A peer-to-peer discussion with Dean John Clarke from DePauw University’s School of Business and Leadership.

In Episode 49, Dean John Clarke shares his unique experience as the inaugural dean of DePauw University’s School of Business and Leadership. Dr. Clarke’s non-traditional path to deanship, coupled with a career rich in a variety of experiences, provides a unique strategic and leadership perspective to guide his young school.

“The opportunity to start something new from scratch, that doesn't come along every day,” said Clarke.

Join panelists Ken Kring and David Ikenberry as they delve into Clarke’s perspectives on strategic leadership, sunsetting programs, culture-building philosophies, and approaches to staff and faculty engagement as part of change management.

“If you're not sunsetting things, where is the capacity to build the new things? You have to create capacity,” stated Clarke.

This discussion highlights a key challenge in academic administration: resource allocation and prioritization emphasizing the crucial link between program discontinuation and the development of new initiatives. A must-listen for academic leaders.

About Dean Clarke:

John Clarke is the inaugural dean of the School of Business and Leadership and a professor of business. Dr. Clarke comes to DePauw from the Tulane University Freeman School of Business, where he was the Paul A. Callais Professor in Entrepreneurship and the John B. Elstrott Professor in Management. Learn more about Dean Clarke here.

Photos courtesy of DePauw University

Transcript:

Dave 0:13

Welcome to Deans Counsel, a podcast aimed at supporting university leaders holding one of the more critical jobs on a university campus. Your panelists, Ken Kring, Jim Ellis and Dave eichenberry, engage in conversation with highly accomplished deans and other academic leaders regarding the ever complex array of challenges that Deans face in one of the loneliest and most unique jobs in the Academy located in central Indiana, DePaul University is a long established institution which first opened its doors in 1837 making it one of the older institutions in the US. But in 2023 this private, traditional liberal arts university embarked on a new journey by choosing to launch a new business school, while business instruction is not entirely new to DePauw. Growing business education into a bonafide college is now the purview of our guest today, John Clark, who serves as its inaugural Dean. John comes to this role from what some might view as a non traditional pathway. John has a PhD in physics and served in various corporate consulting organizations around the globe. Later, he shifted into higher education and has held several administrative leadership roles for many years now, at the geese College of Business at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign and at the Freeman school at Tulane, while not cut out of traditional professorial cloth, John has taught numerous courses in the entrepreneurial and consulting areas, many with an experiential component to them. Yet the rich experiences he has had along his career, in many ways, seemingly give John a great strategic and leadership perspective with which to move his young Business School at DePaul forward. Not surprisingly, we hear in this episode some of the unique leadership challenges John faces as the school's inaugural Dean. Yet perhaps even more interestingly, at least to me, is that we hear what is, in fact, so common to the leadership challenge that so many of us face as academic leaders of young or old schools alike, learning how to meet people where they're at, being emotionally aware of the environment around you, and finding ways to energize and support a climate of innovation in an institution which may already have rich traditions, cultures and history, and, of course, so much more, although I find this true of so many of the 48 episodes which precede this one, I know you'll find much to digest and reflect on in our conversation with John Clark today. I hope you enjoy. Welcome.

Ken 2:50

We're here today with John Clark, who joined DePauw University as the inaugural Dean of Business and Leadership and really opened up a new school last year. John, welcome.

John Clarke 3:03

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Ken 3:05

We're hoping that you can talk some about what attracted you to this new role that indeed was both a new role in an institution, a new role for you

