Why Strategic Plans Fail—and What Leaders Can Do Instead

Higher education is facing threats on many fronts in 2026. The disruptive effects of AI, governmental interference, demographic decline, and growing public skepticism about the value of a college degree are all converging at once. In this environment, colleges and universities cannot rely on traditional strategic planning processes that produce lengthy documents but little change.

For many institutions, however, strategic planning has become an exercise in process rather than progress. Comprehensive plans are drafted, vetted, and approved—only to end up on a shelf, gathering dust. Instead of serving as compasses from point A to point B, they too often become expansive wish lists untethered from economic reality.

If institutions are to adapt, they must move beyond planning as paperwork. An alternative approach begins with identifying a clear, achievable vision and aligning measurable goals and financial discipline to that vision.

The Chapman model

Beginning in the early 1990s at Chapman University, we developed a planning process designed to drive institutional transformation. Many dedicated and visionary academic leaders shaped that effort. But like at many long-established organizations where most people are comfortable with the status quo, bringing about change was not easy. This is especially true at universities because of their complexity and the many claims on their governance and direction.

The strategies Chapman’s academic entrepreneurs pursued were fueled by the recognition that Chapman needed to transform itself not only to survive but to thrive in an increasingly competitive educational environment. Those strategies drove a series of five-year plans, each centered on a primary overarching goal: to transform Chapman from a small regional college into a selective university of national stature.

Over the 25-year period from 1991 to 2016, Chapman’s academic reputation, as measured by a U.S. News survey of presidents, provosts, and chief academic officers, increased from #90 out of 120 schools in 1991 to #7 in 2016. Its student selectivity ranking rose from #66 in 1991 to #3 in 2016. Chapman’s overall U.S. News ranking, representing a weighted average of qualitative indicators, advanced steadily during each of the five-year planning periods, moving from #61 in 1991 to #5 in 2016.

While rankings are imperfect measures, they provide external benchmarks that help sharpen institutional focus and track progress toward clearly defined goals.

Countless paths to transformational change

The higher education environment today is markedly different from the one Chapman faced in the early 1990s. The specific strategies that worked for us may not be the right strategies today—or for other institutions. Chapman’s vision to become a more selective university was its own. Not every institution has to adopt that particular goal to draw useful lessons about transformational change.

There are countless paths to transformation. Instead of working to become more selective, an institution might have good reasons to move in the opposite direction. A university may choose to embrace rather than reject AI in its curricular offerings. Recent economic trends may suggest combining vocational training with a traditional liberal arts curriculum. Another possibility is designing undergraduate degrees that can be completed in three years. An idea that may have real value is designing a general education curriculum that inculcates higher levels of emotional intelligence in students.

The lesson from Chapman’s experience is not to become more selective—or less selective—or to follow any single blueprint. Instead, it is to identify an achievable vision that excites the hearts and minds of the community. Once that vision is clearly defined and embraced, specific goals can sharpen the vision and serve as pathways to achieving institutional objectives.

Transformational change requires breaking through the comfortable allure of the status quo. It requires measurable goals, disciplined use of data, and financial models that provide funding for new strategic initiatives. Above all, it requires clarity of purpose.

From vision to execution

At Chapman, transformational change did not begin with a comprehensive document. It began with a clear overarching goal and a commitment to align institutional decisions with that goal over successive five-year periods.

Data were used not simply for reporting but for direction. Tracking peer institutions through available benchmarks clarified where improvement was needed and where comparative advantage could be developed. The institutional decisions were pursued strategically, with initiatives evaluated in terms of how they advanced the university’s defined objective.

In our first five-year planning period (1991–1996), we focused on increasing our student selectivity, which led to Chapman’s graduation rate increasing significantly. That goal led to moving our NCAA program to Division III, thereby allowing us to transfer athletic scholarship funds to academic merit scholarships.

During our second five-year plan (1996–2001), we focused on expanding enrollment to generate economies of scale. To increase enrollment, we established a new film school and moved our business program to AACSB accreditation.

During our third five-year planning period (2001–2006), we focused on increased investment in new buildings, including a new library and a film studio. To make our case to the faculty and board of trustees, we used buildings and land valuation data, as reported annually by IPEDS, to compare Chapman’s ratio with other schools in the three competitive groupings we identified. The resulting valuation-to-FTE ratio for Chapman made our case for moving forward more compelling, especially with our donor base.

The strategic focus of the 2006–2011 planning period was on faculty development. In addition to placing a higher priority on establishing more endowed chairs, we increased the percentage of the budget allocated to academic expenditures from 54 to 65 percent. The additional funding moved Chapman to the 95th percentile in faculty salaries across all three ranks. It also enabled the university to recruit Nobel laureate Vernon Smith and his experimental economics research team, as well as Richard Bausch, one of the world’s most respected writers. In addition, Chapman created a new class of faculty—designated “Presidential Fellows”—that included distinguished intellectuals and global scholars such as Elie Wiesel and Pico Iyer.

During the final five-year planning period of my presidency (2011–2016), our institutional focus was centered on establishing a new graduate health sciences campus and school of engineering. In order to supplement external fundraising to support these costly initiatives, we used the net income ratio to increase our operating efficiency. That financial model led to a budgetary approach that generated more than $200 million to support our health science and engineering initiatives.

What distinguished this approach was not the production of a plan but the disciplined alignment of goals, resources, and measurable outcomes over time. Strategic planning became less about drafting a document and more about sustaining progress.

Transformational change does not occur because a plan has been written. It occurs when leadership defines a clear institutional vision and consistently aligns decisions, investments, and resources with that vision. Without that discipline, even the most carefully crafted plan risks becoming another document on the shelf.

These ideas are explored in greater detail in my recent book, Using Data Analytics to Drive Transformational Change (Bloomsbury Press, ACE Series on Higher Education). They will also be discussed further in an upcoming webinar on institutional strategy and change.