Planning: The Organization of Hope Dr. Robert A. Sevier Senior Vice President Stamats, Inc.

1. Southern Polytechnic State University Planning: The Organization of Hope Dr. Robert A. Sevier Senior Vice President Stamats, Inc. Cedar Rapids, IA 52406 (800) 553-8878 bob.sevier@stamats.com

2. About Stamats We are an award-winning, nationally-recognized higher education research, planning, and marketing communications company. Our mission is to help college and university leaders achieve their most important marketing, recruiting, and fundraising goals through the creation of customized integrated marketing solutions. Research, Planning, and Consulting Services • Image and competitive positioning studies • Tuition price elasticity studies • Alumni and donor studies • Marketing communication audits • Recruiting audits • Campus visit audits • Integrated marketing plans • Brand clarification and communication plans • Recruiting plans • Strategy development and strategic plans • Board presentations • Project-specific consulting Creative Services • Recruiting and fundraising publications • Web site development • Virtual tours • Direct marketing strategies (search, annual fund) • Targeted e-mail marketing systems • Advertising • Creative concepting • Content management systems • Dynamic news and events calendars • Message boards/chats • Offices: Cambridge, Richmond, Portland (OR), San Francisco, and Cedar Rapids

3. My Goals for This Session • Explore the idea of planning • Discuss four basic types of flawed plans • Present a series of “keys” for making your next plan a success

4. Some Key Questions • Why do we plan? • What are some problems with higher education’s approach to planning? • What are the hallmarks of a good planning experience?

5. The Most Important Things … • Planning is a formalized attitude • It’s not the plan that counts, but what you do with the plan • The core concept of planning is to “probe and explore” and identify opportunities to help you achieve your vision • As soon as the first shot is fired, the (battle) plan begins to unwind • A dexterous planning process is more important than any plan

6. What Is Planning? • John Bryson: Planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it • Michael Dolence et al.: Planning helps an organization identify and maintain an optimal alignment with the most important elements of its environment • Leonard Goodstein et al.: Planning is the process by which the guiding members of an organization envision its future and develop the necessary procedures and operations to achieve that future • Philip Kotler and Patrick Murphy: Planning is the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organization and its changing market opportunities

7. Planning - continued Planning is the organization of hope Stephen Blum

8. Types of Plans Our focus • Strategic plans • Integrated marketing plans • Integrated marketing communications plans

9. Essential Elements of Strategy • The process is strategic because it involves choosing how best to respond to the circumstances of a dynamic and sometimes hostile environment • Colleges and universities have many choices in the face of changing stakeholder needs, funding availability, competition, and other factors • Being strategic requires recognizing these choices and committing to one set of responses instead of another • Strategic thinking and planning is systematic in that it calls for following a process that is both focused and productive • The process raises a sequence of questions which helps planners and internal stakeholders examine past experiences, test old assumptions, gather and incorporate new information about the present, and anticipate the environment in which the organization will be working in the future

10. Elements – continued • Strategic thinking involves choosing specific priorities; making decisions about ends and means, in both the long term and the short term • Strategic thinking is about building commitment • Systematically engaging key stakeholders in the process of identifying priorities allows disagreements to be engaged constructively and supports better communication and coordination • The process allows a broad consensus to be built, resulting in enhanced accountability throughout the organization

11. Basic Planning Fallacies • Planning is a science • You can predict the future • Consensus is achievable • There are perfect solutions • There is a perfect time • Alphas have all the answers • You know what your competitors are going to do

12. The Domains of Planning in Higher Education • A strategic planning domain is a key (and existing) institutional process or activity • Most plans are executed through the coordination of the following: • Academic affairs • Recruiting and financial aid • Advancement and alumni relations (fundraising) • Facilities and IT • Student development/retention • Brand marketing and image • Finance • Human resources

13. Everybody Pulling in the Same Direction The Plan Academic Affairs Recruiting/Financial Aid Advancement Facilities & IT Student Development Brand Marketing Finance HR

