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