John Clarke 3:17

absolutely well again, Ken and Dave, thanks so much for having me here today, I really appreciate the opportunity to chat, and I very much enjoyed listening to the podcast and the work that you're doing here, so it's nice to now be a part of it, rather than a listener. So yeah, I joined deport, as you said, last year, as the inaugural Dean, and then opened the school in October. And there were many things that attracted me to the role, in part, was the opportunity to start something new from scratch that doesn't come along every day, and it was to be part of something that's not only significant to the school, but also something that is a core institutional strategic imperative. So it's an opportunity not only to improve or enhance what's happening in a school, but to do that at an institutional level, I was very much attracted to the strategic thinking behind the strategy to move to open schools. I liked the strategy. I liked the fact that it was accompanied by implementation plans with metrics and goals and the resources required to achieve them. Oftentimes, strategic plans are not fully thought through or resourced appropriately, and it appeared that this was one that had been thought through properly, had the right leadership, support and commitment, and was something that, again, I could help to have a big impact institution wide, by taking the role. I also was very intrigued about this in terms of business in a liberal arts setting, and that's something that a lot of liberal arts universities have struggled with, or are struggling with. I thought that this strategy was different than the models that were being adopted elsewhere, and indeed, that's turned out to be true. I've had lots of phone calls since I took the. Role from other business faculty or leaders at academic institutions elsewhere, saying, can you tell us more about how it's going, what you're doing and how this strategy is playing out? So to me, the opportunity to shape the institution in a holistic fashion, but also because of the strategy. I walk to work every day thinking about, how do I improve the educational outcomes, not of a subset of students who may be doing a major or minor, but of every student at the institution, and that's part of our strategy of adopting three schools, is to impact the education of every student, not a subset, but also the opportunity to work with every faculty on our campus, not just faculty who have any teaching in those majors and minors. So that ability to impact the whole was really very attractive to me. And of course, the novelty of building something new, mind you, that comes with some challenges, because lots of people have expectations about what this new thing will be. Those expectations aren't necessarily all aligned. And so there's challenges there, as you put forth the strategy and try and implement

Dave 6:02

again. Welcome John. It's great to see you this morning and and and collaborate together again. Let's dig a little bit deeper. What Why did DePauw choose to, you know, launch a business school in terms of students coming on board in 2024 I mean, you know, modern business schools really flourished in terms of their formation, starting in the 1900s and then mid 1900s but why now and and also talk a little bit about, what does it mean to be an inaugural Dean, What What roles, what things are you focusing on that a dean of an established organization might not be doing?

John Clarke 6:47

Yeah, no. Great question, why and why now, the institution's been around since 1837 so we're not new to higher education, and in fact, we've had a Business Honors Program that has just welcomed this 45th cohort. So since the 80s, we've been teaching business so, so why now go ahead and create a school, and I think that we're building on that past success of creating business leaders, folks who end up in sweet C suite roles and become serial entrepreneurs. But there, this is in response to what's happening in the market. Broadly, business education is in high demand, and as prospective students think about their options, and there are more options today, and fewer students are actually thinking about a four year residential experience than in the past, they have more options to do different things and different pathways. So it's important that we communicate to to those prospective students and the parents that business is something that we do. We do well and we're serious about so the creation of the School of Business and Leadership and the creation of the creative school we've created two schools are to strengthen existing capabilities and to bring more focus to them so that we can develop them further, but also to send the signal to the marketplace that this is a place that you know is focused on these things, and these are places that you can come in order to get those experiences. But we are embedding the school in the liberal arts model. So the other aspects or benefits of coming to a small liberal arts education are not, you know what I'm taking away from those when we when we implement this model. So again, the idea here is to bring business to everybody, but obviously to bring more business to students who choose a major or minor in a business discipline, but through co curricular activities, in addition to curricular activities to since there are no barriers on campus, students can go anywhere to really provide the benefits of business education to everybody at the institution as a whole. So, I mean, that's the that's the strategic imperative as to the second part of your question. And you know, how is it different to be an inaugural Dean than to take the role of a, you know, replace a sitting Dean. There are definitely some challenges, as I mentioned before, different people have different expectations about what this means, and some people are not excited about it, and so they're perhaps hoping that this won't work and will go away if they just let it. Other people are very excited about it. Want to get involved. And, you know, external state. You know that those, those different stakeholder groups that, you know, alums, donors, students, faculty, staff, you know, there's lots of different expectations there and different opinions. So I think the challenges here have been trying to build and trying to build something that built from what was already here. As I said, we business isn't new, but we have added new majors, and we are recruiting new faculty, and we're anticipating higher student demand. But how do we stay true to what we have been doing in the past, and how do we straight stay true to to the liberal arts education and what we've been doing for a very long time in a very successful way? So. Kind of marrying the new to the old, being cognizant and intentional about not just tearing everything up and starting again, but looking to layer on top and strengthen what was already here. But it does come with some challenges when you're trying to recruit faculty who are going to teach courses that we haven't taught before. We typically hire junior faculty, and when they might go to another institution, they'll say, Oh, can you teach accounting 102, that has been taught here for a very long time. And we have a bunch of sections, and here's the syllabus, and here's how it goes. Here we might say, Can you teach machine learning? We have a course description. We have an idea how it fits in the curriculum. We've written out some high level learning objectives, but can you as a junior faculty figure out, how do we build this course in our business analytics curriculum? So to me, it's exciting, but you have to get faculty who are going to be excited about that. How do you attract faculty who want to sit at the table immediately and have a role in shaping what the curriculum will look like in the future. And as a small school too, they will have not only a seat at the table, but also a big voice. And we're relying on them. We're relying on them to help build out these programs. So that, I think, is a difference in faculty recruitment here than the faculty recruitment I've done in the past. I think also we compete. When I think about admissions, the activities I'm involved in, we have to compete on what it is that we offer, rather than trying to we are, by definition, different from a lot of the other schools and programs that students might look at. And to me, it's not about comparing ourselves to other or trying to compete on their terms. It's about articulating the value of what we offer in this marketplace. And I think today in higher education, it's really important to understand what it is you offer and be able to articulate that clearly, because people are looking for points of distinction, and a lot of what we say in the world of business education sounds the same. We use the same words. We use words loosely. So how do you how do you encapsulate what it is that you offer and why you would want to come here and engage with us, assuming you're a good fit for us, and you think we're a good fit for you, rather than and then any of the numerous choices you would have to pursue business education,

