Disruptive Innovation, the concept that new — typically inferior — products have the tendency to crowd out better products that are more costly, has been doing it’s own crowding in higher ed leadership. This week in the Chronicle, Evan Goldstein does his part to unravel the mystique of Clay Christensen and the DI landslide, a fascinating article in and of itself. There is clearly disruption in higher ed. Does it fit the model of Christensen’s Disruptive Innovation to the letter? Perhaps not. But...
Oct 06, 2015•26 min•Ep. 120
Next month, eastern business officers and university representatives decend on Philadelphia for EACUBO’s 2015 Annual Meeting. Howard Teibel will be there, this year joining incoming EACUBO chair Lynne Schaefer hosting a conversation on Facilitating Strategic Conversations. How do you engage your team to take on complex projects? How do you rally around objectives that are handed down to you? How do you adjust your course when you realize your group is mired in old thinking? This week on the show...
Sep 29, 2015•31 min•Ep. 119
On September 28th the NACUBO 2015 Planning and Budgeting Forum kicks off in Austin, Texas and Howard Teibel will be there, joining Sue Menditto — NACUBO’s director of accounting policy — in a presentation on leadership and change and getting the organization you want. We’re thrilled to have Sue join us for our conversation today. Sue kicks us off with some background on the conference and makes a fantastic case for attending. This is the fourth year for the Planning and Budgeting forum and 2015 ...
Sep 15, 2015•26 min•Ep. 118
This week on Navigating Change we welcome Manu Narayan to the show. Manu is a truly renaissance man. He’s an actor of stage and screen. He’s an accomplished musician. He’s a writer and producer. And for all his professional creative talents, he joins us to discuss his role of Young Alumni trustee on the board of Carnegie Mellon University. Our conversation is broad in scope, but the lessons are important. Manu’s experience and youth at the table of senior leadership reflects more accurately the ...
Sep 08, 2015•34 min•Ep. 117
Hard skills and soft skills. We’ve certainly discussed them before. Your organization is likely full of competent leaders, managers, and team members well qualified to perform their functions, expert finance leaders, marketing and enrollment specialists, academic leaders, and beyond. This week, Gail Gregory and Howard Teibel share their insights into the challenges they’re seeing across institutions. Our sensationalist headline aside, the not-so-surprising key learning: institutions replete with...
Sep 01, 2015•28 min•Ep. 116
Last week’s conversation on turning leaders into guides inspired us to revisit the Teibel Decision-Making Model in the light of helping guides facilitate decision-making without authority. How do you help those empowered and accountable for change move through difficult decisions without skin the game yourself? This week we walk through the model through this lens and post the key question plaguing so many teams focused on change: Do you really understand the conversations you’re in? The project...
Aug 25, 2015•24 min•Ep. 115
Making the transition from leader to guide, from administrator of your own institution to agent of change for others, is a complex effort both personally and professionally. At this year's AGB Conclave, new and seasoned administrators alike came together to learn and share as they work to turn their experience into support for others. This week on the show, Howard Teibel shares his experience leading a small portion of the Conclave, and offers insight into the challenges and opportunities ahead ...
Aug 18, 2015•22 min•Ep. 114
NACUBO is currently developing a body of research and series of tools to help business officers and their institutions assess their place in the economic landscape of higher education. Changing demographics and a decline in students, decline in state funding, decline in philanthropy, and an increase in tuition and fees above CPI are just a few of the factors impacting higher ed operations and the public impression of American institutions. Thanks to research led by Senior Fellow of Finance and C...
Jul 30, 2015•30 min•Ep. 113
Today we’re talking about bottlenecks in project implementation, it’s a sort of spiritual follow-up to a conversation we had just a few weeks back, (The Danger of Thinking in Projects — Ep 101), and we have an expert with us to share the load with keen experience in rolling out large institutional software installations. Joining us on the show this week, we have our special guest Brian Sweeney. Brian is the head of US Operations for Unimarket, providing procurement solutions to higher ed institu...
