MANAGEMENT OF 21st CENTURY UNIVERSITY OR INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

MANAGEMENT OF 21st CENTURY UNIVERSITY OR INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The once stable environment of higher education is shifting into a turbulent and increasingly competitive marketplace, where universities can no longer just graduate students or produce ground-breaking research; they now must also be “future ready”. Two contrasting trends reflect the disruptions occurring in higher education. One is the growth in new universities and the “massification” of higher education in jurisdictions such as Asia, while in more developed economies there are cases of declining enrolments, and even mergers and closures of institutions. Uncertainty as to the future status of universities is growing with new technologies disrupting programme delivery, governments requiring more formal planning and accountability, university rankings influencing reputations, and a shift from public to alternative funding sources. This new reality has increased the need for university leaders to engage the whole campus in strategic planning and, equally as important, ensure that the strategy cascades from the vice chancellor ’s office to faculty, staff, and external stakeholders. The COVID pandemic has only increased the rate at which these disruptive forces are impacting university operations. Yet, more often than not, universities spend significant resources on strategic planning and then do nothing until the next round of planning.

While the external environment has become turbulent, the internal dynamics of universities have been slow to change. Faculty members, and some staff, operate in the traditional silos of their departments or disciplines, focusing on remaining relevant with their research colleagues. They have little interest in campus-wide events and activities in other faculties, and minimal interest in the dynamics of the higher education sector. As long as individuals have the resources they need, there is little thought about institutional efficiency or overall effectiveness.

The traditional culture of faculty silos has led to a growing and significant gap between the external and internal realities of universities. This chapter explores this gap and the need for strategies that bridge it, without destroying the centuries-long mandate of universities: to push the boundaries of curiosity and thought leadership.

Internal Dynamics and External Disruptions

Universities are unique institutions. Unlike a corporation with specific products or services to sell, they are more akin to a city, encompassing a broad range of activities, and have almost no internal agreement about what they are. Researchers have described universities as organised chaos, arising from the independence of faculty who are protected by academic freedom and tenure. Others argue labelling the chaos “organised” is generous, given that academic leaders have significantly less control over faculty activities than corporate executives have over their employees’ work. Strategy development is influenced by the internal dynamics contributing to the chaos, as well as external disruptions that compound the tensions inside universities.

A critical factor influencing the development and execution of strategy is the external orientation of many faculty members. Research-oriented faculty are socialised, from the day they enter graduate school, to build an academic reputation through the external activities of publishing and conference presentations. As well, many are dependent on external research funding. Universities reinforce this outward focus by requiring external referees for tenure and promotion, and establishing merit-based external metrics (e.g., citations, recognition of critics). Although many argue this approach leads to independent thought in research and teaching materials, an external focus can sideline researchers’ commitment to their university, and hence support for a unifying institutional strategy. And, part-time or sessional instructors often teach at more than one institution and focus on building a broad teaching portfolio with little interest in the strategic needs of a particular institution.

Most universities have mandates in three areas— or pillars— which are teaching and learning (“ teaching”), research and scholarship (“ research”), and community service (sometimes referred to as “community engagement”). An internal dynamic influencing an institution’s strategic goals is the systemic tension between the teaching and research pillars. Studies show that teaching and research are viewed as independent activities competing for financial resources, space, and qualified faculty, even when faculty believe they should be good at both. Adding to this tension are the global ranking systems which focus on research outcomes, with little consideration given to teaching effectiveness. This tension leads to reinforcement of existing beliefs as to which set of activities should be prioritised rather than flexibility in shifting priorities.

Within the research pillar, the perceived value of different types of research is continually questioned. Scholars in the sciences and social sciences/ humanities are socialised to freely experiment with new ideas independent of immediate relevance; while those in professional schools value pragmatic or more immediately applicable knowledge. Currently, many social science faculty are resisting the growing expectation that universities should be key contributors to innovation and the commercialisation of knowledge; they counterargue that many of the advances known today came from exploratory research on ideas that did not originally have a visible pragmatic outcome.

