Colleges and universities, corporations, local government — pick any organization with two or more departments — have got a silo problem. What would have to change to tear down these artificially constructed walls that create misunderstandings, gaps in communication, all leading to rampant inefficiencies?
Shared governance is the decision-making model that guides leaders across all higher education institutions. There is much written about this model of authority being delegated from the board to administration, and then from administration to the academy. In a perfect world, the Board oversees and guides, the administration develops tangible strategies to fund and execute, and the academy provides the intellectual rigor and evidence that validates the strategy.
Anticipating a difficult conversation in your education institution can be challenging, uncomfortable, and anxiety-provoking. Whether it's delivering bad news, addressing a sensitive issue, or confronting a direct report about their behavior, there are practices you can build to increase your confidence and produce the result you’re looking for.
Social practices can also be applied to innovation. Across organizations, individuals are responsible for taking care of concerns and bringing awareness to problems that affect how work gets done. Recognizing these inefficiencies, however, is not the same as addressing them. In order to bring new ideas into being, consider the action of making offers.
What is a bias toward action? It’s moving quickly on an idea with a recognition that there is never enough information to guarantee success. It’s making time for conversation and, when the time is right, declaring the conversation to be over. It’s leadership delegating authority to someone who will pull the lever and begin the work.
Missing in the literature on shared governance is a recognition that in the absence of collaboration, these groups execute by power over people or activities. Breakdowns of trust, lack of transparency, or an incomplete understanding of roles end up driving boards, administrators, and academics to act in unproductive manners.
The Seven Deadly Sins That Choke Out Innovation | Co.Design
Helen Walters on a recent talk from the heads of IDEO in New York titled Leading Innovation: Process Is No Substitute:
In most companies, there's a profound tension between the right-brainers (for lack of a better term) espousing design, design thinking and user-centered approaches to innovation and the left-brained, more spreadsheet-minded among us. Most C-suites are dominated by the latter, all of whom are big fans of nice neat processes and who pay good money to get them implemented rigorously. So often, the innovation process is treated as a simple, neat little machine. Put in a little cash and install the right process, and six months later, out pops your new game-changing innovation -- just like toast, right from the toaster. But that, of course, is wrong.
The "seven sins" that Walters covers are spot on, and the piece is worth reading in full. In particular, there is an overriding theme from which we could all benefit:
build inclusion into process rather than protectionism,
execute quickly and let momentum work in your favor,
and finally, change (innovation) takes time -- "be explicit about the impact that you expect" from your change efforts.
While this past year has been one of the most difficult in the history of higher education, there is beginning to be a growing light at the end of the tunnel. The emergence of the COVID-19 vaccine has brought a renewed sense of optimism. University leaders around the country are planning for a majority of their students to be vaccinated by the end of the summer or earlier, and fully reopening their campuses come fall.
Teibel Education’s President Howard Teibel; Rutgers University Executive Vice President — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Michael Gower; and University of Colorado Boulder Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Russell Moore have a Webinar discussion on the Future of Higher Education and the roles we can play to navigate through this crisis.
COVID is a revealer of and accelerant of how we need to change as institutions. Academics, administrators, and boards need a new framework to meet these challenges as we look out over the horizon.
I chose not to run our Navigating Change podcast this week in support of all those who stand and fight for justice, equality, and peace, and an end to racially-motivated police violence in our country. I am left with sadness and anger after witnessing these brutal acts of violence and am committed to raising my own awareness of systemic racism in America.
Teibel Education has made a donation to Color of Change, an organization dedicated to educating and mobilizing people around systemic racism in this country. Consider exploring or lending your support to any of the organizations below.
Article: First, Listen. Then, Learn: Anti-Racism Resources For White People
https://www.forbes.com/sites/juliawuench/2020/06/02/first-listen-then-learn-anti-racism-resources-for-white-people/#24a8f26616ee
The Southern Poverty Law Center • https://www.splcenter.org/
The Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy, the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality.
#BlackLivesMatter • https://blacklivesmatter.com/
#BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.
Color of Change • https://colorofchange.org/
Color of Change helps you do something real about injustice. We design campaigns powerful enough to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back, and champion solutions that move us all forward. Until justice is real.
Advancement Project • https://advancementproject.org/
Rooted in the great human rights struggles for equality and justice. We exist to fulfill America's promise of a caring, inclusive and just democracy.
The Equal Justice Initiative • https://eji.org/
The Equal Justice Initiative is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
