96 Strategic Leadership
that penetrate to the core of what they do best; they display their distinguishing
abilities, especially in terms of their ability to generate and control their resources.
The story and identity of a place are revealed in its numbers as much as in its
values; or, better, the distinctive values and capacities of a college or university
are embedded in its strategic data and can be read in them (cf. Shulman 2007).
Stories of identity are not created or related in a vacuum, and they must reflect
the factual realities of the institution as much as its memories and hopes. The
rigorous analysis of data is an excellent example of the integrative thinking that is
essential in a discipline of strategic leadership. The integration of the meaning of
values and facts, narratives and numbers, and metaphoric language and quantifi-
cation is a defining feature of strategic thinking. Quantitative reasoning—such as
regression analyses to isolate and examine key strategic issues—becomes the way
to test the relationship of different variables in the data. It is highly instructive,
for instance, to study the relationship between retention rates and SAT scores
among a group of similar institutions. There may be much to ponder strategically
from the results.
If quantitative indicators are to serve their purpose in strategic decision mak-
ing, they need to be carefully selected for their ability to reveal the institution’s
strategic identity and position. Various books and guides that discuss strategic
indicators provide helpful background to inform the strategy process. Generally,
these texts recommend that indicators be developed around a number of critical
decision areas such as financial affairs, admissions and enrollment, institutional
advancement, human resources, academic affairs, student affairs, athletics, and
facilities (Frances, Huxel, Meyerson, and Park 1987; Taylor and Massy 1996;
Taylor, Meyerson, Morrell, and Park 1991).
Were one to follow all their suggestions, the number of potential indicators
would be impossible for a planning council to review meaningfully. In most cases
the central planning group will want to work with no more than about fifty stra-
tegic indicators as its primary and continuing benchmarks. Top administrators will
regularly review twice that many, while a governing board would typically receive
twenty-five to thirty dashboard indicators (like the vital gauges on the dashboard
of a car) to give them an immediate sense of institutional position. Although a
research and planning staff would want to track a large number of indicators, the
work of strategy always seeks to focus its attention on data that tell a story. The
aim is to find strategic meaning in the indicators, and the task of institutional
leaders is to manage those meanings.
Key Strategic Indicators
Even with the benefit of good handbooks and sources, there is no shortcut
to the work that each institution must do to define its own system of strategic
measurements. The following list is but one possibility designed for a small col-
lege inspired by and derived from an excellent dashboard used at Juniata College,
and graciously provided by President Thomas Kepple. It presents an enormous