Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Brian McDonald, Founder of MOR Associates. Brian may be reached at [email protected] or via LinkedIn.
In the MOR Leaders Program, when the focus is on strategic thinking, one key concept is: “the leader’s role is to position the organization to be successful in a constantly evolving environment.”
This is a particular challenge as an unparalleled threat to higher education is posed by the federal government’s:
- cutoff or holds on grants that were already awarded and funded
- threatened reduction in indirect reimbursement
- infringement on a university’s ability to set policies without federal oversight
- punitive action toward universities based on political and cultural philosophies
- potential increase in the tax on those schools with significant endowments
These actions make it ever more challenging for each university to determine how to position the institution to be successful in such a rapidly deteriorating financial and political environment. Not every school is impacted by each of these trends, though many are.
It was also the leader’s role to position the organization to be successful in 2008 and 2009 when the economy almost crashed due to the housing bubble and the fraud in the mortgage market that upended the stock market. University endowments and financial balance sheets were disrupted, and this called for a rapid response from leaders on how to navigate those events to remain solvent.
It was also the leader’s responsibility to position the organization to be successful in 2020, when the pandemic descended on the world, and universities needed to respond with uncharacteristic speed. Leaders made critical decisions to transition online and remain viable when the traditional education model was upended.
Senior leaders are currently doing scenario planning just as they had to in these prior circumstances.
Universities have filed lawsuits questioning the legality of these actions. Leaders have authorized financial moves such as going to the bond market or drawing more on the endowment to strengthen the balance sheet and make up some of the lost revenue, among other moves.
One question MOR has been engaging with across our higher education community is: What can your unit do to respond to this threat to higher education? How can IT be part of the solution, as it was during the pandemic, when there was a pivot to online?
In several workshops, we have focused on this changing context and have worked on developing strategies that could serve as a menu of possibilities for responding to the financial fallout.
Every crisis presents opportunities, making it possible to pursue options that may not be feasible in a different context. Here are some strategies for how IT could respond to the current threat to higher education.
1. Integrate informational technology
Are there further organizational opportunities to integrate information technology units across the university? Are there ways to better align information technology resources to optimize IT spending, scale services to achieve economies of scale, and best align to the needs of the mission?
In many cases, the whole could be greater than the sum of the parts if IT wasn’t fragmented. The university could realize savings from unified contracting, vendor relationships that could be leveraged, or other ways to utilize the collective expertise.
2. Simplify, automate, and innovate
Achieve greater efficiencies, standardize, minimize friction, and reduce the overall IT spend while improving the client experience.
3. Leverage AI
Find ways to eliminate tasks, consolidate enterprise applications, and provide the data leaders need to make real-time decisions. It may also be incumbent on IT to provide the AI infrastructure and tools researchers need to continue their work when facing funding obstacles.
4. Consider what you can stop, and what you should start
What project should the organization stop doing, given that the university and IT will face resource constraints in many places? Is it prudent to consider some major capital expenditures when the university may be facing unprecedented financial uncertainties? Can enterprise applications be consolidated? What can IT stop supporting that hasn’t made sense to continue, yet there wasn’t the will to shut this down? With limited resources, maybe now is the time.
5. Workforce Planning
Develop your goals for talent management and how IT can retain the expertise needed during this time. Engage key talent so that they know they are valued. Identify single points of failure and do cross-training. Prioritize across position vacancies and determine where the most pressing needs are. Sketch out a talent agility plan so you are prepared to move people where needed.
Conclusion
These are ways leaders in information technology or other functions could be ready to contribute to the solution, rather than be seen primarily as a cost center. As leaders, it will also be essential to continue communicating frequently with your staff to let them know what is being done and what is being considered. During periods of uncertainty, people are anxious to know what is going on, and in the absence of information, people will fill in the gaps.
This is a time to step up and lead from where you are, whether you are working on ways to respond to this threat or reassuring the staff the best you can.
Which action is most compelling to you at this time?
Last week, we asked which of the three lenses you would like to leverage more.
- 41% said the cultural lens
- 32% said the political lens
- 28% said the strategic lens
As we view the current challenging context for and threat to higher education, it is more insightful to look at this through the strategic, cultural, and political lens. The evolving environment for higher education is subject to the same political and cultural forces playing out in our society.