Well, what we try and teach schools is look, figure out who you are, who are your people, and let's build strategy around you. Rather than trying to be someone you're not.

Welcome to Focus, a podcast dedicated to the business of Higher Education. I'm your host, Heather Richmond. And we will be exploring the challenges and opportunities facing today's higher learning institutions. Today I chatted with Joe Abraham, operating partner at Beyond Academics. And we explored how the human factor can impact digital transformation in higher education. Welcome to the podcast Joe, I'm so excited to have you as a guest.

Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

I wanted to have you on the podcast because of your keynote at Alliance this year about the different entrepreneurial styles and how they can impact innovation on a team. But before we hop into the details, can we just get a little bit about your background? 

Yeah, IÕm unusual to higher ed, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've been building businesses ever since I was out of college it just happened to be that I stumbled across a fairly innovative guy who was starting a company called Beyond Academics to serve higher ed, a few years ago, and I teamed up with him. And that's kind of what brought me here. But my journey has been in the entrepreneurship space.

Excellent. Well, you have a lot to teach us then for sure. So you joined Beyond Academics, can you tell us a little bit about Beyond Academics and their focus on higher education?

Yeah, there's really three parts to who we are. Part one is R&D, we do a lot of research and development into what the future is holds for higher ed, the future of work, the future of the college enterprise, how entrepreneurial behavior is going to play into that. So we're doing a lot of studies with schools there. As we're learning from that, that leads to part two of who we are, which is consulting, we basically take all the learnings from our future of research and then apply to schools and work with presidents typically of schools, who are trying to roll out a whole new strategy and need help, either creating the strategy or executing the strategy. And then the third part of us is in the ed tech space, we have an accelerator where we invest, take early stage investments in some innovative tech companies, and also trying to find the companies that aren't getting a lot of limelight yet. They aren't heard of, but they've got really innovative things that benefit higher ed, we bring them into what we call our partner program and advocate for them, put them on the radar of presidents, put them on the radars of CIOÕs, so that they're heard and seen in the marketplace, because the technology transformation isn't going to happen with all the old guard, it's going to take some new bodies, and we're finding them and bring them in. So those are the three parts of who we are.

That's really cool. And you were just talking earlier about just all the ed tech companies that are focused within education, and it's pretty cool to go to trade shows and walk around and see all the new innovations that are happening. And I think a big part of that is because this concept of digital transformation has absolutely been something that higher ed has been focused on for years now. And there's been lots of conversations, what does that mean? Is that going to the cloud? Is that getting new tools and tech and processes? So what do you think has really led to implementing and making this such a focus on campuses?

We can all point back in our recent minds to the pandemic, how it kind of forced change, we find that higher ed doesn't really like to change unless it's kind of forced on them. So the pandemic was probably the last but then, everyone's talking about this enrollment cliff coming and then there's a demographic cliff coming. So there's that. And then there's the outside forces of all the disruption that's happening with education itself, the customer saying I don't know if I really need higher education anymore, new innovations where people can go and access education and certificate programs without necessarily even going into higher ed. So with all those forces, I think that's what's finally forcing higher ed to say we have to embrace new things. And I think that's bringing the onset of digital transformation. But yes, the old definition of digital transformation, which is, hey, let's just move to the cloud, is being debunked very, very quickly, because that's just not transformation at all.

It is, and we talk a lot of times too, about when it comes to any kind of transformation, sometimes there's a perception of there's a new technology, I'm going to go implement that. But it's beyond the tool. And it's really the mindset and the human factor IÕll say, for lack of a better word. And so when I think about that, this is really where your expertise comes in. And when looking at your book, talking about the entrepreneurial DNA. So can you talk a little bit about what you mean by that?