Ken 12:32

that's very interesting. You know, as as a founding dean, you get to sort of frame the question, frame this and frame the statement, I would guess, but also more tactically, we'd be interested to hear sort of what you've done and how you've gone about engaging the diversity of stakeholders to sort of bring them along and engage their interest and commitment.

John Clarke 13:01

Yeah, that's that's been a very interesting process for me, and I've relied on a lot of past experiences to do this here, I think you have to meet people where they are, and that means understanding that they might be coming from a place of trauma. They might have distrust. They might have had a bad experience in the past. This could be internal or external stakeholders. They might have a need to unpack things before they can engage with you. They might have a need to be heard. Maybe they feel they haven't been heard in the past, and you need a lesson before they can engage. Maybe they feel unvalued, or they feel that they have been ignored. And so you know you have to come to any of these groups or individuals with that view, that you need to be listening and be empathic towards that, because you've got to find a way to meet them where they are. You can't just expect them to meet them where you are. Hey, I'm new. I showed up. I've got all these great ideas. I want to do all this stuff, and then go, yeah, sorry, not interested. We're not communicating at all, so you've got to do that. I think. Also, something that's been really interesting for me coming here and you, is recognizing just how we all have a tendency to habituate. And so I just walked to campus this morning. It's a beautiful day. The campus is amazing. The facilities are beautiful. We have all these excited, engaged students, and we have faculty who are so open to collaboration and to interdisciplinary work. But the faculty who have been here for a long time, they don't see that anymore. That's their baseline. So they just assume that that's how the world is. They they're not celebrating that. So I'm working to help people recognize their own context and recognize their own lived experience differently. And I. I want to turn people into exploiters of the environment, which, again, if they don't have awareness of the environment, that's very difficult for them to do. So I've got to work away from this tendency. We have to just habituate. One way to do that is to create. I think create experiences are harder to habituate the material things, you know, buildings easy to habituate. Experiences that you have tend to have a longer half life. And so I'm looking to engage people in creative activities. I think creativity in itself, is is something that stimulates. I think it creativity can overcome some of that tendency to habituate. So I want to give people kind of a boost here, and that might mean taking them out of the normal day to day stuff and putting them in a different environment. It might be encouraging them to go outside to a totally different environment and then be able to come back and reflect. I mean, if you go to a conference and meet with colleagues who don't have as an amazing campus and small classes and a collaborative faculty, you might appreciate more when you come back. So I think that recognizing that you know where again, that's a part of where people are, and helping them again become exploiters of this great environment, or the positive aspects of the environment, I think too, you've got to be you have to engage people based on, you know, your values, right? And we all have our leadership values, but sometimes those are just words that we might use because we aspire to be that way. I think it's really important to not only say those things, but to live them. And service and trust, the values that I place very highly. And I think about establishing trust with my relationship with stakeholders using a kind of simple trust equation, which is that, you know, the numerator is what I say, what I do, how I act, and the denominator is my self interest. So in order to ensure that I'm building trust with stakeholders, I approach as best I can every interaction with a view that I am looking to help you. I want to understand what your challenges are, what your issues are, and how I can help you. I want to help you in the classroom. When I help you with your research, I want to help you succeed as a student. I want to help you achieve that career objective you have when you graduate. And so my denominator, the self interest piece, is really small. And if I approach every interaction with a very small denominator, then I think I have the opportunity to