Strategic Leadership
Strategic Governance: Designing
the Mechanisms and Tools of
Strategy
We have set in place some of the conceptual and practical foundations
on which strategy rests as a form of leadership. Yet these resources
by themselves are not sufficient to the task. Strategic leadership has
to be inscribed in a college or university's systems of governance, in the ways it
makes daily decisions and collects and uses information about itself, and in its
culture as a set of traditions, expectations, and relationships. It will involve various decision-making bodies such as commissions, committees, teams, and task
forces to do its work. Unless strategic practice is handled legitimately and effectively, the possibilities of strategic leadership will not be realized. In this chapter
I examine governance mechanisms for doing the work of strategy and several
important methods and tools, such as strategic indicators.
FRAGMENTATION AND COMPLEXITY
IN COLLEGIATE DECISION MAKING
As we turn toward the design of the decision-making vehicles for strategy, we
must confront again the complexities of governance in higher education. As we
have seen, while the administrative tasks of a college or a university are organized
hierarchically, academic work occurs collegially. The two systems operate separately as systems of management and of governance within the same institution.
One of the central purposes of strategic leadership is to integrate these segmented
systems of authority.
We have also examined how the intricate components of shared governance live
in fragile balance with one another, resulting frequently in serious disputes about
both the content and the canons of academic decision making. The persistent
78 Strategic Leadership
clumsiness and occasional dysfunction of the system should not, however, lead
us to think that academic organizations could somehow circumvent or dismantle
the collegial model. Academic expertise has to drive the core mission of the
organization.
From the perspective of strategic leadership, the fundamental problem is not
shared academic governance, but the way it is typically practiced. Strategically, its
central weaknesses are its structural fragmentation and its complexity. The issue
is not so much what the system sometimes fails to do, but what it cannot do as
normally constructed. Both classical and current studies focus on these perennial
problems (Duryea 1991; Tierney 2004; Tierney and Lechuga 2004).
Since it lacks mechanisms of integrative decision making, shared governance as
normally practiced is not able to address systematically and coherently the whole
institution and the demands on it. Whereas the strategic identity of a college or
university is lodged in a pattern of interconnected relationships with the wider
world, the mechanisms of shared governance deal with issues through fractured
and time-consuming processes of decision making. The issues are sliced into pieces
and handed out to different faculty and administrative committees. One group
deals with general education, another with retention, others with educational
policies, another with teaching and learning, and yet others with financial aid, the
budget, and so on. Increasingly, too, important decisions are made at the margin
or outside of the faculty governance system in research institutes, centers, and
programs that control substantial resources but may only be loosely tied to the
academic core of the institution (Mallon 2004). The strategic whole is hidden by
partial points of view and complicated procedures. The normal mechanisms of
academic decision making frustrate rather than enable effective leadership.
With horizontal fragmentation comes vertical complexity. Decisions about
academic matters travel slowly up and down a cumbersome series of reviews that
include departments, divisions, schools, colleges, and the university, with an array
of committees and academic officers involved in the process. Operational decisions often run smoothly in the system. Yet when issues of strategic and academic
change have to be confronted, the system is not able to respond coherently or
quickly because its systems of decision making are splintered, cumbersome, and
time consuming.
CASE STUDY: RETENTION AND GENERAL EDUCATION
AT FLAGSHIP UNIVERSITY
Let us illustrate the issues of academic decision making with a case study that
draws directly from my own experience in several contexts. Flagship University
is a prominent comprehensive university of 24,000 students that offers a full
array of undergraduate and graduate degrees and sponsors a large number of successful programs, institutes, and centers in basic and applied research. Through a
recently completed study, the university has learned that its attrition rate among
first- and second-year students is significantly higher than is predicted by the
Strategic Governance 79
academic abilities of the study body. As a large and sophisticated institution,
the university uses a talented staff in its office of planning and budget to regularly analyze important issues of this kind. Data from departing and continuing
students have been collected and analyzed, and a report has been sent to all the
relevant offices.
The report suggests that the new general education program has a negative
effect on student retention. Students believe the program repeats work from high
school, offers too many lecture classes, and forces students to meet requirements in
areas that do not interest them, chosen from too small a list. Because of the limited
number of sections in several fields, students often have to delay enrollment,
sometimes in courses that are prerequisites to a major or in areas where a delay
may cause them to lose skills, such as foreign languages. High attrition after the
first and second years seems to be correlated with a lack of personal involvement
in the academic program.
When the various vice presidents receive the report, they make sure that it is
put on the agenda for the weekly meeting of the president's executive staff, and
that the president is briefed about it. The president and his senior colleagues
are quite concerned about the report's findings, and the senior business officer
notes the loss of tuition revenue and the state subsidy. At the staff meeting, the
decision is made to ask the chairman of the faculty senate and of the senate's
curriculum committee to read the report and consider its results. What ideas and
recommendations can they offer?
The vice president for student affairs notes several references in the report to
problems in life in the student residences, binge drinking, and complaints that
the fraternity and sorority pledging practices consume inordinate amounts of time
for first-year students, contributing to the high rate of attrition. He discusses the
issues with his staff and asks for ideas.
The report is on the agenda at the next meeting of the senate's curriculum
committee. Several faculty members with background in statistics take issue with
the report's methods and conclusions. Others show genuine concern but comment
on the political delicacy and complexity of the issue. The new general education
program reflects an exquisite political compromise that added a variety of new
courses to internationalize and diversify the offerings. It also achieved a good
balance in enrollment among many departments. To avoid delving into all these
issues again, the committee decides to refer the report to the dean of arts and
sciences. The committee expresses its concern that departments in the arts and
sciences are not receiving enough support to develop the new program as planned,
and they recommend to the president, provost, and dean of arts and sciences that
additional resources be found to remedy these deficiencies.
When the dean of arts and sciences receives the senate committee's report,
she holds a series of meetings with department chairs and requests that key
departments discuss the issue. The results of these sessions are inconclusive
because the meetings raise many issues and problems that are not directly related
to the problem of high attrition. Many of the tensions within departments over
80 Strategic Leadership
the content and methods of the general education courses surface, and there are
numerous complaints that there are not enough financial resources to do justice
to the new program.
When the staff of the vice president for students completes their meetings, they
suggest a program to link first-year courses with new residential hall programs that
would involve the faculty members who teach general education courses. They
recommend that funds be found to support the new initiative. They send their
report to the vice president, who forwards it to the dean of arts and sciences, the
provost, and the president.