Yeah. I love that you said that transformation really is about the human side, because you nailed it. That's absolutely it. Technology enables stuff that humans come up with. But if the humans aren't ready, and if the humans don't want to change, we can throw all the technology in the world at them and it'll just sit there. No adoption, nobody adapts and then we just spent a bunch of money. So yeah, one of the reasons Matt Alex, our founder invited me to join him as a partner when he was starting the firm was he said, Joe, there's a human issue, there's a human problem in higher ed, where we're building the next generation of leaders. In other words, we're equipping these young people, and we're training them up, and we're training workforces, and higher ed is doing so many great things transformational in the lives of people. But when you look at what's happening inside higher ed, the staff, the faculty, it's kind of like the cobbler doesn't have any shoes, we're not investing in them. And they're not changing, and they're not transforming, and they're not advancing at the rate that higher ed could offer. So you're right, that's really where a lot of my focus in our firm goes is to say, how do we identify the needs of the people in higher ed, help them grow? And then yeah, I do find that entrepreneurial behavior, and entrepreneurial mindset is a tricky thing in higher ed. We teach it in our classrooms, but we don't necessarily encourage it in our conference rooms. Some schools do, and you can kind of tell because they start doing really cool stuff. And really big things happen. That's entrepreneurial behavior, resulting in it. But I would say a significant majority of schools struggle to find the balance between, wait a minute, we like the sound of entrepreneurial behavior and the possible outcomes, but what if people just go crazy and start making crazy decisions and taking all these risks, and the wheels come off? Somewhere in the middle of all that is the happy medium. So helping them find it is important. So that's one of the reasons I took some of the work I did in entrepreneurial behavior 20 years ago, working with entrepreneurs and startups in the technology space, and said, let's adapt that, which took a lot of work, into higher ed, because it's the same humans. We all have entrepreneurial behavior, it's just applied very differently in higher ed. So now the question is, how do we measure it in people? And how do we teach them to leverage it for personal professional growth, but also for the institution's benefit?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, when you talked about, it's interesting, we talked about teaching versus how are we doing it? We talk a lot of times about, there's really two halves, if you will, there's the educational, academic side, and then there's the business side, and there really is almost like a line there. They're not connected. So it doesn't surprise me that some of the things that we're doing from an academic perspective, maybe aren't translating over from a business perspective, but then that's where the opportunity really lies in understanding what does it take to be disruptive and to really adopt change?

Yeah, and we find more and more that the C suite of a typical higher ed institution, isn't necessarily the most entrepreneurial bunch. But 2,3,4 levels down, there's some incredible ideas, there's some great future potential leaders who are in the trenches, they know the problems, they've done their form of design thinking to say there's a problem, I think I have a solution. But because there isn't a good pathway for that idea to work its way to the halls of power. Because maybe there's a weak manager overseeing that person who doesn't want any ideas, or someone who hasn't been taught how to lead an entrepreneurially minded person. A lot of these great ideas are sitting stagnant across the organization. And the power will be eventually when higher ed starts to embrace it and create pathways for those ideas to flow up and through the organization. And for teams to form very nimbly and quickly. I mean, you look at the early days of the Googles, and the Apples, all they did was put smart people together and say have at it. We've got really smart people in higher ed. The question is, are we letting them have at it? Or are we saying, here's your standard operating procedure for the day, punch the clock, dot your T's cross your IÕs and go home, and be entrepreneurial in your student government thing or your association or your church or wherever else, but don't bring it here.

That makes a lot of sense. And so how do we transform? How do we then get the right people combined? I think you have a framework for that. 

