Navigating Through Turbulent Times: Applying a System and University Strategic Decision Making Model

By Tom Anderes

ﾠReaders and leaders interested in planning and leadership in higher education will receive two primary benefits from the book Navigating Through Turburlent Times........ First, a strategic decision making model that they can apply with their leadership teams in universities, systems and Boards. Second, they will be exposed to real life experiences from turbulent or unstable environments that they will likely confront during their careers. The six components of the strategic decision making model are laid out in detail and used as the focus for recognizing and resolving issues that contribute to instability. The integration of the model with the actual experiences provides leaders and their support teams with a comprehensive tool to address current and future challenges.

The model components include: 1) an organizational mentality committed to strategic thinking, 2) a maximum amount of historical data and information for analysis to inform decision makers, 3) highly globalized scans of the future integrated with other decision making information, 4) ongoing strategic planning processes, 5) transparency to incorporate all key constituencies in planning and 6) a planning and assessment framework that allows leaders to weigh and filter information into thoughtfully constructed strategic alternatives and action plans. The success of the model is based on the integration of all components, with strategic thinking permeating all aspects of decision making.

Ultimately leaders and leaders in waiting will be able to better anticipate and resolve problems through the use of the six major interactive components of the model. Problems (as reflected through the experiences) that create instability such as dramatic funding reductions, unanticipated leadership successions, rapidly increasing student costs, limited communications with constituencies, limited planning and strategic thinking, etc. can be considered from the outset of thoughtful, strategic planning and thinking exercises and not simply "fixed" after alternative strategies are in place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781682131978

Book preview

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Navigating through Turbulent Times:

Applying a System and University Strategic

Decision-Making Model

Tom Anderes

Copyright © 2015 Tom Anderes

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2015

ISBN 978-1-68213-196-1 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-68213-197-8 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Barbara, as we look forward to a great future thank you for all of your selfless support over the first 45 years of our life together

OVERVIEW

This book is built on nearly forty years of experience in higher education at the highest levels of system administration, board leadership, and institutional leadership. The experiences provide insights formed through extremes of organizational stress and outcomes of administrative and political decision-making processes. Management perspectives were redefined through the shifting priorities, plans, and personalities of various constituencies including governors, legislators, university leadership, system leadership (chancellors or presidents), and state Board of Higher Education members. Decisions were informed as environmental conditions and constituent expectations evolved.

Higher education constituencies respond to immediate pressures that, on occasion, differ from current priorities. That is, the circumstances or pressure of the moment alter perspectives and positions on what are commonly accepted priorities and policies. This book outlines real life challenges that evolved into periods of organizational instability. Instability could have been avoided, or greatly lessened with the right tools to stimulate more strategic thinking, communicating, and acting.

Leaders in universities, system administrations, and boards will benefit from the development of a comprehensive strategic decision-making model that provides informed and timely decisions focused on the future. They will gain knowledge from specific experiences and how issues of instability can be limited in the future through the application of the model. The causes and effects of instability stemming from poor communications, competitive reactions to severe funding reductions and dysfunctional personalities will be highlighted. Board disagreements or dissonance, succession planning, and presidential perspectives on system administrations and boards also affecting stability will be discussed. The model will help gather, organize, focus, and filter information in a way that leadership decisions will be more easily and strategically informed.

In sum, the reader will gain two major benefits:

a multicomponent strategic decision-making model that will strengthen a leaders commitment to an organizational mentality of strategic thinking and acting, and

a set of actual experiences and scenarios based on organizational instability that can be assessed and adapted to a leader’s decision-making environment.

(This book will define and apply the major components and concepts of the model. Its ultimate value will be in the connections made between the strategic decision-making model and practical life experiences that confront leaders on a day-to-day basis.

A second book is currently in development that will build on the foundation established in this book and provide even greater depth in the definition and integration of the six model components. It will offer leaders a how to approach in applying the model in their setting.)

Strategic Decision Making Model—Tool for Leadership

The strategic decision-making model is intended to bring together all planning components that identify and address the problems leading to instability. The key to success is ensuring that all components are fully integrated and interactive. The lack of connection will render the findings or recommendations less useful.

The model components for leaders to consider are:

Assessing environmental conditions through futurescans;

Maximizing amounts and quality of data for assessment;

Optimizing transparency of process and outcomes for all constituencies;

Applying a rigorous strategic planning approach on an ongoing basis;

Introducing a new Planning and Assessment framework for

leaders;

Emphasizing the necessity for leaders to create means to proactively think and act strategically

Value of the Strategic Decision Making Model—Role of the Planning

and Assessment Framework in Planning

All of the strategic decision-making model components are important in maximizing opportunities for successful outcomes. If one of the components is not contributing to the process, the overall model loses value. Future scans are critical as a means of looking to the future globally, without comprehensive future scanning decisions will be based on a limited set of information and reduce the opportunities for success. Without the information from a comprehensive strategic planning process, decisions will be under informed. The lack of transparency of a decision-making process, particularly when considering large amounts of data, will doom the recommendations to failure by those who opposed change from the beginning. Finally and perhaps most importantly, if the organization is not collectively thinking strategically and working toward the value added of the full model, success will be reduced.

One component, the Planning and Assessment framework (P and A framework), is a tool that utilizes all of the key information driven from future scans, strategic process findings and outcomes, and related data analytics. It is the vehicle through which leaders can better organize, plan, and communicate during periods of turbulence.