really build trust. Also recognize that when you ask people to become part of, you know, some kind of initiative, or to get on board or participate in a project. It's a, I like to use the road trip analogy. It's a bit like asking someone to go on a road trip with you. And road trips are great, but sometimes, if you're so focused on the destination and so focused on getting to the destination in time and on budget. When we get there, you know, the car might be all beaten up. We might be out of gas, and the people can't wait to get out, then they have no intention of ever going on a road trip with you again. And what I want to do is, you know, if we don't quite get as far as we wanted, we don't quite get there on time. Obviously, you know, my focus is always to you know, my personality is to get there on time, on budget, but, but what you want to do is get there so that when the people get out of the car, they go. That was a great journey, and I'm willing to go on another journey with you. To me, that's more important than we reached the destination. So I think the other thing that's to me, really important as a as a dean, is that that I'm taking care of myself so that I can take care of others. You know, we teach a lot of business cases in business schools, and they're typically written as a kind of story told by a protagonist. And there's a real difference between, you know, the life lived, the life experienced, and the life told as a narrative. And you know, there's a whole bias there many business cases simplify the role of the manager to be someone who's stepping back and quietly considering the future and thinking about how they're going to plan, do analysis, then plan what they're going to do, and those cases ignore the complexities that we really face. You know, the politics which play such a huge role senior executives at an institution aren't always, you know, there's a lot of conflicts. They're not always working in common. They're in ambitious individuals in their own rights who often operate with self interest. Maybe they're trying to keep their job, or maybe they're trying to get their next job, and then the managers in the institution perhaps don't feel that they get to work. Like autonomously, or that they have appropriate control, or that you are you know your incentives have aligned with with their incentives. So I think, as a leader, I try and recognize that the the world's very murky. It's not like a simple case, and any problem that you're looking to solve, you have to consider all of these dynamic elements. You can't say, Well, look, it's obvious this is the best solution. We should do a a may be the best solution if you ignore all of these other complexities. And so you have to be willing to compromise, compromise on what it is, compromise on when you're going to do it and compromise on how you're going to do it. And the only way to do that, I find, is if you are taking time to step back, taking time to think, taking time to process, if you're reflecting constantly and asking questions, and I think it's very easy to get you know, trapped as the real executives that are portrayed in case studies. You know that executives wear many hats. We're under a lot of pressure. We're in demand. We don't have a lot of time, and we feel that we don't have the resources we need. So it's really important that I don't fall foul to that, and that I am indeed able to step back and reflect and then help people reframe questions, help people understand the dynamics of our situation and the complexity and take the time to process it myself. So then I can help others participate in the problem solving too. So I think those are some of the things that are really important as you're engaging external and internal stakeholders and getting them to meeting them where they are, so that they can then, you know, meet you and and come along on the journey that you're seeing, that we can take together.

Dave 21:56

That's some really powerful reflection there. John, I want to circle back to a concept that you've been touching on, perhaps indirectly, relating to this idea of culture. You know, you're a new organ. You're, in some sense, you are a new organization, even though you have been teaching business for a while, but you really are a new organization, new people, new networks. Are you thinking intentionally about shaping the culture? It sounds like you are, but if could you be a little bit more direct on that, and also, are you thinking about shaping subcultures, you know, within the faculty, within the staff, within the student body. And how are you, how are you approaching that, you know, what's the cocktail?

