Is This Really a Test?

I keep reading some version of this basic thought: “The pandemic provides a stress test for our organizations and their readiness for disaster.” Really? This sure doesn’t feel like a test! It seems to me that we are well outside the safe haven of a testing environment where we all go home at the end of the day and wake up the next morning with everything back to normal. Our current pandemic is the heart attack, not the carefully monitored and controlled moderate exercise on a treadmill.

Although I’m not quite sure where the term “stress test” originated, it has certainly been around for a long time in the healthcare world. It seems to be migrating. After the recession of 2008, it became household lingo for the banking industry. Most recently, the language is being formalized for colleges and universities (see this new book). Indeed, stress tests are important for industries, organizations, and hearts. Apparently, our approach to stress testing our disaster preparedness and crisis management plans in higher education has been insufficient. If you follow any higher education news outlet or blogging entity, you’ve been barraged with the bad news of how difficult it has been for colleges and universities to pivot to alternative strategies for fulfilling their missions. It is likely that the worst is yet to come when the financial impact of the pandemic catches up to state subsidies and students’ pocketbooks.

It’s Not a Test, but It Is an Opportunity

If higher education doesn’t emerge from the pandemic as a smarter, stronger, and more effective contributor to the social mission, we’ll be doubling down on what is already a wavering public opinion. Beginning the learning process can’t wait. That is a hard message to hear when so many things are barely settled and could be tossed back up into the air at any moment. However, if a rail for improvement is not firmly laid down into the tracks guiding our current work, we may find that the long-term implications of the pandemic are far more negative than the short-term ones. Here are three ways to get started.

Debrief, Debrief, Debrief

Before you put an administrator in charge of this task, consider that they may lack the skills, the time or energy, and the ability to create a safe and open atmosphere because of the power gradient that exists between them and those they lead. Ask trained and seasoned “debriefers” from across the various backgrounds represented in your organization to put their formal skills to use by leading a group that meets regularly to harvest lessons from the current crisis. For the healthcare professions, you’ll find that a lot of these types hangout in your simulation centers. Sufficiently empowered and encouraged, they can be very effective in debriefing any situation. You will also find debriefing skills sets among those who have participated in disaster recovery leadership, military leadership, and served in performance improvement roles.

Training

You are familiar with this quote, “Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training.” Academics are not Navy Seals, but there is truth here that is key to embrace before the next crisis. As knowledge workers, it use to take some imagination to figure out how this might translate to our realm. Imagination, however, is no longer required. A simple example: Have we trained to convert our courses to high-quality remotely delivered products in a week or less? That leads to a lot of conversations - but that’s the point. We are not going to be good at dealing with the unexpected unless we train for it.

Count the Cost of Not Keeping Up

In general, academic organizations are not paragons of strategic effectiveness. Our ability and willingness to change sets us apart from many other industries… not in a good way! In general, we’ve not learned how to systematically, efficiently, and strategically change. The pandemic has laid bare our severe flat-footedness. In environments that are not fiercely competitive (until subsidies are gone, that will continue to be the case higher education), there is the constant threat of falling into deep ruts. And you know what they say, “The only difference between a rut and a grave is the length.” Leaders should start thinking deeply about the causes behind the slow pace of change in academia. Is it culture? Is it governance? Is it clarity of vision and mission? Is it know-how? What needs to happen in higher education to improve its ability to change? We live in an era where the ability to adapt may become the most important hallmark of successful educational organizations.

Our stress tests have not been effective. The “real deal” has happened and we are reeling. The best way to redeem this experience is to be better prepared for the next disaster. Let’s do some deep thinking, take some significant action, and for the good of all, toughen up our stress tests!