By Matt Zalaznick

Question: Can you still move forward with change management in higher ed when you have varying levels of cooperation from within your institution? The answer is a resounding yes, and new research on innovation is offering presidents and other leaders the tools to achieve their goals.

Of course, institutions moving forward must overcome a host of modern-day obstacles—the aftermath of the pandemic, shrinking numbers of high school graduates, and culture war battles over what colleges can teach and what faculty can say. Leading a college or university is as difficult as it has ever been, which is one reason why the average tenure of a college president has been declining steadily, Michael B. Horn, chairman of the Clayton Christensen Institute, writes in a new analysis on leading change management.

“How to get cooperation and agreement to move an institution forward is one of the trickiest parts of the higher ed leader’s job,” Horn writes. “Yet moving forward must be a priority as higher education copes with the emergence of technology-enabled learning solutions while maintaining an increasingly expensive traditional educational model.”