Reading about the senate committee's response, and studying the other reports,
the president meets with the dean of arts and sciences, the vice president for
students, and the provost. He learns that several departments and the curriculum
committee in arts and sciences are still studying the problem, which leads to a
blunt expression of his rising frustration: "We have a very important problem with
retention linked to a core academic program, and no one is ready to do anything
about it. Everyone wants to shuffle the issue off to someone else and throw money
at it. I never liked the new general education program, anyway, because it was too
much of a political compromise. I said so at the time, but no one wanted to listen.
How can we get a purchase on this issue and do something about it?"
Decision Making at Flagship
This case illustrates many things, one of which is that the institution's problems
began long before its high attrition rate. These problems are lodged in the way
the university makes decisions. It does not have a way to define and to address
educational and strategic issues that transcend a series of segmented decisionmaking systems. The best it can do is to try to build linkages after the fact. Its
governance system is functioning properly, and procedures are being followed. No
one is protesting about arbitrary decisions or a failure to consult or communicate.
The operational systems are also working. Studies are being completed, meetings
are being held, and actions that move up and down the governance system are
being proposed.
The problem is that the university shows a deficient ability to anticipate strategic issues and their interconnection. In this case, the senate committee is trying
to address curricular and retention issues from a university-wide perspective but
does not have the expertise, authority, time, or resources to pursue its agenda to
completion. The dean, department chairs, and faculty in arts and sciences all
come to the problem from different directions with multiple interests, so the
discussion generates a complex mixture of conflicts over professional and academic
issues, priorities, and resources that bring to mind the garbage-can model of decision making. Administrative officers such as the provost and vice president for
students have the authority needed to review the issues, but not to implement
any proposals that require faculty action. The problem behind the problem is that
the university lacks a coherent strategic understanding of itself as an integrated
Strategic Governance 81
system. Nor does it have a decision-making mechanism to set agendas, define
priorities, and allocate resources that respond to the most pressing issues that are
shaping its future.
Marginalized Faculty and Administrative Roles
We see again in this case many of the structural and organizational realities
that make leadership in colleges and universities so difficult. The neat separation
between "academic" and "administrative" issues has become increasingly artificial.
In this example, the problems with general education trigger lower enrollment,
increase demands and costs in admissions, and cause a drop in tuition revenues.
Countless other problems ripple through the organization from this source. Yet
because general education is considered to be an academic problem, it is studied
in isolation rather than as part of an organizational system.
The president is frustrated as an academic leader, as his complaint made clear.
He has studied many successful general education programs and is a respected
educator. Yet he is also aware that good ideas about academic programs and
practices often count for little. On his campus, like most, academic matters are
decided by groups and committees that live in a world with their own rules, expectations, and proprieties. Even with so much at stake for the institution, he feels
marginalized.
Yet this case and many like it reveal something else. The forces that are shaping
the wider society and higher education do not pause to differentiate themselves
around the disjointed decision-making protocols of academic organizations. Powerful sweeping realities like technological innovation, market forces, demographic
shifts, social change, economic cycles, internationalization, and political trends
happen as they will. As these changes have swept through the halls of higher
learning in the last twenty-five years, the identities of colleges and universities
have become ever more contextual. The outside world has insistently shaped the
inside world. As we have seen in the images and models that we explored earlier,
some educational institutions increasingly mimic the market-driven realities of
corporate decision making. Among other things, these trends have created a new
depth and density of administrative decision making. Increasingly specialized and
professionalized, it has by force of necessity assumed responsibilities that were
once the faculty's.
In many spheres, including the initiation of new academic units and institutes,
the implementation of governmental regulations, the planning of facilities, and
the management of financial resources, administrative decision making is dominant. Often to their relief, faculty members on most campuses—although there
are exceptions—no longer play a decisive role in policies on student life or in
decisions related to admissions and financial aid, especially since the latter are
now dominated by marketing plans and computer models. Just as academic administrators and trustees often feel frustrated by their inability to move the academic
agenda, so do many faculty members feel marginalized in their organizational
82 Strategic Leadership
roles. Yet they cannot easily find ways to change the situation, except through
the commitment of more time and energy, which they are reluctant to make.
The changing world has taken much of the university away from them (Burgan,
Weisbuch, and Lowry 1999; Hamilton 1999).
STRATEGIC GOVERNANCE
The frustrations that that exist on both sides of the administrative and academic divide cannot be resolved simply with ever-more precise clarifications of
the responsibilities of shared governance. The need is for new ways of thinking
and new mechanisms of decision making. I have suggested some elements of an
integrated conceptual framework for strategic leadership and now intend to offer
ideas for new forms of strategic governance.
Over the past several decades, it has become increasingly clear that organizational
decision making occurs in three fundamental forms, all intertwined in practice.
We can differentiate these levels as governance, management, and strategy. The
role of governance is to define and delegate formal responsibility and authority
within the organization, which are derived from the legal powers and fiduciary
responsibilities vested in the governing board. Yet the formal governance system
can only work through the multiple systems of decision making and management
that are delegated to the administrative and academic operating systems of the
institution. In turn, however, the operational and governance systems cannot
function effectively unless there is a strategic link between them. The strategy
system, whether formal or tacit, sets goals and priorities and allocates resources in
the name of an overall direction for the future. At all three levels, leadership is
currently understood largely in terms of the authority vested in positions and the
knowledge and skills required to exercise formal responsibilities. Leadership as an
engaging relational process of mobilizing meaning and commitment to common
purposes is not a defining characteristic of the formal academic decision-making
system.
In making campus visits for accreditation, visiting teams conclude that important
strategic decisions about programs, policies, facilities, and budgets are usually
dominated by whatever component of the governance system is most influential
in the local institutional culture. In research universities and small colleges, one or
more faculty committees or advisory councils sometimes tacitly take up pieces of
the strategy portfolio, working in various ways with administrative leaders. They
often do so by tradition as much as by formal delegation of authority. Or, most
commonly, as at Flagship, there is no ongoing integrative strategic process of leadership or governance to respond to problems that cut across several domains—
which is precisely the nature of most organizational problems. Although strategic
decision making appears in a variety of forms in higher education, it is not a
central, defining, and structural feature of the system of shared governance.
Given these broad challenges, the development of closer and clearer connections among strategic governance, strategic leadership, and strategic management
Strategic Governance 83
is of decisive importance. Strategic leadership as a method and discipline offers
a way to integrate the mechanisms of governance and management to respond
effectively to the hard realities of the world.
In this context, strategic governance refers to the development of the deliberative bodies, processes, and procedures that are required to carry out a continuing
process of strategic decision making as part of a larger governance system. The
issues rise to the level of governance because the strategy process and its vehicles
require formal definition, legitimacy, and authority. As the institution's highest
governing authority, the governing board will ultimately be called upon to endorse
a formal strategy process on the recommendation of the president after collaboration with the faculty and administration.
