Even the most well-outlined plans may fail to deliver their promise if the institution’s culture is pushed to the lower rung of the ‘change’ ladder. Shawn Parr, CEO of Bulldog Drummond, resonates this fact in his article ‘Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch’.  According to his viewpoint, “Culture is the environment in which your strategy and your brand thrives or dies a slow death. There are significant benefits that come from a vibrant and alive culture. A vibrant culture provides a cooperative and collaborative environment for a brand to thrive in.”  This holds true for the higher education sector too. Hence, universities and the academic leaders must realize that culture can be an exponential tool in their armory for an effective change management.

In our concluding part of the series ‘Vibrant Varsities’, we bring a concise, practical guide for the institutions to cope and manage change, taking culture’s influence into consideration.

Define the Problems and Change Objectives

The first step is to identify the barriers to the strategic change. An in depth review should answer why your institution needs to become responsive to the changes.  Another focus should be on the type and scale of change. Whether it should be structural, cultural, process or all these three?  Do you want to make all the changes right away, or take an incremental approach? You must also include problems such as lack of resources,  leadership conflicts and policy issues in your action plan. Let’s say,  the problem is the lack of modernization in the current curriculum. The desired outcome might be a technology enabled learning (TEL) course structure. To achieve this, you will have to find out which is the right technology, who are the innovative educators and will it increase the student engagement. In a nutshell, after you have established the key problems, there would be much more clarity in proposing specific and detailed outcomes to each of these problems.

Form a Team of Change Agents

Change means a potential threat to the existing way of doing things. This translates into likely resistance from the stakeholders in the institution.  It is at this juncture, that the institution can bring the right and  like-minded senior academic leaders to the table to wear the cap of change agents or problem solvers. These change makers are willing to take the institutional change personally; believe that the changes they are bringing are genuine; and can even change their leadership style to accommodate the changes.  They can lead, inspire, influence and motivate the academic and student community to make the change happen and give it an image akin to a campaign.

Forge ‘Change’ Network Alliances

A Harvard Business Review study shows that network centrality is critical to the success for the change agents, irrespective of their formal position in the institution.  In order to sell the idea of ‘change’ to the ‘change targets’ (people who will benefit from the change) and ‘change haters’ (people who resist the change), the change agents have to build alliances with other academics.  Whether they route it through their personal, formal or informal network, either way, more people are expected to join the mission and extend their support.

Adopt an Organic Approach

An incremental approach to change can yield better results than a radical transformation. This is because, the stakeholders in your institution may not respond suitably, if the changes happen too quickly. Hence, the change makers can initiate the process by entrusting one department at the university with this responsibility, challenging them to diagnose issues and develop creative solutions. Based on the outlook, views and feedback of this department,  the changes can be extended to other departments as well. This way, the relationships and networks will multiply, making it relatively an effortless exercise to implement the changes across the entire campus.

Communicate the Changes to the Top Line

For a continuous improvement in the change process,  it is imperative for the vice chancellors and deans to be aware of how things are unfolding at the bottom. The wealth of information collected from different departments can back the decisions made by the leaders and also measure the impact of the changes in the institution. A continuous evaluation of the change management initiatives will also help to reaffirm the organizational commitment at various levels and across different stakeholders.

Implementing changes in the university culture are difficult, but not impossible. They do not happen overnight. To embrace the changes successfully, the institutions as well as the change makers are required to exercise the virtues of patience and lead by example.

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But, the big questions that still haunt the universities are:  How do we achieve this flexibility? What changes do we make to become proactive? How do we ensure that the institution will continue to sustain the global challenges? These are precisely some concerns that this post will address. It will take you through the core education strategies that can help you to foster vibrancy and responsiveness in your institution.

Create an anti-bureaucratic structure

According to a British Council India report, education in India is highly politicized and complex, particularly in the post secondary sector.  The formal structures restrict the distribution of power and resources required to drive the flexibility and transparency at the university level.  The rigid bureaucracy also puts the reforms and innovation on the back seat. A nimbler and stronger institution can make a difference here. What an institution should do is to trim the extra layers to cultivate a flat and glib organizational structure. This will remove the barriers between the decision making body and the academic leaders, enabling quicker approvals for the adoption as well as the management of changes.

Develop a dynamic workforce

In a majority of universities, including the top tier ones, there are two prominent stumbling blocks in creating a vibrant workforce: lack of academic autonomy and uneven salary structure.  The faculty barely has an authoritative say in the matters such as courses, syllabi, project funding or any other academic interests. They are largely dependent on the deans or vice chancellors to take these decisions. Similarly, the leaders are not compensated adequately according to their experience and qualification.  The success and failure of transformation to quite an extent, depends on the trust between the academicians and administrators.  Together, they can instigate dynamism in the university culture.

Equitable salaries, team building activities, faculty training, well-defined job responsibilities, interdisciplinary learning and research opportunities can go a long way in motivating your workforce as well as aligning them to the institution’s vision.

Keep a vigilant eye on the market

When institutions become too complacent or show resistance towards market changes, it will hamper their ability to innovate and learn. Universities need to be vigilant about the local and international trends that affect their existence. They should also understand that benchmarking their standards against the top institutions across the globe is more relevant in today’s competitive environment. Analyzing the rival institutions on their strengths and weaknesses, learning from their mistakes and inspiring from their success make sound guiding points for devising a robust strategy for a responsive university. Similarly, keeping a watch on what is being written about your institution and the others can also give you a fair idea about what is happening around.  This will not only give you an outsider’s perspective on your brand image, but also enable to mute the pain points, if any.

Blend learning with technology

The education sector is undergoing a tectonic shift. Today’s tech-savvy students demand courses, which are flexible, realistic and personalized. It’s about time, that students are treated as customers. And customers are king. Hence,  universities should create learning spaces, which are more modular, interactive and competency based. A strategic investment in ICT tools can reap long term benefits in e- enabled learning, including online courses and MOOCs. This philosophy is reflected in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012 – 2017), which emphasizes on creation of teaching resources through leveraging information technology as well as creation of meta-university for multidisciplinary learning and innovation.

Implement Enterprise Education

These days, the employers have been increasingly stressing on the inclusion of subjects, which enhance employability, entrepreneurship or job creation opportunities for the students. Universities can respond to this demand by adopting an enterprising model for teaching and learning.  Such courses will enable the students to experience the industry work culture and develop life skills such as decision making, risk evaluation and problem solving. This way, universities will be able to bridge the demand – supply gap efficiently.

The traditional Indian higher education sector still has a strong foothold, and we should be proud of its roots. But, at the same time, we should also be ready to accept the ongoing changes in the worldwide education, which calls for the adoption of nimble practices. A sustainable, transformative and innovative approach can bring the deep structural and cultural changes required to create a vibrant university.

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