Strategic planning: one size doesn't fit all: the secret to making change work? Customized strategic planning, patience, and persistence.

What business people say about higher education is not true. Colleges and universities do change--but in different, more variable, and organic ways than business institutions. Admittedly, the changes may take longer. But they may be more pervasive and sustainable in the long run. And in a world where the demand for quick results has never been greater, this presents a major challenge. It tempts college leaders to push the pace of change, which can be disastrous when the institution is not ready. Yet colleges that fail to respond--to emerging areas of knowledge, to demographic and technological change, to the urgent need for accessibility and affordability, and a host of other societal expectations--may endanger their future. The secret to making change work lies in strategic planning and leadership that is collaborative, patient, and persistent.

Take Wheaton College (MA), for instance. When Wheaton began admitting men in 1987, the college set its sights on increasing student enrollment by nearly 50 percent, while improving student quality. Facilities improvements, fundraising, and many other projects also were identified through a comprehensive planning effort.

Five years later, when I arrived on campus as a new president, I was entrusted with a mission to advance change that was already underway. While I was genuinely impressed by the progress that had been made, I also was struck by how discouraged people had become. They thought the college should have achieved its goals quickly. The transition to coeducation had neither solved all of Wheaton's problems nor met all of the ambitious objectives that had been set at the time. Enrollment had not reached the new target, endowment spending and the financial aid discount rate were too high, and investments in salaries and in the physical plant were too low. Many individuals concluded more radical change was needed-and there was no shortage of strategies that they thought had worked well at "School X," and so would certainly work for us, too.

Had I listened to the one-size-fits-all radical restructuring solutions peddled by higher education management gurus, or been mesmerized by their market mindset, Wheaton's story might be very different than it is today. Instead, Wheaton has doubled applications for admission, achieved its enrollment target, and boosted the academic standing of the students it admits. The college's phenomenally successful Campaign for Wheaton exceeded its $65 million goal by raising $90 million. Those accomplishments allowed the college to expand and enhance its facilities and establish many new academic and co-curricular programs.

Our success over the past decade is rooted in the thoughtful and collaborative way in which we approached strategic planning. Faculty, staff, students, administrators, and trustees worked together to analyze the state of the college, consider both the broader society and the segment of the higher education market in which Wheaton competes, and refine the institution's vision to capitalize on unique strengths that would resonate with the world beyond campus.

The two strategic plans that were drafted during my tenure as president set the agenda for evolutionary change that respected Wheaton's culture and history. They built support for that agenda and kept evolving as living documents rather than simply sitting on the shelf. The two plans were quite different and were developed by two different processes. The second plan was much bolder than the first because the successes of the first plan laid the foundation for more dramatic change in the second.

General prescriptions for "fixing" higher education rarely work because colleges and universities are complex civic institutions with singular identities. Broad-brush statements that call for radical restructuring of how education is delivered, for example, fail to acknowledge that higher education is not monolithic. One of the strengths of American higher education is the variety of institutions: from liberal arts colleges to private urban research universities, community colleges to public land-grant universities, and regional schools to for-profit education businesses. Sweeping generalizations about the higher education marketplace are misleading.

While market forces are important factors to consider in strategic planning, the marketplace should not be the dominant value driving institutional change. Every college has a unique academic mission and culture, the product of decades of individuals' service to the institution. These values represent an incredibly valuable asset, and should be nurtured whenever possible. Leaders who don't take the time to understand their institution and who choose to press ahead with change initiatives are unlikely to transform an institution. In fact, they may simply create controversy and strife, and end up being fired--an eventuality that harms the institution as well as the leader.

This is not to say that tradition should always trump change. Rather, strategic planning must honor the institution's academic mission and the shared purpose that exists among its extended community of faculty, students, staff, alumni, parents, friends, local residents, and government officials. Eight considerations that strategic planners should keep in mind include:

1--Assess the context of the campus culture. Excellence and Equilibrium was the title of Wheaton's first plan because financial equilibrium was a major priority. The plan focused on enhancing resources--increasing applications and enrollments, controlling financial aid, enhancing fundraising, and improving selectivity--and the subsequent faculty and staff salary plans linked improvements in salaries to improvement in resources. This plan's approach was adapted to the campus culture. It stressed stability and predictability as an antidote to the traumatic changes at the time of the coed decision.

2--Refine your strategic plan as your institution evolves. Wheaton 2005: Connections to the Future was the title of the second plan because academic innovation had become the major priority. Wheaton had achieved financial equilibrium and was ready to use the new resources to invest in bold new educational initiatives that would provide models of liberal arts and science education for the new millennium. The new Wheaton Curriculum is characterized by innovation and individuality.

3--Nurture a sense of ownership among the faculty and staff. A grant from the Mellon Foundation made possible a collaborative process with "everything on the table" during the curriculum review. Faculty teams (including a member of the student life staff) visited corteges with exciting programs. These field trips galvanized those who saw firsthand what other schools were doing. The process involved virtually all faculty members in work groups and included a faculty retreat. The final faculty deliberations led to a dramatic reshaping of the curriculum, approved by a resounding 91 to 3 vote. As a result, the faculty owns the curriculum. They have invested many hours in making the transition to an ambitious new program work smoothly, and they already have plans to evaluate it because they want to know how well it is working.

4--Let the plan shape the budget and fundraising. A new commitment to global education was a key component of the second plan. This provided a focused wish list when donors called to offer support. The plan also emphasized re-evaluating administrative processes to identify items that could be stopped. This helped to limit personnel growth as well as control operations expenditures. Just as importantly, it created capacity for re-directing resources to more strategically important areas.

5--Allow sufficient time. This may be the most important-and most often overlooked--point of all. In advancing change, it is clear that we must use all deliberate speed, but it takes time to build trust and broad-based support. Think of the challenges associated with teaching a large class: People have different learning styles, attention spans, and temperaments. It takes time for the class to grasp all the issues. Likewise, a college community wants to "to see results," but learns that these results do not reveal themselves instantly.

6--Process matters. The first plan at Wheaton was developed by a strategic planning committee that I chaired (and that was created just for this purpose), composed of five elected faculty, three other administrators, and two elected students. The group held open meetings on campus and then met with trustees, but it did not make extensive use of existing committees because it had first to understand Wheaton's financial position and then to formulate integrated financial strategies. After the plan was approved by the trustees, the group was institutionalized as the Budget Advisory Committee and has been important in building a collective understanding about the college's resources constraints and opportunities. The second plan used existing committees since governing mechanisms had been strengthened.

7--Recognize the stages in a president's career. Wise leaders recognize that everything can't be done all at once and that success breeds success. At Wheaton, we were more cautious in the first plan to avoid overreaching, and bolder in the second in order to build on the momentum from the first.

8--Ignore bad advice. Higher education leaders involved in developing and implementing a strategic plan benefit from the insights of sources on and off campus. There is value in this information--or the ranks of strategic-planning consultants would not be growing dramatically each year. Much of their advice is helpful; some of it is not. When it is clear that the consulting and advice you are receiving does not take into consideration your school's unique local culture, feet free to ignore it and move on. This is good leadership.

Healthy institutions use strategic planning to adapt and grow, evolving to fit the changing landscape and the campus context. Like every other part of civil society, higher education faces challenges that arise from the rapid pace of change in our emerging global society.

Change is not an option; it is a requirement. And the bottom line is that prepackaged plans may offer a point of departure for thinking about the future, but they are no substitute for investing in a collaborative strategic plan that engages stakeholders in building a shared vision and the energy to go out and achieve it.

Dale Rogers Marshall is president of Wheaton College in Norton, MA.