What’s the difference between visionary and hallucinatory leadership during a strategic planning process? How can a leader best incorporate their own goals and ambitions for their institution with the vision other community members have—and with reality? In a webinar on April 12, RHB Vice President for Marketing Leadership Dr. Rob Zinkan and I discussed eight…Read more
Tag: Strategic Planning
Transcript: Strategic Planning: Leading With Authenticity and Strategy
On April 12, Aimee Hosemann, Sam Waterson and Rob Zinkan hosted RHB’s latest webinar about its strategic planning research, analyzing 108 plans across higher ed. They discuss eight leadership themes that emerged from interviews with presidents of institutions that had the “most strategic” plans. For additional resources, you can watch a recording of the webinar, download the executive…Read more
Institutional Strategic Planning and the Under-Leveraged Capability of Advancement
One objective of RHB’s study of 108 current strategic plans was to bring a constituent-oriented lens to this research. Faculty, staff and administrators play a central role in strategic planning. What about other core constituencies—students, alumni, donors and other stakeholders—and the functional areas responsible for them? For instance, we have previously discussed research implications for…Read more
Transcript: Strategic Planning That’s Truly Strategic
On October 12, RHB’s Aimee Hosemann and Rob Zinkan hosted a webinar, Strategic Planning That’s Truly Strategic, to share findings and critical lessons from RHB’s yearlong study of 108 current strategic plans across higher education. For additional resources, you can watch a recording of the webinar, download the executive summary of the research, purchase the full-report book…Read more
Webinar: Strategic Planning That’s Truly Strategic
Do you know whether your institution’s strategic plan priorities are visionary or hallucinatory? How can you tell the difference, especially given the disruption of normal operations during the last two years? During our October 12 webinar, RHB Vice President for Marketing Leadership Dr. Rob Zinkan and I shared insights about how strategic planning can be…Read more
10 Fears Stifling Innovation in Higher Education
As Lee Gardner noted in “The Barriers to Innovation” in The Chronicle of Higher Education ( 2019 ), “universities often flounder at innovation because they are not really meant to change.” The notion that institutions are inflexible is disconcerting at best. If innovation is considered impossible, no incentive exists to even imagine change. Nonetheless, outdated approaches and…Read more
Why You Don’t Need to be Afraid of Performativity
In our study of 108 active higher education strategic plans, we discovered that by far, the most common theme in strategic plan goals or priorities was diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB). Further, because DEIB-related initiatives were often distributed across all the goals in some plans, it became clear that some institutions were holistically reimagining…Read more
What Strategic Plans Reveal About Higher Ed Marketing
This article previously appeared in Inside Higher Ed and it is posted here with permission of the author. What makes a strategic plan “strategic”? This question was at the heart of a 2020-21 study that my RHB colleague Dr. Aimee Hosemann and I led—with the research assistance of Connor LaGrange, graduate student from the Indiana…Read more
How to Diagnose and Soothe Strategic Planning Fears
The study of 108 strategic plans that my colleagues Drs. Aimee Hosemann and Rob Zinkan conducted this year couldn’t be more timely. Their review of plans from public and private colleges and universities representing all 50 states occurred during one of the most disruptive years in world history, and certainly one of the most pivotal…Read more
What Makes a Strategic Plan “Strategic”?
In an effort to better understand the dynamics and components of strategic plans across higher ed, we undertook a detailed study of more than 100 active strategic plans. The study endeavored to capture a current plan from one private and one public four-year institution in each state, whenever possible. This executive summary is designed to introduce participants in strategic planning processes to important concepts and actions that lead to effective and collaborative strategic plans.