Dec 18th 08 Posted by Bob Sevier in Integrated Marketing

The Fierce Urgency of Now

Forty-one years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood before an assembly of clergy and lay people at the Riverside Church in New York. During the course of his message he uttered a phrase that I believe is especially poignant for the time in which we know live.

Speaking about a growing opposition to the war in Vietnam, Dr. King said, “We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood-it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on.”

In the last couple of months, I have had dozens of conversations with college presidents and board members about how the economy will likely impact their institutions and what steps they might take.

Generally, their responses to the marketplace fall into three camps. Group A responds with: “we need to hold steady. Let’s see how the year plays out.”

Group B responds with: “we need to retrench. Let’s cut everyone’s budget by X%.”

Group C has a different response: “This is a great time to build momentum. Let’s identify those activities that we know will attract students and donors.”

Surprisingly, it is not the type of institution which predicts whether or not it will be in group A, B, or C. Rather, it is the quality and vision of the leadership that matters most.

Make no mistake, higher education is facing a significant economic challenge. But the greater challenge, as organizational theorists and keen observers will say, is not the economic challenge, but how campus leaders respond to the challenge.

Let me briefly tell you about two different conversations with two very different presidents. Both are from relatively rural areas and their institutions are similarly sized in terms of number of students, faculty, and endowments.

One president said he was not contemplating any new initiatives for at least a year. “Budget issues,” he said, “I’m sure you understand.”

?
The other said he was holding a retreat that weekend with handpicked senior staff and faculty, board leadership, and a handful of key donors. The goal of the meeting, he said, was two-fold. First, identify a handful of non-core activities that could be eliminated and thereby free up cash and staff time. The second, he said, was to identify and operationalize five initiatives that will impact 2009 and beyond.

Last week I called one of the VPs from that school and asked him how the meeting went. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “We focused on the issues. We had a series of tough conversations. And we decided. We did in two days what would ordinarily have taken us a year or more. We left that meeting confident about the future, and that confidence has grown.”

Here is what this second president did right. First, he understood the fierce urgency of now. By signaling a weekend meeting he was saying, “This must have our immediate attention.”

Second, he gathered the right people from all across campus in the room. He recognized that the activities they identify and operationalize will almost certainly be cross-functional in nature. With this in mind, he assembled a cross-functional team.

Third, he understood that it is a much sounder strategy to eliminate some programs than to starve all programs. Institution-wide budget cuts, while fair and politically correct, are almost never strategically wise.

Fourth, he established an immediate goal: define and operationalize five initiatives. This aggressive, positive response will send important signals to the campus community and the larger marketplace. As part of this step he also assigned the responsibility for these initiatives to individuals and gave them the authority of get the job done.

Similar institutions.

Similar circumstances.

Two very different responses.

We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.

It is not the time to be pale. It is not the time to hope. It is not the time to wait.

It is, instead, the time to lead.

Photo by: aura983