Higher Ed Technology Change Management and Digital Transformation

About this episode

The episode discusses the importance of leadership behavior in the success of technology projects in higher education.

Higher education's track record with technology change is uneven for a reason, and the reason is rarely the technology. It is whether leadership treats change management as a discipline that runs from planning through sustainment, or as a rollout activity bolted on at the end. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Mike Toguchi , Chief Strategy Officer at Tectonic , about why technology projects in higher education succeed or fail on the strength of leadership behavior rather than tooling. Drawing on 23 years working with universities, nonprofits, and foundations, including Stanford and UC Davis, Toguchi explains how the institutions producing durable digital transformation engineer trust, governance, and adoption into the project from day one. He shares why faculty resistance is empirically calibrated rather than culturally driven, why pilots should be sized for honest failure rather than confirmation of decisions already made, and why boards need to fund and govern transformation as an operating model rather than a discrete project. Throughout the conversation, McNaughton draws on his own consulting experience to surface common…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Drumm McNaughton

Guest: Mike Toguchi

Topics covered

• technology change management
• digital transformation
• leadership in higher education
• faculty resistance
• trust and governance
• project management

Keywords

• higher education
• technology projects
• change management
• digital transformation
• leadership behavior
• faculty resistance
• trust
• governance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Tectonic, Stanford, UC Davis

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