Yeah. And it's happening. The good news is we're seeing it more and more, and more and more schools are looking at the ASUÕs and the Southern New Hampshire's and saying, wow, you guys did some really cool stuff, we should too. Boards are bringing in new presidents. Presidents are moving into new schools with fresh ideas, it's starting to happen. One of the tools available in their toolbox would be maybe some of the stuff you and I are about to talk about, which is if we can all assume that there's an entrepreneur inside all of us and there is. My work really didn't go to study, are we entrepreneurial as humans? We all are. The question is, are we all the same? And my aha moment was when I discovered that all entrepreneurs aren't the same. Like Richard Branson, who started the Virgin brand isn't the same thinker and decision maker as let's say, Steve Jobs. They just see the world differently. They make decisions differently, their risk tolerances are different. And you could see it in like Richard Branson's first book was called Screw It, Let's Do It. And you could see a record label and then a cruise line and then flying to who knows where, versus a slow and steady Bill Gates, we're going to own a technology company and build a technology company. And then you've got a Steve Jobs or Elon Musk kind of mad scientist behavior, right? They're all a little different, even though we could call them all entrepreneurs, their decision lenses were very different. Okay, so let's lift that, and bring that over to higher ed. And in higher ed, we've got a CFO or CIO, who makes decisions one way. But you may have an incoming president who's very kind of Elon Musk like in their thinking, very transformation minded. And then you may have an enrollment director who's very opportunistic risk taking, let's just go off hunt and find. And you put those four or five people in a room and go let's put a strategic plan together. Well we may not all see eye to eye because we're all higher ed people, but we are wired to think and make decisions differently. So this framework that I kind of stumbled across, I just named it BOSI, which is an acronym for builder, opportunists, specialist, and innovator. And they sit on a quadrant very much like you see a lot of behavioral quadrants. The B and the O sit next to each other at the top of the quadrant, the S and I sit at the bottom, the S is opposite of the O, the B is opposite of the I. It just worked out that way, where as weÕre all different as people, so an assessment helps uncover, if you're more builder like or more specialist like, if you're more opportunistic in your thinking, or more innovative in your thinking. And there's an aha for an individual to go, oh my gosh, I'm a specialist with some innovator tendencies, or I'm an opportunist with some specialist tendencies. And the report helps them uncover what that means for that personal journey as a professional in higher ed. But the real magic starts when a team starts to say, oh, you're a specialist, and I'm an opportunist, which means we think completely differently, our decision making at work is completely different. The specialist is going to think more protective of the organization, the opportunist is going to think more, let's just go make it rain, let's just take some risks. Both can benefit from each other, both need each other. But when they don't see the strengths of each other appropriately. There's the tendency this happens in higher ed as it does in any organization, it's like, oh, she's just different, I don't like her, I don't like when she's talking in meetings, she just talks about risky stuff. I just want to leave, and they put up barriers, when really what that is, is an opportunity for collaboration and the real transformation to happen.

In thinking about that, I think about so much where the miss is communication. And even when you think you're communicating well, because we all think a little bit differently. And if you put these four different personalities or the four different thinkers in a room, it's very possible sometimes that either yes, there could be some conflict. But there could also be you think you're on the same page, but you're really not because everybody is taking a different approach to how they're thinking about that. So that's where a lot of the challenges come in and how this structure and understanding where you are in that framework would really help.

Let's say we're dealing with the CIO of a school. And the CIO is showing specialist behavior. They've got years of schooling and apprenticeship and on the job training, theyÕre an expert, they know technology inside and out. But a specialist is their primary behavior. They by default are making most of their decisions through the lens of reputation. How do I protect my reputation and not look bad? And how can I protect the reputation of this department and the school? So most of the business decisions, work decisions are made through the lens of protection. Probably a really good thing for a CIO to have because they're watching over our cybersecurity, and they're watching over fraud and all kinds of stuff. But when that becomes their primary lens and they're in an organization where the board says, it's time for us to transform, we want to grow, we want to expand, we're bringing in a new president, and let's say the president comes in with a little bit more of what we call innovator DNA, which is kind of breakthrough thinking, idea generation. A lot of new intellectual property creation, theyÕre wired like the Steve Jobs, or Elon Musk, just like big, big mega change disruptive ideas. So on one side, you've got someone who's motivated by and wired for disruptive ideas, and then you've got another person in this, who has to work with them, who is thinking, lock it down, protect it, and make sure no one messes it up. So now the president says, hey, we should start exploring block chain, we should start exploring all these new technologies. And the CIO is like, no, no, no, that puts us at risk, that's going to make me look bad. What if we show up on Monday, and there's blue screens on every computer in the institution? I'm the one who has to deal with it. So, rightfully so, both of them have their perspective, but to your point, see how each other make decisions or what motivates us to make decisions, the innovator could miss the safety that the specialist offers, and the specialists could miss the disruptive game changer that the innovator offers. So then the question becomes, how do we leverage each other and still get to where we want to go? Same thing happens when the innovator president says, hey, let's do a brainstorming meeting of how we're going to get to the next level then invites the CIO to the meeting. Imagine that CIO in a brainstorming meeting, who's wired to think protectively is going to say, well, that's not going to work, and let me tell you the 15 reasons why. So in early ideation, the specialists can kind of mess things up by pointing out all the reasons something isn't going to work. Maybe they didn't need to be in that meeting. Yes, they're the chief of this, but maybe the president needs to know who their other innovators are. And the opportunities are to the early ideation with them, advance it a little further, and then bring the specialists in the room. And now you've created a better pathway to leverage the team and do more innovation better.