Within the teaching pillar, there is systemic tension between the traditional liberal arts education, which develops disciplinary knowledge and skills based on a student’s passion, and the professional schools, which build the knowledge and skills relevant to a specific career. Both types of education are important to society. A liberal arts education leads to critical thinking and well-developed communication skills, as well as the ability to apply interdisciplinary knowledge when analysing problems. Many undergraduates are able to apply their interdisciplinary knowledge to complex societal problems. In contrast, a technical education is responsive to the economy’s need for skilled labour and applied research. The value of a narrower technical education is reflected in the success of universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Technical University of Munich. Again, these tensions often reinforce existing faculty silos rather than adopting a broader university perspective.

The higher education environment is experiencing increased turbulence from multiple disruptive technologies, particularly in the teaching pillar. The impending disruption of technology platforms which effectively deliver course material into students’ own digital spaces is increasing the possibilities of learning from internationally recognised professors located anywhere in the world, with COVID-19 rapidly accelerating the impact of these platforms. In parallel, non-academic organisations offering certificates through bundling skills via online learning are flourishing. These organisations are nimble and responsive to student needs as they are not hampered by the bureaucracy systemic in established universities.

The hyper-expansion of expectations for universities, including democratisation, human rights, scientisation, and development planning have created ambiguity as to their mandate. I remember reading a book by Morphew, Fumasoli and Stensaker - “a recurring theme of higher education research is the blurring boundaries of functions, objectives, and scope of universities, due to the increased emphasis on relevance, service to society, and changes in the modes of knowledge production.” Part of this hyper-expansion is the expectation that universities will work with communities in finding solutions to local and global social problems. They are expected to partner with business and not-for-profit organisations to fund innovation and social enterprises. This emerging threefold interaction among universities, government, and civil society has been labelled a triple helix and demonstrates the importance for academic institutions to consider other actors in the system when considering their own futures.

The global and national ranking of universities has created a system over which academic leaders have little control but must still monitor because where an institution places in the better-known ranking surveys has notable reputational and operational consequences. Although the ranking of universities has been around for decades, prior to 2003 it was dependent on self-completed surveys, which were difficult to collect and had minimal impact. In 2003 a Chinese scholar began gathering bibliometric measures of publications, citations, and major awards of universities around the globe. This led to a rapid adoption of the methodology and an increase in the number of ranking organisations. The irony is that universities are unlikely to move more than one or two places in a given decade, and the top ten institutions will generally remain in the top ten. However, administrators cannot ignore the rankings and must guide their institutions towards achieving metrics that keep them from losing ground in their placement.

Reputation is a criteria included in most of the rankings; and this is a strategic outcome that most universities can control. Reputation is built by providing valued and unique programmes and, when established, has greater influence with key stakeholders than rankings. Most universities should be more concerned about their reputation with their primary stakeholders than their exact placement in the rankings. However, without a strategy that is shared across the institution, it is difficult to coordinate the resources and activities needed to build or enhance a positive reputation.

In summary, the academy must now compete for students, operate with reduced funding, adjust to changing technologies and demographics, and respond to the growing complexity of societal problems. Each university must align and differentiate its programmes to the expectations of its stakeholders rather than adopt a universal approach. They must find the appropriate balance between building programmes that create value for identified stakeholders and creating knowledge for the sake of new knowledge.

Strategy as a Bridge

Successful business leaders are constantly aware of their external environments and develop strategies to satisfy market demands. The importance of strategic planning in a market-based economy is reflected in the extensive research and popular literature on business strategies. Although universities and businesses have different mandates and operating contexts, this literature is still relevant to higher education. Universities are focused on producing a public good rather than maximizing profit; they have more time to respond to disruptions, and they apply a different set of metrics to measure success. However, as competition grows in the higher education sector there is an increasing need to adapt the findings in business strategy research to the new realities of higher education.

An effective institutional strategy explicitly states where the university should be in the future (usually five years), identifies the gaps that need to be bridged to achieve the goals, and guides decision-making throughout the organisation. It is different from the university’s mission. The mission identifies the contribution a university intends to make, through its education, and knowledge creation and dissemination. Universities share very similar missions; however, each university operates in a unique context, with differing combinations of strengths, weaknesses, and potential to respond to opportunities and reduce risks. A strategy is based on these unique combinations. It sets the priorities for difficult decisions on resource allocation and guides decisions as to what programmes the university will or will not support. It involves setting goals and identifying metrics to measure progress towards the goals.

