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Lesson 168 Transforming Organizations

Posted in Integrated Marketing, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Planning on June 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

There are three dictionary definitions of the word transform:  (1)  change in form, appearance; or structure; (2) change in condition, nature, or character; (3) change into another substance.

I encountered the term again this week when I read a seminar promotion that claimed it could show me how to transform my institution. I realized that I had also made this assertion in the past. But for some reason when I read the claim this time it made me uncomfortable. What do we really mean when we say this?  And do we need to be more clear about what we mean?

If the word means changing an organization into a totally different place, that would rarely be our objective. This is simply shutting down one institution and launching another. In the case of marketing and communication this is not an example of transformation. Rather it is announcing the creation and start-up of a new organization.

What then is transformation? Characteristics that differentiate an institution are almost always found in its founding mission. New organizations are generally established to meet a need that is not being met. So when we intend to transform an existing organization we usually mean we intend to build on and modernize its founding mission. So extending the original differentiating mission creatively into the future is what I think most of us mean when we use this term.

Therefore, I believe transformation is a word used by most of today’s marketing and communication professionals to mean totally re-energizing an institution and the people who manage it. The most effective plans re-articulate founding mission, vision and values in such as way as to explain them with a bright new vision for the future. Importantly, they feature suggestions for revitalizing both  leadership and program initiatives, along with a complete set of tactical tools to achieve new levels of visibility within critical target markets.

This kind of transformation is not only possible, it is periodically necessary for most organizations.

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Lesson 166 Living and Working in a Global Village

Posted in International, Lessons Learned, Planning, Strategic Communication on May 25, 2013| 1 Comment »

In Washington last week I found myself mentioning the coming globalization of higher education to a colleague.  He instantly  responded by blurting out, “What do you mean “coming?” We have been living in an internationalized world for some time, and right now you are in a total international city!”

When you think about it, he’s right. Every taxi driver in the city seems to be from a different part of the world.  From the airport mine was from Ghana. I was greeted at a nearby hotel’s happy hour by a hostess from Prague, and my maid in the hotel in which I was staying was from Columbia. My taxi driver to a restaurant that night was from India.

And what about food? Would it be Thai, or Greek, or Chinese, or Italian, or Indian. Oh yes, American cuisine can be found too if you look for it. But the choices now are endless, and all are authentic. I chose a steakhouse, but in the same neighborhood were Mexican, Spanish tapas, and Asian fusion choices.

I commented to my friend that I was impressed how well all these people spoke English, and that I wished I had mastered more languages.  But he pointed out that in the global village of today it’s almost impossible to pick the one or two languages that cover the territory.  He argued that the whole world is rapidly accepting English as the common language, and that our challenge now is more learning how to better relate and adapt to other cultures and value systems than learning other languages. An interesting perspective, indeed.

If my friend is right, it is important to begin thinking about this world, not as a coming international community and marketplace, but rather as a global village that has already arrived. That means every university, nonprofit agency, association, business, city, nation and individual, in one way or another is already being influenced by other countries, or is already doing business with them.

This may seem to be a simple truth.  But seeing it in greater depth is likely to change our short-term thinking as we develop our organizations’ marketing and communication plans. How will we respond sooner rather than later to global competition right here at home?  Should we expand activities to other parts of the world earlier than we thought? Indeed, what are all the ways we must change our organizations’ culture in order to have everyone prepared with appropriate savvy and knowledge?

You better have a short-term action plan in mind. The global village is not coming. It is here.

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Lesson 164 Communicating Past Each Other

Posted in Lessons Learned, Planning, Strategic Communication on May 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Several weeks ago I observed an extremely frustrating situation which I have been thinking about ever since. What made it worse was that I was incapable of influencing it. And as I reflected on it afterwards, I had to conclude that it was very typical of many communication situations we face in meetings every day.

There were two groups in the room. One group represented an organization about to be evaluated.  And as a part of preparing for this overall evaluation, its leaders had included a proposal for a bold new and comprehensive institution-wide internationalization program. To me, it was an extraordinary proposal with highly creative features.

