Higher education institutions spend considerable time measuring performance, reviewing enrollment trends, examining budgets, monitoring compliance, and developing strategic plans. These activities are necessary, but I sometimes wonder whether we devote enough time to a different kind of institutional examination.
Not simply asking whether we are meeting our objectives, but asking whether the way we conduct our daily work continues to make sense.
Throughout my years in higher education, I have encountered situations where processes existed not necessarily because they were the most effective approaches, but because they were familiar. A procedure had been followed for years. A particular department had always handled a responsibility. An approval had always been required. Employees learned to navigate these arrangements, often developing creative workarounds that allowed the institution to continue functioning.
Eventually, the workaround became the process.
What makes this particularly interesting is that institutional challenges are not always visible in our performance reports. A department may meet its deadlines while employees spend considerable time correcting preventable errors. Students may receive the services they need, but only after multiple contacts with different offices. Supervisors may report that operations are functioning appropriately, unaware of the informal coordination employees depend upon to make everything work.
The institution appears effective because its employees have become exceptionally good at compensating for its inefficiencies.
This brings us to an important distinction: There is a difference between an institution that functions because its processes work well and an institution that functions because its employees continually overcome processes that do not.
Institutional reflection requires us to examine that difference.
It also requires recognizing that valuable information exists throughout an institution. Senior leaders bring strategic perspectives. Supervisors understand departmental responsibilities. Frontline employees experience operational realities. New employees often recognize complications that longtime employees have stopped noticing. Students experience the consequences of all these arrangements, sometimes without understanding why something that appears simple requires so much effort.
No single perspective tells the entire story.
That is why meaningful institutional reflection should be collaborative rather than accusatory. The objective is not to identify whose decisions were wrong or whose department created a problem. It is to understand how current practices developed, whether they continue to serve their intended purposes, and what reasonable alternatives might improve the experience of employees and students.
We also need to distinguish between requirements that genuinely cannot be changed and practices that have simply become institutional habits. Some processes are shaped by law, regulation, accreditation, or essential internal controls. Others reflect decisions made years ago under circumstances that no longer exist.
Understanding the difference is itself an important institutional responsibility.
Today, I am introducing seven questions for reflection:
What problem have we normalized?
What would employees change first?
When does being busy mask ineffectiveness?
What is the institutional cost of unclear decisions?
What would a new employee notice?
What does institutional improvement actually feel like?
How do we turn institutional reflection into practical professional discussion?
These questions are not intended to suggest that every institution experiences the same challenges or that a single solution will work everywhere. They are invitations to examine our practices, compare experiences, and consider whether something we have accepted as unavoidable might actually be an opportunity for improvement.
Perhaps the most important thing about institutional reflection is that it does not always require an expensive initiative, an outside consultant, or an elaborate strategic plan.
Sometimes it begins when someone asks a thoughtful question and leadership is willing to listen to the answer.
Because continuous improvement begins long before we change a process. It begins when we become willing to question it.
Throughout today, I will explore these seven questions as part of the Rosenboom Workforce Institute's One Question Worth Asking series. I welcome perspectives from colleagues throughout higher education.