An institutional strategy is not about operational effectiveness. Strategy involves developing new activities or performing similar activities in different ways. Operational effectiveness involves performing a specific activity in an efficient way. A future-proofed university makes strategic choices on the activities or combination of activities that need to be in place five to 10 years into the future, while ensuring operational effectiveness is monitored and enhanced.

In comparison to business organisations, universities are not nimble, as they cannot change direction over a short time frame. Universities are more like an urban community than a business organisation, with housing, recreational facilities, parking, public events, and academic faculties all operating as independent units. Within these units are expensive physical assets such as specialised laboratories, classrooms, and libraries which require constant maintenance. As well, the academic units have tenured faculty, whose careers with the institution can span more than 20 or 30 years. Knowledge that their careers continue long after a particular leader has come and gone builds inertia and resistance to change.

University leaders cannot easily sell or eliminate the institution’s physical assets or reduce tenured faculty in order to change direction or respond to disruptive trends. Each of these independent units recognises the impact of external forces operating on their unit, but not the combined external forces on the institution as a whole. Ironically, publicly funded institutions are dependent on the short-term orientations of governments, with little flexibility to respond to new initiatives. A logical conclusion would be that a straightforward, or simple, strategy cannot balance the complexities associated with managing a university. Conversely, it is indeed a simple strategy that is needed to coordinate and align these disparate groups, and reduce the existing isolated decision-making that leads to narrow, short-term responses to external disruptions.

The work of three McKinsey consultants which I read in the late 1990s provides a simple visualisation of the role of strategy in connecting a university’s current operations with emerging and potential areas of growth. The three horizons indicated in the study illustrate how a strategy reinforces current operations while preparing for anticipated future disruptions. Strategic planning processes should review the effectiveness of programmes under Horizon 1, while identifying the opportunities and risks under Horizons 2 and 3, with the resulting strategy guiding the institution towards those Horizons.

Horizon 1 covers the university’s current programmes, which include core programmes or the basic undergraduate and graduate programmes, common to most universities. These are often described as the building blocks of disciplinary fields of knowledge (e.g., chemistry, psychology, law). Although the assumption is that these programmes are critical to a university’s mission, they require regular reviews, as not every university should provide a complete suite of academic disciplines. I would like to bring to the notice that academic departments based on disciplinary fields of knowledge will go on being important: their disciplinary competence is essential, too valuable to throw away, and they have much power with which to protect their own domains. But the departments alone cannot do all the things that universities now need to do.

Also included under Horizon 1 are programmes specifically aligned to the institution’s environment and unique combination of stakeholders, and not offered by other universities. Often they are an extension of conventional disciplinary fields, with specific expertise and unique research infrastructure developed to meet community or primary constituent needs (e.g., major employment sectors or industries). The need for, and content of, these programmes evolves over time. Thus, a first step in strategic planning is a review of both types of current programmes to assess which should be continued as the foundation of the institution’s activities, and receive sufficient and appropriate resources to be offered in the most cost efficient or effective manner, and which should be reduced, modified, or abandoned over the next five years.

The programmes listed under Horizon 2 are those that will be needed in five years (although these time lines are being compressed with the increased need to be more responsive). They include the programmes in Horizon 1 that will still be relevant, and new programmes that should be ready in five years’ time. New programmes should increase the impact of the university over the next five years. The need to work through these two time horizons is critical as it can take more than five years for universities to develop the capacity to offer new programmes. If new research infrastructure, methods of curriculum delivery, and expertise are needed in Horizon 2, university leaders have to initiate steps in Horizon 1 to ensure they are in place, or they risk losing growth opportunities or having to invest in additional resources to play catch-up.

Under Horizon 3 are programmes that may be needed in 10-years’ time. Given the uncertainty associated with a 10-year timeframe, leaders should be ensuring there is sufficient flexibility in the system to respond to these opportunities if they actually become viable. Given the fixed nature of university resources— both physical assets and tenured faculty— it may take up to 10 years to respond to emerging trends, so monitoring for potential disruptions in Horizon 3 is critical. Basing an institutional strategy on these three horizons ensures relevancy and sustainability of a university’s programmes.