The group doing the evaluating, however, chose to see this new program differently. And while they initially gave fairly high marks to the organization overall, their evaluation of this new program proposal turned very negative and dominated most of the meeting time. Rather than applaud the institution for its imaginative new initiative, the evaluators chose to review this proposal as if it was a program already in operation for several years. They focused on the absence of a fully developed institution-wide and long-term budget, a complete organization chart detailing every administrative staff position that would be needed for the total program, and specific methods for evaluating all outcomes. By the end of the meeting, all of this negativity led to an overall feeling in the room that the institution’s capacity to accomplish its overall goals was also being questioned.

On the other hand, my assessment as a listener was that this proposal to internationalize an entire institution was one of the most innovative I have seen anywhere. In fact, I thought it was so carefully thought out that it has the potential to actually achieve national distinction. To me, the start-up budget amount was clearly a strong initial commitment, and it did include a plan for  expanding resources as needed along the way. The proposal also described how all the programmatic details of organization-wide implementation would fall into place over time. I was energized and truly excited by the planners’ imagination and vision. But because the tone of the entire meeting was so negative, everyone representing the organization was depressed and demoralized in the end. I was ready to get on with implementing this new and exciting program, but everyone else was huddling after the meeting trying to understand what had just happened.

This clearly was a situation where two groups were communicating past each other, and the outcome was very disappointing. A preliminary meeting to clarify and set some guidelines might have avoided this negative outcome. Admittedly, pre-meetings are not always feasible. But preparatory conversations that try to anticipate both intended and unintended consequences can make all the difference when a constructive outcome is essential to moving forward.

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Lesson 163 Brainstorming Publicity Ideas

Posted in Branding, Integrated Marketing, Lessons Learned, Planning, Strategic Communication on May 4, 2013| 1 Comment »

How many times have I been in meetings with small nonprofits listening to volunteers make long lists of ideas for how staff can improve visibility and recognition?

Most of the time I just wanted to tell them that anyone can think up more stuff to do, and more stuff to send out. Doing that is not even helpful. The key is to know exactly the right messages, the right audiences, the best tactics, and a feasible way to evaluate effectiveness… and then to make sure there are enough people available to do the work, and an adequate budget.

This is not rocket science. For marketing and communication professionals, it’s difficult to comprehend why people in general don’t understand all this. Too many people think more is better, and they really have no idea what professional public relations practitioners actually know and do.

Simply put, it’s never a matter of making lists of things for the current staff to do, and then making assumptions that they never thought of these things! Trust me, they have. Rather, it’s a matter of going through a systematic planning exercise to determine what not to do, as much as knowing what to do. Sending out more stuff only contributes to an already saturated environment, even when your organization has adequate staff and expertise.

First, you need to identify a set of message points that differentiate the organization from other similar ones. Collectively, these points define brand identity. Then, a few manageable priority markets must be identified, along with the media that each of them prefers. A simple survey mechanism also must be identified to assess market needs, as well as communication effectiveness. And finally, any added work needs to match the size and talent of available staff. Volunteers and interns are helpful, but not reliable over time.

It is very important to remember that more is never automatically better in communication. Less communication, well done and focused, can move organizations ahead. Small organizations must settle for baby steps. But regular and persistent baby steps do lead to  growth and recognition. It’s smart planning, rather than just more activity, that produces results.

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Lesson 162 Retirement vs.Transition

Posted in Lessons Learned, Planning on April 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Retirement seems to be on the mind of many people these days. It keeps coming up in conversations with colleagues everywhere.

I certainly never thought about retirement in the way my father did. At age 65 he called it quits. But these days it seems that more and more people are thinking differently about the end game.  In some cases it might be that people generally are healthy longer. In other cases it might be the consequences of an uncertain economy. But for many of us there remains a strong continuing feeling that our work is not yet done!

Truthfully, I never experienced any of the passages that many of my friends did. I cruised from my 20’s into my 30’s hardly noticing it. When the 40’s came along I was too preoccupied with career survival to even notice. For me mid-life crises never happened. Or, if they did I never focused on them.

