One bold prediction for higher education senior leadership in the upcoming decade.
Context Matters
When a solution is needed by a college and a provider has that solution, shouldn’t the rest be easy?
The Fifth Discipline – Revisited
Having taken all manner of personality indicators, I agree with their consistent findings that people who do not perform effectively, in a collaborative fashion, nor with a proper prioritization of goals, are easily waived off in my brain as “morons.” I struggle to give second chances and I quickly look for workarounds to people and departments that appear obstructivistic regarding forward thinking initiatives, student support, or even student learning, etc.
What Is A Learning Ecosystem?
A crucial “systems thinking” component of a learning ecosystem is this: Integration trumps functionality. In other words, if 85% of your desired functionality can be achieved with a fully integrated tool, or 97% of your desired functionality can be achieved with no connection to other parts of the ecosystem, use the former and avoid the latter. (Of note, this is why the RFI / RFP process can be so detrimental to an organization’s longitudinal well-being from a systems perspective.)
Innovation 101
Google it. Explore if through ERIC. Do what you do so well! Research the idea, the strategy, etc. See how other schools have done it, or alternatively, see if there are reasons schools have chosen NOT to do something. Look at the business stream in which the initiative was accomplished and then ask how it might be performed in a your specific higher education context. Ping your network and ask colleagues what they think. Go to Twitter or LinkedIn and create a post about it, looking for comments and feedback. Just noodle with it. Even if you finally conclude that it can’t work or if you never end up using it, the continual practice will help. See, as you collect more and more of those ideas, you’ll start to have a throng of options available when the right day comes.
Lying With Data Is Easy – Telling The Truth Without It Is Hard
Data has just danced around the edges of usefulness for most colleges and universities over time. We have MOUNDS of data, right? We have historical data going back decades. Granted, it’s mostly on paper, in cabinets, locked away in a storage room we only open every seven years, brushing off dust and cobwebs like an Indiana Jones film so as to cherry pick the best data to show accreditors…but it’s there.