TESTIMONIALS
Strategic Planning
As a new community college president with decades of previous administrative experience, I realized that my new college had prior challenges and previous decisions that led us to stray from our core strengths and we were suffering the effects of being stretched without a defined plan to support our future ambitions. We needed to clarify what we wanted to achieve in the future, create a shared vision, and engage the entire campus community. Our start point was a formal Board Retreat in the Fall and we spent our Spring semester working through Dr. Will Austin’s strategic planning process to set a course for our future success.
Having worked with consulting firms in the past, I realize that there exists a wide spectrum of approaches ranging from those that want to “move in”, learn the culture and tell us how to run the college, to those that provide a generic template for a strategic planning process that gave no consideration to the specifics of our community and needs. Dr. Austin emerged as the ideal middle ground to these consulting extremes. There was substantive and focused energy learning about our college and constituency. His manner with people and personalities within the culture of our college community, led to an incredibly successful, and unifying map of our future. His planning process was engaging, systematic, genuine and provided a tried and true model that guided our efforts every step of the way.
The strategic plan and its development process is truly a defining moment for our college and certainly my tenure as president. It helped us to make many critical determinations about our future, focusing upon our core strengths and maximizing our success in these well-defined areas. Will Austin personally led the process while always reminding us that the organization was ours to run and the decisions were ours to make. His planning meetings were always consistently well designed and helped us maintain a sense of purpose throughout.
With Dr. Austin, we found a partner that managed the process to our specific needs, supplemented our weaknesses and treated the process with the personal care and attention we would expect from such a relationship.
-- Mike Gorman, President, Salem Community College
Recently, we utilized Dr. Will Austin’s Smart Leader Strategic Planning process. He served as our professional facilitator in a six-month strategic planning process. It was a perfect fit for our organization and its many constituent groups. He provides a solid theoretical approach that is applied in a very 'real world' down-to-earth manner. The program does an excellent job of providing a defined framework for the planning process without turning it into a mechanistic exercise that is theoretical without practical application. The framework helped us make sure that we were identifying and analyzing the key issues; but it did not do our thinking for us. I felt the emphasis on the development of specific objectives and action plans are the keys to ensuring that strategic planning isn't just an interesting exercise that subsequently collects dust on a bookshelf. I know the Strategic Plan we produced will make a major difference in the performance of our efforts to support all community colleges in New Jersey.
I am pleased to recommend the strategic planning services of Dr. Will Austin. He provides a thoughtful approach to the planning process; and a sensitivity to the specific needs of the organization. While he was flexible with this approach, Will held us to task in producing a meaningful and executable plan that would improve the association's position in the face of dramatic changes in our sector.
Will promised that what seemed complex would simplify into a plan that would strengthen our organization, be accepted by our stakeholders, and be able to be implemented; he delivered. Will was able to demonstrate to the team how strategic planning leads to actual plans, plans that have a positive impact on our association.
-- Dr. Lawrence Nespoli, President, New Jersey Council of County Colleges
Board Retreats
I want to share with you that Dr. Will Austin facilitated our recent community college board retreat and did an incredible job working to get everyone on the same page. He has an incredible ability to get right to the heart of the matter and make simple sense of the most complex and involved issues. In addition, he provided me with individual coaching and guidance that has raised my sense of awareness after my first year as the college president.
During the retreat, he facilitated numerous topics, but focused in on my 1st Year Presidential Evaluation. His process made me feel empowered through its commitment to confidentiality and integrity. He coordinated a fair and impartial process to distribute and tabulate quantitative and qualitative data from trustees. His process included a summary report of findings prepared and presented to the board through the chair with our written recommendations and goals for my future years as president as well as constructive comments that can help me better understand my Board and our relationship.
His goal setting process during the retreat helped to set the stage for strategic improvements and the establishment of action based performance goals. The entire day long retreat provided the board and I an opportunity to engage in a constructive future directed dialog on how to close the "gaps" between expectations and performance, define a base line for future assessment, and set a timeline for the next evaluation cycle. Unlike other consultants, who are too far removed from the presidency, he walked my Board through the challenges and proper expectations for their leader. He educated them on the best practices of Board culture and made me feel more comfortable throughout the experience.
-- Dr. Yves Salomon-Fernandez, President, Cumberland County College