At 65 my only fear was that I would over stay my executive position, as many others had done without realizing it. But together, the chancellor and I found a new challenge  before I knew it.  And so, I was off still again for another adventure.

Now at age 70, here we go again. I must admit I have started to think about how long all this can go on, but I indeed do want to go on! And so once again came the possibility of thinking “transition” rather than retirement. This time it seemed prudent to simplify and focus this next stage a bit. And so, the chancellor and I came up with a plan for me to retire as vice-chancellor, but then to reconnect in post-retirement positions as vice-chancellor emeritus and senior fellow in TCU’s John V. Roach Honors College and Schieffer School of Journalism. This time it’s back to the world of ideas and extraordinary students for me, and once again I am reenergize.

Several weeks ago I attended my last trustee meeting where the chancellor explained all this perfectly. Then during honors week, I reengaged with some of the best students on the planet.  Now this week I attended the university’s annual service recognition and retirement ceremony, and again my official retirement was explained more as a transition.

After all, everyone’s ability to make a difference never goes away. It just matures and becomes more experienced. And luckily, today seems to be a time when many of us can actually think this way, and actually make it happen.

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Lesson 149 Career Transitions

Posted in Lessons Learned, Planning on January 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »

This week I announced that I will retire as vice-chancellor at the end of August. In January I will begin a new adventure as senior fellow in strategic and international communication in TCU’s John V. Roach Honors College and Schieffer School of Journalism. This comes after 46 years of association with one university, and after several months of deep reflection on an incredible lifelong odyssey. 

A high school counselor once told me I probably was not college material, and that I better decide where I wanted to be in 5 years and set some specific goals to get there.  Then, in junior college I met two teachers who opened the door to a world of ideas and helped me clarify my strengths and weaknesses. From that moment on I decided to focus on communicating ideas, and tried as best I could to minimize the consequences of my limitations. I never actually set  firm goals and specific objectives.

When I arrived at American University in Washington I thought I might consider the foreign service.  But I became involved in educational broadcasting, and soon decided that becoming a radio and television producer would be my future.  But then as a graduate student I got involved in teaching and fell in love with the thought of immersing myself in a subject matter… media and communication studies.

Arriving at TCU I told some colleagues that all I wanted to do was teach and that I could not understand why anyone would ever go into administration. Then after 8 years of teaching I was challenged to help bring some innovative thinking to our evening college, summer school and non-credit programs, and surprised myself by taking the job.  Later, another opportunity in central administration presented itself, this time with the challenge of bringing new thinking to communicating the institution. After adapting integrated marketing ideas to the academy, I found myself back in Washington in a government affairs position living out the observation, “What goes around, comes around.”

The lifelong career lesson learned for me was that setting specific goals could have been very limiting to my finding  opportunities I never imagined.  When I focused on what I did well, and minimized my limitations as best I could,  opportunities appeared that I would have never planned.

Truthfully, I never thought about what I am now about to do until several months ago. Last fall I taught a colloquium with some of the best honors students on the planet, and still another new opportunity appeared. So here we go again.

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Lesson 146 MOOCs

Posted in International, Lessons Learned, Planning on January 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Communication history teaches that new technologies can be game-changers, but old ones never completely go away. They merely change roles, or accommodate the new circumstances.

Massive Open Online Courses, now called MOOC’s, have recently appeared in higher education. Initially they have taken the form of courses offered online to the world by star professors, and mostly for free. And surprisingly to many, prestige institutions such as MIT and Harvard entered the arena early. Are they really intending to provide a free education to anyone in the world? Or are they merely seizing an opportunity to achieve worldwide visibility at a time when world rankings are beginning to attract attention? Or are they using these courses to attract applications for their residential programs? Or are they primarily collecting market behavior data that can be sold or used in other ways? Or, are they experimenting with all of the above?

Some say MOOCs will bring a level of revolutionary change that could render residential institutions obsolete. Certainly, at minimum the game has changed. Start-up companies are already producing and distributing these courses, and some of these companies are for profit. Most of their course have been non-credit, but that will change. And free is likely to change as well. These ventures certainly plan to succeed. 

