The biggest challenge facing leaders is the careful balance of running the college or university as a business while ensuring it lives its mission. This tension is historical and resides with the Chief Business Officer and Chief Academic Officer or Provost.

We speak of our academic and administrative teams needing to be more innovative, but don’t provide a roadmap to develop and enhance these skills, much less put them into action. What if innovation is a human practice that can be learned?

As higher education moves beyond the pandemic, what do the next few years hold for small institutions? Connect with small institution colleagues to discuss post-pandemic business and financial management issues. Share your thoughts about today’s challenges and tomorrow’s uncertainties.

A conversation for action is engaging in making requests, fulfilling promises, and effectively coordinating with each other. A conversation for possibilities is asking the question about who we want to be, where we’re going, and why. Most of us are so focused on the activities and actions of the day that we rarely practice or learn the art of being in conversation oriented around possibilities.

Higher Education is undergoing a major change. Old ways are crumbling as the value proposition continues to be questioned. Student needs are changing, while the ways we deliver education and work together are transforming. As leaders, it is clear we must reshape or dismantle many of the old structures to build anew.

Being a leader is recognizing opportunities to declare when change is needed and inspiring others to follow. Equally relevant, our people are living through a most uncertain period, one that is provoked by moods of overwhelm, indifference, or even resignation about the future. Well-being is today’s strategic imperative.

How can we retain the best of what we have learned over the past couple of years while discarding practices that don’t provide value? There is a risk that we will fall back into a pre-pandemic mindset and lose the urgency and focus that produced innovation across our campuses during the most difficult of times. Retention of our best people is at stake in a time that has come to be known as “The Great Resignation.”

What can someone do to cultivate a change in professional identity? What skills and sensibilities enable someone to shift into a new role in a different domain? What actions can someone take as they transition from a familiar organization to unfamiliar territory?

The pandemic has proven to be a moment of innovation and positive change for schools, and with 2020 and 2021 behind us, now is the time to look beyond the next fiscal year. Embrace the opportunity to reengage your leadership team in longer-term strategic thinking and financial planning. Learn how to think strategically across your teams and execute a plan that addresses your vision for the future.