How university research teams should approach change management

Given fast-changing market pressures, there is a growing urgency for campus leaders to initiate more and larger-scale change initiatives simultaneously. Yet, leadership teams often face high barriers to change on their campuses.

EAB held an event, Change Management Workshop for Vice Presidents of Research, to help leaders prepare to manage and communicate change using EAB’s change management framework. Explore the major takeaways from the workshops below or jump to the next steps.

Review the Key Takeaways

The context of higher education makes it difficult to apply traditional change management frameworks

Despite the strides that were prompted by pandemic operations, as an industry, higher ed is still very change averse. There are lots of factors that prevent stakeholders from buying into change:

1. Psychology: Cognitive limitations can prevent folks from making change. We have a tendency to default to the status quo rather than thinking of new or different ways to conduct our work.
2. Culture: Most campus cultures are risk averse and driven by consensus-based, highly participatory processes that can hinder change.
3. Structures: Higher education structures pose challenges to change. For example, most institutions don’t have the decision-making paradigms, capacity or incentives needed to drive change.

Types of barriers to change

Psychological

• Overreliance on current and internal factors when planning
• Adherence to widely shared vision despite evidence of untenability
• Incremental thinking
• Tendency to default to status quo
• Outcomes: Deters leaders from initiating change initiatives entirely

Culture

• Risk aversion
• Consensus-based agreement
• Participatory norms and processes
• Loyalty to academic disciplines over institutions
• Organizational bureaucracy
• Outcomes: Stops change initiatives early in their tracks

Structural

• Unclear decision rights and responsibilities
• Insufficient capacity
• Misaligned incentives
• Internal siloes
• Legacy units and reporting lines
• Outcomes: Leads to long-term stall outs and change fatigue

Don’t let change initiatives lose momentum

After successfully convincing stakeholders to implement the change, a lot of leaders assume their job is done and therefore take their foot off the gas. Leaders should instead clearly define what success looks like and create ongoing oversight, review, and feedback mechanisms. This will enable them to reinforce the change, promote accountability, and preserve buy-in.