97: Dr. Larry Baker Brings Communication, Humor to Trusteeship at Des Moines University Medical Center

This week on Navigating Change, we continue our conversation on governance with trustee Larry Baker. Dr. Baker serves as medical director for the emergency department of UnityPoint health in Des Moines, But for our conversation today, his most important role is as trustee, serving as chair on the board of Des Moines University Osteopathic Medical Center. 

Our conversation has wound around a central theme: What is it that stakeholders in leadership look for in one another as they guide the collective institution? From the trustee perspective, how do you tell the story of relationship building with the president, senior administration, and beyond, balancing the needs of authority, accountability, and responsibility between parties? What is the role of the trustee in guiding and leading change in the institution? 

This week, Dr. Baker joins Howard Teibel and Pete Wright to discuss the key principles that guide his work as chair on the board of the Des Moines University Osteopathic Medical Center. 

Photo Credit: Phil Roeder, "September Sunset" (CreativeCommons)

73: Gail Gregory on Strategic Communication at CACUBO Annual Meeting

The Central Association of College and University Business Officer’s Annual Meeting is coming up fast — October 5-7, Kansas City will play host to central region change leaders and business officers addressing the crossroads of higher education. 

Gail Gregory will be on-site at the conference delivering her presentation, “Communicating Financial Information Effectively.” This week on the show, Gail joins Pete Wright to share her perspective on strategic communication and the evolving role and responsibility of the business officer, with a great review of the big events coming up this weekend. Listen in! 

71: UNE's Nicole Trufant on Communicating for Clarity at EACUBO 2014

There are two fundamental considerations when communicating complex information from the business office. First, do you have the right data for your audience. Second, are you communicating that data using the right tools. Our special guest Nicole Trufant has been polishing her communications practice from the business office as Vice President for Fiscal Affairs at University of New England  Next month, Nicole will join Howard Teibel on stage at the EACUBO 2014 Annual Meeting in Orlando as presenting, “Communicating Strategically to Make and Impact.”

This week on the show, Nicole joins Howard and Pete Wright to discuss how the role and responsibility of the business officer has changed in the last decade, and shares insights into her daily work to support her president, administration, faculty, students and parents across the institution. 

Join the Teibel Team at the EACUBO 2014 Annual Meeting! We'll be recording live at the Cheers Reception on Monday evening, October 20. Come by and join the conversation, share your insights with Howard and Pete, and have a few well-earned laughs at the end of a long day of learning!

About Nicole L. Labbe-Trufant

Nicole Trufant serves as the Vice President for Fiscal Affairs at the University of New England (UNE).  UNE was named as the 9th fastest Master's growing institution in the country by the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Nicole leads all functional areas of finance and general accounting, resource planning and budget, human resources, legal affairs, student financial services and information technology services. Nicole is a CPA.  She holds a BS in Accounting and BA in Sociology from the University of Southern Maine, an MSM in Management from New England College and is a graduate of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education Institute of Executive Management. 

54: Organizational Goal-Setting

In episode 52, we discussed the role of a clear mission and vision to the strategic planning process. But we left that conversation feeling unresolved — how do you take your mission and vision and translate it into goals and objectives that move the institution forward each day? This week on the show, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright discuss the nature of organizational goal-setting, and how to engage the institution in a process to translate the mission into daily activities that encourage growth and innovation.

51: Communicating for Action with Kelly Fox — WACUBO 2014 Annual Meeting

Kelly Fox, Senior Vice Chancellor and CFO, University of Colorado at Boulder

According to our guest Kelly Fox, Senior Vice Chancellor and CFO from University of Colorado at Boulder, communicating effectively is not just about making sure the leadership team is up to speed. It’s about positioning the most important messages of the institution in the most compelling light for every constituent audience, internal and external. This week on the show, Kelly joins Howard Teibel and Pete Wright to share her insights in effective communication, as Howard and Kelly prepare for their upcoming talk on the subject at the WACUBO 2014 Annual Meeting in Las Vegas. 

48: Strategic Communication at SACUBO Annual Meeting with Guest Greg Lovins

Greg Lovins, Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs, Appalachian State University

According to our special guest Greg Lovins, communication is not always easy for business officers to do. As vice chancellor for business affairs at Appalachian State University, Greg and his team are responsible to ensure the institution is equipped with the information they need to collectively make smart decisions and keen investments. Ensuring buy-in and collaboration among key constituencies is a challenge for the very best communicators, but when the message is loaded with complexity and offers a high opportunity for jargon, clear communication becomes much more difficult. 

Greg will be joining Howard Teibel at the SACUBO Annual Meeting on April 13 in San Antonio, Texas for “Communicating Financial Information Effectively,” a pre-conference session from 12:30 to 1:20 on Sunday, April 13. This week on the show, Greg joins Howard and Pete Wright for an introduction to the interactive discussion they’ll be facilitating next week.  

31: EACUBO 2013 Follow-up — Grappling with Future of Higher Ed

Howard is back from Baltimore and this week we're talking EACUBO! Administrators and business officers are continuing to grasp with radical change inside and outside our institutions. This week on the show, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright discuss the EACUBO event in Baltimore and share insights and lessons learned from his work as presenter and facilitator this year.

29: Getting Ready for EACUBO 2013!