Jul 23, 2015•28 min•Ep. 112
Being in the middle of a major school merger, Mike Gower knows the importance of clear and concise strategic plan. As SVP for finance and treasurer at Rutgers, Mike has an active role in leading change as these institutions come together, aligning resources and data in service of delivering top tier education for their students. This week, Mike joins Howard Teibel in Nashville, TN, as they take a few minutes out of their busy NACUBO Annual Meeting schedule to share thoughts on leadership and cha...
Jul 20, 2015•36 min•Ep. 111
Nuno Cuoto lives and works from his RV. In his work as a consultant and project manager in higher education, his ultra-mobile command center has become a central component to leading change through his firm, Optimal Partners. This week on Navigating Change, Nuno joins Gail Gregory and Pete Wright for a conversation around improved business models in higher education. It’s a discussion around the power of education, and how we as providers can thoroughly engage all stakeholders in the equation. W...
Jul 14, 2015•30 min•Ep. 110
The Administrative Management Institute is coming up July 27-31 at Cornell University, co-sponsored by our friends at EACUBO. This is a professional conference for line managers, department heads, and other leaders across the higher ed organization, coming together to talk about the role of effective decision making in developing and executing departmental strategy. If you’re a line manager, you might live in a world in which you believe that decisions are made above your pay grade. This week on...
Jul 07, 2015•24 min•Ep. 109
It’s a show of a different color this week as we take on a debilitating challenge faced by so many of our colleagues: we are terrible at disconnecting, recharging, and prioritizing ourselves over our work. The idea for this show started as a chance to talk about how we’re pledging to take smarter vacations, but it doesn’t take long before we veer into culture and the demands of communication, technology, and stress. No, this isn’t about higher ed, but if you work in this field with us, you know ...
Jun 30, 2015•30 min•Ep. 108
If you’re taking the stage as a presenter at the NACUBO Annual Meeting, you’re (hopefully!) well into preparing your presentation, rehearsing your slides, ensuring your jokes are funny, and timing what are sure to be copious applause breaks! But it’s never too late to learn from the greats, so this week on the show, Gail Gregory and Pete Wright are talking presentations, and offering insights that can help you turn your speech into a memorable event!
Jun 23, 2015•38 min•Ep. 107
We often talk about the power of a strong partnership between the chief academic and business officers in driving institutional change. Today, we’re talking with two individuals who demonstrate the practical success that comes from just this sort of partnership, as their institution is truly tested with a change in their fundamental economic reality. Faced with declines in state funding leading the nation, University of Colorado has been forced to develop innovative solutions that allow the inst...
Jun 16, 2015•30 min•Ep. 106
The board’s announcement that 2014-15 will be the last academic year for Sweet Briar College has given our field much to process. Each constituent audience — from administrators, to the board, to faculty and students, to staff and community — has been struggling, in some cases quite publicly, with a world in which their institution no longer exists. And now, as this closure moves into the courts, even more questions arise around the question of legality in this closure. It’s a complex scenario, ...
Jun 09, 2015•18 min•Ep. 105
Are you considering shared services? It's is a concept rich in opportunity, and rife with concern across institutions facing the pressure of change. Administratively, taking advantage of streamlining opportunities makes intuitive sense; sharing administrative and technological resources across the university rather than department by department has the potential for reduced costs, increased specialization and expertise, and greater consistency in work practices. But the process of changing acros...
Jun 02, 2015•31 min•Ep. 104
Lasting change comes in two parts. First, you have to have a clear vision of where you'd like to go, with a leadership team aligned behind a mission, and a strategy to get there. Second, you have to build a culture that not only encourages, but inspires individuals to take action in support of your strategy each and every day. It is from incremental daily action that sweeping institutional change emerges. How do you lead from behind and mentor others to step forward? This week, Howard Teibel and...
May 26, 2015•39 min•Ep. 103
Following up on our conversation around what's going on in the education landscape in episode 99, we're talking about collaboration — real, true, and authentic collaboration between teams that don't fully understand one another. It's a conversation in which we attempt to resolve the noise between faculty, administrators, boards, and students in favor of improved signal. As Howard so aptly observes, "Success, for many presidents and cabinents, is simply the absence of collective dissent." This we...