That's interesting. I'd be curious how do you figure out who you are? How do you know where you fall in the BOSI format?

Yes, one of the ways, and maybe we can link the talk that I did at Alliance, so people can just watch it for free on YouTube or something one way, just watch, spend 30 minutes, watch it, and you'll kind of self-diagnose yourself. Another way is you could just take the assessment. It's available on Beyond Academics, website, it's free. There's the basic version that's free, and you can get your answers instantly. And then if you want to have your team assessed, of course, there's a small fee for that. But yeah, so there are two ways, you can watch and self-diagnose or take the assessment and the assessment will tell you.

And I think sometimes that's helpful, because sometimes I would say that we think we're one way as humans or we want to be, but if you look and understand what does that make up? And I think probably all of us have done a personality test. And then you're like, oh, yeah, that does feel like me. And so maybe just having that awareness of where you fall will help you to think a little bit differently, or also be more open as you're in a room trying to make some decisions, I know I'm coming in at this DNA, and I know that this person is coming in this way, then it may help to actually collaborate even better.

I think so. I think you pick up not just a self-awareness, but you start to read people in a room. Once you've gone through this a couple times when we watch something or read the report, I think that person's an opportunist, just thinking in your own mind, we do that intuitively. When you're in a meeting, you're trying to read people in the room, are they like me? Are they not like me? This just gives you another filter to kind of run them through. And you're right, if you have good emotional intelligence, you're going to start adjusting to their style a little bit, or starting to at least wrap around them a little bit. Because you now know opportunists have some strengths, but they also have some weaknesses. Oh, if this person is joining my team, maybe I can be that person who supports them. They can be very disorganized and not want to follow detail. While I'm very organized, and I follow detail, maybe over coffee, I'll offer them that call. Because if they can go Rainmaker, and I can watch over the back of their back office stuff, the institution's further along. You know, there's ways to do that.

Yeah. And I know you went over the four labels, could you maybe dive into each one a little bit more? And what's meant by being a builder, opportunists, etc.? 