The adoption of a five-year window for a strategic plan is driven by a need to be future-oriented while ensuring urgency is created in the implementation of the strategy and the impact on the institution. Although the strategy will a focus on five-year goals, it should be looking forward to a longer time horizon. Five-year strategic plans are assumed throughout the remainder of the book.

Outcomes of Effective Institutional Strategies

The “currency” in higher education is reputation— it is how universities distinguish themselves and the programmes they offer and attract high quality students, faculty, and additional financial support. A well-developed and implemented strategy is the most effective approach to building a university’s local, national, and international reputation. University reputations are established through a complex combination of activities and expertise; without a strategy these activities may become chaotic as opposed to intentional. Building a reputation occurs over decades, and requires offering programmes, both conventional and specialised, that are aligned with community expectations. For instance, publicly funded universities must provide equal and affordable access to higher education, and have a reputation for educating and placing their graduates in the job market. Highly ranked universities have a reputation for preparing political and business leaders, which attracts funding from alumni in leadership positions.

An effective institutional strategy reduces political conflicts by simplifying decision-making through visible priorities and attention on a limited number of strategic choices. If a university strategy has been developed through campus-wide engagement, it is easier for university leaders to justify these priorities because of the transparency followed in developing them. A campus is comprised of competing viewpoints across multiple stakeholders, including board members, community leaders, students, faculty members, and funders, and it is easier to manage tensions when all parties believe they were heard.

A strategic planning process builds the foundation for an effective institutional culture which, in turn, creates responsiveness to external disruptions. The phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” reflects the need for leaders to attend to both strategy and culture. Every year hundreds of books are published on the value of a unifying culture in business organ-isations, with limited attention given to effective cultures in higher education. University cultures are based on academic freedom, where independent scholarship and thinking is valued. It is important, however, to differentiate between academic culture, which exists across the higher education sector broadly, and institutional culture, which reflects the norms, expectations, and behaviours within a specific institution. University leaders need to continually communicate respect for academic freedom while reinforcing the need for responsiveness to internal or external challenges through a transparent institutional culture. Although the idea of a “unifying” culture may be perceived as limiting creativity by faculty members, a focus on the understanding and development of an effective institutional culture has been shown to be critical to driving change and performance in the academic sector.

Strategy cannot change the multiple sub-cultures within the three pillars and various units of a university; it can, however, unify the campus by reinforcing an overriding institutional culture of responsiveness. The traditional culture of silos occurs because administration and faculties operate independently, limiting unified responses to the external environment. These culture silos reward faculty members for responding to disruptions or changes in their specific discipline, while ignoring campus-wide issues. An effective strategy reduces the impact of thinking in silos and harnesses the collective ambition and action of the entire campus.

An effective and responsive culture is based on respect for differing points of view and the inclusiveness of a broad range of stakeholders. A strategic planning process must respect the diversity of an institution’s constituents and consider the disparate views these constituents hold. Not everyone will agree on the final strategy, but when the planning process is built on respect and inclusion there is a broader acceptance of the difficult choices associated with a strategy and its implementation. If the strategic planning process does not signal the need to bridge the internal dynamics of a university with its external environment, faculty silos are reinforced and the strategy is difficult to implement, leading to an erosion of the institution’s reputation. Although difficult decisions are required in the development and implementation of a strategic plan, openness and transparency about the necessary trade-offs reinforce an effective institutional culture.

Failed Institutional Strategies

Strategic planning is not entirely new to the higher education sector, though it is often confused with operational planning. Different forms of operational planning were common in British and Australian universities in the 1980s because their respective governments required targets to be established and met. The goal was to demonstrate efficiency gains. Yet, as noted, traditional European universities have long exhibited a notoriously weak capacity to steer themselves. As their complexity has increased and the pace of change accelerated, that weakness has become more debilitating, deepening the need for a greater managerial capacity. If universities do not move beyond operational to strategic plans, it is unlikely that the needed changes to align with their future environments will occur.

In many universities, a new strategy is published as a weighty document, which then collects dust on a vice chancellor ’s bookshelf. The consequences of dust-covered strategies are significant but invisible, including the sunk costs of the time, effort, and financial resources that went into their planning, compounded by a lack of preparation for the future. However, it is not just universities that fail to implement their strategy; business researchers have found that two-thirds to three-quarters of large organisations fail to implement their strategies. When an institutional strategy does not move beyond a superficial response to external pressures, the results include underperforming initiatives and missed opportunities, as well as faculty and staff continuing to operate in their silos. It also reinforces an ongoing belief that a strategy is only window dressing, intended to satisfy the expectations of funders.