John Clarke 22:48

Yeah, great question. David, you know, part of, I think, is, is, is first understanding the culture and then finding how you can, how you can acculturate. Acculturation is a kind of a hybridization between accommodating others, acculturating yourself, and then looking to build the new that you mentioned, right? What's the culture that you aspire to have? Yeah, I kind of like to think of this starting as, imagine that there's a musical performance going on and you're gonna you're going to join, right? Because whether you're coming to a new school or an established school, you're joining something that's already happening. And so which movement are we in? What are the dynamics? What's the mood, where are you going to enter? What's the tempo? Is there a key change? Have you looked at what the sheet music says, right? Are you coordinating with the conductor of the orchestra? Are you ready to inform the early musicians that you're joining so that you can blend in? And, you know, David, I'm an analogy guy, but you know, I think you've also got to make sure that your instrument's ready to go and it's tuned appropriately, right for high performance, and you've got to be listening for disruptions or changes in the tempo. And then I think also you've got to join this production with confidence and with a calm demeanor, but at the same time, be willing to adapt as you go. So I think it takes a highly skilled musician to be able to just, you know, join a performance that's underway, but it also takes a highly skilled leader who can join an organization seamlessly in the same way and start to contribute. So part of it is this kind of having awareness of what's the context, the situation, the dynamics, but also self awareness as well. I mentioned acculturation. I think I like to listen and adopt where appropriate the local language. I might use different words to describe things that people don't use, and it's helpful if I adopt elements of their language. I like to listen for stories. What are the stories and past experiences that. Describe and shape the culture of the organization today. And what do those what are the stories about? What does that tell you, paying attention to the norms, the values, the behaviors, the practices, and then finding ways that you can integrate with or adopt some of those customs and traditions and rituals. But remember, right? It's hybridization. You're looking to assimilate. You're looking to accommodate where you can, but you're also wanting, if you're like in short, trying to adopt the positive elements of the culture that exist, but you're also trying to either reinforce or establish new cultures, right? And the latter is, is harder than the former. So it's a dynamic process. It's a process of cultural exchange. It's a it's about making people feel comfortable, but then establishing, you know, in some cases, new norms, new behaviors. I think the I mentioned before about, you know, engaging with stakeholders and meeting them where they are and how you establish trust. But I hear some leaders say, Well, I'm going to start out by going on a listening tour, and I'm going to go and spend X number of days listening to everybody. I don't follow that approach. I like to start relationships that are based on listening, but they're not short term. I'm not coming to you and saying, I want to listen. What can you tell me? And then I'm going to come back to you later and tell you what I think. No. What I want to do is I want to establish a relationship where you feel comfortable sharing with me, but sharing is an ongoing element of our relationship. You're going to continue to share what you think, you're going to continue to share what you observe. You're going to continue to give me insights and feedback, because that's way more valuable than just giving me, you know, a snapshot in time. And so it really, it's about to engage with people successfully. You have to, you have to have people in every one of those stakeholder groups that you're listening to and that are comfortable sharing information with you, with us, first year students, fourth year students, students in particular programs, students who fit into certain demographic groups, faculty, junior faculty, faculty inside the the school, outside the school, and then a lot of external stakeholders, people in the community. I spend time with people here in the Greencastle community was very small, but because the community's so small, the university plays a really important role economically, socially in the community. So it's really important to have touch points, if you like, or ongoing dialog with all of those stakeholder groups, so that you can continue to hear what what they have to say. I think the last thing I would say with respect to this is that, you know, I'm an influencer as much as an actor, right? I'm striving to be a catalyst of change, but I'm not the change now. I am a goal driven person. I set objectives, I'm motivated. I strategically plan, I try and execute with discipline, and I measure things, and I want outcomes, right? That's kind of how I go about. I want to be accountable to achieving goals, but I have to recognize that here in this role, it's as much about what other people do than what I do. And to me, it's as much about what they do after I've gone than what happens whilst I'm here, because I'm trying to have a long and lasting impact on an institution, and so my tenure as Dean can't be like the limiting factor for what I'm going to achieve. I So, you know, I often see half lives of leaders initiatives, and the half life can be quite short, and the day the leader leaves the organization or changes role, they just undo all of that thing. It just goes away. We might even actively look to take it down as an organization once the leader leaves. So I don't want to build something that that then someone sees as well. That's what John built, and we're going to take that down when he leaves. We didn't like it anyway. I want to work with people, so they build things, and if you have broad faculty buy in to doing something and they do it together, then it's much more likely to have a very long half life. It's much more likely to have a broader impact. But, you know, in our environment, it's hard to think about things that you can do quickly, launching new degree programs. I mean, I'm on a five year contract will graduate the first students from the degree one. I don't know how it's gonna go. I want you know, if I'm only here for five years, I won't get to see how well our finance students do in industry, you know. So we've got to take a longer view than you know, the things that I'm going to be able to do whilst here. So which is why I think, again, it's, it's important to think, how are you institution based? Building. How is the very long half lives for the things that you're going to do? How are you creating, as you build these things, sustainability in those things such that they will really, you know, because the ROI is long, so, you know, you may not be here to even measure it,