At first, the main attraction of basic online courses for institutions was that they were cheaper to produce and administer than traditional classroom education. And, of course, a reduced price is a major benefit to many students, plus the convenience of taking courses from any location. The problem, however, was that they often lacked academic quality and became monotonous over time. And that lack of satisfying interaction and socialization led to a high number of drop-outs.

MOOC advocates assert that technology innovation and computer effects will solve both the quality and socialization problems. And by adding a star professor, they argue you will have an integrated product that will indeed challenge the very survival of residential institutions. Admittedly, technical quality can be achieved. But it seems to me that  higher costs and the need to find more revenue will present the same challenges now faced  by other online startups that also began as free. And in the final analysis, we also cannot overlook the very large number of students and parents that still prefer a more personal living and learning educational setting.

My recent experience with undergraduate honors students suggests that some high quality online courses will be eagerly accepted, and that the appropriate use of technology in other courses is already expected. The star professor is occasionally welcomed too. But there is also a demand for live, talented, and well-educated teacher-scholars to function as expert learning and discussion facilitators and mentors. In other words, there remains a big demand for the total collegiate experience. Sorting out one’s beliefs, discussing lessons from history, exploring ideas from art and literature, debating political issues, learning from fellow students, and developing lifetime relationships, all are vital parts of a complete educational process.

But let’s not be naive about this. There will be a market for MOOCs. They already changed the game in higher education. While they will not eliminate the residential university experience, they will bring  new thinking about how that experience can be enhanced.

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Lesson 145 The Power of Ideas

Posted in Leadership, Lessons Learned, Planning on December 29, 2012| 2 Comments »

Creative and powerful ideas are the key to advancing institutions and society. Extremely talented executives and statesmen are often remembered for their service. But more often than not it is the bold and inspired ideas that they chose to champion that made the difference. As we enter 2013 the world is crying out for a new set of bold and creative ideas. Stong armed dictators, and smooth talking, ideology-driven politicians, clearly are not meeting the need.

The middle east is in total turmoil with countries in various states of disintegration. Dictatorships have failed them. Countries  that have been at war are now in complete disarray. Tribal leaders have failed them. Washington is polarized and paralyzed, and political extremism has failed us. The economy in Europe is threatening to crash, and a common currency alone has failed to unify them. And higher education, which may be the best long-term hope for finding these bold new ideas, is currently under attack in the U.S. for being overpriced and inefficient. And all this just when our educational institutions are struggling to comprehend the full implications and responsibilities of becoming a global enterprise. It’s hard to imagine that so many parts of the world are in turmoil all at the same time.

You may have noticed  that the title theme in the masthead above has changed with this issue. It has been: “Pioneer in Strategic Communication and Integrated Marketing, ” but now it will be:  “Powerful Ideas for Changing Times.”   My  focus in the months ahead will be more on ideas and trends than on “how to” tactics and innovative professional practice. As I told my honors college students this past fall: ” My intentions for the days ahead are to facilitate an “adventure in ideas” about understanding issues and solving problems.

I have come to believe that social progress in 2013 will demand very smart people who can think beyond their profession. It will require rethinking the missions of entire organizations, reconsidering the political influence of individual values and religious systems, re-clarifying the necessary roles and limitations of governments, and much more.  If peaceful coexistence in this rapidly changing world is ever to be achieved, the turmoil of 2012 has convinced me that we will be desperately searching in 2013 for some insightful breakthrough ideas.

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Lesson 143 Rethinking University Advancement

Posted in International, Lessons Learned, Planning on December 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Leaders in university advancement gathered last week in Boston to “rethink” their profession. Education at all levels is in the midst of a revolutionary “sea change,” and advancement people are among those expected to help address  many of the most significant challenges. They are experts in institutional fund-raising, alumni relations, marketing, communications, and government affairs. So why them, and why now?