Complacency towards institutional strategies is also reinforced by a systemic belief that universities will not disappear because of their critical role in society. This belief may have been valid in the previous century; however it parallels the five stages that many great companies move through. These are: (1) hubris born of success, (2) undisciplined pursuit of more, (3) denial of risk and peril, (4) grasping for salvation, and (5) capitulation to irrelevance or death. The relevance of phases to university leaders is illustrated in relabelling them to: (1) our university is critical to the community, (2) government and donors will continue to fund universities, (3) students will always need to be educated and our research is being published, so it must be relevant, (4) governments are no longer providing sufficient funds and donors are skeptical of how their money is being used, and (5) other institutions have more effective educational and research programmes.

The shift from Phase 3 to Phases 4 and 5 is becoming more visible in higher education because of a number of trends. Costs of a university education have become prohibitive, compounded by the increasing ability of students to develop skills independently from universities. Technology and regulatory changes are allowing non-academic competitors to provide credentials that reflect accomplishment of specific skill sets, without students having to incur the cost of a four-year degree. Ignoring disruptive trends and failing to implement strategies is not unique to universities. It is to be noted, decline sneaks up and then, seemingly all of a sudden, the organisation is unable to respond to changing demands. Preventing the last two phases of decline is difficult for universities without strategic plans to guide decision-making. Strategy researchers have noted that staying in the middle of the pack is a death-nail, yet many organisations choose the low risk/ low performance middle ground . This phenomenon is currently playing out in some jurisdictions, such as the United States, where institutions are being merged or closed as a result.

Strategies also fail because they are linked to too many goals or inappropriately detailed plans. Researchers have found that many executives cannot provide a clear explanation of their organisation’s strategy, and if they cannot describe it to their employees, it is unlikely to be implemented. A common assumption in strategic planning in universities is that multiple goals are needed to ensure that every unit on campus can identify with at least one or two. However, setting too many goals leads to confusion, partly because it is difficult to provide a simple explanation to justify them and the process to achieve them. A strategy should simplify decision-making by providing clarity on how individuals can structure their activities in support of two or three strategic goals . The logic behind the strategy is as important as the goals because it provides the explanation for why changes are needed.

Failure also occurs because of insufficient communication. Once a strategy has been developed, its success is dependent on the initiatives of faculty and staff ; thus it is critical that they understand how the strategy will lead to future success. A simple strategy, with two or three goals, is easy to communicate and provides continuous feedback on its progress, so faculty and staff feel valued for their contribution. When they understand how their efforts, and the choices they make, contribute to the institution’s strategic goals, they are more motivated to actively support the strategy. Strategies also fail when there is minimal communication on key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect progress towards the strategic goals. When performance is not regularly measured and communicated to stakeholders, KPIs become invisible. Once that happens, accountability for strategic goals disappears and individuals establish their own priorities, reverting to a culture of silos.

Strategy as a Contract

When a new vice chancellor is appointed to lead a university, the first question stakeholders invariably ask is “What is your vision for the institution?” It is as if the vice chancellor should show up on the first day with a fully developed plan, that resonates across a diverse set of constituents and magically propels the institution forward to new heights of success. Of course, this is not realistic and such an approach would very quickly land the new vice chancellor in hot water.

Although the search process for a new vice chancellor informs the incoming leader of areas of opportunity or growth, it does not replace the necessity for the vice chancellor to lead the creation of a strategic plan that is developed through comprehensive stakeholder engagement. The mandate for new vice chancellor s, or those starting a second (or third) term, is often broadly defined by the board2 at the start of their term. It may include such goals as: grow the student body, enhance the student experience, deepen relationships with external community partners, and increase research funding and impact. These goals may well end up in a strategic plan, but they do not create a vision or narrative for the future. And, they often do not reflect the result of rigorous vetting by stakeholders such as students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community leaders. By extension, the broad mandate set by the board may actually be at odds with what the community wants or expects, and it is risky for a vice chancellor to initially assume that everyone is on the same page.