STRATEGY COUNCILS
Given the collaborative norms and forms of decision making in higher education, one of the central questions about strategic governance focuses on the nature
of the deliberative body that will lead the strategy process. In Strategic Governance,
Schuster, Smith, Corak, and Yamada (1994) trace the issues related to institutionwide planning committees and councils at eight universities.
In doing so, they are responding to an idea expressed by George Keller (1983)
in Academic Strategy that a "Joint Big Decision Committee" of senior faculty and
administrators is an effective vehicle for strategic planning. Schuster and his
colleagues found that one of the goals in the creation of each of the committees
they studied was to provide a basis for engaging the big strategic issues facing the
institution, although they were strikingly different in composition, purpose, and
effectiveness. Even though none of the eight institutions used the exact term, and
most of them did not consistently do comprehensive strategic planning, the authors
chose the generic term "Strategic Planning Council" (SPC) to designate the role
of these committees and to capture their apparent intent. Although the aim of
these SPCs was purportedly to provide a venue for faculty and staff participation
in important fiscal and planning issues, a continuing focus on strategic matters
is often hard to find in their activities. In spite of this, such bodies often came to
meet other important institutional needs and were appreciated for the work that
they did. In half of the eight cases studied, members of the campus community and
participants in the process gave a positive or highly positive appraisal of the SPC's
work. In the other half of the institutions, the evaluation was decidedly mixed
and, in two instances, strongly negative. In three institutions the SPC eventually
went out of business or substantially changed its form, typically with the arrival
of a new president (Schuster, Smith, Corak, and Yamada 1994).
Schuster and his colleagues analyze four primary factors that they believe will
contribute to the effectiveness of SPCs as vehicles for strategic governance:
(1) the SPC should demonstrate that it does not intend to circumvent or replace
existing forms of academic governance or administrative authority; (2) the SPC
must focus on the genuine strategic issues facing the institution, and not be
84 Strategic Leadership
drawn into debates and controversies about operational issues or budgetary
details; (3) the SPC must be conscientious and consistent in communicating
with the campus community about its work and recommendations; (4) the president and other university leaders should be fully engaged in the enterprise and
balance the work of the SPC with the responsibilities of other university officials
and decision-making bodies.
Case Studies in Strategic Governance
As one reviews the literature and the practice of strategic planning in a variety of settings, it is clear that institutions continue to struggle with the nature
of the governing body or bodies that can best develop an authentic strategic
agenda. Larry Shinn describes some of the issues and conflicts in strategic planning and faculty governance at liberal arts colleges (Shinn 2004). Many colleges
and universities now have the formal equivalent of SPCs, though their roles and
responsibilities vary widely, as we have seen. They operate with differing powers
and duties along a spectrum of institutional centralization and decentralization.
Leaders and participants often report a central advisory or steering committee to
be particularly useful (Dooris, Kelley, and Trainer 2004; Steeples 1988).
One of Burton Clark's (1998) central findings in his influential study of five
entrepreneurial European universities was the presence of a strategic "steering
core" in each of the institutions. Clark notes elsewhere that these central groups
are committed to effective planning, to allocating resources as investments to
gain the best returns, and to creating "a desirable and sustainable institutional
character" (1997, xiv). In sum, there must be effective forms of strategic thinking
occurring throughout the organization, but most especially at its core.
The University of Northern Colorado
In a riveting irony, a prominent work on collegiate planning describes how
the faculty senate and the academic deans at the authors' own institution, the
University of Northern Colorado, never fully accepted the institution's strategic planning process (Rowley, Lujan, and Dolence 1997). Aspects of the process
were nonetheless implemented through the work of the SPC and the president's
authority. Based on their controversial experiences with governance rules and
protocols, and study of the issues, the authors offer extensive counsel and object
lessons about how and why to establish an effective SPC.
Brown University
Revealing both the diversity and similarity of governance issues at different
universities, Brown University offers a parallel yet different model of strategic decision making. Brown has recently established a new faculty committee and revised
an existing one to advise the president on academic and financial priorities. The
Academic Priorities Committee is an effort to strengthen the voice of the faculty
in advising the president on the strategic use of educational resources. A parallel
Strategic Governance 85
University Resources Committee will make recommendations on the full range
of financial and budgetary issues facing the university. There is no central SPC or
its equivalent (Savage 2003).
A number of questions present themselves in this case as well. How and when do
the deliberations of the faculty committee on academic program priorities become
integrated with other strategic goals and priorities of the university? The faculty voice
on academic programs and priorities is central but must ultimately be connected to
the institution's larger strategic needs and its financial capabilities. It would ring
louder were it heard continuously around the central table of integrative strategic
decision making within an SPC, rather than in separate advisory committees.
An Effective Steering Core for Strategy
The challenge for each college and university is to forge local pathways and
mechanisms that create effective informal and formal linkages across various
domains of strategic decision making. Lacking a systematic way to integrate an
institution's strategic possibilities with its ongoing academic decisions, the process
can easily become splintered, duplicative, and frustrating, as we have seen at
Flagship. It works in fits and starts, sometimes wasting time and energy on academic projects and plans that may lead nowhere because they are not related to
broader educational issues and other priorities and resources.
All these studies and cases reveal that the establishment of an effective vehicle
for strategic governance and leadership has become an inescapable and pressing
issue for colleges and universities. The time has long since come to renew and
reconfigure the mechanisms of collaborative decision making to deal coherently
with strategic change. Although governance is the live rail of campus politics,
educational leaders who do not have the will or wisdom to build sturdy vehicles
for strategy may never safely reach their destinations.
GUIDELINES FOR CREATING A STRATEGY COUNCIL
We can use the Flagship experience and findings from the literature and case
studies to offer guidelines for the creation of a strategy council. The analysis and
recommendations take the form of a hypothetical report issued from a blue-ribbon
commission appointed by the governing board on the president's recommendation. The report systematically reflects the problems and issues in strategic governance that have to be addressed in creating an SPC. It directly reflects my own
work in several institutions and the literature on the topic.
Report of the Flagship Commission
Powers and Responsibilities
A Strategic Planning Council should be duly constituted and empowered by
the governing board on the president's recommendation to develop and monitor
86 Strategic Leadership
the implementation of an integrated and continuous strategy process for the
university. The SPC will communicate periodically with the campus community about its work and will issue reports and studies that define the challenges
and opportunities that the institution faces in the wider environment. The SPC
will propose strategies, programs, goals, and priorities that fulfill the university's
mission and that define its vision for the future.