Ken 30:20

that's fascinating. And to that point, there are arcs to careers, and there are arcs to the experience of the individual Dean interested in that. But you know, maybe just in our last question, John, drill down a little bit about how you have gone about thinking about sort of the arc of the school, and you know what you've done in terms of either strategic planning or engagement towards planning to hit some of the milestones that you're you know that you're talking about?

John Clarke 30:52

Yeah, I like to think of it Ken as arcs, rather than an arc. I think leaders often think or Dean ships and vice chancellorships and chancellors, even presidents sometimes are thought about as an arc. And I like to think about it as arcs, not arc. And I think that's a that's an important that you're thinking about launching multiple things over time, right different initiatives that build from one another, things that have different durations and have different impacts in a small school. But I what has coming to a small school has highlighted for me is how critical it is for what is happening in the school, the strategy of the school, the initiatives within the school, how they really have to match into the institutional strategies, the institutional goals. There really isn't an initiative that I'm thinking about that isn't embedded in a broader internet, institutional wide initiative. And I knew that coming in, but now I know that you know much more, that there's a real risk that you launch initiatives or have aspirations, things you're looking to achieve that don't quite fit, but you go, well, it doesn't matter, you know, like, because this is a school initiative here, that in this smaller school context, it is really not going to work. You're going to create tremendous amounts of friction. There's going to be lots of unintended consequences to those actions. So for me, it's really important that I'm really thinking about the institution as a whole, and that anything that we're doing is looking to be implemented to benefit the institution, which again, means you'll make compromise solution that's good for me or good for the school, good for me as dean of the school, I might have to pick the solution that's not as good for me. I might even have to pick a solution that's not good for me at all, but it Ben. It's the right solution because it's benefiting the institution. It's the same if you're a vice president of a business unit, you can't ignore the overall corporate strategy and goals. Or if you're the in country manager of a business unit that corporate. You might see them as, like, they don't listen to me, they don't care about me. I'm off here trying to manage this business, you know, over here, trying to penetrate the market in this country that they're not giving me what I want, but they're making decisions in a different context than you, and you have to have empathy for the bigger context. So I think to a lot of deans, again, it ties back to this kind of, like, the duration of a Dean's role. You know, you got to balance impact with effort and risk. And I see a lot of times Deans won't take things on because of risk. And I give you an example, I constantly look not only for things that we can build, but things we can sunset. Higher education institutions are great at building new stuff, and we've been doing it for years, decades, building new stuff because we've been working really in an abundance arena. There's been more funding, more, more money, more you know, it's just we've got more resources after more resources. Well, it seems now we might not be in that that phase anymore, and we're not very good at sunsetting. But the responsibility of the leaders of an organization is not only to, you know, fuel growth areas and to build new and innovative things, but also to manage the portfolio as a whole. So there may be things that need to be fixed, or there may be things that we don't need to do anyway anymore, and those are things, when you try to talk about taking something away, you're going to find a lot of resistance. You might find all of a sudden, you know, somebody can weaponize a group of alums to tell you, this is a terrible idea. You know, this was an amazing thing I did when I was at the school, and you should not stop doing it. But really the sun, you know, institutions, organizations, schools, have a finite capacity to do things. And if you're not sunsetting things, where is the capacity to build the new things? You have to create capacity. And the. Only way to do that is to, you know, to really think about managing the very carefully managing the portfolio and managing the resources, and recognizing that there's nobody sitting around with nothing to do, right? So how are you going to find ways to stop doing something or to do something more efficiently such that those people can then, you know, participate in building the, you know, the next thing I think, the other thing, too, just to think about, I try and think about, is that I'm really expensive. Like, I mean, I'm expensive, right? It's not just the cost of me being here. The opportunity cost is huge compared with the cost of me being here. And so I come to work every day thinking about that, that I'm very expensive. And so it's really critical that I'm creating value. And if that means I have to then do some difficult things and take on, you know, some tough projects which are unpleasant, I really need to do that if I'm really going to deliver the value that I'm consuming in the organization. And again, the opportunity cost of any leader in an organization is huge.

