On the Board: The Role of Trustees in Higher Ed

Chapters

0:00 - Intro
4:00 - Path to Becoming a Trustee
6:25 - Perspective of Trustees on the Value of Higher Ed
11:16 - Strategic Planning and Informed Support for Trustees
18:00 - The Complexities of Higher Education Governance

Links We Mention

Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges

Transcript

Michael Horn:

Jeff, to say it bluntly, it's been a crazy few years in higher education. The complexity of everything confronting colleges and universities is, well, it seems to be more than what it was say 15 years ago. We got existential questions around finances, mergers and acquisitions, pandemics, online education, ROI, cost, student debt, free speech issues, athletics. I don't even know if I've scratched the surface, Jeff.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah. I didn't know when you were going to stop that list, Michael. But what that means is that trustees who have fiduciary responsibility for these institutions need to theoretically at least, just be on top of a lot more things. They have the pressure to get the right president in the chair to help give them the right strategic advice, to know which questions to ask. To know at what level to dive into the affairs of the university, and just as importantly, to know when to get out of the way. Trustees are a topic we allude to a lot on this show, but we've never actually devoted an entire episode to it. But today we do. All ahead on Future U.

Sponsor:

This episode is brought to you by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working to eliminate race, ethnicity, and income as predictors of student success through innovation, data, and information, policy and institutional transformation.

Jeff Selingo:

I'm Jeff Selingo.

Michael Horn:

And I'm Michael Horn.

Jeff Selingo:

I was recently up in Michael's neck of the woods in Boston where I was speaking at the annual conference for the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, AGB, as it's known. It exists to support governing boards in higher ed so that they can do their work with more knowledge and greater confidence. While we were there, Michael and I met up and grabbed a couple of trustees who were in attendance to talk to them about some of the issues confronting higher education and their boards.

Michael Horn:

Jeff, I'll be curious your take, given that we speak a fair bit to boards of trustees around the country. I thought the two guests we had on this episode had a lot of knowledge about higher education, the colleges and universities whose boards they serve on, and the context in which they're operating. It struck me that their level of expertise was a lot higher than what you sometimes get, Jeff.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah, no doubt, Michael. But let's save that for the second half of the show. Let's instead dive into our conversation with our guest, where we covered everything from student success and the role of colleges in economic development, to diversity, athletics and funding overall. First up we had with us, Chris Romer from the board of Colorado Mountain College. Colorado Mountain College is a public college with multiple locations in Colorado and 5,000 students.

In his day job, Chris serves as president and CEO of Vail Valley Partnership. Vail Valley Partnership is the regional chamber of commerce that represents Vail Valley, Colorado and it was named Chamber of the Year in 2016. There must be something about Chris being associated with big awards because Colorado Mountain College's Board also was named the best public college governing board in the country by AGB last year. Now one thing to note, Michael, is that this is an elected board by the communities that the college represents.

Michael Horn:

Well, and Jeff, we also have a different side of the spectrum here. We have Jane Scaccetti who joined us. She's a trustee at Temple University. In her day job, Jane is the Ambassador of Armanino, the 19th largest accounting firm in the country. Jane and Chris, welcome to my hometown of Boston, and Future U of course, we're glad to have you here at the Annual Association of Governing Boards annual meeting. It's good to see you both.

Jane Scaccetti:

Great to be here.

Chris Romer:

Great to be in Boston.

Michael Horn:

You bet. We often ask our guests their backstory in higher ed, and in your cases I'd love to hear how you both ended up as trustees. Chris, why don't you lead us off?

Chris Romer:

Yeah, at Colorado Mountain College, we are elected trustees. My day job is to run the chamber of commerce in our area. So I'm always and have always been deeply involved in the community. There's a lot of alignment between a chamber of commerce and a college system from workforce to all the other things that folks know about. So when the seat became open, it was a natural step for me to run for election across our eight-county region for that open board seat. That's how I became involved. A long history of involvement with the college on the strategic plans and community boards and a natural step to elevate that.

Michael Horn:

Terrific. What about you Jane, in Temple?

Jane Scaccetti:

Mine has a two-part. In 1992, I was 35 years old and a friend knew the then president of Temple University and would often see the president, Peter Leo Kouros, at dinners. I was a graduate of Temple University, so I would always have something to tell him that he should do or improve or ... Finally he came to me and said there are appointments by the Commonwealth to the board and there have been seats that are open and you have so many ideas and opinions, would you like to come onto the board? I did. I was an appointee of one Republican senator for four years, and an appointee of another Republican senator, which is a whole different story because I was a very staunch Democrat for four years.

