Organizations (including colleges) still need to be sturdy institutions, yet to thrive in the future they must also be dynamic.Proactively designing organizations to harness advances in power, communications, and transportation supports the leaders who want to drive the future rather than becoming victims of it.

This does require ‘thinking outside the box.’ Re-energizing your innate creativity is easy to do and quickly yields substantial benefits.

Simple start – increase awawreness in new directions.  Pause for a moment and notice something that is always present but taken for granted.  You are pushing your brain to make new connections. Want to know more?  Call me – there’s real science behind this exercise.

Higher ed systems evolved into organizations where the leadership systems, processes, and standards operate at a linear speed – slow. This worked very well for us providing opportunities for research, debate, step-back, more research, more debate, and hopefully consensus.

These are comfortable operating frameworks, yet today change is masking the benefits of familiarity. Many linear solutions become outdated before implementation discussions even begin to occur.

If we choose to learn from the hard lessons of business organizations, we find leaders who create environments where people are valued for their ideas and insight create an organization that is dynamic and flexible, yet wise enough to seize new opportunities while remaining true to their mission(s).

Talking points.  (1) What is your personal massively transformative aspiration (MTA)  (2) How clear is your Leadership Narrataive? and (3) How do your people align their own MTAs with the organization’s mission?