President's Report March 2012

“Purpose and Process; Mission and Means”

“If it ain’t broke, break it!” is the provocative title to Robert Kriegel’s 1991 book on change in the business world and, in the two decades since that work was published, we have seen some major businesses succeed – and fail – to a great extent on the basis of their ability to apply this principle.  A few examples:

• Founded in 1918, Zenith soon became the TV brand that was synonymous with quality.  “The quality goes in before the name goes on” was Zenith’s slogan and I know from personal experience that this was the best TV that my (or my parent’s) money could buy.  It was easy to see why Zenith would be proud – and protective – of its standing in the world of CRT technology-based televisions, and so they were… standing.  But the world was changing around the feet of this electronics giant, and some of those companies less invested in aging markets and technology moved in like a swarm of bees.  By 1999, Zenith filed for bankruptcy and became a wholly-owned subsidiary of LG Electronics, a Korean-based company that is one of the world’s leading producers of flat-screen TVs, major household appliances, and cellphones…. but you already knew that.
• At this year’s Academy Awards, Billy Crystal’s opening monologue began with the words “We’re here at the beautiful Chapter 11 Theatre,” in reference to the recent filing for bankruptcy by Eastman Kodak Co., after which that theatre, until just recently, had been named.  Before anyone could say “goodbye” – or was that what Billy Crystal was doing for us all? – the creators of the “Kodak Moment” were gone and we were left with nothing more than the question “why?”  In the words of Dr. Kamal Munir, a professor of business strategy and policy at the University of Cambridge, the answer is that “Kodak’s top management never fully grasped how the world around them was changing.  They hung on to now obsolete assumptions about who took pictures, why and when.  Kodak always thought that people would never part with hard prints and that people valued film-based photos for their high quality.”  In spite of the fact that the people at Kodak actually invented the digital camera in 1975, because they were so convinced of the superiority of their product legacy, they never saw digital as a direct substitute for film based photography…  When’s the last time you bought a roll of film?

And then there’s Apple…  In November 2001, Apple released the first iPod, and the world has never been the same since and, for that matter, neither has the iPod , or the iPhone, or the “new” iPad!  Never to be shackled by the past, Apple’s loyalty is not to any specific means of production or their products, but to the users they serve!  And that’s the lesson that Robert Kriegel wanted business to learn back in 1991, and it’s the lesson that we in education need to learn today:

Our future must be defined by the needs and interests of those we serve,

and not by the models or systems or structures we currently use to serve them.

Recently I’ve begun reading Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Harvard Business School professor and world acclaimed change theorist Clayton Christensen (http://www.claytonchristensen.com//).  This book and others like it, together with some of the lessons learned from the business world, can help us to see beyond “what is” to “what needs to be” and this needs to be part of the foundational thinking for how we move into our future.  Paraphrasing Dr. Kamal Munir (the guy who did the post-mortem on Kodak), these “lessons learned” include:

• Don’t burden new ways of thinking and doing with the weight of “legacy assets.”  Clinging to past “products,” even – or especially – if they were great in their time, is a prelude to failure.
• Don’t try and prolong old ways of thinking and doing things by creating false synergies between the old and the new.  As Kodak learned the hard way, developing digital photography that still needed to be printed to be viewed and shared was a fatal error.
• And, most important of all, design all of what you do around your users and not around any existing business models.

But what does this look like?!?  And how do we change without losing what we need to keep?!?  I believe the answer is in

• staying focused on purpose – OUR PURPOSE – of providing “an education that enables all of us to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from the cultural richness and economic vitality of our communities,”
• …and letting go of the rest.

According to WikiAnswers.com, Disney’s mission is “To make people happy.”  They may build great amusement/theme parks and produce great animated films, but these are just the current means by which Disney is accomplishing that mission.  The lesson to be learned from Disney, and Apple, and Kodak and Zenith too, is that their future – and our future too – depends on being able to tell the difference between purpose and process; between mission and means.