Then I went off the board but stayed involved in the health system. In 2008 they came to me and, or 2000, asked me if I would chair the Temple Health System. Temple Health System is a sole member of Temple University's LLC. I said, "Well, that only makes sense if I come back on the board."

Michael Horn:

Ah.

Jane Scaccetti:

Which is true, so I went back on the board. Now I'm a full board member, not an appointee of Temple University, and have served since effectively 2000. I have about another, I think, three years until my term limits hit in.

Michael Horn:

Yeah, great story. Chris, in your case, I know there's only a few places that actually elect their trustees, so an unusual way of thinking about that. A recent study suggested that the enrollment decline in higher ed can't just be explained by demographics and the lingering impact of the pandemic, which we often hear is the reason why enrollment is down. But we're seeing a lot of stories about increasing doubts about the value of college. I'm curious, since both of you have one foot in higher ed as a trustee, but you're also outside of higher ed because you're not employed in it, how do you think higher ed can improve its value proposition? College presidents that Michael and I talk to often say, "Well, we just need to tell our story better. We have a great story, we just need to tell it better." But it seems like it's more than that. From where you sit, what is it about the value that you think, especially boards, need to be talking more about? Jane?

Jane Scaccetti:

Look, I love our mission. Our mission is to provide world-class college education, make it accessible to all qualified students. That access to excellence is what resonates for our Temple mission. We put in a program a number of years ago, Fly in Four. That was done when student debt was really starting to get the air time and you started to see it. So we dug deep into why is student debt so high. Temple is a very affordable college compared to many, many others.

We saw that students would graduate over five, six, seven years. I graduated over five years. I had to quit school for a year because I ran out of money to work so I could pay tuition for the next time. I understood that. Fly in Four is a program that really helps guide students to complete their education in four years and control their tuition costs. But if you think about it, parents, children, students, they want to know that college education is going to be worth something. That has a different connotation for a lot of people. Many people it means to get a good job. Many people it means to have fulfilling work, to have a fulfilling career. Now you start to get to really why you go to college. Why is that four years important. Look, even in our Commonwealth, our own governor, Governor Shapiro, took away the mandate for a college degree for many positions. That may be absolutely the right call depending on what it is. But we shouldn't take away the thirst for knowledge. We shouldn't take away the need to be lifelong learners.

But I also think there's been enough studies to show that the quality of your life, both from pay, both from job security, both from family security, is enhanced with a college degree. I think that there's just a little bit of confusion here as to what's needed and what should it cost and what's reasonable. Each family has to make that call. I know at Temple that access to excellence is really important for us.

Michael Horn:

Yeah, it's interesting, Governor Shapiro is not the only governor who's done that with state jobs. I always find it fascinating that these states-run institutions essentially, but yet then they do away with a degree requirement for some of their state jobs.

Chris, how about in Colorado, especially given where you are and the counties that you represent, there's huge workforce needs, but there's also a lot of jobs you can get without a college degree. How do you prove that value from a board perspective?

Chris Romer:

Yeah, in the rural resort region in Colorado, represented by Colorado Mountain College, to your original question, I do think we need to tell our story better, but that is such a small piece of what we need to do as trustees, as institutions. We need to align and focus on partnerships. Partnerships with our primary school system. Partnerships with industry. Focusing on creating degrees and pathways that align with the needs of the community so that you have alignment between industry, alignment between community, and alignment between and back to the students.

At Colorado Mountain College, we're a Hispanic-serving institution. We are a dual-mission institute. The idea with that is that we need to be focused on that value proposition. It is more than demographics. The partnerships that I talked about, it's the dual-enrollment programs that we are very successful at. It is working actively as engaged community partners with our communities, with our businesses, and trying to really almost push uphill on the narrative that's been out there for years that, when people, and we heard at the earlier session, white males, we hear things on the news and we see how bad debt is and how crazy college campuses are, and we do need to combat that. But we also need to do it through action and not just storytelling. We need to walk the walk with industry-specific degree programs and certificates, and providing different pathways for all of the students and the 36 million people who have some college and not all, and who are disenfranchised. It's about action. Backing up, tell our story better.

Michael Horn:

Speaking of community, as you think about those partnerships, Chris, one of the things that you've done is convinced local voters to support the college around taxes and bonds. What have you learned motivates local citizens around valuing their colleges such that they would make that choice?