The framework is designed to focus leaders on the key questions that will help understand what is fueling periods of instability. A major strength is its capacity to refine analyses and retain only the most important factors creating instability. The framework does not attempt to replace any of the many forms of planning such as strategic, contextual, zero-based, or planned program budgeting. The goal is to integrate information from those processes and other sources of information into a more manageable and targeted structure for leadership decision making.

The P and A framework will be defined more fully in its intent and connection to the full strategic decision-making model in chapters 1 and 2. The framework will be the vehicle through which actual experiences of instability will be discussed in chapters 3–9. The primary emphasis of the framework is on problem identification and problem resolution that guides leaders through a well-informed and uniform process of decision making.

The strategic decision-making model must have all six of the components fully functioning and working with one another to be successful. The P and A framework will fail without strong data looking into the future, or without an in depth strategic planning process, or creative strategic thinkers, or maximized transparency of process and input.

Experiences of Turbulence: Instability in Higher Education

The value of the strategic decision-making model and specifically the P and A framework is best seen in its application to specific issues or problems. The book thus focuses on issues of instability and how the model acts as a vehicle to develop alternatives to regain stability.

What is a Period of Instability?

A period of instability can be defined as an extraordinary level of dissent among multiple constituencies that are unable find common ground on key issues. Further, they are in disagreement on major goals, leadership recommendations, funding allocations, and or future strategies. The amount of dissonance is such that organizational relationships and confidence is damaged and changes in structure and leadership is possible.

Other terms to define significant organizational instability include upheaval, dissonance, trauma, stress, strife, and dysfunction. The word crisis is not interchangeable under the assumption that it raises instability to a level that would not characterize the examples that will be discussed. A crisis would cover such events as H1N1 planning and action, or a local weather-related catastrophe, or a major campus fire, or other natural disasters or crises. (It may be that organizational instability is precipitated by multiple constituencies not agreeing on the planning and manner in which a disaster was handled but such crises will not be the topics covered.)

The book does not simply identify basic or routine problems and offer a laundry list of solutions. It stretches into the major issues confronted by leaders most frequently. It focuses on how relationships among systems, boards, governors, legislators, universities, and their leadership have fostered instability and dysfunction. It will define and discuss the value of a strategic decision-making model and identify and assess actual examples that lead to instability.

Spoiler alert: It is not possible to completely avoid conditions that can lead to some organizational instability. Dynamics of leadership personalities, vagaries of funding, changing gubernatorial demands, public expectations, and more will interact in a manner that precipitate differences in how constituencies look at and react to issues. However, an understanding of historical examples and the ability to apply a framework for assessment of current situations will be critical in limiting the impacts of upheaval.

Leaders must be prepared to understand that they cannot control many of the impacts occurring outside of higher education on their systems and universities or community colleges. However, they can create processes that better assess and gauge environmental conditions and context. They can apply multiple tools that focus on the future and integrate findings and analyses into their strategic thinking and decision making. Leaders can achieve more holistic and advantageous outcomes when they commit their organization to a strategic decision-making model that embraces the future.

Actual Experiences that Guided Decision Makers

The book will offer actual experiences that allow for a clearer understanding of how constituencies such as higher education boards, universities, and colleges, systems of higher education, legislative leaders, governors, and others act and react to extremely stressful circumstances. Each constituency applies their own interpretation of priorities, policy implications, and political expectations as they make decisions. It is the combination or interaction of constituent reactions that can create stress and lead to instability. (Note: While the examples are taken from actual experiences, there will be no attribution to any person, university, system, or state—some dates will be provided for context.)

Defining University, System, and Board Leaders

For the purposes of the book, a system is a group of universities and or community colleges that are governed or coordinated by a statewide board. System administration refers to leaders such as commissioners, chancellors, and presidents and their chief financial and academic leaders who work directly for and on behalf of a board. Boards are the appointed members of governors or legislative leadership that set and monitor statewide policy in higher education. They use the system administration as board staff to implement policy with the system leader assuming the role of facilitating or representing all system institutions. The institutional leaders are presidents or in some cases, chancellors responsible for single universities or community colleges. They, along with their chief financial and academic officers, work through the system administration in responding to requirements of the board.

Substance and Form of Book

Chapter 1 will begin the conversation on how to structure a planning and leadership mindset to better address the future. The content of the chapter highlights the strategic decision-making model that will guide leaders to anticipate more strategically beyond common instances of instability. It emphasizes the necessity to understand and plan for the implications of global change or disruptions on many fronts. The idea of disruptive innovation will be explored in the context of organizational adaptation and survival.

Chapter 2 provides background on the seven topics that will be discussed in the following seven chapters and guides the reader through the application of the P and A framework.

Chapters 3–9 offer analyses as seen through seven individual topics generated by an experience central to organizational instability. History reflects that positions taken by constituencies seeking change within higher education places them at odds, or in competition with one another. The positions can move them dramatically away from existing policy positions, priorities, and one another. Understanding history and leadership behavior is one source of information that can inform decisions affecting the future. The reader will be guided by a six-step planning and assessment framework to uniformly structure and understand each topic, potential outcomes, and the value in future planning and decision making.

Chapters 10–11 provide scenarios that raise a more granular set of examples of instability focused on communications and leadership responses. The scenarios offer actual conditions and context for leaders to benefit from as they encounter similar circumstances. The chapters will offer specific takeaways that leaders can apply in their own institutional and system planning processes.

Example of Topic

Dramatic Tuition Increases in Student Tuition and Fees: Factors