May 19, 2015•17 min•Ep. 102
We talk often about the importance of senior leadership alignment around mission, vision, and strategic goals for the institution. But once you define this strategic direction, how do you translate it into the day to day activities that move the institution forward? This week, Howard Teibel and Pete Wright discuss the importance of making the leap from “project thinking” to framing change around transformation, dodging the stagnation that comes with the return to business as usual, once change p...
May 12, 2015•21 min•Ep. 101
The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities just wrapped up their annual conference at Fordham University in New York City and Howard Teibel was on hand with our friends from Loyola to discuss "A New Way of Proceeding," Loyola's administrative and academic review. You've heard us talk about this project before on the podcast in our series on Loyola's work. This week, we're looking back on the project as Howard and the Loyola leadership team take the stage to present the results of their ...
May 05, 2015•15 min•Ep. 100
Recorded straight off stage from the 2015 AGB National Conference on Trusteeship, Howard Teibel shares his reflections on trusteeship, and lessons he learned working with trustees navigating their most challenging issues. From the coming closure of Sweet Briar, to the challenges of institutionalizing change, Howard and Pete dive into the importance of changing our thinking from cooperation to collaboration, and shifting adversarial relationships toward finding alignment across the entire institu...
Apr 27, 2015•18 min•Ep. 99
As we cruise toward our centennial episode of Navigating Change, we’re stepping back to share some of our key lessons learned. We’ve heard from presidents, chancellors, and trustees as they navigate their institutions though the rough seas of higher education, from the funding challenges facing the large publics to the demand challenges of community colleges, the value challenges of the smaller liberal arts colleges to the credibility challenges of the for profits. This week on the show, Howard ...
Apr 20, 2015•18 min•Ep. 98
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 collect...
Apr 13, 2015•26 min•Ep. 97
The challenge and complexity around audacious change projects continues to grow in our institutions. This week on the show, we take on the impact of culture and environment on our ability to drive complex change projects. Ron Friedman is an award-winning psychologist and author of “The Best Place to Work,” a book that offers a view of the latest research in management, motivation, behavior and beyond, to illuminate what really makes us successful on the job. We’ve invited Ron to join us for a co...
Apr 06, 2015•32 min•Ep. 96
Over the past month, we've talked with university presidents, trustees, and faculty, cultivating a dialog around building strong relationships between institutional leadership. In the face of strained board-president relationships, diffused shared governance practices, challenging financial and regulatory environment, stresses on the balance of leadership abound. In light of the search for this careful balance of accountability, authority, and responsibility at the top, our conversation today fo...
Mar 30, 2015•34 min•Ep. 95
Teibel, Inc. has been working with UMass Lowell as part of the institution’s strategic planning process. Today on the show, we’re going to dive deeper into the project with our special guests from UML, Joanne Yestramski and Lauren Turner. The work of their teams across the institution has served to cement a culture of organizational agility in this challenging education market, and has fostered year over year growth in quality education, service, and enrollment. Joanne and Lauren join Gail Grego...
Mar 23, 2015•34 min•Ep. 94
Our on-going series on governance brings us to the faculty perspective this week. From the point of view of an academic leader in the institution, we’re interested in putting a framework around expectations of governance, in particular: how do we do shared governance effectively in our institutions? Given the sometimes subtle nuance between authority, accountability, and responsibility for leadership, how do we know when we’re doing it well? This week on the show, Professor Steve Fowl joins us t...
Mar 16, 2015•34 min•Ep. 93
The university board has an opporunity to help guide the strategy of the institution. But striking the right balance between engagement and over-involvement in leadership can be a challenge. From his perspective — and his 16-year tenure as president of St. Edward’s University — Dr. George Martin has cultivated a reputation of leadership and balanced communication with the board of his institution. This week on the show, Dr. Martin shares the critical importance of developing a discipline of stra...
Mar 09, 2015•22 min•Ep. 92
In part two of our series on governance, we turn to Rick Legon. In his role as president of the Association of Governing Boards, Legon has worked with institutions around the world, helping to strengthen board relationships and further the dialog for change. The challenge lies in creating a shared dialog, according to Legon. “Cultural norms exist to keep stakeholders in their place. We can’t continue that way, but the behavior is entrenched." This week on the show, Howard Teibel and Rick Legon d...
Mar 02, 2015•18 min•Ep. 91
