Implementation 225
the annual opening faculty meeting, in other campus presentations, in written
summaries, in analyses and materials posted on Web sites, and, as we shall see,
in reports to the governing board. If there have been changes in the goals, these
adjustments and the reasons for them can be explained as well. Whether simple
or complex, the reporting process itself communicates the message that strategy
matters, as do those whose ideas have shaped it.
Some presidents and administrators choose to make the monitoring of strate-
gic goals a continuous and structured administrative process. A midyear retreat
to review the progress of the strategy, including intensive review sessions with
each of the vice presidents, and in turn with their direct reports, is one way
to exercise controls. Another option, more bureaucratic, requires top officers or
their subordinates to report in writing on progress in meeting goals on a quarterly
basis, typically on matrices that cross-reference issues and goals with deadlines
and costs. Being strategic in scope, the goals may be difficult to measure quar-
terly, but the method produces an acute sense of responsibility and ensures that
the control system is strategically oriented (cf. various articles on control systems
in two collections on strategic planning, e.g., Dooris, Kelley, and Trainer 2004;
Steeples 1988).
Strategic Goals and a Steering Core
There are other ways to link the strategic goals of the whole institution with
the goals of academic and administrative units. In large and complex universi-
ties, the strategic initiatives themselves will have to be defined thematically and
broadly to encompass the responsibilities and interests of the various academic
and administrative subunits. If that is done effectively, then each college, school,
or administrative area can be expected to carry out its own strategy work in ways
that reflect the larger educational and strategic commitments of the whole insti-
tution. The strategy process is able to make clear that the viability and success of
each element of the university ultimately depends on the reputation and strengths
of the others. Turbulence in the wider world may be so daunting that it requires
responses that no one unit can make alone.
We may have reached the logical organizational point of diminishing returns in
radically decentralized patterns of institutional decision making. Duplication in
academic programs becomes rampant, inefficiencies in administration and staff-
ing multiply, common dangers go unattended, commercialism takes hold in some
programs, and donors complain of being constantly solicited by multiple units of
the same organization. Burton Clark writes: “One university after another finds
that a strengthened, steering core is needed, one central body or several inter-
locked central groups of administrators and academic staff who can legitimately
and effectively assist the interests of the university as a whole” (1997, xiv).
An example of educational leadership at the core of a large, complex, and
celebrated research university can be found in the efforts of the University of
Wisconsin at Madison to focus its energies on improving undergraduate education.