Research
and Musings

There's a particular kind of leadership challenge that doesn't get talked about enough. It's what happens when you step into an organization and realize there are more opportunities to improve, grow, and innovate than you could possibly tackle at once.

A few thoughts on developing people, supporting their ambitions, and remembering that we work to live.

The best marketing strategy in the world can't always rescue a poorly conceived organizational strategy. And yet we keep asking it to try.

The coaches who built women's basketball didn't protect their best players from hard coaching. They gave them more of it. Most organizations do the opposite, and it's costing them.

ROI tells you the money came back. ROO asks whether you did what you set out to do. In higher education, the gap between those two questions is where most strategy breaks down.

One year at the University of Denver. On making hard decisions on purpose, why brand marketing is an investment the sector keeps getting wrong, and what commencement makes undeniably clear.

Higher education websites are still built like org charts with a search bar. What comes next looks nothing like that.

Higher education marketers are held accountable for enrollment outcomes they don't control. That's a structural problem. In some states, it has gotten much worse.

Most institutions know they need to stand out. Few have a repeatable system for figuring out what they actually stand out for.

Purpose isn't a mission statement on a wall. It's the filter through which every decision gets made, from hiring to campaign strategy.

Most universities are still treating marketing as a production function. The ones winning the future are building it as a strategic capability.