Speaker 1Hi and welcome to Illumination by Modern Campus, your go-to podcast for conversations about transformation and innovation across higher education. I'm your host Shauna Cox and I'm excited to dive into today's conversation. Today I'm speaking with Yusuf Asfor, who is Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer at the American University of Beirut. We explore how institutional alignment and mindset shifts enable meaningful digital transformation that improves the end-to-end student experience. Let's get into it. Yusuf, welcome to the Illumination
Speaker 2podcast. Well, thank you for having me. I am so excited for our conversation. There are so many things going on in the world right now and in higher education, everything kind of feels out of whack. So let's talk about some alignment and I want to talk about that alignment between leadership, culture, technology, and the world. So let's get started. Let's get started. So let's get started. So let's get started. So let's get started. So let's get started. So let's get started. So let's get started. So let's get started. So let's get started. So let's get started. All that good stuff to have a really good student-centered outcome. So to kick off our conversation, how would you define a successful digital transformation in a way that's going to connect the institutional strategy to a measurable student outcome across their learner life cycle?
Speaker 3Well, thanks for asking. I mean, one of the things I always say is that digital transformation is not about technology. And in fact, most of the time, digital transformation is misunderstood, as just technology modernization, right? And so really, a transformation is really about transforming the student experience, transforming the university so that you can have better teaching, better learning, better research. And as importantly, many times it's forgotten the student journey from the time you recruit all through teaching and then all the way through graduation and beyond. So really, a successful digital transformation for me at a university is making the changes that allow that to happen. It does depend on technology, but it's not about technology. And so the way you do it is you, at least the way I think about it, is first you have to make sure that you're focused on the mission, you're focused on what you want the student journey to be like, what are your learning objectives, and then drive from that alignment across the university, across all levels. Of course, it starts with the leaders, because if the leaders are not aligned with the vision, then it's not going to be a successful digital transformation. But then you have to have alignment across all levels. I mean, at least from my experience in universities, is that even a single faculty member could just stop everything, right, if they're not aligned. So what you really want to do is make sure you have alignment at all levels, starting with the leadership, but also with the administrators, with the faculty, and everybody involved. And once you have that alignment, then you can start talking about how do you tie that alignment to the mission. And then at that point, then you can start thinking about how do you start talking about what technology to use to make that happen.
Speaker 2Absolutely. It's kind of getting all of your ducks in a row before you touch the technology component, because it really is this ecosystem. And I love the fact that you're saying a digital transformation is not just technology, because I think, you know, people coincide digital to technology when there's a lot more depth behind it. So what really needs to be in place across leadership, culture, and technology, because it is a component for transformation to truly
Speaker 3impact student success. It's all about getting your ducks in a row. I liked what you said there. And to me, really, digital transformation is really not a technology project, but rather a change management project, right? And it's so it's really about making sure that you get everybody aligned. But one of the challenges, I at least I think, that is unique to academic institutions, is that one, they're very complex organizations, especially with the shared governance and all the different aspects of it. But the other thing is, which I find very ironic in that, that although universities are the crucible of innovation, they're also very conservative institutions. And so they're very resistant to change. And as things work, they like the way things work, they don't like to change things. So for you to get all of that going and to do the digital transformation, again, you have to align with what is it you're trying to achieve, how that ties back to your goals. And from my perspective, those goals should be about how do we enhance the student experience in terms of learning, in terms of research, but also in terms of campus life as well, right? And how do we improve their student journey so that it's frictionless, so that they can very easily access what they need to do, their interactions with the faculty, their interactions with administration becomes smoother. And in order to do that, you need the alignment. And with the as well, that includes all the stakeholders to make that happen. Now, one of the challenges with doing that, though, is you don't want to run into analysis paralysis, right? The more people you have in the room, the more you get stuck into debates. And so you need to build that quite, putting the right governance in place that is inclusive, so that people feel they're part of the change. But don't spend all your time just doing analytics and not getting anywhere. So it's
Speaker 2a balance. It's a balance. And with that balance, I think it's also with all the innovation going on and the different pace that things are moving at, and all the various stakeholders involved, it's not just a clear path to be like, let's be innovative, hit the green button, go, and in five minutes, you're at the finish line. So in your experience, what differentiates institutions that truly deliver that personalized student-centered experience from those who are still evolving or kind of still in that process and heading towards that goal?
