Katie Conboy: Leading Change at Simmons College

The Conboy case can be used to examine the leadership and change strategies and behaviors critical in establishing one's credibility, crafting a vision for change, building agreement across stakeholders, generating urgency, and overcoming resistance. It also uniquely offers the ability to discuss the options available to a leader whose change effort may not be successful after expending significant social capital. While the case is situated in academia, many of the challenges Conboy faces as she becomes the new Provost of a small college in 2013 are salient across most industries. External challenges include a shrinking customer base, changing customer demands, increased demands for a higher ROI on tuition investment, intensified competition and unsustainable price wars. Internally, most employees were largely unaware of those external challenges, and were therefore frustrated by and suspicious of senior administrators' unilateral decisions to cut staffing and change the 'product'. The culture was marked by turf protection and silos. After initially conducting a 'listening tour', Conboy concludes that the general education curriculum, the courses all undergraduates are required to take, needs to be radically transformed. She is also convinced that the college could not afford to wait to build and then launch the change in a "normal" 2-3 year timeline. With plummeting admissions numbers, change had to start with the next entering class of students. The first hurdle in making that happen was to garner the formal approval of the faculty through a vote held December 2014.

• Organizational change
• Leadership qualities
• Resistance to change
• Organizational culture
• Leadership vision