and are equipped to deal with that volatility. They're going to have to be adaptable, flexible, and creative in determining solutions. That's a little bit different than just managing an athletic department.

How do you deal with those days where it seems like all you're doing is handling complaints and problems?
I tell our coaches that complacency is not going to make us better and anytime there is a problem or complaint it's an opportunity to improve. I remind them that they expect their athletes to deal with problems and not fold the tent. So when a coach comes in with a problem or an issue, I have those same expectations for us and our ability to deal with a problem or an issue.

I've told people that being the athletic director is like being a firefighter. You have to answer the bell. You never know when the alarm will ring or what kind of crisis you have to respond to. You might be getting a cat out of a tree or it might be a five-alarm fire. But there are a lot of times you're going to have to put things aside and deal with the issues at hand. So you have to be flexible and adaptable and able to determine what requires your attention and what can be put aside.

Dennis Read is an Associate Editor at Athletic Management.