Escaping the Higher Ed Doom Loop
Higher education loves a big idea: the strategic plan, the new visionary leader, the bold rebrand. But behind the headlines, many institutions are trapped in a cycle that produces motion, not progress. Many institutions are not steering the ship; they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, yet again.
The Doom Loop
The story is all too familiar. Picture a regional public university—let’s call it Lakeview State University. Right now, Lakeview is receiving disappointing news about enrollment numbers for the upcoming academic year. Leaders are scrambling to adjust budgets and draft new fiscal plans. To deal with the shortfall, they have laid off IT and facilities staff. In response, the university has decided to hire a new president, announces a new strategic planning process, and brings in an outside consulting firm. Bold recommendations are made, and new initiatives are announced to the press. But the new initiatives are then underfunded or abandoned when they don’t deliver quick results. The new president is fired, and new programs begin to wither. In turn, there are more disappointing results the following year. Rinse and repeat.
This cycle plays out at colleges and universities across the country. In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins has a term for this type of reactionary, cyclic behavior: the doom loop. The doom loop involves a reaction to disappointing results, bold new directions or ideas put forward, the abandonment of the new idea, and then more disappointing results. In higher education, the doom loop isn’t the exception—it’s often the norm.
Figure 1. The Higher Education Doom Loop
We can start anywhere on the doom loop, but disappointing results feel appropriate given the current climate of higher ed. We see enrollment declining at many institutions, cuts to grants and state funds, slumping test scores, dwindling tenure-track faculty, and more. These outcomes have a variety of causes, both internal and external, but their key aspect is their disheartening nature.
The response to these results is often a reactionary approach. Crucially, a reactionary approach occurs without a real understanding of the issue. A college will pivot or react to the crisis of the moment without considering its long-term priorities or values. In response to some event or news, new leaders are hired. New majors are launched. A new strategic plan or marketing campaign is announced. A new round of layoffs is enacted. All these actions are responses to some current crisis, and then leaders move on to putting out the next fire that requires their attention. There isn’t much thought as to why the previous leader didn’t work out, why there is a budget shortfall, or why layoffs were needed. A layoff, for example, is a reactionary response to a budget shortfall, but is the outcome of years of decision-making.
Once the flashy headlines of a new leader or set of initiatives dim, reality sets in. The programs don’t generate immediate results or another fire emerges that needs attention. Programs slowly wither and die when they are underfunded or abandoned. Again, any momentum is killed in the process, and the cycle starts anew with more disappointing results.
Many of the problems with doom loops stem from another powerful concept: higher education leaders believe they are playing in a finite game. In his book, The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek notes that, unlike finite games, which are played to win, infinite games are played to perpetuate the game itself. In infinite games, rules can change at any point, and players may be both known and unknown. However, the finite mindset causes unnecessary competition within and across institutions instead of building cultures of trust focused on achieving a just cause. For instance, we see evidence for this every time leaders talk about wanting to move up in the college rankings, obtain R1 status, or become a top destination for students. These all serve a belief that a college can “win” in some way. Yet, institutions of higher education are clearly in an infinite game (the first colleges emerged over 1,000 years ago). When institutions realize they are in an infinite game, the decision-making process changes completely.
What We Can Do
Fortunately, once we accept that colleges are playing an infinite game, there are ways to escape the doom loop. Like many diseases, prevention is certainly the best strategy. However, if one’s already in a doom loop, it is still possible to escape.
For example, Harvard appears to be trying to break out of its doom loop. When challenged by the federal government with an unreasonable set of demands, they said no. Harvard did so as the demands were an affront to their core values. Capitulating to the federal government on unreasonable demands may offer some short-term relief, but it will also erode the very fabric of higher education. Thus, it takes courage to focus on your values and not those of external groups. On a smaller scale, there is movement to escape the doom loop every time an individual working in higher education can ignore some of the noise and focus on making real progress. We push away from the doom loop when a faculty member continues to refine how they teach a topic or when they meet one-on-one with a student to help them get unstuck. We also see it when a staff member or administrator chooses a path that is aligned with the espoused values of the institution instead of reacting impulsively.
In contrast to the doom loop, Collins also provides the metaphor of a flywheel, in which the slow movement of a flywheel builds up momentum, causing it to spin faster and faster. This is the opposite of reactionary ideas without understanding. Instead, the focus is on slowly building momentum toward what is important. To achieve the flywheel effect, Collins focuses on disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. What does pursuing a flywheel instead of a doom loop look like in action? As President Crow of Arizona State University recently noted, colleges need to evolve or die. However, how colleges need to evolve matters. The goal for colleges shouldn’t be to replicate ASU or any other institution, but instead to chart their own path. Yet many institutions seem to be imitating one another, especially their so-called “peer institutions”, or those they aspire to resemble. Much of this is driven by external rankings, such as US News or Carnegie Classifications. Instead, colleges should focus on hiring and retaining their best staff (disciplined people) and outlining their institutional strengths (disciplined thought). Further, colleges should build on these strengths and stop some activities (disciplined action)—all while ignoring outside rankings and metrics. Metrics are key to ensuring progress is happening, but they should be metrics focused solely on the institution, for instance, tracking yearly relative progress for all those inside and outside the institution. The shift would be a college ignoring some arbitrary scorecard that ranks colleges and instead tracking their own graduation rates or numbers of patents relative to the previous year. The goal should be slow forward progress that isn’t reversed by every “unprecedented” event that emerges.
By focusing on building momentum towards goals aligned with their core values, colleges can engage in real strategic planning and decision making—instead of simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. They take the wheel, steer intentionally, and chart a course to a future shaped by purpose, not panic. Faculty and administrators can do this at all levels, from their individual labs and departments to the college as a whole.
Have you experienced the doom loop play out? What did your college do in response? How do you respond when the doom loop might be swirling around you?