Speaker 3It's about alignment, but more important than alignment, it's a change in mind shift. At least when I was going to college, you're much younger than I am. But when I went to college, it was, the attitude was, you're lucky to be at this university, do what you need to do. Now we need to start thinking of students are really, they're the reason we're here, right? And so we need to start putting the student at the center and start thinking about it from the, from the way, how does the student experience all the aspects of student life, including teaching, including clubs, including social life, and then start aligning all our processes and all our mission around that. And if we can get the right people aligned around that, and then putting the culture in place so that we can encourage the people who have been working at the university to start thinking differently, start thinking and start focusing on the students rather than on the process, start thinking about the learning rather than on the department they're in and trying to start looking across departments and across functions. That's, you need to start doing that. So to answer your question, what differentiates the university that succeeds in that other than the university, is that the universities that are looking at it from the student perspective, the, the universities that are looking across functions instead of within functions. But also, I, I believe that these universities have to have a good mandate from the leadership, aligned leadership, and a mandate to push this through, and also be willing to take some risks. Again, in conservative, as, as, like I said earlier, I mean, universities tend to be very conservative and, uh, we, they need to be willing to, and this, uh, to make changes and take some risk with changes and take baby steps to those changes. In many ways, it has to be top down driven, but also has to have inclusion from everyone because if there's nobody driving, it's not going to happen. Mm-hmm . But then you also have to make sure that everybody's included in that decision without getting stuck in decision-making.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm . Yeah, it's definitely.
Speaker 3Am I going in circles or is that making sense?
Speaker 2No, no, it makes sense. There's just, there's so many components to it. So you have to make sure you're hitting all the components and that you're not forgetting anybody or any process and that it's driven in the, the right way to hit that message across the institution. And you mentioned kind of this idea of the cross-departmental collaboration. And I want to expand on that a little bit more and get more, I guess, into the best practice. So how can leaders better align the teams and the systems across the institution to create a more connected end-to-end learner journey from the beginning of that, you know, that first touch point through to the career outcomes that the student's looking for?
Speaker 3I think a big part of it is clarity, right? Leadership, leaders need to be very clear and be able to articulate clarity about what is trying to be achieved and why it's important. And by starting to, by making, making it very clear to everybody and trying to make sure they understand, not just listen, but understand and internalize, what is it you're trying to achieve? Why is it important and how that impacts the students? And therefore, how does that impact the university? It starts with that. Once you start working on clarity, then you can start getting alignment. And from alignment, then you need to start working on change management as well. Say, well, you know what? We need to change these processes for the following reasons. And if you don't change those processes, then you need to change the processes for the following reasons. And if you don't change these, this is what happens. I remember, I can't remember if I can remember it directly, but I'll try. When you're doing change management, the key is to tell people what you're going to do, tell them why you're going to do it, tell them how you're going to do it, then keep on saying that, tell them why you're doing it, how you're doing it, and keep on just communicating over and over again what's going on. So communication is important. Clarity is important. That leads to alignment. And then also address all the fear factors about change. But I've been doing it this way forever, and doing it the other way is risky. In fact, I just remembered something in one of the discussions uh unfortunately i can't attribute it to the right person because i can't remember who it was but uh we were in the discussion with a bunch of cios and that cio said guys just remember we although we are in an academic institution we are not academics and so so really we are there to deliver and so we need to be careful we don't have the liberty of continuously discussing and debating things eventually we have to deliver and so that's part of being uh digital transformation leaders is you need to include people you need to debate but you also in the end you need to deliver and aligning everybody and putting the governance in place so that everything is clear and everything is aligned about the student about teaching but also about also optimizing operations as well right and i want to jump off this idea of governance because
Speaker 2as we mentioned at the beginning of our conversation you know transformation isn't just a digital side it's not always about technology there are the people behind it who are actually going to move the needle forward so how can institutions move beyond that technology-led transformation in order to build governance models that are going to sustain change across that learner life cycle and then what role should cross-functional leadership play in that process at the risk of repeating myself and i'm
