Higher education faces extraordinary demographic, economic and social pressures that drive many colleges to seek out a bundle of solutions. But focusing solely on what to do without a deep understanding of what you are capable of sets you up to fail.
Colleges need to understand their identity at both the high level of mission and the more pragmatic level of capability. An institution has the freedom to spell out whatever mission is appealing. But reality defines what you are capable of – including your ability to expand and strengthen your existing capabilities. You can’t pretend to be capable of something when the cold, hard facts reveal that you don’t have what it takes to succeed.
Many people think organizations can solve this challenge by contracting with outside parties to fill their “capability gaps.” This approach can work, but how capable is your institution at the hard task of finding and managing contractors? The external challenge of enrolling more students in a new geographic market could be outsourced. The internal challenge of managing a contractor performing an essential role cannot be transferred to an outsider.
There are several core internal capabilities that define a strong organization regardless of mission or sector. These organizational capabilities certainly aren’t more important than your educational capabilities but academic strengths won’t thrive in an organization that lacks the capability to support them.
One of the most important organizational capabilities is the ability to help new leaders quickly become fully functioning members of the campus community. This challenge cuts across academic and administrative functions. If you hire a new dean, CFO or admissions director and leave them to their own devices in their first months, you are wasting time as they struggle to connect to your goals and understand how their job contributes to those goals. Perhaps more dangerously, you are risking the possibility that this vacuum leads them to follow the playbook from a previous institution that may not fit your mission and direction.
Colleges need to understand the core organizational strengths that will help them meet external challenges. This is not just an administrative problem. It is fundamental to the success of their institutional model. Organizationally weak colleges cannot sustain academic strength over time. It is in everybody’s interest to build an organization with the capabilities to support educational success.
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