Chris Romer:

It's a big choice and it's a big effort. Colorado Mountain College now has been around for just over 60 years as a local special district college funded by property taxes. Our founders determined and asked our communities if they would support, and as we've grown over that time and added new communities to the Colorado Mountain College family, it has been exactly that of focusing on community needs. How can Colorado Mountain College be an active part in solving community problems. It's not coming into our communities on a white horse as the knight savior to fix all the problems, but it's being an active participant in community problem solving. I think that framework is exactly how we've been able to go to our voters for increased mill levies for tax reform, for some of the things that Colorado Mountain College has been a leader on.

Colorado property taxes, I don't want to get too much into the weeds on that, but it's immensely complicated on how that works for commercial and residential. CMC has been a leader because our board has had the courage to say this is important to our communities and we go forward with the community. We don't go forward on some of these initiatives alone saying look how important this is. We go with community partners and with community leaders and business leaders, and we're there with them arm in arm, which I think is how you accomplish the goal of taxes and bonds and community support. It's being adaptive and proactive to the needs of your community.

Jeff Selingo:

Right. They don't just see it as [inaudible 00:14:23], but it's actually [inaudible 00:14:26] community and fulfilling the needs of your work.

Chris Romer:

Our students are the workforce. Our students are primarily in the workforce. It's not a segmented students and workforce, students are the workforce, and we're up-skilling and we're re-skilling and we're training and we're filling specified needs in the community.

Jeff Selingo:

Jane, it's interesting because they're obviously they're being elected, so the stakeholders have a stake in who's on the board. But I think for most institutions, we actually don't sometimes even know who's on the board and not all the different stakeholders of an institution are necessarily represented. How might boards be better to ensure that they represent the different stakeholders within an institution and then be transparent to campuses and the public about who they are?

Jane Scaccetti:

First of all, great question. Something that I've been actively fighting pretty much my entire professional career. Let's start with the first one. Shouldn't the stakeholders be represented on the board? When you just start with that premise, and what does that mean? That means that you need diversity. Diversity' is not a four-letter word. It's not a bad word. Diversity means diversity, social economic diversity. Do you want everyone who's rich? I actually had a board say to me, "You know what? We're not bad. We're about 54% male." I said, "You're 54% white male. That's not even close to the national diversity, let alone the diversity of our stakeholders." Which made them stop and pause and think. But there's really a need to make sure you can hear those voices. Why is important. Most people will think diversity for diversity's sake. That's not the case.

If you stop and just reflect on any thorny issue you've ever had, whether it's a spouse, whether it's a friend, whether it's your children, whether it's a cousin, you ask others sometimes to talk it out with you, to think it out with you. Because that conversation results in better decision making. There have been studies that show that. McKenzie just came out with the second or third part of their study in 2024 that just shows the benefit of diversity on these boards.

Now the second piece, which I think is really, really interesting is, who sits on those boards? I can tell you that we have done a study to look at the number of diverse women that sit on boards and we had difficulty in almost every instance in getting the names. Those difficulties were because, first of all, 990s sometimes are late. 990s aren't all inclusive. If I tell you I have a grandchild named Brynn, you might think it's female, it might be male, you just don't know. Some of these even just use initials and certainly ethnicity is not there. So, there needs to be more transparency as to who sits on the board.

There's a group, WNLI.org, Women's Nonprofit Leadership Initiative, is asking the Treasury to change the Form 990 and ask one question, "Tell us the diversity on your board." Not asking to identify Jane Scaccetti, white female and white male, but to just say, we have seven white females, we have six white males, we have three black females, we have three black males, whatever it may be, so that your stakeholders can decide. No quotas, just make it transparent. There are 501(c)(3)s, in almost every case nonprofits, they are supposed to use their funds for the stakeholders, shouldn't the stakeholders have a voice on those boards?

Michael Horn:

So, if that's thinking about composition and transparency, Chris, I want to turn to you because in tough times boards, they often want to lean in. They want to become very proactive, if you will, and take that active role. I'm just curious, something that we've talked a lot about in the show is how boards navigate the line between governance and what becomes really management. How do you think about that?

Chris Romer:

Yeah, I think that that is a really important line and it needs to be a really bold line. It needs to be a line that we as boards don't cross. I think it's really important to remember boards govern, and staff manages. The role of the board is to, when we need to lean in, when times are tough, we need to do it in the proper, appropriate way. Which is through support. Which is through strategy. Which is through vision. Doubling down on our strategic plan or updating a strategic plan. Or in the case of the pandemic, moving on a dime to adjust and providing that vision and that support for the president and the staff.

