Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Brian McDonald, Founder of MOR Associates. Brian may be reached at [email protected] or via LinkedIn.
The University of Nebraska’s OneIT Initiative Brought a Transformation Framework to Life
In March 2017, University of Nebraska System President Hank Bounds asked Vice Chancellor and CIO Mark Askren to meet. During that conversation, Bounds shared a bold vision: integrate the separate IT organizations at the Lincoln, Omaha, and Kearney campuses, along with the system-wide IT office, into a single organization known as OneIT. He then asked Askren to lead the effort as the university’s first system-wide Chief Information Officer.
“The President shared that information technology would be central to the university’s continued transformation,” Askren recalled. “He believed the university could no longer afford for each campus to make technology decisions independently when greater coordination could improve both effectiveness and efficiency across the entire system.”
The assignment was significant. Four independent IT organizations, each with its own leadership, systems, priorities, and culture, would become one. “There was no roadmap for bringing these separate organizations together,” Askren reflected.
That challenge provides an excellent illustration of the 5 P’s of Leading Strategic Change, a framework introduced by MOR Program Leader Marcia Dority in last week’s Tuesday Reading. While every transformation is unique, successful strategic change initiatives consistently answer five fundamental questions people ask at the outset:
- Why are we doing this? (Purpose)
- What are we trying to become? (Picture)
- How will we get there? (Plan)
- What is my role? (Part)
- How will we work together differently? (Practices)
The OneIT initiative demonstrates how leaders can answer each of these questions while building commitment to the change.
Purpose: Clarifying the Why
Every major transformation needs to begin with a compelling reason for the change. President Bounds established the purpose at the outset. The university needed to make better use of its technology resources while supporting its broader institutional transformation. The goals were clear:
- Optimize existing resources
- Modernize aging systems and applications
- Strengthen cybersecurity and reduce institutional risk
- Improve services for faculty, staff, and students
- Better steward university financial resources
To most fully convey the purpose of OneIT, leaders consistently articulated it as a strategy for better serving the university’s mission. As Askren noted, it became increasingly difficult to defend maintaining multiple networks, separate security operations, and redundant enterprise systems when a more integrated approach could provide better service at lower cost.
Picture: Creating a Shared Vision of Success
Once people understand why change is necessary, they want to know what the future will look like. The OneIT leadership painted a simple but powerful picture. Instead of four separate organizations working independently, the university would become one integrated technology organization capable of delivering improved services, increased security, and more efficient use of resources. One visual helped communicate that idea:
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5
The equation symbolized something larger than simple consolidation. By combining talent, expertise, and technology platforms, the university could create value beyond what the individual organizations could achieve independently. As Aristotle observed, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
For campuses that had struggled to keep pace with rapidly evolving technology, the vision represented expanded capability rather than simply organizational change.
Plan: Building Confidence Through a Thoughtful Process
Even when people support the purpose and embrace the vision, they still want confidence that leaders have a credible plan. Rather than designing the future behind closed doors, Nebraska adopted a highly collaborative approach. Leaders from every campus participated in identifying opportunities for integration, establishing priorities, and helping develop the implementation roadmap. The destination was clear. The path would be created together.
Senior leaders retained responsibility for making final decisions, yet the planning process itself engaged those who would ultimately implement the changes. This collaborative approach increased both the quality of the decisions and confidence in the transformation.
Part: Helping Everyone Find Their Place
Perhaps the most personal question during any organizational transformation is, What does this mean for me? People naturally wonder whether their work will change, whether reporting relationships will shift, and whether their skills will continue to be valued.
Nebraska addressed these concerns by inviting people to become active participants in shaping the future organization. Staff members were encouraged to:
- Participate actively in the design process
- Share ideas and recommendations
- Volunteer to help build OneIT
- Assess and communicate their skills and professional interests
More than fifty employees, representing a workforce of approximately three hundred, participated directly in design workshops that helped identify opportunities for integration, and inform the organizational design. Others contributed through focus groups, stakeholder meetings, all-hands sessions, and cross-campus task forces.
Rather than asking people simply to accept change, leaders invited them to help create it.
Practices: Building the New Culture
The final step in any transformation is establishing the day-to-day practices that reinforce the desired culture. Structures may change overnight. Culture changes through new practices and repeating the desired behaviors.
For OneIT, the new practices encouraged collaboration across what had previously been four separate organizations. Independent telecommunications and network teams that once operated autonomously now worked together as one organization. Security professionals implemented common policies and standards. Cross-campus leadership teams met regularly to coordinate priorities, solve problems, and communicate decisions.
Weekly leadership huddles, cross-functional task forces, and shared planning processes gradually replaced campus-specific ways of working.
These practices did more than improve coordination—they helped create a new organizational identity. Over time, people no longer viewed themselves as members of separate campus IT organizations. They increasingly saw themselves as members of University IT.
A Framework for Leading Transformation
Large-scale organizational change succeeds through more than announcing a new structure or publishing a new organizational chart. People need to understand why change is necessary, envision the future, trust that leaders have a thoughtful plan, see where they fit, and experience new ways of working together.
The University of Nebraska’s OneIT initiative illustrates how the 5 P’s – Purpose, Picture, Plan, Part, and Practices – provide leaders with a practical roadmap for guiding complex organizational change.
MOR believes change works when people feel that a change is being made with and for them rather than done to them.
While every transformation is different, the questions people ask remain remarkably consistent. Leaders who answer those questions clearly and consistently are far more likely to build understanding, engagement, and commitment throughout the journey.
As you view changes underway at your university:
- Has leadership clearly articulated the purpose behind your change initiative?
- Can people describe the future state in their own words?
- Do they understand the roadmap, not just the destination?
- Do people know their role in this initiative or the future state?
- What practices are reinforcing the culture attributes people see as important?
Which of the 5 P’s do you feel is most important in leading strategic change?
Last week, we asked which of the 5 P’s you need to focus on at this time.
- 11% said purpose
- 23% said picture
- 24% said plan
- 12% said part
- 30% said practices
Practices are the long tail of a change effort. They are what we do consistently day after day to sustain the change. It is no surprise this is the area we collectively identified as needing the most focus. A change stops becoming a change when it instead is simply “the way we do things around here.” Practices are foundational to that transition.