The SPC will normally discharge its responsibilities through the periodic creation of various subcommittees and task forces with joint faculty, staff, student,
and board membership, as appropriate to the issue, to address a broad range of
institutional policies and programs. Based on the analysis of information and
opinion and the use of strategic indicators, surveys, roundtables, open meetings,
and its own deliberations, each task group will communicate its findings and
recommendations to the SPC. Functioning in the role of steering committee, the
SPC will meet with each subgroup to receive its report and discuss its findings.
The SPC will draw specifically from each set of recommendations in preparing
its own report but is not bound by the interpretations, language, or conclusions
of the subgroups.
In addition to developing an institution-wide plan every few years, the SPC will
assist the institution's executive and academic leaders to ensure that strategy and
planning activities are in place in each of the institution's major academic and
administrative units. Although these processes should reflect the central priorities
of institution-wide strategies, they will focus on the specific strategic issues that
different units must address. The findings, concerns, and priorities displayed in
the various units and divisions will help to shape and define subsequent rounds of
the institution-wide strategy process.
After the completion of an intensive cycle of strategy development and the
publication of a strategy report, the SPC will help to monitor and review the
goals established during the process. The SPC and/or relevant administrative officers will issue periodic public reports and make presentations to faculty and staff
bodies on progress in reaching strategic goals, and on the reasons for any new
or revised goals. Meetings of the governing board and of its committees will be
organized around the vision and goals of the university's strategy.
The SPC will be an institution-wide body that reports to the president; in turn,
the president will recommend strategies, goals, and priorities to the governing
board. Since it deals with issues concerning finance, facilities, educational programs, and administrative policies that involve both faculty and administrative
authority, it is neither a faculty nor an administrative committee, but a universitywide council. The reports or recommendations issued by the SPC do not enact
programs or policies that require legislative action by the various faculties, the
faculty senate, or other university governing bodies. Rather, it will define strategic issues and priorities within a broad internal and external context. Through
the endorsement of the governing board, its work will serve as a mechanism for
integrative and collaborative leadership by setting an agenda for the university's
future.
Strategic Governance 87
While the content of strategy documents is not subject to the legislative
control of the faculty or of faculty or staff committees, the SPC will function in
the context of Flagship's traditions of collaborative decision making and shared
governance. As a result, the SPC will present its major periodic strategy plans to
the faculty senate for consideration and endorsement. Although the SPC owns
its reports, the deliberations of the faculty senate, other faculty councils, and key
administrators provide a testing ground for the strategies as they move to the
governing board. Should the faculty senate vote for changes in the the SPC's
recommendations and priorities, the SPC will deliberate on the issue and then
either alter its report or include any negative faculty action as a dissent to be
noted in the report.
When the SPC's goals and priorities are ultimately adopted by the governing
board, then various faculty committees and administrative groups and officers
will be expected to consider the enactment of new academic or administrative
programs that have been featured in the plan. The SPC will analyze and present
the proposed changes in the context of integrated strategic priorities. As a result,
the process will not circumvent the normal academic system of decision making,
since legislative authority for academic programs will remain with the faculty.
Planning and Budgeting
The SPC can also play a vital role in the critical process of connecting strategy
with operating budgets on a continuous basis. The commission is aware that one
of the constant challenges in college and university decision making is relating
strategic goals to the tactical realities that often drive the annual budgeting process. The SPC, in particular, will be in a position to assist in shaping the broad
parameters and priorities of each budget cycle and relating it to the goals of the
strategic plan and to the financial model that is included in the strategy process. Thus, the SPC will review and deliberate annually on the key components
of the university's revenues and expenses. It will be able to recommend to the
president the amount of funding available for new positions and programs, or the
way spending should be restrained or reduced to reflect strategic priorities.
The commission believes that the SPC would best carry out some aspects of these
financial responsibilities through a standing subcommittee of faculty and administrative officers. The subcommittee would entertain proposals or set broad criteria
for new expenditures for programs and personnel and do the same if reductions are
necessary, based on information received from the various academic and administrative units. After receiving recommendations from the subcommittee and the
SPC, the president will make the final decisions on the budget.
Leadership and Membership
The SPC's leadership and membership will contribute critically to its effectiveness, which will require it to be relatively small in size, as the literature suggests. The university's president and chief academic and business officers will be
continuing members, and two other executives will be chosen by the president
88 Strategic Leadership
to serve renewable rotating three-year terms. Five faculty members—no more
than two from the same unit—will be nominated by the faculty membership
committee after consultation with the chief academic officer, and elected by the
senate. Three deans will be rotating members: one will be from one of the two
largest schools, and the two others will be chosen by the president in consultation
with the dean's council. The SPC will require staff support from the director and
another member of the planning and research staff. Total membership, excluding
staff support, should not exceed sixteen members, including one undergraduate
and one graduate student serving two-year terms.
Since the SPC is a continuing body, the issue of its leadership is of critical
significance. Persons who assume the position of chairperson should have both
substantial academic or administrative authority, as well as considerable talents
in integrative thinking and in communication. Since the SPC is to work at the
nexus of governance, strategy, leadership, and management, the chairperson
should be ableto conceptualize skillfully the institution's identity and vision, as
well as possess the authority to help ensure that goals and priorities are implemented. Most members of the commission believe that the SPC would best be
chaired by the provost, or by the vice president for planning and administration.
Some members have argued that the SPC should be under the leadership of the
president as chair or as co-chair, since that office has the most influential role in
forging links between the different levels of decision making.
President's Role
The commission unanimously believes that whether as chairperson, co-chair,
or an ex-officio member, the president must make the work of the SPC a defining
responsibility of presidential duties. This means attending meetings, working intimately with the chairperson, shepherding reports and recommendations through
the institution and on to the board, and ensuring the implementation of approved
projects. Many times the president will contribute decisively to the SPC's deliberations, especially on issues of mission and vision and the most pressing strategic
challenges and opportunities. The task of collective university leadership will find
one of its core mechanisms in the work of an effective SPC.
Questions about Strategic Governance
Any recommendations with the scope of the Flagship commission's report may
stir some measure of controversy on many campuses, less on others. They will have to
be discussed, debated, and negotiated in various campus forums, venues, and decisionmaking bodies. The issues to be debated can be clarified by series of questions that
can be used to test the Flagship report as well as the designs that other campuses
may develop to address the issues of effective strategic governance.
• How does the SPC relate to the work of existing faculty bodies and administrative committees and officers?
Strategic Governance 89
• Is a strategy process a familiar method of campus decision making?
• Will the role of the SPC be consistent with the formal policies, rules, and
documents that define the system of shared governance?
• Will the SPC create another layer of authority in a system that may already be
too complex?
• Does the proposed SPC help to integrate the institution's fragmented systems of
decision making and serve as a vehicle for collaborative leadership?