But it's not our job to do. It is our job to support. It's our job to lead. It's our job to provide the fiduciary resources. But boy, that line between governance and management can't be a thin line. It needs to be a dark, bold, distinct line. We need to remember, and we need to be trained in our orientations, and we need to be trained by our board chairs, that boards govern, and exactly what that means, and staff manages.

Jane Scaccetti:

Yeah. Can I add to that? I also think, I absolutely agree with you. Where the organization is going, why it's going there, what we're going to accomplish, they're all very appropriate conversations to take place at the board. How we're going to do it? How much it will cost? Who's going to be responsible? That's really management's call. However, and I caution with a however, because I've lived through turbulent times on a board. Temple University's not my only board. I sat on the University of the Arts. I sat on Salish University. Some mergers and acquisitions involved.

You really need to, sometimes you want to stay, let's what, 40,000 foot? But when there's turbulent times, you drop down and it's just natural. And now you're asking, "Tell me why you chose that person to do it?" It's important because then it is where you really want to make sure that you are listening so you can help management see where, maybe there was a different path. Maybe I only assumed the path I could see and I didn't see there were two or three other paths. So you're questioning so that they can see whether or not what they're trying to do has another path forward. Can they align in a different way? But the difference is, you don't fix it. That is where I think boards fall down.

Yes, it's totally understandable why in times of crisis when the pandemic hit or we've had, were an R1 urban university, security and safety is a major issue. We had a police officer who was executed on our campus. You dive down. You really want to understand what we're doing and what's happening with safety and where you're going. We can't fix it, but we can certainly make that conversation richer.

Jeff Selingo:

As we start to wrap up, you sit in two very different types of institutions. Both public, but one R1, as you mentioned, Jane. One, regional public. So we want to dive in. A question for each of you given where you sit. Jane, we've talked a lot about college athletics on Future U and their future, and we often describe them as the front porch of colleges. Because they really are the thing that people know about the institution often first. But in recent years, there've been substantial changes in intercollegiate athletics as Michael and I have done on the show. And actually AGB took one of our shows and put it on the front cover of their magazine because it's about conference realignment, name likeness image, athletes as employees. Temple's division one. What are the questions that boards should be asking right now about the future of intercollegiate athletics?

Jane Scaccetti:

The first thing is we need informed support, and these are all new. There is nothing, I don't care how long you've sat on a board, the explanation as to what and name, image, and likeness means. Who gets paid what they get paid. Do scholarships count as part of the payment? Do we now take back our scholarships and start to pay everyone $100 an hour because that's what it will be? We need informed support. Whenever this happens, I ran a boutique tax specialty firm for a number of years, and on other boards we do the what, so what, now what? What? We just need to understand the issues. That is the first place. If there is a board out there and they just think this is the same as it was before, it's just not, everything is different.

The second is so what? Now what are the implications? What are the implications if you have every sport you have today, you have that tomorrow and five years from now. Should you have less sports? Should you have more sports? Should you have a different focus on sports? Which sports will you focus on? The implications and the importance of, so now you understand the term so what, and then it's the now what, which is the call for action. I think those action steps are not something that gets done in a calendar year or a fiscal year. It's not something that you can expect immediately.

Mainly too, because a lot of the case law that came out for this hasn't even really been completely synthesized through the community so that people can really understand what does this mean? The portal alone is a perfect example of that. You could have a school that really has this great recruiting and they go down and they find this really unique talent in this little local high school and they say, "Hey, come and I'll teach you and I'll coach you," and one year later they're somewhere else. You stop and you think about that and you say, "Okay, it's fair or not fair?" What's interesting is, those who are the receiving end of the portal think it's great when they receive. And those who are on the losing end of the portal say, "Wait, this can't be." Even that. So time needs to step in. Time is a great synthesizer of these, but boards right now, what I would suggest, and I know what is what we are doing, we need informed support and we need to become informed.

Michael Horn:

I love that framework. What, so what, now what? That's a great one. Chris, turning to you, regional public universities of course educate actually the bulk of students who go to public universities. Jeff and I have both written about this, how they often receive though less state support than say their flagship counterparts. How can boards of regional publics embrace their mission and perhaps gain more resources to execute on that mission?