Yeah, let's do that real quick. I'll do this fast. So our data shows that specialist is the highest DNA in hiring almost 58%. And in some departments as high as 62% of the individuals will show specialist as their primary DNA. So let's quickly talk about that one. It typically activates in the experts of our world, because they've gone through that schooling, apprenticeship, on the job training certification, they have lots of letters after their name, they've built that expertise, which automatically, at some point creates the need to protect that. TheyÕve worked really hard to build a reputation. The last thing they need is some crazy idea of screwing it up now. So that sets the stage for the specialist, so their strengths tend to be in the work environment, very consistent, very trustworthy, because they're going to work hard and do their job and do it well based on their job description, because they put a lot of pride in their ability to deliver with excellence. So you can imagine, we need those people for sure hired in any company. Weaknesses tend to be in the area of accepting change. Because change typically involves risk to reputation, things could go well, but things could go really bad too. And I'd rather keep things the way they are, then deal with the risk of change, even if it means I could make more money, even if it means our organization could earn more profit or generate more revenue. If it ain't broke, let's not try and fix it. So that's a specialist approach, which has its value. But you can imagine when we're trying to transform, we can't all be specialists and transform, it's just not going to happen. So that's S, their polar opposite in decision making in the work environment tends to be what we call opportunist DNA. Very, very rare in higher ed only, like 6% of people in higher ed show opportunist DNA. And in most industries, it's like 15-18%, because they have sales organizations, business development people. So opportunists are little bit more of that Richard Branson. Money motivated, I want to make a lot of money fast, I want to generate commissions, I want to generate income and lots of it. I'll take risks, I'll go knock on doors, I'll kiss babies, I'll shake hands, I'm a natural born promoter. I just love talking about things I'm excited about, whether it's a stock tip, or a money making opportunity, you have people like that in your life. That opportunistic behavior is pre wired into certain people, which makes them predisposed to selling and promoting, but what's interesting in higher ed is, if only 6% of our audience represents that behavior, you can imagine, as we hit demographic cliffs, and when people aren't knocking on our door to come in and enroll at our schools, we're at a significant disadvantage, because we're missing the behavioral profile that wants to go hunting, and go and land deals and bring people in and recruit and raise money. That's that opportunist DNA. But opportunists are like, swing for the fences, who cares about the rules, please don't give me procedures to follow. I don't need consistency. And then to specialists is the polar opposite of that. Then you've got builder. I named it builder, because that's how they think, they always think in terms of growth, expansion, rapid expansion, most of their decisions are made through the lens of infrastructure. How do I grow my infrastructure? Because if my infrastructure isn't growing, I'm getting upset, something's wrong. If we're not adding square feet in our buildings, if we're not hiring more staff, if we're not expanding and taking over another campus, my goodness, we might as well just go home. TheyÕre like Ferraris, going 200 miles an hour, always wanting to gobble up and more and more infrastructure, highly driven. So because they know where they want to go, and they want big growth, they drive people and push people to perform. So about 15% or so, the data shows in higher ed. And you'll typically see them in leadership roles, because based on that style, they get thrust into leading, but what's classically true of builders is it's not just a personality trait. They've actually created double, triple percent growth over sustained periods of time in multiple organizations. So the telltale sign of someone with strong builder DNA, is they've grown things significantly, not just once. But everywhere they go, every time they step in massive growth happens. Because they're able to design and drive strategy around it. And then there's the innovator, they're opposite. The builder thinks of building stuff, growing stuff, expanding stuff. The innovator is really more mission driven. I don't care about money, I don't care about expanding or building, I just want to change the world. And I'll give it all away. I just want to see the impact of my invention, my creation, my idea in other people's lives. So you can imagine there's a lot of innovator DNA in higher ed. But innovator DNA has some amazing strengths, the ability to generate great ideas, great intellectual property. The weaknesses, sometimes turning that into scalable revenue or business or enterprise, innovator DNA, because it's so thinking about people and transformation, some of the business strategy and running the organization and figuring out TPS reports and financial models and all that drains them. They want to be in the lab inventing and creating the next thing whether it's an artist painting, or a chef making a beautiful meal, or you know a professor coming up with a new methodology. That's what energizes them, not being in the classroom teaching it necessarily or, something else. So those are the four. Obviously, as you can imagine, every team should have a little bit of them to run well. If we have all of one of them, you can imagine you're going to get the strengths, but all the weaknesses accentuated. So every team would ideally have the right version of all of them. And depending on the stage of organization, you may need more of one and less of the other. So as soon as you find the four and understand the four, and then say, what does our organization need today? Then you can start to map your strategy around that. And with some institutions, it's interesting to say, hey, look, we already have 1000 employees, we already have 500, or 4000 employees. What's our institutional DNA today? We have what we have, right? We're not going to fire everybody. So let's map our organization and say, as an organization, are we more specialist? Are we more innovator? Are we more opportunist or builder? Because that can start to telegraph what the best practices for us are. Because not every college is ASU. So, we can all go and follow ASUÕs strategy and go, oh, let's do what they did well, if their institutional DNA is different, and we try and copy it, it won't work. Because behaviorally, we're not wired to make the decisions they make. So there's no best practice guide we can borrow from them and implement. I think enough schools have figured out that doesn't work. So my recommendation and what we try and teach schools is, look, figure out who you are, who are your people, and let's build strategy around you, rather than trying to be someone you're not.

I think that's a really good point. Because, again, the part that I love being part of the higher education community is it's a community. And everyone loves sharing ideas, and we go to conferences, and we learn what everybody else has done. And we do try to emulate that and say, oh, this worked really well over here. And then, you do see sometimes why did that not work for us? What did we do differently? Then we go back to conferences, and we ask the questions, but I think you have something there that isn't thought about, especially when we think about digital transformation. And it being the tech and the people. And even though at one institution, it went off flawlessly. But when you try to do it, there's not the same level of success because it's a different makeup.