Dave 36:14

Well, John, this has just been a wonderful half hour. The time has blown by, and I think you've just shared so much that I think we need to reflect on and internalize a fair amount. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.

John Clarke 36:32

Well, thank you both, and thanks for inviting me. As I said, I've been a listener. It's nice to now be in the hot seat. So to speak, I've taken a lot of value from the other conversations that you've had, and hopefully this conversation will bring value to others too.

Dave 36:46

I have no doubt it will.

Ken 36:48

Thank you, great, John. Thanks so much. Oh, no

John Clarke 36:53

problem. This was, this was a lot of fun. I it's great to great to connect with David again. Always. I've been looking for an excuse to do something with Dave for some time now. So this is this is good and Ken, it's great to connect with you. I i take a lot of value from engaging with folks in your industry that you often bring a very interesting perspective on institutional issues and where institutions are in getting this job, the you know, individuals like yourself played a key role in me really understanding from the outside what was the opportunity and what's the fit and I anticipate needing. I'm glad to add you to my network. I'm sure that you'll be able to provide insights to me in the future, as I look to do the next the next gig. So let's check

Ken 37:40

in again soon. All right, it's a deal.

John Clarke 37:44

And David, I hope to see you soon. Maybe we'll see in the Midwest, we do have an airport here in Greencastle.

Dave 37:48

I heard, I heard, I'll be there for sure.

John Clarke 37:53

All right, gentlemen, thank you so much.

Dave 37:55

Thank you. John, bye bye,

John Clarke 37:57

now, bye bye.

Ken 38:06

What a fascinating conversation, and really from a unique vantage point, thoughtful, impressive person, what were your reflections? Dave, you

Dave 38:16

know I, I had a lot of the same, same observations, too. Ken i It's remarkable how John, who's really not a traditional academic, he comes to this as a with prior business experience, but having spent 20 years in academic administration. But he really, he really seems to have a very strong grasp of of what his role is, and a very thoughtful approach as to how to do it effectively and with with impact. And I think it's a very enlightened approach, you know, trying to put trying to really be thoughtful about what the various constituents and their needs are, and really elevating that as key priorities, as a way for the school to be successful. And then along the way, we heard so many different things. For example, you know, we even got into topics like sunsetting. What you wouldn't think that in a startup environment, you'd have to do sunsetting, but already, he's been quite thoughtful about that. So I really enjoyed our conversation. I personally learned a lot.

Ken 39:30

Yeah, you could really feel his his entrepreneurial spirit, his spirit is his zeal for innovation, but also respect for, you know, tradition and institutions, and you know he's not, he's not going forward without really thinking about what is, you know, what he's inherited, and then what, you know, what change might look like, right?

Dave 39:53

One other thought he mentioned early that I think is really worth highlighting. This. For all of us is when a new leader comes into an organization, particularly from the outside. It's so important for that leader to listen to where the organization is at and and perhaps recalibrate not only the priorities they'd like to pursue, but maybe even their leadership style. I think that's a lot of what John was kind of talking about. I when I reflect on my own appointments, leadership appointments, you know, I had a preconception of where I how I wanted to lead the organization, but when I got in there, it was quite clear that my approach was, was perhaps not the best approach to leading people, leading, leading initiatives and and I think leaders, as leaders, we need to bend and flex to meet the organization where it's at, and Not necessarily impose, impose our values, leadership values necessarily, just because we have the authority to do that. I heard John stating that very, very clearly and, and I couldn't agree more,

Ken 41:11

yeah, I learned a lot today. Yeah, great session.

Dave 41:14

It was Thank you for listening to this episode of Deans Counsel. This show is supported in part by Korn Ferry leaders in executive search. Deans Counsel was produced in Boulder, Colorado by Joel Davis of analog digital arts for a catalog of previous shows, please visit our website at Dean's council.com if you have any feedback for us, please let us know by sending an email to feedback@deanscouncil.com and finally, please hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player so you can automatically receive our latest show you.

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