In 2020 I was selected to be the next President of Manna University. At the time I was a teaching pastor at a local church and adjunct professor to at least five universities. During that sometimes-awkward vocational transition, I learned about the strange vocabulary of higher education:
- Enrollment
- IPEDS
- Institutional Research and Effectiveness
- Headcount (duplicated and unduplicated)
- Scholarships (funded and unfunded)
- Standards and essential elements
- Retention
All useful terms that I now use regularly.
But every once in a while, it helps to remember what those words actually represent.
“Enrollment” is students.
“Institution” is people with families, bills, ambitions, frustrations, and lives that continue after they leave the office.
“Retention” is someone deciding to stay.
A budget is numbers on a spreadsheet, but every number eventually represents something we will or will not be able to do.
Organizations need systems and metrics. I believe strongly in both. You cannot responsibly lead a university, church, business, or nonprofit by ignoring data because you really love people.
That would be terrible stewardship.
At the same time, organizations can become so focused on systems that people slowly disappear behind the numbers.
I live in that tension every day.
Manna University is an institution.
We have budgets, policies, accreditation requirements, strategic plans, academic standards, enrollment goals, organizational charts, technology systems, and about a thousand other things necessary to operate a university.
Yet, Manna University does not exist for any of those things.
It exists for people.
That sounds obvious until you have to make institutional decisions.
Imagine a student struggling academically.
Looking only at the individual, you may want to make an exception.
Then you remember that academic standards exist for a reason.
Imagine an employee facing a difficult season.
You want to help.
You should want to help.
But you also have responsibilities to the rest of the team and to the organization itself.
Imagine a program that serves a relatively small number of students but costs significantly more than it generates.
Now what?
There is a person on every side of the decision.
“People over policy” sounds wonderful until selectively ignoring a policy creates an unjust situation for someone else.
“Do what’s best for the organization” sounds responsible until we forget that the organization is made up of human beings who will actually experience the consequences of what we decide.
Neither extreme works particularly well.
Systems without empathy become bureaucracy.
Empathy without systems becomes chaos.
Healthy institutions need both.
The Apostle Paul uses the human body as an analogy for the Church in 1 Corinthians 12. I understand that Paul is talking specifically about the Body of Christ, not giving us a lesson in organizational theory. Still, I find something helpful in the picture.
A body is simultaneously a whole and a collection of individual parts.
The hand, eye, and foot are needed for their individual purposes, yet none exists independently of the body.
Organizations function similarly.
Individual people matter enormously, but decisions affecting one person rarely affect only one person. Change someone’s workload and another team member may absorb something.
Create an exception for one student, and you may establish an expectation for the next.
Add a new initiative and somebody has to carry it.
Reduce an expense and somebody may lose a resource they value.
A leader has to see the person standing directly in front of them while also considering the people who are not in the room.
That second group is easy to forget.
- The student who followed the policy.
- The employee who quietly carried the extra load.
- The donor who trusted us to steward a gift responsibly.
- The future student who will inherit the institution we are currently building.
They may not be part of today’s conversation, but they are still affected by today’s decision.
I don’t think the answer is becoming emotionally detached.
Quite the opposite.
Leadership should feel the weight of decisions involving people.
If eliminating a position, denying a request, changing a program, or enforcing a standard becomes emotionally effortless, something may be wrong.
Feeling the weight of a decision does not necessarily mean avoiding it.
Sometimes caring for people requires saying yes.
Sometimes it requires saying no.
Sometimes it means changing the system because the system is failing people.
Sometimes it means defending the system because the system is protecting people.
Wisdom is knowing the difference.
I think this is one reason institutional leadership has made me less interested in simplistic organizational advice.
“Just take care of your people.”
Absolutely.
Which people?
The person sitting across from you?
The rest of the team?
The students?
The faculty?
The donors?
The people who will join the organization five years from now?
The answer? YES.
We will not always get that balance right.
I certainly don’t, but I never want my concern for the person immediately in front of me to make me irresponsible toward everyone else.
Institutions are systems and people.
Leading them well requires never forgetting any part of that equation.
Dr. Carlo A. Serrano, President