Chris Romer:

Yeah, when you frame it, it sounds a whole lot easier than college athletics. So thank you for that question. [inaudible 00:25:52] the question that we just had for Jane. But to the point, I think it goes back to partnerships, and it goes back to really walking the walk on what the mission of the organization is and how you are centered on student success. Then it goes beyond partnerships with the industry and with communities, but partnerships between institutions. How do you have guaranteed transfer credits? How do you have guaranteed admission into high demand fields or schools like engineering or nursing?

For schools and regional schools like Colorado Mountain College that has four-year degree programs and a lot of two-year programs that feed some of the bigger schools, it's around those partnerships. We are not able to do it on our own. We need willing and active partnerships that we nurture, that we embrace, that we really think about in terms of not what's best for the flagship universities or what's best for the regional universities, but what's best for the student. If we can step back on the student focus and focus our partnerships on the jobs that are needed and talent pipeline work, I think that that's our path forward.

Then of course, working with our legislature and working with the funding models that exist and making sure that they understand and that we're active at the Capitol to lobby for that. Lobbying is sometimes seen as a bad thing. I don't view it that way. I view it as a necessary thing and not a necessary evil. A necessary thing that we need to do, that we need to embrace. We need to have those relationships with our elected officials within our region, but also with the joint budget committee and also with others to understand how these regional schools and how these public colleges that feed some of the larger institutions that have a bigger brand, how we collaborate together, that it's not a zero-sum game. That there is real opportunity to make a difference and achieve statewide goals.

I think that's a little bit of the roadmap to get there. That said, it's not quite as easy as just plugging it in your GPS and following Google Maps, but that is the roadmap to get us there, is that idea of partnerships, and that idea of being really intentional on how you approach student success.

Michael Horn:

Lobbying and diversity need not be four-letter words is what I'm hearing from both of you.

Jane Scaccetti:

That's right.

Jeff Selingo:

Jane, Chris, thank you so much for being with us on Future U and we'll be right back.

This episode is being brought to you by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Today's college students are more than just students. They're workers, parents and caregivers and neighbors. Colleges and universities need to change to meet their changing needs. Learn more about the Foundation's efforts to transform institutions to be more student-centered at usprogram.gatesfoundation.org.

Michael Horn:

Welcome back to Future U. Jeff, I want to dive into what I referenced up top because we both speak to lots of boards of trustees. We both serve on boards of trustees for colleges, you at your alma mater, Ithaca of course. And me for Minerva University. But you also speak, I think it's fair to say, to more boards than I do. So putting aside Chris and Jane's huge base of knowledge about higher education that I think was more than evident in our conversation, help us put that in context to how most trustees, their sense of higher education when they come into these roles.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah, it's a great question, Michael, and one that I think is getting a lot more scrutiny on a bunch of different fronts. First, it's getting more scrutiny from the accreditors. Second, from the bond rating agencies. For example, in its most recent quarterly report, Moody's wrote that, "Higher ed routinely," and by the way, that's their word, routinely, "Offers examples of how board dysfunction can lead to credit risk and interference with the core mission of universities," and we're going to be talking about that word mission in a bit.

Third, from entities and emerging companies outside of higher ed. So in the interest of full disclosure here, I'm advising a startup called Leaderboard. It was founded by a former executive of Politico, Peter Cherukuri, who has formed a partnership with NASDAQ to explore best practices at the intersection of governance in public corporations and higher ed. Because after all, a lot of the same folks who serve as trustees of colleges and universities also serve as directors of public companies. As part of that work, I've been talking to some trustees in recent weeks and I just want to offer a few quick takeaways around your question on knowledge base.

First, I think there's a lot of tension around philanthropy, and I think we're really seeing that on the private side definitely. When you write a big check, you expect to have a big say in the strategic direction of the institution, to be honest with you, whether you know enough or not. Because when you write a big check, you usually think you know enough. Peter likens it to the activist investor who buys a lot of stock in public companies and then thinks they have a say in where that company should go.

Second is really understanding the mission of the university. To a lot of trustees, higher education is just college. We know there are many different types and kinds of colleges and universities with vastly different missions, but I don't think that the average trustee really truly understands that. That gets to the third thing on your question around knowledge, Michael, is how do you filter out the signal from the noise out there right now in higher ed? I'll never forget the president of an R1 private research university. He was late for a call with me recently and he told me why. He said he was talking to a trustee, one of his trustees. This is an R1 private research university, who called him about an article in the local newspaper about financial enrollment issues at the local community college and wondered how that might impact their university. The amount of information in higher ed, Michael, as we know, preparing for this podcast is overwhelming sometimes. Just think of what it's like for a volunteer trustee.

