Reframing Succession Planning in the VUCA Higher Ed Environment
Higher education today may be viewed through the lens of the VUCA concept – that is, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Warren Bennis and Burt...
Higher education today may be viewed through the lens of the VUCA concept – that is, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus first used the term in Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge (1985, second edition 2007). A few years later the US Army War College adopted it to describe the perceived conditions resulting from the end of the Cold War. VUCA has renewed relevance in the post-pandemic environment, with rapidly evolving demographics, significant societal shifts, and the rapid pace of technological change affecting all colleges and universities.
The VUCA environment demands the skills for leading in this moment. Enduring leadership qualities are fundamental, but adopting these to the present requires creating a strategic direction that is both aspirational and achievable, inculcating this strategy as the uniting goal, delineating what is necessary to execute, and motivating inclusive and authentic engagement. The special Summer 2024 issue of Harvard Business Review, “How to Lead Now”, addresses many dimensions of leading in our VUCA world.
A key aspect to leading nimbly and resiliently is to ensure the alignment of talent to strategy. The VUCA environment requires mindset shifts and updated practical approaches to reframe succession planning – ensuring that leadership roles, especially that of the president, evolve over time and stay aligned with the strategic needs of the institution. Framed right, succession planning prioritizes the position above the person who fills it, informing leadership development as well as future promotions and hires.
Through my work with college and university leaders and boards, I find succession planning often occupies a lower priority as pressures mount. It remains vital, enabling talent to cohere a community and collectively execute strategy. A repositioned approach to succession planning will be empowering and feasibly maintained as a priority, even amid constantly evolving priorities, if approached relevantly and creatively to ensure the continuity of intellectual capital for the future.
While many toolkits and methodologies are available for conducting succession planning, the right mindset and approach are fundamental.
- Reframe succession planning from a point-in-time process toward an ongoing progressive practice. Point-in-time succession planning involves triggering events at the end of an individual tenure, rooted in the current organizational structure and position description. Moving toward an ongoing progressive practice of succession planning requires a new posture toward talent pipelines that is dynamic and flexible. Positions need to be re-examined considering evolving strategic needs.
- Position succession planning, broadly defined, as an essential component of executing well-defined strategy to maintain institutional mission and sustainability. The underlying assumption for reframing succession planning is that institutional strategy is in place, driven by thorough data-driven positioning for the future of the institution. Andrew Chastain, Megan Hay, and Susan Snyder of WittKieffer highlight that leadership planning must be rooted in the qualities needed to lead the strategic vision, recognizing that talent considerations impact every key strategic decision and determine their success.
One college I have worked with recently in strategic planning took the opportunity to rethink the leadership structure at both the board, executive staff, and supporting horizontal leadership tiers required to execute the strategy. In this case the strategy to address a significant structural deficit was to seek a strategic affiliation or merger. This type of structural reenvisioning should not focus only on positions and titles, either in the traditional higher education leadership structure or new areas like chief strategy and growth officer, but on the types of talents and skills necessary across all positions.
- Maintain dual focus on transitions requiring new searches to identify external talent alignment with heightened emphasis on internal succession. The more traditional approach to succession planning for board leadership, the president, and other senior leaders remains paramount to ensure continuity of leadership. As academic years begin, it’s a timely opportunity to revisit the state of succession planning in these key areas, particularly as the tensions of the time yield increased and often rapid resignations.
When new board chairs are elected or searches for new presidents or vice presidents conducted, what type of leader is needed to execute strategic direction is the overriding consideration. If personality and pedigree assume higher priority than alignment of expertise to strategic direction, the success and longevity of appointments may be jeopardized.
- View internal succession planning as a talent-driven portfolio of competencies, rather than as a compartmentalized approach by individual, title/position, or pedigree. Focus on broad competencies critical to advancing the key institutional strategies. These may not be broad skills, such as resilience, transparency, active listening, consistent communication, etc., but rather the specific competencies required for the transformational moment. Perhaps this involves technical expertise and data analysis savvy, financial acumen, and the ability to translate finances into concise talking points, key soft skills such as high emotional intelligence, and identification of the most respected connectors and influencers within the community. Engage the leadership team in identifying these critical competencies.
- Craft a web of practical approaches to advance these mindset shifts. Promote cross-cultural connectivity, with executive staff attending staff meetings in other VP areas, creating communities of practice that focus on institutional strategy and cross faculty/staff/disciplinary silos. Enable informal conversations to engage with faculty and staff about how they see themselves contributing to advancing the institution’s priorities. During my tenure as president of Mary Baldwin University, we had a small conference room with whiteboards on all walls. We posted evolving approaches to advance our strategic initiatives, set up a lunch station, and invited cross-functional groups from across campus to eat, ask questions, and offer comments on the boards.
These mindset shifts and practical approaches can be easily overlaid into the already tense and crowded agendas facing higher education leaders today. The results yield rich rewards: building organizational resilience, enabling courage over comfort, fostering a sense of co-creation and ownership, and reducing fear and job insecurity – even in the face of existential threats.
This reframed approach to strategic planning will enable, as Bill George points out, a strategy for steady leadership in an unsteady world, or VUCA 2.0 where volatility becomes vision; uncertainty, understanding; complexity, courage; and ambiguity, adaptability – while maintaining an unwavering focus on mission and core values and the bold moves required to sustain them.
