176 Strategic Leadership
scenarios also makes it clear that admissions, marketing, and fund-raising will
require enlarged resources, although they were not originally projected as major
needs.
As it examines its capacities in information technology, the university decides,
counter to its early expectations, that it does not have the capacity to be a substan-
tial independent provider of distance degrees. The market-driven scenario leads
it to conclude that it will join an alliance of schools that provide online degrees
in certain professional fields.
Scenario Conclusions
The scenario process is stimulating and imaginative, but it is also demanding.
Unlike small colleges, multibillion-dollar corporations and large universities have
the resources to invest in a continuing capacity for scenario building. Yet even the
smallest institutions can ask several staff and faculty members to develop enough
background to lead a scenario workshop as part of its environmental scan, perhaps
with the help of a facilitator experienced in the art.
The development of scenarios is not, of course, an end in itself, especially in the
context of strategic leadership. Scenario thinking offers yet another systematic
language with which to understand change and the organization’s relationship
to it. It offers a mechanism by which to embed strategic thinking within the life
of the organization, and to challenge and enlarge the thought patterns of the
campus community. Seeing the interrelationship of forces in a scenario sensi-
tizes the ability to anticipate what is up ahead, and to grasp new challenges and
opportunities that are just appearing. It renders change less daunting, less strange,
and less unwelcome. To be fully effective, strategic leadership has to touch the
values and thought patterns of many, if not most, of the decision makers in an
academic organization, including a good cross-section of the faculty. As they
shape habits of perception, reflection, and judgment, systematic procedures like
PEEST, SWOT, and scenario analysis help to domesticate change. They make
it clear that even academic institutions are situated contextual enterprises that
live in constant interaction with society and time itself. We come again upon
our theme of the cognitive dimensions of leadership and the importance of the
paradigm of responsibility.
Strategic Position
These disciplines for understanding change not only contribute to thinking
in terms of the image of responsibility; they play an explicit role in the step-wise
process of strategy formation. They shape an institution’s understanding of its
strategic position, of the specific powers, assets, and competencies that it possesses
that help it to make its way in a competitive world. Without a clear-headed
self-estimate that takes form at least tentatively early in the process, the content
of strategy can become vague, diffuse, and an exercise in wishful thinking. A crisp