Education
Tony Atwater
President, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
By Patrick Mayock
Smart Business Pittsburgh | November 2007
When Tony Atwater was advancing through the ranks several years ago, his father-in-law shared this wisdom: “There’s nothing
new — just the undiscovered.” Today, Atwater has transformed that adage into ambition as president of Indiana University of
Pennsylvania. In addition to managing a $209 million budget and 1,873 employees, the leader constantly re-evaluates the market
and his own business practices seeking innovative ways to better serve his organization and constituents. The latest innovation
is a multiphase construction plan to build the largest student residential facility in the United States. Smart Business spoke with
Atwater about listening, evaluating data and why you need to do the who before the what.
Learn from the past. Organizations change
just like human beings. You can look at
your son or daughter; they’re not the same
at age 25 or 30 as they were at 3 or 4. They’ve
gone through experiences. Looking back at
the history of your institution really provides a good education in terms of what has
been tried and what needs to be tried.
Also, talking with other presidents and
past CEOs and hearing the benefit of the
challenges that they faced and the successes that they were able to achieve. See how
you might utilize those contexts to build
upon your performance and lead the
organization.
Question your performance. Ask yourself one
simple question: How do I increase my
service to my constituents that are relying
upon my service?
That’s an important question in terms of
generating ideas on how new things can be
done or how things can be done differently to
improve overall services and performance.
Find out more of those things in terms of
opportunities, methods and approaches to
enhancing my service and contributions to
base constituents. If I can find those new
methods and new approaches and generate additional productivity and additional
efficiency, then my constituents are being
served through innovation.
Look at data in new ways. Use institutional
research to generate data that will show
what areas may be responsible for one
method or one project not being successful.
If you are driving a car and all of a sudden your car stops, it’s being able to look
under the hood and see whether it’s the
carburetor or whether it’s the engine, and
then finding out how to get the car back
working the way that it should work.
We get a lot of data thrown at us as
CEOs. Part of the challenge is having a
good unit to provide analysis of that data
and generate new ways of looking at it in
various contexts so that it can be used
productively.
You get the data, and you may get one
impression of what it’s telling you, but there may be another message in that data
that you missed.
We have an institutional research office
here, and they’re doing that. They’re generating not only the numbers but also are
able to provide qualitative analyses that
help us to look at the data for its utilities in
a number of contexts.
If you don’t have an institutional research
operation, then it becomes very important
for you to have an executive team that is
also data-driven and that you provide venues for them to be able to have assistance
for that kind of data generation. It then
becomes an issue in terms of how they
have access to data gathering, processing
and analysis.
Being able to assess data qualitatively as
well as quantitatively is extremely important, and that certainly helps in terms of
making the right decisions.
Listen. You need to listen, not only to what
is said but also to what is not said. You
need to listen to concerns, to needs and to
interests. By doing so, you are able to surmise what are the directions that an organization needs to go.
Of course, some of the input that you get
may not be the most informed, but a lot of the
feedback that you get by listening routinely
can be utilized to advance your organization.
I have one-on-one meetings with my executive team, and we have an opportunity to exchange information and listen to one
another. I also have a president’s cabinet
meeting every week, where we have a pretty full agenda that allows us to discuss and
talk about a lot of things.
I also entertain regular meetings with
faculty members. I have breakfast with
the faculty members routinely throughout a semester and discuss whatever
they want to discuss.
I don’t think you will find and benefit from
the listening if it’s not strategic and intentional. People say, ‘Well, listen. You have
ears. Can’t you just listen?’ Well, listening
goes beyond strictly having ears. You have
to be intentional and strategic about gaining
information that will be useful to you in
terms of effecting positive change.
In the final analysis, that’s what good
leaders really do: They effect positive
change in a graceful fashion that lifts the
institution or organization.
Do the who. A lot of leaders sometimes want
to do the what before the who. The best
leaders do the who and then the what.
CEOs need to take the time to ensure that
their executive teams not only are capable
but also are compatible. Sometimes it’s better to select someone who has a stronger
compatibility with the leader’s vision —
more so than the technical capabilities and
skills.
It’s good to see the candidates both in
small group contexts, when they’re interviewing with other people, but also being
able to have a one-on-one interview process
with that person — maybe even one that’s
more informal in terms of either lunch or
breakfast. Those give you a good feel.
It’s always possible that the person that
you bring on board may not measure up.
Strong leaders typically are going to be
looking at what is it that the organization
and its constituents need. If the person or
persons on the management team are not
allowing those people to be served in the
way that you feel is satisfactory, then sometimes an adjustment is called for.
HOW TO REACH: Indiana University of Pennsylvania, (724)
357-2100 or www.iup.edu