Speaker 3trying not to yeah um i would say it's really really really about stop thinking about the technology think about the student think about what you're trying to achieve and focus on what is it i need to do to do that and then use technology as a tool to get you there unfortunately in a lot of places what ends up happening is they come to the cio to the digital transformation say implement this system that's doing it backwards right what you want to say is i want to improve for example the admission process i want to make sure that our students we select the best students we get them through the easiest process to registration through teaching and then through graduation what is it that we need to do to make that happen and out of that comes out this technology one of the quotes that people quote me on in some places they they people ask me so which platform do you like this one that one or that one and my answer is i hate them all equally right because it's really not about the platform it's really about the process it's really about the focus and it's really about making sure that everybody at all levels in the organization is focused on the right thing and then treat that as a change management process but technology is really the excuse rather than the end result
Speaker 2i feel like that right there's a mic drop it's an excuse not the end result i love that we're gonna have so many quotes from you um oh my god and then i want to look at the this kind of this conversation and i want to ask you about the future of it and as institutions are looking ahead what should leaders prioritize to ensure that their transformation efforts you know beyond just the technology are going to continue to drive growth that connection and that learn long-term
Speaker 3value for learners i'm going to say something that i used to get shut up when i'm talking at the board of deans is we need to start treating the client at the student as a client right i remember when i was in consulting we used to say if it wasn't for customers life would be so good but right but the the truth is if it wasn't for the students we wouldn't even exist right and so what we really need to do is keep the students focused and do everything we're doing about how can we improve uh the student's life how can we improve their learning how can we help them find jobs how can we prepare them for the job market or or for their careers if they want to become entrepreneurs as well and if we stay focused on that then everything we do around the data is really uh what helps us get there part of it is we need to streamline our processes to make that experience better and more effective and the systems and the technology are there to implement those processes and not the other way around right one of the things i always say is if it's a choice between making a change in the system or changing the process change the process first right because what you will really want to do is change the process to make it aligned with your mission and then we'll find the system that's going to be the one that's going to be the one that's going to make that happen now what you don't want to now i'm digressing a bit but what you don't want to do is end up what a lot of universities do is start thinking that they're special and then start customizing their processes which ends up customizing their systems and that actually takes us backwards so it's really again it's all about a balance right absolutely and i love that
Speaker 2you said that i think you know you said before you know you get like your wrist slap for saying that they're clients nowadays you there may be some controversy but i give you an applaud on that side to say that the students are clients because we definitely see them as customers because that's realistically what they are and i think that conversation is changing but i mean that's probably its own podcast episode in and of itself um those are all the questions i have for you but is there anything that you'd like to add in terms of this digital you know quote unquote digital transformation um any advice that you may have for people anything that i may have missed that you want to talk about i think the only thing
Speaker 3i would say is just remember that it is not about technology digital transformation is not about technology it's really about transformation and so to do that what you the way the place to start is to think about again who your target is what you're trying to achieve see what you need to transform in terms of uh policies processes structures and then the technology is there
Speaker 2to support you make that happen love it well you said thank you so much for answering all of my formal questions and now we're going to move into our bonus question that we love to ask the podcast so if you have a book recommendation it can be hired related or not
Speaker 3what would you recommend people pick up can i be shameless and plug in my own book absolutely we
Speaker 2love it if they like your insights here they're gonna like your book so what do you got for us
Speaker 3sandy malloy and i co-authored the book it's called from geek to lead uh a tech leader's guide to leadership and basically it's a great book you can find it almost anywhere and uh it's about it's really a book that is intended to be easy to read and you can flip through it back and forth it encompasses a lot of um real world experiences on for first-time leaders although it's called tech from from geek to lead this actually we found out that it's getting a lot of good reviews from first-time leaders so um if you're into leadership or if you're transitioning into a leadership role or or not um i believe that might be a great uh great uh guidebook for you and if you do end up reading it would love to get your feedback and hopefully good reviews again you said thank you
Speaker 2so much for your time and for the conversation it was great chatting with you same here thanks for having me this podcast is made possible by a partnership between modern campus and the evolution the modern campus engagement platform powers solutions for non-traditional student management web content management catalog and curriculum management student engagement and development conversational text messaging career pathways and campus maps and virtual tours the result innovative institutions can create learner to earner life cycle that engages modern learners for life while providing modern administrators with the tools needed to streamline workflows and drive high efficiency to learn more and to find out how to modernize your campus visit moderncampus.com that's moderncampus.com
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