The development of a new institutional strategy creates an opportunity for engagement on campus and across the community, and it provides a unique platform for the vice chancellor to meet and listen to a broad base of constituents in a quasi-structured environment. It also provides significant visibility, which can be invaluable to a new vice chancellor in terms of signalling their leadership style and personal approach.

Perhaps the most important outcome of a strategic planning process for the vice chancellor is that it creates a clear mandate for their tenure as leader of their institution. In essence, the strategic plan becomes an unwritten contract between the vice chancellor , the board, and the community of stakeholders. It should be used by the board to evaluate the vice chancellor ’s performance as a means of fulfilling their fiduciary duties around strategic oversight and as the basis for rewarding the vice chancellor for delivering on the institution’s strategic goals. These aspects are discussed further in Chapter

One of the hardest aspects of any leadership role is managing expectations— those the leaders hold for themselves as well as from others. This is particularly true in the higher education sector due to the diverse and often contradictory views of stakeholders, as well as the lack of a clear bottom line. A well-designed and vetted strategic plan is a powerful tool to manage these conflicting expectations, as it provides a platform to link decisions (to do something or not do something) back to process, and a document based on input from a wide swath of stakeholders. Although this does not ensure that all stakeholders will be satisfied at all times, it provides a vice chancellor with a mechanism, as well as courage and resolve, to demonstrate that they are acting in the best interests of the institution as a whole. At a minimum, it should give vice chancellor s the ability to sleep well at night.

Five-Phase Strategic Planning and Execution Process

There is no one right way to perform a strategic planning exercise. There are many pathways which can lead to an inspirational, broadly endorsed, and actionable strategy. In fact, the pathway— or journey— is the most important aspect of strategic planning since it plays a key role in determining the depth of engagement with stakeholders, the degree of rigour in assessing environmental trends and strategic options, as well as the ultimate level of commitment by the internal and external communities to the final strategic goals.

Prior to initiating the planning process, it is important to build agreement on the principles that will guide the process. These principles need to be public and visibly applied throughout the process as they establish both legitimacy of the process and trust that the process will lead to an effective strategy.

I present here sample principles along with the goals to be achieved through their implementation.

Sample Principles to Guide the Strategic Planning Process

Goal: The strategic planning process should be:

Principles: The strategic planning process should ensure that:

Educational Internal and external stakeholders learn about external trends, internal strengths and limitations, and future opportunities for the institution

Inclusive - Representatives from key internal and external stakeholders actively engage in, and contribute to, a respectful, transparent process.

Collaborative and Consultative - Engagement discussions are future-focused towards the good of the whole institution

Leveraged - Appropriate university events are utilised to gather information and ideas

Inspirational -  Internal and external communities are invigorated and committed to the new or revised strategy for the institution

Although not every institution will adopt all of these principles, the one principle that should guide every consultation process is that it will be “educational.” Consultation should be based on informed two-way exchanges, where participants have access to relevant background information on current programmes and trends prior to providing their thoughts and opinions on the institution’s future programmes and direction. Informed participants can validate (or contradict) the impact of specific trends, provide differing interpretations of the institution’s strengths and weaknesses, and substantiate any conclusions about current and desired future states. When the process is educational, individuals are better informed about why and how specific changes facilitate the university’s progress towards a successful, sustainable future.

The activities needed to support effective planning and implementation of the strategy are illustrated herewith. These five phases provide a pathway from setting the stage for the strategic planning process, to fully operationalizing the plan through accountabilities, robust communication strategies, and an effective institutional culture to support transformational change.

Five Phases for Strategic Planning and Execution in Higher Education

Phase 1: Setting the Stage

Phase 2: Informed Engagement

Phase 3: Creating the Strategy

Phase 4: Executing the Strategy

Phase 5: Future-Proofing

Dialoguing with stakeholders.

Building an engagement platform.

STEPS REQUIRED -

Developing the strategy

Converting strategy to operations

Communicating strategic impacts.

Establishing legitimacy

Consulting with stakeholders.

Building identity and awareness

Driving the operational plan

Enhancing an effective institutional culture

Phase 1 (setting the stage) includes the work done prior to launching the formal stakeholder engagement process. The work in this phase, led by the vice chancellor , includes communicating the rationale for a strategic planning process, reinforcing the value of stakeholder participation, ensuring the appropriate governance structure and resources are in place, and providing a timeline for the process and ultimate strategy launch. The outcome of this phase is a clear line-of-sight from start to end on the strategic planning activities and the approval structure for the final strategy.

