Any given week, I have the distinct opportunity to work with schools, colleges, and universities across the country and the globe. Whether it be a consulting assignment, facilitating a discussion around the future of education, or speaking to large association groups, I’m grateful to experience the industry in a pretty comprehensive way. The pandemic has accelerated those interactions, as more people have used technology to access professional development resources. These circumstances have given me both insight - and pause - to the condition of our leadership structures in education.
In a nutshell. I'm deeply concerned that we have too many small, unsustainable schools and colleges, all trying to make their way back to a past that is gone. I'm simultaneously concerned that we have a leadership crisis at these same schools and colleges, failing to pivot to meeting the opportunities and needs of the future and the courage to change their culture.
It’s pretty simple. Education had lots of preexisting issues prior to the pandemic, especially small, private institutions. Waning enrollment, changing demographic and consumer patterns, trying to reimagine the use of time and schedule, pricing and access, and the role of technology are among the top issues they were facing. The pandemic came and accelerated all of these issues to the forefront. The net result was that the pandemic placed all of these issues on the front burner, requiring immediate attention.
A small number of schools and colleges have responded by really rethinking their systems and structures to develop a new breed of resiliency. Those organizations have inspired me as they seized the moment to create something new and different that will propel them into the future. They will be rewarded because they got there first in their market.
But, unfortunately, there are many others in the opposite camp. These are the schools and colleges that continue to ask me if I really think education is heading for a reset. They don’t believe that the pandemic will change much consumer behavior and that their old ways remain highly relevant. They believe that their old systems and structures will actually increase in value as people head into a post-pandemic world.
Oh So Precious. A couple of months ago I wrote an article on what I call the “Oh So Precious” syndrome. This syndrome plagues the thinking of many schools and colleges, each of which are protective of their structures, not their mission, in some odd way, as if it is the thing that will sustain them. They are focused on preserving the organization, not the needs of their students or clients. They seem to have this odd belief that their old style of education will come back in vogue and that people will value it more and pay even more in the future. It is sort of like thinking that the third class postage stamp, snail mail, and payphones will become things again. It’s not going to happen.
The “Oh So Precious Syndrome” is a belief that they have to protect their faculty, staff and parents from the very innovations in education that will actually heal and transform education.
This thinking is not solely at the executive level. It plagues governance structures. In fact, we see board members driving some of this thinking, failing to understand the very nature of educational change and how it is accelerating rapidly.
Consumers are going to demand more accountability, flexibility, and accessibility to education than ever before as we enter a post-pandemic world. Count on it. They have seen what is possible and they will want more of it. That will require courageous leadership from our education sector to build an educational model that meets the needs of a changing world.