• Have the appropriate groups had, or will they have, a chance to express their
views and influence the provisions of the report before it is acted on by the
governing board?
• Are its membership and other operating assumptions and responsibilities
appropriate?
• Can the SPC effectively guide a complex process to completion in a reasonable
period of time?
• Will the institution be able to implement the goals that the strategy process
establishes?
• Will the organization be able to create a continuous loop of quality improvement
by linking assessment to the development and implementation of strategy?
There is a series of other questions and issues about the effectiveness of an SPC
that go beyond the formal issues of governance and authority. From a cultural
perspective, an SPC needs to serve as a vehicle to bring talented people with
good ideas from across campus into productive relationships with one another in
teams, subcommittees, and study groups. One dimension of strategic leadership
is for those with authority to bring those who have innovative and promising
ideas into fruitful relationships with one another. Good leaders are followers of
good ideas. A central role of an SPC is to draw upon, encourage, and strategically
connect the best educational and administrative practices that are emerging in
different parts of the organization.
Analysis of the Flagship Case
As we take our leave of Flagship, we are left with a number of impressions
and conclusions. The work of strategy ultimately can be effectively translated
into the methods of leadership and the governance processes of institutions
of higher learning. When this occurs, it can make a decisive contribution
to collaborative and integrative leadership. An SPC, regardless of what it is
called, offers a critical point of reference to achieve effective strategic leadership. Although the proposed model will not fit every circumstance, the
burden shifts to those who would not choose to pursue its possibilities. At the
very least, the question that must be answered is, if it is not to be a strategy
council, then what should it be? When this question has been answered and
the debates have ended, the focus shifts to decisions that reside in the authority of the governing board.
90 Strategic Leadership
THE ROLE OF THE GOVERNING BOARD
The responsibilities of the governing board for strategy and strategic leadership
have often been neglected. Although board members may or may not be represented
formally on an SPC—it depends on circumstances—the governing board is an
essential participant in the total strategy process. Beyond whatever involvement
board members may have by reason of talent or interest in some aspects of the
work of strategy, the board's active endorsement of strategic governance is essential to the total process. The authority and prestige of the board needs to be
evident in the creation and oversight of the strategy process, and in its active
consideration of the reports and plans that come to the board for endorsement
and final approval.
The governing board should consider the creation of an SPC as essential to
effective decision making and of leadership in the university. The board's authority in these areas is often peculiarly absent. As a consequence, faculty and administration often churn in conflict over the fine points of shared governance while
fundamental strategic issues are handled episodically and incoherently. How
can the board's ultimate legal authority and fiduciary responsibility have any
meaning unless it is actively involved in shaping the institution's capabilities to
respond effectively to the world around it? What could be more relevant than
the board's direct involvement in a consideration of the mechanisms that shape
the institution's mission and identity and its strategic position and vision? There
may be times when the board can legitimately be active or even proactive in
addressing the strategic governance process. If there is unresolved conflict about
the effectiveness of the strategy process or the role of a group like an SPC, the
board can and should address the issues to ensure that the methods of strategic
decision making are effective and coherent. As Chait, Holland, and Taylor put
it in their study of the characteristics of effective governing boards, "competent
boards cultivate and concentrate on processes that sharpen institutional priorities
and assure a strategic approach to the organization's future" (1993, 95).
One of the board's critical roles is to make sure that the processes of decision
making in the institution are functioning in a constitutional, balanced, and
effective manner. It does not interfere in the decisions on programs and personnel
but ensures that good policies and processes are in place to make them. When
it sees deficiencies or recurrent problems such as fragmentation, dysfunctional
conflict, or loss of a strategic focus, it has a reason to be concerned and to raise
the issue. Without denying a proper place for each element in the governance
process, it can seek to connect them all in a coherent framework through a process
of strategic thinking and leadership.
The way the board fulfills this strategic role will vary enormously by context. In
many situations, the board will be a repository of wisdom about the organization's
narrative of identity and can be a testing ground for an emerging vision (cf. Chait,
Ryan, and Taylor 2005). The mission and vision of the organization are inalienable leadership responsibilities of a governing board, and its active initiative and
Strategic Governance 91
participation in consideration of these topics are essential. Many board members
also have much to offer in the development of an environmental scan, the analysis
of financial position, the development of marketing programs, and the assessment
of the institution's strengths and vulnerabilities. Along with the president, they
see the institution as a whole. Some boards have their own committees that focus
on long-range planning and broad strategic issues. In other cases individual board
members have a special role in strategic planning based on their professional
expertise, for example, participating in, chairing, or co-chairing a task force or a
major new planning initiative.
However it comes to them, the board should consider and endorse a strategic
plan through an active process of review, often in a special meeting or retreat.
As we shall see below, once adopted, the strategy gives the agenda of each board
and committee meeting a new pertinence and purposefulness. Questions can be
raised and answered with reference to an established strategic vision, set of goals,
and metrics, as part of a continuing strategic review, assessment, and dialogue. As
the institution's final legal authority, the board's symbolic and real involvement
provides an aura of seriousness to the dimension of accountability in the process
of strategic leadership (Morrill 2002).
To summarize, the board's role in strategic governance and leadership includes
the following (Morrill 2002):
• It ensures that an effective strategy process is in place and adopts those governance provisions that may be required to enable it.
• It supports and participates in the process as appropriate.
• It receives the plan that results from the strategy process and considers it for
adoption.
• It holds the president accountable for implementing the goals of the strategy.
• It receives data, reports, and information that enable it to monitor, assess, and
ensure accountability for the implementation of the strategy.
ORGANIZING THE WORK OF THE SPC
In discussing the possibilities of an SPC, we have considered a major organizational vehicle that can spearhead one facet of the process of strategic leadership.
Before we analyze the components of the strategy process, it is worth attending
to some of the essential steps that should be taken to prepare a strategy council
to do its work effectively, always keeping in mind its contribution to leadership.
Based on his work with hundreds of executives at MIT, Peter Senge (1990)
reminds us that one of the fundamental tasks of leadership is to design decisionmaking systems that work, not simply operate them once they have been built.
Nowhere is leadership through authority more critical than in the painstaking
work that is required to build the right methods and vehicles for the tasks of
strategy.
92 Strategic Leadership
Faculty Involvement
The need to prepare faculty and staff for involvement in a strategy process
is obvious in a number of ways. A third or a half of the strategy council may
be faculty members who typically have neither studied management nor been
involved in formal strategy processes. They may also have a distaste for some of its
methods and language. Most importantly, faculty members already have full-time
jobs that consume much of their time. Strategy development is not business as
usual, and it periodically consumes more time than a typical committee, especially
for those in leadership roles. Given these very real challenges, leaders have to
ask themselves how faculty participation in the process can be most worthwhile.
