Building a Strategy: Higher Education
The Challenge
A prominent London University was looking to create a new five-year Strategy to enhance its reputation as a progressive and inclusive educational institution where everyone can realise their full potential and build the skills of the future.
The vision for the Strategy was well thought through, exciting, revolutionary, and meaningful - a reflection of their brilliance and integrity. But during its infancy, the progression to develop the Strategy was slower than anticipated. Support was needed to accelerate decisions, build consensus, inspire effective conversations, and create a clear plan.
My role: Strategy Consultant
As Senior Strategy Consultant, I was brought in by Caja, a leading business transformation consultancy, to support the Vice Chancellor bring his Senior Leadership Team together to think hard about the big questions facing the institution and what they wanted the future to look like.
To ensure success, this is what I did:
United individuals and instilled a sense of belonging where they worked towards a common goal and vision.
Identified who to involve at which stage to empower individuals to add real value based on their area of expertise.
Managed conflict or tension to unblock bottlenecks and help create an optimum working and learning environment to boost productivity.
Accelerated their decision-making processes and made them more meaningful to better support their future goals.
Helped to create a set of strategic KPIs in complete alignment with the Strategy .
Identified clear milestones and goals throughout the journey.
When you work so close to something it’s common for the ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’ adage to rear its ineffectual head. With me on board, an unbiased pair of eyes and ears, I could look out for opportunities along the way too which may be invisible to those so ingrained in the university’s DNA.
The Impact
A clear, well-constructed, ambitious strategy that could be launched internally across the university and externally to stakeholders , with the Senior Leadership Team bought in, confident in its outcomes and committed to its delivery, securing the financial sustainability of the organisation.
To read about how I supported the implementation of this strategy, as part of the Caja team, see here
Read more about my recent projects on my LinkedIn page, or get in touch to chat about how I can support your organisation to reach the next stage of success.