Simply put, states all over the nation are cutting back financial support. Admittedly, the cuts are more drastic in some states than others. But almost everywhere governors and legislators are rethinking their role in education.  The impact has been significant.  When funding to state supported public institutions declines, tuition goes up. And when this happens, access declines and market dynamics change. Thus, private and for-profit institutional markets change as well. In short, many education leaders are rethinking their core business simply because they have no choice.

The situation in Washington is making matters even worse. In this stressed economy federal financial aid amounts, low-interest rates on loans, and a significant amount of research and program funding are also threatened. Therefore,  advancement officers are launching new initiatives to mobilize their alumni to reach deeper into their pockets, to find more private funding anywhere it’s available, to fine-tune competitive advantage messages, and to expand marketing initiatives. The good news is that in a changing market advancement professionals are more important than ever. But meeting expectations won’t be easy.

Every non-profit organization and cause in the world is currently accelerating its fund-raising activities. They are becoming quite sophisticated. Institutional executives everywhere are approaching every individual, every foundation, and every corporation they can find. New and creative donor recognition ideas are being generated. As a result, past donor loyalties are often threatened, and institutional health can be threatened as well.

At the same time education is becoming a global enterprise, and this is bringing even more change. It’s not merely increasing study abroad programs, or forming foreign partnerships, or building satellite campuses. It’s also foreign institutions coming to North America with marketing ambitions of their own. They begin by calling on their own  alumni, but they also look  for wealthy individuals, foundations and corporations who understand that the world economy and new opportunities are  moving eastward. This also soon leads them to searching for prospective students and parents with the same vision of the future.  

I cannot imagine a more exciting time than now to be in the educational advancement profession. Opportunities to make a difference are extremely high. But performance expectations are even higher. So it is not a profession for the faint of heart. It is that reality that led to the  “rethinking advancement” meeting last week in Boston, and it may have been just the first of many more.   

As I told some of my TCU honors students this week:  “Your talent alone entitles you to nothing. To change this world you will have to work harder than you ever imagined. You will have to go beyond your incredible talent into the realm of competitive strategic problem-solving, complicated issues management, and compelling innovative thinking.”  That is the reality for every profession today, just as it is for university advancement.

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Lesson 124 Group Think

Posted in Integrated Marketing, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Planning on August 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I have encountered “group think” in executive teams in many institution over the years. In each case it was a very dangerous situation. The eventual consequence is that leaders lose their abilities to effectively guide their institutions through rapidly changing conditions.

Group think happens this way:  An executive team first finds success managing in a certain set of market circumstances. They may have followed their instincts and got lucky. Or they may have followed market research. Whatever the explanation they were able to find a successful model and manage the institution effectively over a period of time by following it.  However, in doing so they gradually stopped receiving external information. They no longer welcomed input. They began to reject criticism, and silently felt threatened by new ideas. Simply put, they became isolated while the world outside was changing.

On the other hand, some executive teams manage to avoid destructive “group think.”  And in my experience these teams tend to have a common set of  behavior characteristics:

1. They understand they must out-learn their competition. They must stay on top of  industry trends, continue to study their market, and stay current on new technology. And to do this they put specific mechanisms and programs in place which ensure that constant team learning takes place.

2. They operate in a culture where they do not compete for resources.  Rather they challenge each other to come up with the best possible proposals to advance each area of operation. Then, they collaborate on setting priorities and making budget allocation decisions.  Everyone is heard, and everyone buys into the compromises essential to moving forward together.

3. In addition, every member of the team celebrates colleagues when they achieve something significant…an award recognition in their field or a success in the institution. Everyone puts aside any tendency for professional jealously by frequently articulating the positive outcomes of these team celebrations.

4. Outside input is invited on a regular basis. Research is conducted. Consultants are invited in to share ideas. People inside the organization with thoughts or criticisms are invited to the table to express them. Everyone understands that the tendency for executive isolation is natural and universal, and that overcoming it is the only road to continued success.

In the final analysis, “group think” as a result of executive isolation is the primary reason institutions fail, aristocracies decline, civilizations fall, and entire societies disappear. It is the lesson of history. Every public or private executive  team in every society must therefore learn this lesson. Otherwise, they will falter for a while, and  then very likely fail.

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