14. Three Types of Plans to Avoid

15. The “Business as Usual” Plan • The “business as usual” plan demonstrates little objective rethinking of institutional mission, goals, or strategies, but instead relies on extrapolating the institution’s past into its future • The implied message is “let’s just keep doing what we’ve been doing” • Such plans evidence little rigorous analysis or creativity • Stretch goals are notably absent, as are objective assessments of opportunities for improvement • The institution simply wants to “tread water” under the assumption that “things are good now, so why change”

16. The “Wish List” Plan • The “wish list” plan sets forth a veritable laundry list of new initiatives for the institution to pursue, tied to advancing a far-reaching set of strategic objectives • Participants in the planning process have been asked to “blue sky” the institution’s future, typically responding to queries such as “What would we do if we were suddenly given $100 million dollars by a generous donor?” • The result is too often a non-prioritized catalogue of unrelated initiatives, reflecting little institutional consensus and determination of how such initiatives are to be funded

17. The “Perfect” Plan • There is no such thing as a perfect plan • Getting to perfect costs too much, takes too long, and expends too much political capital • In addition, perfect plans require a perfect understanding of the marketplace, our competitors, and the future • Instead of perfect, go for “pretty good” in a timely fashion

18. Keep in Mind I would rather go into battle with a good plan today than a perfect plan tomorrow —General George S. Patton

19. The Platte River Approach to Planning • David Leslie and E. K. Fretwell, in Wise Moves in Hard Times, remind us that planning has been used as a “euphemism for indiscriminate expansiveness” • The idea of more: • Mission creep • Mission climb • The result of this expansionism on most campuses is a barely sustainable mix of marginal to average programs, expensive facilities, and large faculties • There are no signature programs • Nothing that captures the attention of the marketplace • Nothing with any “Wow!” • A mile wide but only an inch deep

20. Concerns About Planning • Fear of hard decisions. Colleges and universities are highly charged political environments in which no one is shy about expressing dismay. Hard, unpopular decisions can wreak havoc, so leaders avoid making them • Fuzzy, unmeasurable goals. One state system wants to “foster collaboration between units” • A major private university wants to be “the leader in the integration of teaching and research.” A comprehensive university stakes its future on “increasing access to knowledge resources” • The “all things to all people” syndrome. A large public university that seeks to become one of the top 10 publics • Institutions such as this are fond of saying that they can’t be all things to all people, but then they set out to prove otherwise • This one wanted to “elevate our faculty and its teaching, research, and scholarship” and “globalize the university community”

21. Keep in Mind To fight fear, act. To increase fear, wait, put off, postpone —David Joseph Schwartz

22. The Most Important Planning Element • It begins with focus The future does not belong to Coleman lanterns Rather, it belongs to MAG-lites

23. Focus on … • A target geography • A certain kind of student • A certain way of teaching • A certain discipline

24. Keep in Mind A dog that chases a hundred rabbits goes home hungry. A dog that chases one rabbit goes home with a rabbit

25. The Idea of Being Audacious • Three levels of thinking: • Predictable • Surprising • Courageous (I call this one audacious)

26. Audacious - continued • The decision of Trenton State to downsize its enrollment by one-third and eliminate many graduate programs so it could energize its commitment to undergraduate education is a galvanizing decision • Equally galvanizing was the decision by Northeast Missouri State University to become Truman State or Southwestern at Memphis to become Rhodes College • The decision by Indiana Wesleyan University to jump feet-first into distance and off-site education created a sense of excitement (not to mention possibilities) on that campus

27. The Leader’s Role in Planning • Provide vision and direction • Prioritize – fewer better goals • Provide resources • Manage from 32,000 feet; but bring the fruits of planning down to the trenches • Hold people accountable

28. The Follower’s Role in Planning • Execute the plan • Types of followers: • Pragmatic followers • Alienated followers • Comformist • Passive followers • Exceptional followers Q What kind of follower are you?