That's right. Meanwhile, you make a few tweaks to that you could still look at their roadmap. And if you recognize ahead of time that they're very different, then you can look at their roadmap, and okay, what if we want the same outcome they got? We love what happened for them at their school. What do we need to tweak about our approach to get a similar outcome? But for us to go exactly their path and expect the same outcome was probably kind of insane.

Yeah, I see. Another part of this transformation that we're seeing is that there really is a transformation of employees come on board to higher education, there's definitely been a transition roles opening. And I'll say, traditionally, there's been once youÕre in higher ed, you're always in higher ed. But we're starting to see a shift in that and new people. Yeah, coming from the business world and maybe even doing things differently. And some of the areas are talking about in terms of building or strategizing on how to make that happen. And there may be a little bit of that might be where some of the potential conflict or confusion comes from, is that almost not speaking the same language? Have you seen that? 

Absolutely. And when I was a newcomer to higher ed a few years ago, because I didn't grow up in the higher ed space. I sensed that from people that, oh, Joe, you're not from higher ed. And I understand why they're saying that because higher ed does have some very unique aspects of what it is. So let's say they're 50% right, but they're also 50% wrong, because that's one of the reasons we're a little stuck right now. One of the reasons we're a little bit stuck is because we have been so insular, that we haven't gotten those fresh ideas, but it's starting, like you said it's happening, new ideas are starting to trickle in. More and more leaders are starting to attend conferences outside of higher ed. Some of the more popular higher ed conferences like ASU, GSB are bringing the outside perspectives in. And so that's the beginning of it. And I think the more higher ed embraces those outside ideas, at least considers them but then still applies the higher ed filter that says, we're not exactly like Walmart, we're not exactly like Nike. How do we still filter their ideas and approaches because the same person who's going to come to higher ed, and take a course with us, a lifelong learner, does go shop at Walmart does buy Nike products and is marketed to and serviced by them or by Uber or by Netflix, right? So what are those brands doing to engage the exact same audience and deliver to them? Is it fair for someone to go have an Uber like experience? And then walk on our campus and then stand in line to meet a financial aid advisor, or stand in line or wait on hold on a phone call to find out if they're transfer credit transfers? That's crazy. Let's start talking to Netflix and Uber and some of the others, let's start looking at the technologies they're using to go, oh, maybe we can do that, too.

Yeah, I think that's interesting. And we talked about that a lot. And I think it really became so much more apparent during the pandemic and having to think differently. But a lot of the advances really, when IoT was new and fresh, and all of a sudden lights are turning on at your house, youÕre able to get into your door. But then you leave your home and go to campus, and you're handed a physical key to going what is this thing? What do I do with it? As opposed to, oh, here's your credentials on your mobile device, you can just tap and go, and itÕs definitely a mind shift change. But there's an expectation, especially from students, this is how we live life anywhere.

Yeah, and I think schools are making some great strides in that direction. My son just went away to college this last year. And it's interesting, like dorm life is pretty cool now. How they get their food now and how they get in and out of their dorm. So it's happening. But man, when we look at students systems, and when we look at the ERPs, and we look at the mobile experience, these students are given by schools, we've got some catching up to do in the digital transformation.

Yeah, absolutely. So kind of thinking about that, as we're learning, we understand where everybody falls potentially in the BOSI framework, any tips on if you are opposite but on the same team? How do you make sure that you're getting the most out of the strengths of each particular type of DNA?