The question that I have and that we're trying to grapple with here is, how should that information be filtered for trustees and who does it? It's really one of the things that I know that leaderboard is hoping to do.

Michael Horn:

Super-interesting, Jeff. I know that there are a number of other things we could tackle, but I thought in line with what you just said about mission. I really appreciated Jane's point that on athletics, this terrain is rapidly evolving. So what boards really need right now is just a lot of knowledge so that they are able to make sound decisions. And frankly, it's not just knowledge, but it's knowledge with a clear line of sight of where do we want to go as a college and university down the road? What are our goals, not a year from now, but really three, five years from now. Where do we want to be? Because there's some really big questions looming and everyone should be thinking about these issues with that institutional perspective, that mission in mind.

I was also struck by the question that you asked about how people's doubts about the value of college isn't just a matter of presidents better telling the story, if you will. This isn't a messaging problem, in other words. I thought Chris is really great about how clear he was about what the mission of Colorado Mountain College is to the region, and how by leaning into what they accomplish economically for the region, they've been able to get voters to support them financially. That really stood out. It also reminded me of Texas State Technical College where after the state of Texas moved it to an outcomes-based funding model in 2013, completions actually rose by 48% and graduates' earnings rose by 26%. So they were responsive to what the community was asking them to do.

The overall point I think is, be clear about your mission and the value you create and then demonstrate it and tell the story. Don't just think that these challenges are about PR.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah, this is certainly not a storytelling or PR problem, Michael, it's really a mission problem. I was struck by something my book researcher, Cassie Pressum Bukowski, posted on LinkedIn recently when Inside Higher Ed reported that Keystone College might go out of business. Now, Keystone is near where I grew up in Scranton, and when I was growing up, it was a community college. Pure and simple, community college people knew it as that. But as Cassie asked, what is the role of mission creep in closures? Keystone ended up offering bachelor's degrees. Then they offered master's degrees. They added football in 2019. As she asked, is there a link between that mission drift eventually in college closures? There's so much mission drift, I think Michael, in higher ed. Because trustees, they don't even know what their mission is. As you taught me, Michael, the trustee's job is not just as a fiduciary to keep the institution going in perpetuity, but it's also around mission.

Michael Horn:

Yeah, that's right. And the mission for any nonprofit board member, it's actually transcends the institution and it's various stakeholders. It's to the mission of the institution itself. In other words, the question for a trustee should always be, how do we perpetuate or fulfill our mission? Which it may be in its present form as an ongoing institution, but it also might be in a merger. It might be in some sort of coalition. It might be sunsetting because you feel like your mission is filled or others are doing it better. But you get the idea. It's a lot broader than I think most trustees sit back and reflect when they're on these boards.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah, I don't think most trustees would think it's their mission to potentially sunset their institution. But that may be what it needs at that point in terms of its mission. But this brings me to one last point, Michael, the balance between operations and governance. I just want to make two quick points here. One is something that Chris said, the importance of a strategic plan that is clear and means something. Not a strategic plan that just has a bunch of words that sits on a shelf. Because when you have a strategic plan that is clear and means something, trustees aren't managing because they have no guidance, but they're hewing closely to that strategic plan, as Chris said. Because, if they don't have a strategic plan or it's not good, they're going to do whatever they want and that turns into managing.

The second thing is what Jane said about the board flying at 40,000 feet. I think she said 40, maybe it was 50? But you get the point. Once in a while, and then it needs to lower its altitude once in a while and come down to that 5,000 foot level to provide assistance in a specific situation, and that's okay. But it's not okay to stay at the 5,000 foot level, nor is it okay for the leadership team to expect or think the board should stay at that 40 or 50,000 foot level.

I really liked that image that Jane painted of a pilot flying a plane that once in a while has to go stay up where the board probably should stay most of the time, but once in a while has to come down to take care of an issue.

Michael, with that image of a plane flying, we're going to be out of here ourselves. Thanks for joining us again on Future U and a thanks again of course to Jane and Chris for being with us in Boston.

You can find me on social media at J. Selingo and Michael at Michael B. Horn. Also, you can find us at our respective websites. You could just use the Google machine, I think, to find us pretty easily. But also go to futureupodcast.com to follow the show on social media and subscribe to the podcast newsletter also to get access to the hundreds of shows now that we have on there in the archives.

Until next time, here's to the future of you.