Surely if faculty members are asked to chair a major task force, they need ample
staff support and time to make it possible. Their other responsibilities may have
to be adjusted temporarily. Intensive faculty involvement in the strategy process
may also be enabled by carving out a week at the end or before the beginning of
a semester for concentrated work on strategy.
Orientation to the Strategy Process
One of the fatal blows to a strategy program is to begin without an orientation to the procedures, timetables, expectations, and organization of the
process. Especially as a committee or council is about to begin an intensive
cycle of planning, it is essential that ground rules be made explicit and that
participants be given the tools they need to make a contribution to the deliberations.
In most cases, the preparation should involve a one- or two-day retreat, for
which new members receive a special orientation. In particular, the leaders and
staff of the process do well to prepare a notebook and or Web site with articles on
current issues facing higher education; key information from documents of the
institution; excerpts from prior plans, including mission and vision statements;
and materials that convey a sense of institutional history, identity, and distinctiveness. Participants should also receive a fact book or similar materials that
contain important quantitative data about the institution, including a full set of
strategic indicators. A presentation on the significance of the data, especially of
the financial information, should be part of the retreat.
In considering the process and content of planning, the issue of financial
constraints and opportunities should be addressed forthrightly. If an institution
faces tough financial times, it makes sense to build that fact into expectations from
the outset. The strategy effort may, in fact, have to focus on creating equitable
procedures for reallocating resources. If new resources are available, the SPC and
its various subgroups need to know the institution's broad financial capabilities.
Limits should not be so tight as to discourage high ambition and creativity, but
it is ultimately self-defeating to create high expectations that can only be disappointed.
Strategic Governance 93
Role and Responsibilities of the SPC
The SPC serves as a steering committee for the process both organizationally as
well as with regard to the larger questions of strategy and leadership. In most cases,
the total process will benefit from an early focus by the SPC on the crucial fourfold
strategic elements of identity, mission, vision, and position. At this juncture, it
becomes clear that an open, effective, and continuing dialogue between the
president and the council is critical. Out of the shared understanding of these
defining perspectives, the work of strategy will become effective in galvanizing
commitment to shared strategic goals across the campus. The participants in
subcommittees and task forces will find that their work becomes much more
focused and productive if they can orient themselves to an authentic narrative of
identity and aspiration, even if it is preliminary.
If the council anticipates working in task forces and subcommittees, as is usually
the case, it should be made clear how the SPC hopes to divide the responsibilities
of each group in meaningful ways. Typically one of the members of the SPC
will either chair or co-chair subcommittees, so all its members need to be aware
of the responsibilities that await them. The selection of topics requires a lot of
analysis and discussion, and there will need to be some negotiation about how
various topics will be treated, since many issues will fit into several contexts.
As we emphasize later, only a limited number of issues can be treated in each
intensive planning cycle, so careful thought about managing the work of each
subgroup is essential.
This is also the time to begin to sketch the length and characteristics of the
report that is to be expected from each group. The art and science of preparing
situation analyses, developing goals, and assigning responsibility for them should
be explored in order to develop common purposes, formats, and patterns of presentation. Anticipating that usually only two or three people write the first draft
of committee reports will bring realism into the discussion. As suggested in the
Flagship SPC case, it is also important to establish the protocols for the various
subgroups to work with the SPC and to clarify what happens to their reports and
recommendations once they are submitted. They should expect that their ideas
will be taken seriously but be subject to significant reformulation in the final decisions and reports of the SPC.
Group Process
The various subcommittees as well as the SPC itself will also want to consider
the dynamics of constructive group work and relationships. How can group interaction be productive and positive, encouraging people to make contributions
to deliberations? How will the group become an effective collaborative team
based on dialogue, not endless disputes? How will the leadership and facilitation of group processes occur? The notion that the group is a team, not simply
a committee, is a useful starting point to answer these questions. Team members
94 Strategic Leadership
should be chosen not simply through position but because of their ability to think
about the larger organization and the broad issues that it faces. They should know
the campus and how to get things done, be widely respected, and have the time
and commitment to bring to the work of strategy and change (Eckel, Green, Hill,
and Mallon 1999). To be effective, teams should have a clear and compelling
sense of direction; function as a group, not as individuals; use the right processes;
and get help through coaching when they need it (Hackman 2005). Bensimon
and Neumann (2000) offer a cognitive perspective in analyzing effective presidential teams that applies to strategy teams as well. A team is a collective sense
maker—"that is, its members are collectively involved in perceiving, analyzing,
learning, and thinking" about the organization's future (Bensimon and Neumann
2000, 249; cf. Bolman and Deal 2003).
Perhaps with the help of a carefully chosen consultant, the members of a strategy
group will benefit from exploring ways to develop joint skills in problem solving
and strategic thinking. In The Fifth Discipline, Senge (1990) discusses ways to
foster teams' skills in the art of dialogue, as distinguished from debate or argumentation. He gives the example of a company that invites key executives to attend
a retreat to discuss the final steps in developing a strategic plan. The president asks
participants to practice the art of dialogue by following these ground rules:
1. Suspension of assumptions. Typically people take a position and defend it, holding to it. Others take up opposite positions and polarization results. In this session, we would like to examine some of our assumptions underlying our direction
and strategy and not seek to defend them.
2. Acting as colleagues. We are asking everyone to leave his or her position at the
door. . . .
3. Spirit of inquiry. We would like to have people begin to explore the thinking
behind their views, the deeper assumptions they may hold, and the evidence
they have that leads them to these views. So it will be fair to begin to ask others
questions such as "What leads you to say or believe this?" (Senge 1990, 259).
A focus on group dynamics is not especially common in academic decision
making, perhaps since so much of the work is driven by professional expertise.
Yet when strategic thinking is in play, the idea of dialogue as the suspension of
assumptions and authority makes a valuable contribution to the structuring of
collaborative work.
Although in my experience many faculty members do not take well to the
exercises and group work that consultants use in other organizations, it is worth
the SPC's effort to consider professional assistance with the right kind of questionnaires, discussion protocols, and processes to get issues related to mission,
vision, and other complex subjects on the table. A good tactic is to test proposed
procedures with several members of the SPC before they are used widely. An
excellent source for ideas and techniques is found in Strategic Planning for
Public and Nonprofit Organizations, by John Bryson (1995), and in guides that
accompany it.
