Strategic Action: Why Higher Education Needs Strategic Action as much as Strategic Planning

Note: this is a four-part series. Read Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

By Patrick Farrell and Katherine Sanders

INTRODUCTION

Strategic planning helps an institution envision its future. Good strategic plans take a broad view of the internal and external landscapes, envision the organization’s future, and invite innovation to make that future real.

However, a plan is only helpful to the degree that it is actionable. Without action, the plan can’t help us reach our goals.

We put a strategic plan in play by identifying strategic actions.

WHAT IS STRATEGIC ACTION?

We’ve got a strategic plan and need to decide where to start. How do we choose? What makes for a “good start” and what might be leading us into a quagmire? We choose the starting place by weighing:

likelihood of success
importance
visibility
potential to relieve log-jams and/or enable future action

Strategic actions may be large and aimed at one or more pillars of the strategic plan, or they may be smaller and aimed at critical enablers. Enablers might be thought of as levers or catalysts for change in the institution. If one of them changes, it makes other changes easier to envision.

The choice of where to start also depends on what your leadership group is ready for. We recommend that the first strategic actions be smaller scale and lower risk. Smaller, lower-risk strategic actions can make change visible while also modeling how the change process works.

HOW TO GET STARTED

Work with your leadership team to determine two or three initial strategic actions. We call them the front-runners. Choose something that is explicitly related to the plan and meaningful to your organization. Your front-runners should matter to your people so they can easily connect the dots between the strategic actions and the strategic plan.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTING FRONT-RUNNERS

Front-runners are potential strategic actions that your leadership team can envision a path to make happen. Start with lower risk actions to create two or three front-runners. Here are some things to consider:

Has the attributes for key strategic action (above)
Someone on your leadership team already has expertise/experience on how to start
Embedded in your organization is most of the expertise needed for success
You have or can feasibly find the resources
You have a senior leader who is willing to champion this idea and has the influence to do so effectively

Creating front-runners is a powerful starting point for making a plan into a reality. Any ambitious strategic plan will take years to implement, but if the plan is to be taken seriously, action has to happen very quickly after the planning process concludes. We are fighting cynicism (“we’ve talked about this before and nothing came of it”) while at the same time, trying to capitalize on the momentum and hope that the planning process created.