- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
February 28, 2026
Read Time - 4 minutes
"Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation. ~ Robert H. Schuller
Several years ago, there was a dean who launched an interdisciplinary certificate program that looked excellent on paper. It genuinely was a good idea—faculty across departments had been talking informally about this gap in our curriculum for years. The content made sense. But it was designed primarily to generate revenue, without much effort toward faculty taking ownership of it. Department chairs—the people who would need to champion it with faculty and students and integrate it into marketing—were left out of the planning. The courses lived administratively in the college office, which had never marketed an academic program before and had no infrastructure to start. Most of the college’s faculty didn't even know the program existed until after it launched. And the launch was quiet. No community partners had been built to support it. No student demand had been cultivated. No communication plan existed beyond the website announcement.
Fast forward two years: zero enrollment.
Literally zero.
A lot of smart people had invested significant time and energy, and the program just… sat there.
I suppose you could say the entire effort made an excellent talking point on a few people's resumes, though.
This wasn't a failure of vision or good intentions. It was a failure of organizational readiness. Nobody had stopped to ask: Does the college have the buy-in to make this work? Do we have the marketing capacity? Are the right systems in place?
The college was operating in "constant execution mode"—so consumed by operational demands and process that nobody had bandwidth for the creative, exploratory work needed to actually launch something new. The idea was solid, but the organization wasn't balanced. And that gap killed it.
Leadership Takeaway
The certificate program didn't fail because it was a bad idea. It failed because nobody asked: "Do we actually have the capacity to make this work?"
Which is brings us to a common higher ed pattern: Leaders launch initiatives reactively.
Enrollment is down, so we need a new recruitment strategy; Retention numbers slip, so we create a student success program; on and on…
We inherit broken systems and everyone's already maxed out. But we keep piling on new initiatives anyway. And research explains what that costs us: Failure to establish adequate organizational readiness accounts for half of all unsuccessful large-scale change efforts (Weiner, 2009).
In short, the college was organizationally imbalanced. They had plenty of operational discipline—committees, approvals, governance structures. What they didn't have was any protected space for the exploratory work the initiative actually required: building partnerships, developing marketing approaches, cultivating student demand.
All process, no creativity.
Most stuck organizations aren't lacking ideas or capability. They're overdeveloped in one mode and underdeveloped in the other—structurally tilted to one side of a crucial balance.
I recently came across Steve Whitehead's Spark-Anvil framework that finally gave me language for this. It maps organizations on two dimensions: Spark (the exploratory work—building relationships, testing assumptions, cultivating buy-in) and Anvil (the execution discipline—systems and structure that sustain initiatives long-term).
That certificate program? All Anvil, no Spark.
What To Ask Before You Greenlight Anything
Here's what should have happened before that certificate program launched—and what we should consider before greenlighting any initiative:
1. A Cultural Reality Check: "If this initiative quietly disappeared tomorrow, who would actually notice and care?"
Not who nodded in the meeting. Not who approved the proposal. Who would be genuinely disappointed? For the certificate program, if anyone had asked this honestly, the answer would have been "almost nobody outside the planning committee."
The work that should have happened instead: Spend six months building genuine investment, not just securing approval. Who actually needs to care about this for it to work for it to live beyond the launch? How do we create that commitment before we announce anything?
This is Spark work—the exploratory, relationship-building phase that can't be rushed. It's not sexy strategic planning. But it's the difference between initiatives that survive and initiatives that become resume lines.
2. A Capacity Audit: "What would people have to stop doing to make room for this?"
Academic leaders are brilliant at adding. We're terrible at subtracting. Every new initiative assumes people will just work harder or be more efficient. The certificate assumed chairs would champion it, faculty would promote it, and students would seek it out—all while everyone kept doing everything else they were already doing.
The work that should have happened instead: Actually create protected space. Not hope people find time—deliberately shift priorities. What existing work stops? What gets deprioritized? What resources move?
If you can't name what people will stop doing, you're not ready. And if your organization is all Anvil (execution mode) with no Spark (exploration capacity), nothing new can develop properly.
3. A Systems Test: "Six months from now, when the champion moves on or gets distracted, what keeps this running?"
Most initiatives survive on the passion of one or two people. When they leave, get promoted, or burn out, the initiative dies. That certificate had no communication system, no partnership infrastructure, no faculty integration. It was entirely dependent on individuals who didn't have bandwidth.
The work that should have happened instead: Build sustainable infrastructure, not rely on heroes. What communication rhythms? What partnership structures? What faculty champions? What onboarding for when people leave?
This is Anvil work—the disciplined execution structure that turns pilots into permanent practice. Without it, even the best ideas fade away.
The counterintuitive move: Sometimes the best decision is recognizing "we're not balanced enough yet" and doing this foundational work before launching something new.
If you want to diagnose where your organization falls on the Spark-Anvil spectrum, Steve Whitehead offers a free assessment here: https://surveymars.com/q/NQfaMAVBi
Bottom Line
The most strategic thing a leader can do is honestly diagnose organizational imbalance before greenlighting initiatives. That certificate program taught me this: Good ideas aren't enough. Organizations need both the creative capacity to develop them (Spark) and the execution discipline to make them real (Anvil). But most importantly, they need the cultural ability to move deliberately between the two.
Here's what I've seen when organizations rebalance:
Faster decisions – Less friction between idea and pilot
Aligned leadership teams – Shared language for what "ready" means
Fewer stalled initiatives – Ideas either move forward or get killed cleanly
Cleaner experimentation pathways – Protected exploration time + disciplined execution structure
Learning from failures – Failed pilots become valuable data, not embarrassments
Most leaders focus on generating better ideas. The real work is creating organizations capable of executing them.
Innovation isn't Spark alone, and it isn't Anvil alone. It's the disciplined rhythm between the two that makes change stick.
Try This Before Friday
Before you greenlight that next initiative, apply the three questions from above: Cultural Reality Check, Capacity Audit, and Systems Test.
If any answer makes you uncomfortable, that's valuable data. The best leadership move might be building the balance first.
The ah-ha moment: Recognizing that "not ready" usually means "organizationally imbalanced"—which is fixable, if you name it.
Want to assess where your organization falls on the Spark-Anvil spectrum? Steve Whitehead offers a free diagnostic here: https://surveymars.com/q/NQfaMAVBi
Thanks for reading. Until next week!
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