Organizational Renewal: Education

Changing Business Models at a Graduate School & Research Center

Client Case Study

Situation

An academic graduate school offering advanced degrees in psychology that had not changed its operations or market approach for many years was facing a new competitive environment. During the transformation the president of the institution became ill and unable to remain in the role. The Dean of Academic Affairs was appointed interim president by the board of directors, with no prior executive management experience.

Complications

The newly installed president inherited an institution suffering from poor fiscal management, a business model and operation that had not been updated for years and new competitors entering the market with bigger budgets. This new executive needed support to take up her role.

Approach

  1. Designed an inclusive, yet accelerated planning and change process that was quickly supported by all stakeholder groups.
  2. Worked with the board of directors, senior management and executive faculty to develop a new set of operating principles, and a renewed sense of direction.
  3. Target improvements were initiated.
  4. Individual coaching, team and board development, and large group events have punctuated this comprehensive change process.

Results
In four years..

  • The school has doubled its student body
  • Doubled its development revenue
  • Re-aligned its academic structure and concentrations to match market interests
  • Recruited and developed a professional senior management team
  • Expanded its faculty and continued to lead the way in the at-distance education model.
  • The president is now in her third year and has been offered a new multi-year contract.

Related Information

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LSA’s executive coach based his approach on understanding our business circumstances and strategy, as well as our leadership aspirations. The customized coaching covered all aspects of leadership; it was not simply a touchy-feely endeavor.

In fact, the focus on clear business outcomes and real life circumstances challenged me as a senior leader to develop my thinking and actions related to leading the business.”

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As a high growth agency with cutting edge talent, we hired LSA Global to help clarify our strategy and work with our executive leadership team to help implement strategic changes in a way that made sense for our unique culture.

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LSA’s action-learning leadership approach has been very beneficial to me, our leadership team, and the entire organization.

The balance of development and results has been excellent.

We have made huge progress, and I was also able to identify 2-3 high potentials while having the extra benefit of people stepping up to carry key strategic projects forward.

The experience was better than anticipated.  I could not be more pleased.

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The custom strategy and design session exceeded our expectations. They really understood our business and delivered within tight time frames. They were the best I have seen for this type of complex, visible, and strategic work.

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I would recommend LSA to anyone looking to take their strategy and strategic execution to the next level.

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At a time of change in our marketplace, LSA Global did an exceptional job helping our executive team create strategic clarity by helping us to define, clarify, and prioritize our corporate vision, mission, values, differentiation, target clients, strategic priorities, success metrics and key roles.

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We consider LSA our true business partner.

From Strategic Facilitation and Planning to Presentation Skills and Management Training, they continue to provide excellent value and extremely high quality solutions that make an impact.

I recommend them to anyone looking for a practical approach to drive true business and people results.

Michelle A. Mitchell
Vice President, Worldwide Human Resources

I can’t emphasize enough what a huge shift you helped to create for us as an organization. Thanks again for your change management consulting help and guidance.

The clarity, practicality, focus, and accountability are exactly what we needed to make this strategy and major transformation a success from a hearts and minds perspective.

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VP Corporate Strategy

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Their practical, straightforward, and client-centric approach was refreshing.  I highly recommend them to any executive team looking to get aligned to create even higher performance.  They are lights out awesome!

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Thank you for a great leadership development session today. The facilitator was brilliant.  The team got a lot out of it (as did I).

I believe it will help us create an even higher performance culture by ensuring we have a common understanding of how to create higher performance and work toward clear and common strategic goals.

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You have become our premier change leadership strategic partner. Your expertise in the human side of change is unparalleled and enabled our company to successfully implement our ERP Solution under challenging and ever-changing circumstances.

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LSA was very thorough during all phases of our customer service strategy process.  Their time spent with management and our employees went very well.

LSA’s insights were very powerful, and their suggestions for the future were very valuable.

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Having taken on a new executive leadership role, one of my first calls was to LSA Global to help my leadership team to design, implement, and cascade clear strategic plans.  First, LSA helped our leadership team identify the strategy, culture, and talent areas that mattered most to create organizational alignment.

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I would recommend LSA to anyone who wants to create high levels of strategic alignment, growth, and performance.

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