Yeah, one of the cool things that we found is that especially the opposites, the strengths of one are the weaknesses of the other. So if you can truly buy into that, and if I'm a specialist, and my strength is thinking outside the box, and considering new ideas, without wanting to think that the sky's going to fall, analysis paralysis, and those are some of the weaknesses I have in a business environment, in a work environment. And this opportunist person, whose quadrant is opposite of me, almost lives for that stuff, give me the risk, give me the big ideas, I'll see this lining, I'll see the glass is always half full, I'll find the solution, even if the door gets slammed in our face. And if you can truly say wait, for the benefit of the organization, or for the benefit of the student, my best strengths, along with the other person's weaknesses actually are better. It's not that I need a bunch of people just like me around, my weaknesses can be offset by the other person's strengths. You start to form an appreciation, rather than the wall. And I think that's what it is. And if more managers are always having staff meetings and your team meetings, you're trying to do professional development, watch the little video that I did at the talk that you talked about, and just borrow it, make some notes and do a lunch and learn with your staff and say, hey, everyone, let's take the assessment. Let's have a talk. Let's figure out how we can work better together. What do you think and let the team give feed back to you. What if we ran our meetings this way? What if we handled our idea generation this way? And use it as an opportunity to build a better culture within your little department, and then see if that can find its way to the institution. Because that is where we're seeing some game changing outcomes, when people start to leverage each other's decision making, for the benefit of the student or for the benefit of the institution. It's pretty cool that the entrepreneurial behavior activates, but there's no hiding from you. I'm trying to find out how you can help me take an idea to the next level.

That makes a lot of sense. And at the end the day, youÕve got to start somewhere, right? I mean, even digital transformation, it wasn't just like, oh, here's the whole master plan from the get go. There are phases. And so it seems like if anything else, maybe it's more at a smaller department level that we start to implement and see this behavior. And then once it's noted, how do we expand that across campus? Have you seen something like that? 

Well, here's an example. Let's say I recognize myself as more specialists like, more analytical, more risk averse, more by the book. But I see a problem for a student and it's not just one student experiencing this problem, it's like a lot of students experiencing the problem. So I'm aware of the problem. I may innately know that as a specialist I'm not wired to come up with the solution or ideate, because I just want to go back to doing my work. But if I care about that student and that problem, maybe I know an innovator who sits four offices down, or four cubicles down, or I know a couple of opportunistic minded people in my department, maybe I could say, this is problem I keep seeing with our student. Could you guys, think about it and brainstorm some ideas, you guys are more creative. And let's meet in a couple of weeks. They're going to call you in two days going, hey, we met and came up with seven ideas. And we're so excited. So suddenly I've leveraged people who are opposite from me to advance something. Now they present it back to you, the specialist, it's going to be half baked, it's not going to be thought through, it's just going to be big picture, 40,000 foot view stuff. But at least it's something that now you can start to kind of put some scaffolding around and add the detail around, because that's what you're good at. And then send them back for another round of ideation. And before you know it, it's something to take to the boss. Now the three of you go to the boss and say, hey, we've thought this through, here's the big picture idea, here's some structure, here's some risk factors that we've thought through, what do you think? And the boss goes, that's a business case, this is awesome, I'm going to take it to my boss. That's what we need more of in higher ed. Versus I thought of something, I see a problem, I don't have time to deal with it, I don't know how to deal with it, and it just sits there. Or the innovative people have the ideas, but the boss is a very specialist mind who's like, we don't need any ideas right now. WeÕve got enough going on, let's just keep the trains running on time.

Yeah, I think that's a really great approach because it also really helps build that culture of being open and in recognizing the strengths of others, as opposed to being like, I can't believe that you're telling me to do this. It's more like, oh, I know that you're really good at this. So I need help with this part. And you know what, as a matter of fact, I'm okay with knowing I know the details, because I realized that's my strength, as opposed to just being like, why are you not detail oriented, and it changes behaviors.

And we're seeing more of this happen more and more, the more schools shift from an institution centric mindset to a more student centric mindset. When you're thinking about how do we solve for the student? How do we make their life better? You start to see problems everywhere for them, lots of friction points. And there's some smart, amazing people in higher ed with great ideas. We just have to make it so they can work together or bubble up those ideas and bring those solutions to the table. And, and then leaders need to be able to say let's try it, let's not say no, let's try something different.

And that's why we're talking to people like you, Joe. And I see how I can make a difference. Because I feel like in higher ed especially, all we want to do whether you're on the school side or vendor side, we want to make a difference. And to be able to do that and having a toolset to make that happen is just going to be rewarding for everybody.

We hope so.

Well, this has been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today.

It's been great. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Focus. Don't forget to subscribe so you can stay up to date on the business of higher education. For more information, check us out at TouchNet.com.