EACUBO 2013 Annual Meeting is coming up October 6-9 in Baltimore, MD, and as usual, Teibel Education will be well represented. Howard Teibel will be delivering his latest thoughts on the finance role in strategy in his presentation, "Structuring the Finance Division for Success: Building a Strategic Organization to Support the Institution." In addition, he'll be facilitating an expert panel with Jeff Selingo and a panel of administrators and trustees discussing the changing landscape of higher education in the United States. This week on the show, listen to Howard Teibel and Pete Wright share thoughts on these presentations and more as they get ready for EACUBO 2013!

28: Turning Effective Listening into Action

Active listening is a key skill. But while it's important to be able to listen well to teams in a period of transformation, it's even more important to be able to turn what you're observing into action. This week on the show, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright talk about the power of active listening in change processes, and how great leaders turn that skill into action on their teams. 

20: Change, complexity, and preparing for NBOA 2012

This November, I'll be heading to Chicago for the National Business Officers Association (NBOA) 2012 Strategic Leadership Conference. In brief, this is a conference dedicated to the people charged with moving our schools forward in times of great challenge and increasing complexity, with integrity and fiscal stability. I love this topic. 

I'll be taking the stage twice in Chicago, both on Monday, November 5. Mark your calendars: 

• 8:30 - 10:00 am: Change Leadership: How Change Management Impacts Real Change 

• 1:00 - 2:30 pm: Learning How to Brainstorm and Map Organizational Process and Structures

I thought it might help to share some of the background to these topics with you in advance, to give you some insight into the kind of work I've been doing that has brought me to this place, and to the structure I'll be sharing with you. This post is the first of three to come over the next week in which I'll discuss the nature of change and the impact of on our schools. In addition, the current episode of my podcast offers a brief summary of my role at NBOA this year. I encourage you to check it out—it's only about 10 minutes long. 

My perspective begins with two fairly simple observations on groups, and how groups deal with complex change.

Observation #1: It’s uncertainty—not change—that makes us crazy

It’s not change that people have an issue with—it’s uncertainty. As a leader, think about your experience delivering tough news to your teams; bad news is almost always better than uncertain news, because bad news is concrete. It opens the door for action. With uncertainty, we are hardwired to anticipate the worst. Rumblings about a new leader in our midst, financial challenges, suggestions of reorganizations—this is just the sort of news that cultivates the environment of uncertainty and sends our teams to pieces.

There are those who have learned to welcome uncertainty. They know that uncertainty is fertile ground for the seeds of new ideas. But most of us don’t have that gene, and don't feel empowered when we can’t see the end of the tunnel. Instead we fall somewhere on a spectrum that leads from shock, through denial and confusion, down the road to frustration. Empathy within this dynamic is core to our role as leaders in our organizations. Being a leader in a volatile situation or crisis is about learning to anticipate where this uncertainty will occur for our teams, steering clear of mob mentality, and facing difficult truths with clarity and confidence.

Observation #2: Innovation & Blame

When asking and tough questions of our teams and organizations risks the status quo, it’s often easier to let circumstances dictate outcomes.

We are generally troubled by innovation and the challenges that come with it in the organization. We accept the value of innovation but don’t want to be the ones to innovate. If we innovate, we get to own the success or failure that comes from it. Ownership is scary.

Even with an increasingly public discourse on tuition increases, lack of financial aid, and loss of state aid—creating a climate of indefinite instability—we’re still waiting for answers that aren't coming. That’s because the answer doesn’t lie in a box that someone else hasn’t yet opened. It lies in getting a collective perspective of administrators, faculty, alumni, students, and key stakeholders, and asking questions that uncover the problem—not just the problem as we think we understand it. The answer lies in innovation.

Because innovation is scary, it is a breeding ground for blame. Tuition shortfall? Clearly that must be a finance department issue, so we'll blame them. Enrollment is sluggish? Clearly the admissions department is not pulling its weight, they're to blame. Academics, facilities, administration—we can find reasons to saddle each with the blame for something. But our better selves know that blame is counterproductive. The sooner we find a systematic fashion for getting the very best of each group to solve our collective issues together, the sooner we will begin to craft a foundation for strength and growth.

13: The 15-Minute Meeting

We’ve all been there -- the eternal ineffective meeting. The facilitator labors on and on, agenda lost long, long ago, with no end in sight. But it is possible to hold effective meetings; meetings with focus, attention, participation, and accountability -- and it all starts with a collective understanding of the rules of the field. In this episode, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright outline those rules and provide suggestions for all who are plagued with ineffective meeting-itis on how to spark the right team behaviors and get back on track.

5: The New Leader in Town: Create Impact and Deliver Results as a New Leader to your Team

When you inherit a new team, you inherit all the baggage that comes with it. So how do you drive toward synergy and overcome communication and process roadblocks? This week on the show, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright take on the new team leader and give you strategies for building an cohesive environment you can count on.

2: Canary in the Coal Mine: How do you know when your teams aren’t functioning?

One great truth about managing projects and complex teams is that even the savviest of managers stands the chance of missing key cues when their teams begin to suffer. This week on the show, Howard Teibel joins host Pete Wright to take on this issue and provide strategies for maintaining open communication and increasing the effectiveness of teams in the process.