The main purpose of Phase 2 (informed engagement) is to provide stake-holders with relevant background information so that they are aware of current programmes and processes as well as external trends and potential disruptors. It requires a comprehensive engagement platform for stake-holders to access documents and follow progress of the strategic planning process. It also includes formal consultation processes which draw on stake-holder experience, expertise, and views of the future through structured (or semi-structured) engagement.

Phase 3 involves developing the actual strategic plan, which involves shifting the effort from gathering input through campus-wide stakeholder engagement to a small working committee responsible for analysing and interpreting the external and internal data. The focus is on integrating external risks and opportunities, and internal strengths and weaknesses into strategic opportunities, with a goal of consolidating around a strategic direction that provides a future path for the institution. Once the strategy is developed, it needs refinement through dialogue with stakeholders and approval by the appropriate governance bodies. This is followed by the creation of an identity and formal launch to the community.

All of the important work in the first three phases establishes a new starting line for the execution of the strategy, which is the focus of Phase 4. Often this phase is an afterthought for leaders as they assume everyone will just get on with the job. This is a serious mistake since the strategy will not be supported without an operational plan, which identifies priorities and establishes accountabilities and benchmarks.

The activities in Phase 5 focus on future-proofing by communicating the intended strategic outcomes and impacts, as well as building and enhancing an effective institutional culture to drive change and performance. When the strategy becomes part of the “DNA” of the organisation, is it truly owned and driven by the entire stakeholder community.

SUMMARY

Universities and Higher Education institutions are diffuse and complex, with diverse groups of stakeholders. There will always be disagreement over the appropriate strategic priorities, such as the allocation of resources to one of the pillars over the others; however, the probability of passive acceptance, rather than active resistance, is increased if the logic behind the intended outcomes is communicated. The key components to strategic success are the visibility of the strategic priorities, the logic behind the priorities, consistent decisions, and the evaluation of progress towards the goals.

Academic institutions without strategic direction experience redundancies and inefficiencies in resource allocation, systemic conflicts, and are reactive rather than proactive to disruptions. Effective university strategies align and allocate resources through transparent decision-making for recruitment, new programme development, research capacity growth, and infrastructure investment. They can be a powerful tool to grow, reshape, or transform a university, while positively engaging and enabling key stake-holders in the process. They can build a stronger community, which constructively identifies with the institution, while still supporting faculties and units which have their own disciplinary needs or functional roles.

CONCLUDING THE DISCUSSION :

Institutional Dynamics and the Role of Strategy Higher education is being disrupted through “massification” of education in some jurisdictions and contraction in others, the advent of new technologies, additional accountability requirements by funders, and the race for improved rankings to build perceived reputation and prestige.

The internal dynamics of universities have been slow to change with faculty members, and some staff, operating in the silos of their department or discipline. As long as individuals have the resources they need there is little thought about institutional efficiency or overall effectiveness.

Universities operate in unique contexts, with differing strengths, weaknesses, and potential to respond to opportunities and risks. A strategy is based on these unique contexts and states where a university should be in the future.

An effective strategy leads to increased impact, which improves stakeholder satisfaction and institutional reputation. It reduces political conflicts and simplifies decision-making through visible priorities and by focusing attention on a limited number of strategic choices.

Most strategic plans fail due to poor or limited execution. When a strategy never moves beyond a superficial response to external pressures, faculty and staff continue operating in their silos, leading to underperforming initiatives as well as missed opportunities.

University leaders can manage competing views across multiple stakeholders when a strategy has been collectively developed and implemented. Strategic priorities reduce conflict, arising from competing views, by increasing transparency and consistency in the allocation of resources.

A strategy creates a clear mandate and can serve as an unwritten contract between the vice chancellor , the board, and the community of stakeholders. The board should use the strategic plan to fulfill their fiduciary duty of strategic oversight.

The steps taken to develop a strategic plan play a key role in determining the depth of engagement with stakeholders, the degree of rigour in assessing environmental trends and strategic opportunities, and the commitment by the community to achieve the final strategic goals.

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