Most university leaders right now are making decisions with bad information. The metrics measure the wrong things. The faculty have turf to protect. Your peers are as lost as you are. And the federal environment isn't going to clarify on a timeline that helps anyone. So, what do you actually do?

Th...

I have spent the better part of two decades trying to do strategy work inside institutions that were not built to receive it. I learned to write the plans, map the processes, build the infrastructure, and make the case. What I could not do, and it took me longer than I would like to admit to underst...

Why strategy must come before planning and why getting the order wrong is the most common mistake in higher education.

This piece synthesizes and extends the series on strategy, planning, and organizational design in research-intensive higher education. It is designed to stand alone as a framework,...

What Ben Horowitz's survival manual teaches us about the moment universities are actually in

There's a genre of advice circulating right now aimed at university leaders scrambling to respond to federal funding cuts and administrative award delays. It goes something like this: diversify your revenue...