To that end, I am going to be forming a very special group – a group that anyone at LBCC will be welcome to join but for which the formidable goals, hard work, and considerable risks of both failure and success may temper the inclination to volunteer.  I’m calling this group the Wild Thinker’s Forum (yes, I know…..) and its purpose will be, in Linchpin author Seth Godin’s words, to “come up with dozens of bad ideas because among them will be the one transforming idea that we need.”  A little more specifically, the group’s purpose will be to:

• Clarify our college’s “purpose” and commit it to the memory that consciously and unconsciously informs and directs all that we do (and choose not to do)…. Make our “purpose” our “religion.”
• Identify our college’s “legacy assets” and begin to identify those that are limiting our capacity to move forward.  This will be a provocative process and may raise some eyebrows among our co-workers and friends.  Questions like “does all learning require a classroom – or even a course?!” will need to be faced head-on.
•  Identify the enduring resources that are now ours and on which our future must be built.  Again, this will be provocative work.  My guess is that we will come to discover (re-discover) that it is our PEOPLE that are our most valuable enduring resource… but not necessarily the roles we currently play or the positions we currently fill.  Hmmmm….
• Create and sustain a group culture where “bad ideas” are welcomed and where we assume that almost every success will begin with failure.  In other words, bring the creativity you once had (and still have, if you look hard and deep enough)… but leave your egos at the door.
• Develop “answers” to questions like the ones I first shared with you in January.  Questions like:
• How can we assure our students that the classes they need will be available to them at the times and in the sequence that best supports their progress toward the completion of a degree?
• How can we ensure that our students have the capacity to succeed in every class they register for?
• How can we adapt our educational delivery systems (or adopt new ones!) to better serve a renewed focus on student success and completion?
• How can we ensure that our communities reap tangible cultural and economic benefits from the investment they make in us as THEIR community college?
• How can we develop and/or take advantage of centralized processes and curricular resources that hold promise for increasing our effectiveness, and efficiency?
• How can we assure our students that we will be aware of and care about their presence and that we will support their progress for every moment that they are with us?
• How can we ensure that every member of the LBCC community understands, accepts, and is appreciated for the role they can play in answering these questions?
• Do as much as we can by the end of the Spring 2012 Term.

Interested?..........  The first Wild Thinker’s Forum meeting is scheduled for Friday, March 16th from 2 to 5 PM (with a second meeting scheduled for Friday, April 13th) and all who are eager to see what we can do together are welcome!  I only ask that you let Renee Windsor-White know that you’re coming so we can prepare accordingly, and that you come prepared to think and work hard.  You can prepare by:

• Think in advance about the purpose of this group and about the questions I am asking us to answer.  Take time to really understand the questions – what they really mean – and whether or not they are the “right” questions for us.  Are there other questions?  More questions?
• Begin reading what you can on anything that pertains to this work.  Some suggested books:
• “Disrupting Class” by Clayton Christensen (2008)
• “The Innovative University” by Clayton Christensen (2011)
• “The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business” by Clayton Christensen (1997)
• “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?” by Seth Godin (2011)
• “Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril” by Margaret Heffernan (2011)
• “Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure” by Tim Harford (2011)

 NOTE: If you are really interested in reading any of these books and can’t find one to borrow or don’t have the resources to buy one for yourself, our Library has ordered two copies of each and they will be placed of reserve there for you.

On the inside cover of Clayton Christensen’s book Disrupting Class we read “For America to stay competitive – academically, economically, and technologically – we need to rethink our understanding of intelligence, reevaluate our educational system, and reinvigorate our commitment to learning.”  In other words, our future is not about being smaller or bigger, nor is it even about being leaner or better funded.  Instead, it’s about being fundamentally different – admittedly, in ways that maybe we do not yet fully understand, but nonetheless in ways about which we do have some significant clues.  Fortunately, I believe that LBCC is especially well-suited to seeing those “clues” and I am excited to see how the efforts of the Wild Thinker’s Forum will help guide all of us in understanding how we can best respond.  I look forward to sharing this work with you!

With Sincere Appreciation and Hope,

Greg