29. Keys to Successful Planning • Recognize the basic fallacies of planning • Keep it simple • It begins with vision (the puzzle box top) • Identify strategic issues • Watch those paradigms • It’s not SWOT, but OTSW • You need great data (without it, it’s only an opinion) • Herd the elephants • Beware the dangers of consensus management • Don’t forget the pareto principle • Use a pay-off matrix • Without cash it’s only a wish • It’s all about execution

30. Keep it Simple • Get your ego out of the situation. Good judgment is based on reality. The more you screen things through your ego, the farther you get from reality • Avoid wishful thinking. We all want things to go a certain way. But how things go are often out of our control. Good common sense tends to be in tune with the way things are going • You’ve got to be better at listening. Common sense by definition is based on what others think. It’s thinking that is common to many. People who don’t have their ears to the ground lose access to important common sense

31. It Begins With Vision • A vision is “a realistic, credible, attractive future for your organization” – Nanus • “A vision is a combination of gut values and a tangible goal” – Keller • Gut values need to be the ones that are part of the college’s tradition and to which at least a large minority on campus already subscribe • If the values articulated in a vision are too idealistic or vague the vision will be treated cynically   • The northbound train • Conveys an unwavering commitment to a particular direction

32. Qualities of a Good Vision • The right vision for a college or university should be: • Future-oriented • Utopian—clearly offering a better future for the organization • Appropriate—consistent with mission, history, values, and culture • Reflecting high ideals and standards of excellence • Clear in purpose and direction • Able to inspire enthusiasm and encourage commitment • Ambitious

33. Identify Your Strategic Issues • The identification of strategic issues: • Focus on issues and not answers • Creates the tension needed to prompt organizational change • Should provide useful clues about how to resolve the issue • Allows insight into possible ways that the issue might be resolved • If the planning process has not been “real” up until this point, it will become real now • The planning process will begin to seem less academic and more meaningful

34. A Lesson from Steven Covey Circle of Concern Circle of Influence Things you really can’t do anything about Things you can change

35. The Problem With Paradigms • The tyranny of our traditions • Or what I learned from Thomas Lawton

36. SWOT or OTSW • What’s wrong with SWOT? • Inside vs. outside • Problems and opportunities • Data, data, data, you can’t make bricks without clay — Sherlock Holmes

37. Keep in Mind Chances are your main threat is behind you

38. Herd the Elephants • Remember the TV commercial for alcoholism awareness that featured an elephant in a family’s living room • Everyone in the family acted as if the elephant was not there • The idea was that alcoholism in a family is like an elephant in the room—everybody knows its there, but they all pretend it doesn’t exist • On numerous occasions while working with colleges and universities I have found myself involved in planning projects that didn’t want to recognize one or more elephants in the room • Now, I often open planning sessions by asking if there are any elephants in the room? • My goal is to help clients get the elephants out in the open as quickly as possible • And as with any problem, acknowledging it is often the first step toward dealing with it

39. Beware the Dangers of Consensus Management What are the odds of everyone agreeing on a course of action? No Perhaps Possibly Yes

40. Pareto Principle • In any series of elements to be controlled, a selected small fraction in terms of number of elements almost always accounts for a large fraction in terms of effect • What? • In layman’s terms, Pareto discovered that about 80 percent of the wealth of most countries was controlled by a consistent minority of people; typically about 20 percent. He called this a “predictable imbalance” • We call it the 80/20 rule • The key is Joseph M. Juran’s “vital few and trivial many” • Juran suggests that when we all have too little time, talent, and money, we must spend more time truly focusing on the 20 percent (the vital few) rather than the 80 percent (the trivial many)

41. Pay Off Matrix

42. Without Cash It’s Only a Wish • Talk is cheap • Commitment is spelled with a $ • Don’t ever begin a planning process without a sense of the available dollars • Don’t start something you can’t sustain

43. It’s All About Execution • Just do it • W3 • Who • Does What • When • No snowflake …

44. Hustle as Strategy

45. Keep in Mind You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do

46. Think plan. Plan and do. Do and leave undone.

47. Beckwith: Selling the Invisible Bossidy: Execution Bryson: Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations Goodstein: Applied Strategic Planning Harari: Leapfrogging the Competition Kotter: Leading Change Kriegel: Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers Leslie: Wise Moves in Hard Times Nanus: Visionary Leadership Sevier: Strategic Planning: Theory and Practice Trout: The Power of Simplicity Resources