Strategic Governance 95
The support of the total strategy process by adequate staffing, some of which
should be provided by individuals well schooled in the discipline of planning,
is also essential. The SPC or its subgroups may want to conduct interviews, do
surveys, or hold opens meetings and roundtables, and staff support will be essential
in organizing these. There is always a heavy amount of staff work involved in coordinating the work of subcommittees and task forces with one another, and with
the SPC as the steering committee. Successful strategy programs rest on the pillar
of effective staff work. A strategy process is a good context in which to give greater
visibility and influence to the work of planning officers, not just as staff specialists
in planning, but as strategic leaders. There is good reason to make strategy and
planning one of the formal responsibilities of a vice president or director who has
the influence and skills to carry out its demanding duties effectively.
More important than any of these suggestions is the commitment of the leaders
of the SPC to focus systematically on the preliminary effort to create a productive
process that is consistent with the ways in which their institution does its best
work. The process itself should be more satisfying than frustrating, and membership on the SPC should be viewed as a prestigious and welcome assignment.
USING STRATEGIC INDICATORS: THE METRICS OF IDENTITY,
PERFORMANCE, AND ASPIRATION
Another prerequisite for strategy to be productive is a set of data to serve as
the institution's key strategic indicators. Although by no means developed simply
to aid the SPC, it becomes a basic and invaluable tool in the deliberations and
work of the group. At this date, most institutions have created data profiles that
they regularly publish in fact books or issue on Web sites. If they do not, they
should. Transparency concerning important information builds credibility for the
strategy process and fosters a shared understanding of the institution's relative
position. Since the requirements of accreditation include institutional research
and assessment, accessible collections of quantifiable information have become a
norm of good practice. Their use in deliberations concerning strategy is essential
and can be potentially decisive in defining an institution's identity and charting
its future.
More often than not, however, the data that institutions collect are not
presented in ways that are strategically useful. Information is frequently provided
in lists or sets of numbers that have no clear strategic significance. The goal of the
data should be to convey the meaning of the organization's evolving position in
the world, not to overwhelm the reader with operational details (Morrill 2000).
Metrics of Identity
If carefully chosen and properly defined, a consistent set of strategic indicators
displays an institution's distinctive capacities and characteristics in relation to
its context. As Collins (2001, 2005) reminds us, great institutions develop metrics
96 Strategic Leadership
that penetrate to the core of what they do best; they display their distinguishing
abilities, especially in terms of their ability to generate and control their resources.
The story and identity of a place are revealed in its numbers as much as in its
values; or, better, the distinctive values and capacities of a college or university
are embedded in its strategic data and can be read in them (cf. Shulman 2007).
Stories of identity are not created or related in a vacuum, and they must reflect
the factual realities of the institution as much as its memories and hopes. The
rigorous analysis of data is an excellent example of the integrative thinking that is
essential in a discipline of strategic leadership. The integration of the meaning of
values and facts, narratives and numbers, and metaphoric language and quantification is a defining feature of strategic thinking. Quantitative reasoning—such as
regression analyses to isolate and examine key strategic issues—becomes the way
to test the relationship of different variables in the data. It is highly instructive,
for instance, to study the relationship between retention rates and SAT scores
among a group of similar institutions. There may be much to ponder strategically
from the results.
If quantitative indicators are to serve their purpose in strategic decision making, they need to be carefully selected for their ability to reveal the institution's
strategic identity and position. Various books and guides that discuss strategic
indicators provide helpful background to inform the strategy process. Generally,
these texts recommend that indicators be developed around a number of critical
decision areas such as financial affairs, admissions and enrollment, institutional
advancement, human resources, academic affairs, student affairs, athletics, and
facilities (Frances, Huxel, Meyerson, and Park 1987; Taylor and Massy 1996;
Taylor, Meyerson, Morrell, and Park 1991).
Were one to follow all their suggestions, the number of potential indicators
would be impossible for a planning council to review meaningfully. In most cases
the central planning group will want to work with no more than about fifty strategic indicators as its primary and continuing benchmarks. Top administrators will
regularly review twice that many, while a governing board would typically receive
twenty-five to thirty dashboard indicators (like the vital gauges on the dashboard
of a car) to give them an immediate sense of institutional position. Although a
research and planning staff would want to track a large number of indicators, the
work of strategy always seeks to focus its attention on data that tell a story. The
aim is to find strategic meaning in the indicators, and the task of institutional
leaders is to manage those meanings.
Key Strategic Indicators
Even with the benefit of good handbooks and sources, there is no shortcut
to the work that each institution must do to define its own system of strategic
measurements. The following list is but one possibility designed for a small college inspired by and derived from an excellent dashboard used at Juniata College,
and graciously provided by President Thomas Kepple. It presents an enormous
Strategic Governance 97
amount of strategic information in very economical fashion and has the advantage
of including many proportionate measures and trend lines as well as strategic
goals and comparative data. In doing so, it is able to address issues of identity,
performance, and aspiration in one place. Without doubt, much of the information simply opens a strategic conversation that will require many other statistical
analyses and fuller sources of information as it proceeds. It also should be noted
that I have added a section on academic indicators, which are often missing from
key indicators, simply to emphasize the issue of strategic academic assessment.
Based on this example, it is clear that an institution's sense of identity shapes
the development of the indicators, and vice versa. We learn what matters to a
place when we see the indicators by which it chooses to measure itself. Some of
the choices are inescapable because they define universal strategic issues concerning financial resources and the realities of admissions and enrollment. They
convey information about both the social and economic forces at work in the
wider world and the institution's position in relationship to them.
Whatever set is chosen, the validity and usefulness of the measures are always a
function of the care with which they are defined in response to the strategic opportunities and challenges of the institution. If we are to learn anything significant
for effective strategic decision making, the data have to be collected and analyzed
carefully, consistently, and systematically. To define a retention rate, for example,
is no simple matter, for it depends upon a complex model of classifying complicated patterns in student enrollment and eventual graduation or departure, all
of which vary significantly among various types of colleges and universities and
the units within them. Getting good numbers to address the specific strategic
questions that we should pose to ourselves is a foundational task of strategy itself.
There was a time, for instance, when all we needed to know was the percentage
of students on need-based aid. In today's world that figure alone has little strategic
significance. It takes both imagination and rigor to get it right.
Proportionate Measures
One of the first things to be noted in table 5.1 is the use of relative and
proportional measures (i.e., ratios and percentages and per-student and per-capita
indicators.) By combining two variables in the calculation, the institution is able
to develop indicators that pick out the significance of its special characteristics
of size and mission, position and performance. Analyzing financial position in
absolute terms without reference to the size and characteristics of the institution is an incomplete and misleading process. Financial information that is useful
strategically is always based on ratios and percentages, now a standard aspect of
the financial self-analysis of revenue and expense and assets and liabilities, as we
shall discuss in chapter 10. As we shall see, proportionate measures are also easily
compared to the norms of the higher education industry at large, so the data
reveal an institution's strategic position relative to the competition and wider
economic realities.
