Creating and Situating an Integrative Strategy Process 73
realties of an environment that is filled with turbulence, as when budget crises
overwhelm the plans of an institution, or other crises befall an organization. At
other times, the avoidance of strategic planning can be traced to the reluctance of
administrators and faculty members to cede authority and influence to a process
that they distrust and that might take directions that they cannot control (Row-
ley, Lujan, and Dolence 1997).
Experience also shows that there are a number of institutions that cluster around
the position of tacit strategy. Although they do not use a formal method of plan-
ning, they nonetheless demonstrate a tacit pattern of coherent strategic thinking
and decision making. It may well be rooted in a vivid sense of institutional story
that gives direction to the work of the organization. Often smaller institutions or
academic units of larger ones have highly differentiated purposes and values that
are driven by a vision or by a saga of distinctive achievement.
The problems with tacit strategy are many, including the difficulty that it pres-
ents in responding systematically to change in the environment or within the
institution itself. If a strategy is not explicit, it becomes less useful in providing
an orientation for coherent decision making throughout the institution and over
time. It fails as well to provide the basis for systematically communicating goals
and priorities to the continuing stream of new faculty and staff members and
students who join the institution.
Strategic Planning
As we enter the area of strategic planning, we find ourselves in the most
populated sector of the spectrum. Although, as we have learned, the method
cannot be defined with precision in higher education, as a concept it separates
the design of goals from their implementation. Although the conceptual gap is
often closed through the way it is practiced, many times it remains a method
of projection.
In many cases the approach involves an episodic or periodic planning pro-
cess, often triggered by a change in the presidency, an accreditation review, or
the preparation for a capital campaign. Typically a special committee or com-
mission with membership from many constituencies is appointed to prepare a
plan, and the group ceases to exist after it has issued its report. If the moment
is right and the report receives strong backing from the governing board, the
administration, and a critical mass of faculty, the strategic plan can have a
decisive influence.
Strategic planning can also be practiced as a continuous discipline in which
plans are constantly under review or development, and goals are revised peri-
odically and distributed widely across the campus. As a continuous discipline,
it becomes much more likely that planning will be more than the projection of
goals, because they will be regularly proposed as items for implementation. Con-
ceptually, though, a gap still exists between the formulation and implementation
of goals.