In many cases the data will also be presented in trend lines, since the results for
any given year often are not strategically significant, while recurring patterns reveal
clear and decisive meanings. Accelerating or decelerating rates of change in the
trends are of special significance since they often signal problems or opportunities
102 Strategic Leadership
with crucial strategic consequences. In sum, relative measures are aptly suited to
disclose strategic meaning because they can reveal the organization's distinctive
characteristics in terms of its place in the world around it (Morrill 2000).
Comparative Measures
Another crucial characteristic of proportionate measures is that they enable
meaningful comparisons with other institutions, as our illustrative set of indicators
reveals. Most colleges and universities collect data from a group of comparable
institutions, use a consortium like the Higher Education Data Service, or rely
on the IPEDS service of the U.S. Department of Education, sometimes assisted
by a national organization with a data service like the Association of Governing
Boards of Universities and Colleges. Both the selection of the comparison group
and the definition of the information that is gathered are crucial strategic tasks.
The analysis of a thoughtfully chosen set of definitions and characteristics has to
set the stage for constructing comparisons.
The use of comparative data can lead to the development of common
benchmarks in which certain measures come to be associated with a best practice
and thereby take on the character of a norm. Yet even when a normative measure is not achieved, institutions can still discover much about their identities
and their strategic position through analytical comparisons. Like individuals,
institutions discover themselves through the optic of an external point of view,
by seeing themselves as they themselves are seen.
An institution that examines its tuition policy, for example, may be at a loss as
to why a financially and academically similar institution in its comparison group
has an 18 percent higher tuition charge. Both institutions have large endowments
and share similar cost and revenue structures. A detailed comparative analysis
provides the answer: almost all the discrepancy in tuition pricing is explained by
different tuition discount levels, 30 percent in one and 45 percent in the other.
The strategic implications of the finding can be decisive in shaping financial aid
policy, admissions strategies, and tuition pricing, hence total resource levels for
the future.
Comparative analysis can also reveal differences in resource patterns that have
powerful implications for the way an institution defines its vision for the future.
An examination, for example, of five- and ten-year trends in fundraising from
various sources (alumni, foundations, corporations, individuals, etc.) will help
to define the likely horizon for the next cycle of projects and goals, especially in
private institutions. When colleges and universities compare their development
numbers on a per-student basis, they may find that a direct competitor enjoys a
major advantage, which widens as time passes. This insight can produce a variety
of results, including a more realistic or nuanced set of aspirations or bold initiatives to stir a sleeping constituency to action. As the findings of Good to Great
make clear, the ability of organizations to confront "brutal truths" about themselves is a key to their success.
Strategic Governance 103
Indicators and Assessment
Strategic indicators play a central role in another fundamental sphere of
organizational decision making, the assessment of performance. Much of the
data that define an organization's identity also reveal the effectiveness of its
work in reaching the goals that it sets for itself. To be sure, evaluation requires
it own systems and subsystems of measurement, much of which will have an
operational focus. Institutions have many more sources of data and measures of
results than will ever appear in a single collection of key strategic indicators.
In an effective strategic leadership process, though, mechanisms are created
to relate the continuing results of institution-wide assessment to the fulfillment of the organization's purposes and strategic goals. Knowing the contours
of institutional identity, strategic leaders at many levels of the institution are
able to interpret results in terms of their broader significance. By seeing the
task of strategic leadership to include a continuing integrative interpretation of information on performance, the institution's managers and leaders
set off a chain reaction of strategic inquiry and decision making throughout
the organization.
Often the data produced through assessment, especially in core academic
activities, require a substantial amount of interpretation and professional
judgment to be properly understood. The data serve more as proxies or indices
than as direct evaluations. When, for example, it is learned that 35 percent of
graduating students move directly to graduate study in a given year, as many
questions are raised as are answers given. Much more needs to be known before
this information takes on genuine significance. What is the trend in graduate
study over a five- to ten-year period, and how do these results compare? What
are the regional and national trends in similar institutions? Which institutions
are accepting the graduates, and with what rates of admission? What scholarships, fellowships, and other awards have been received? How do the graduates
fare in their future studies and in their careers? How do the data relate to prior
strategic goals, or to ones to be developed for the future? The indicators are
important but fragmentary forms of information. They give rise to questions,
to further inquiries, and to the exercise of professional judgment. As the data
are drawn up into strategic thinking and continuous self-improvement, they
have much to contribute. If, on the other hand, they are used as independent
variables to rank order the achievement of institutions, they represent a dubious
if not mischievous enterprise.
Indicators and Strategic Goals
As is presupposed in these comments, strategic indicators can also be crucial
in the process of establishing measurable goals as benchmarks for the aspirations
defined in a strategic plan. In many cases indicators that are gathered annually
become a logical point of reference for setting goals for the future, especially in
104 Strategic Leadership
those aspects of the enterprise that are easily measured. The goals of a strategic
plan in areas such as finance, admissions, and fund-raising should obviously be
based on a careful analysis of prior trend lines and not represent an eruption
of wishful thinking that has no quantitative foundation. If the institution has
a history of good assessment practices in the academic sphere, then its strategic
goals can also be based on demonstrable results and prior evaluations.
When a basic set of indicators is combined with other sources of information
and assessment in a continuing process of scrutiny and analysis, the institution
creates a powerful strategic engine. It takes control of a valuable form of quantified
self-knowledge that combines with and certifies the images, values, and metaphors
that define its identity and its vision. The integrative knowing that it achieves
leads to effective, coherent decision making. The groups and individuals involved
in the total process of institutional leadership and management now share common points of reference. As goals are met, new and more elevated ones can be
set. Where they are not, changes in operations can lead to improvements. The
faculty, administrative, and trustee participants in strategic decision making now
have a common language with which to communicate. They may speak in different
accents and dialects, but they understand one another. The indicators they use
together do not produce rankings among institutions, as many want to force them
to do. Rather, they reveal the distinctiveness of the institution and its success in
reaching the goals it sets for itself. When used this way, indicators become part of
an unbroken process of strategic sense making, decision making, and action, and
the same disciplinary processes are at work. Since its aim is to move the institution
toward its chosen future, the insights and decisions are inscribed into a process
and discipline of strategic leadership.
As essential as they are, the work of strategy as leadership requires more than
just effective procedures and good preparation. Finally, the methods and the
content of strategy have to be adequate to the tasks of collaborative leadership.
We now turn to a detailed consideration of the components of a strategy process
that is oriented to the challenges and possibilities of leadership.