Dr. Ralph Gigliotti - Post-Crisis Leadership

Ralph A. Gigliotti, Ph.D., serves as Assistant Vice President for Organizational Leadership in University Academic Affairs at Rutgers University. In this role, he directs the Office of Organizational Leadership and provides executive leadership for a portfolio of signature leadership programs, consultation services, and research initiatives. Ralph regularly partners with campus leaders on projects of strategic importance, and he serves as an executive advisor for senior academic leaders across Rutgers in the areas of change leadership, crisis leadership, organizational strategy, and continuous improvement.

He holds part-time faculty appointments in the Department of Communication (School of Communication and Information), Ph.D. Program in Higher Education (Graduate School of Education), Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (Robert Wood Johnson Medical School), and Rutgers Business School. He is author and editor of 10 books and nearly 50 journal articles and book chapters on topics related to organizational communication and leadership in higher education.

Ralph is president of the Network for Change and Continuous Innovation (NCCI) —an organization of nearly 100 colleges and universities from across North America who seek to advance sustainable excellence in higher education by promoting successful practices and approaches used to drive change, innovation, and continuous improvement across academic and administrative functions.

We had two other guests toward the end of the episode who promoted some upcoming events with the Network for Change and Continuous Innovation (NCCI).

• Kim-Marie Jenkins, Senior Director for Organizational Change and Culture, University of Maine System
• Rick Wernoski, Associate Vice Chancellor for Operational Excellence, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

A Quote From This Episode

• "We find ourselves at a moment in time where individuals, organizations, and communities are responding to the waves of change."

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Book: Post-Crisis Leadership: Resilience Renewal and Reinvention in the Aftermath of Disruption by Gigliotti
• Organization: Network for Change and Continuous Innovation (NCCI)
• Learning Opportunity: NCCI In-Person Institutes 
• Book:  Grant by Ron Chernow
• Book: Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Resistance to Change in Higher Education by Rosenberg

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!

About  Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders
• Blog

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

Chapters

• 0:00 Post-Crisis Leadership Strategies and Practices
• 16:07 Post-Crisis Leadership and People-Focused Reinvention
• 22:47 Challenges in Sharing Leadership Expertise
• 37:37 Navigating Change in Higher Education

Transcript

Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate, and conversations-to-text do not always translate perfectly. I include it to provide you with the spirit of the conversation.

Scott Allen  0:00 

Okay, everybody, welcome to the Phronesis podcast. I have Dr. Ralph Gigliotti with me today, and I am excited for this conversation. To give you a little bit about him, though, he serves as Assistant Vice President for Organizational Leadership in University Academic Affairs at Rutgers University. In this role, he directs the Office of Organizational Leadership and provides executive leadership for a portfolio of signature leadership programs, consultation services, and research initiatives. He holds several faculty appointments in several different parts of Rutgers University, and he's the author and editor of 10 books and nearly 50 journal articles and book chapters. Ralph, so happy to have you back on the podcast. 

Ralph Gigliotti  0:43 

Thanks for having me. It’s great to see you.

Scott Allen  0:45 

Yes. And we're going to be together in a couple of weeks, and I can't wait to give you a big hug and say hello in person as well. 

Ralph Gigliotti  0:53

I'm looking forward to it so much. 

Scott Allen  0:54

So, you have been busy as always, as Ralph is. He's a busy busy person. And I'm excited to talk about this latest book. Now, the latest book, it's not out yet. We are recording in October, this should be out somewhere around November. ‘Post-crisis Leadership; resilience, renewal and reinvention in the aftermath of disruption.” So, post-crisis leadership, sir, maybe define that a little bit. And then let's go to the impetus of this book. What are you thinking about here? 

Ralph Gigliotti  1:25

Awesome. Scott, thanks so much for having me. It's great to be with you again. An, yes, very much looking forward to our time together in Chicago. So, as you look at the crisis literature, it's pretty well defined that there are common stages to crisis: Pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis, and we all have collectively gone through so much together that there's quite a bit written right now on how to lead during crisis. COVID, racial reckoning in the United States, lots of issues across organizations. The research on how to lead during times of crisis is pretty strong. There's also quite a lot written in terms of how do we best prepare for the types of crises that we might face in the future. What's the level of risk mitigation and preparation that's needed? Where I saw a gap was in the aftermath of the crisis. And what does leadership look like during those times of acute stress and healing?

Scott Allen  2:26 

Well, I love that phrasing, ‘the gap I saw…’ Here's where we need to know a little bit more about how we navigate this. We've got pre, we've got actual crisis, and then we've got post. So, how are you thinking about post-crisis? In organizations, we've gone through this event, how do we respond after the fact? What are some of the best practices that you've landed upon? 

Ralph Gigliotti  2:51 

I'll first start, Scott, with a little bit in terms of what led me to study this, and there were sort of a couple factors because it'll get into the framework I propose in the book. On July 7th of 2021, my mom called me letting me know that her doctor had called with a formal diagnosis of stage 4 gallbladder cancer and it was traumatizing for our whole family. I had read enough about the disease to know that we probably were in for a really tough months, weeks, year ahead. She sadly passed in August of 2022. So, as I was going through this personal challenge and trying to support my family, and my dad, and my brothers, and, of course, be there for my mom, I was also, on the professional side, having tons of conversations with colleagues and co-workers at Rutgers and across higher education who were thinking about how to lead in the aftermath of what we've all experienced as some collective trauma. How do you move forward when some folks are immersed in crisis and others are longing to look ahead past crisis? And there's a paradox there in terms of how we can best lead during these times of tragedy and turmoil. And I was experiencing this personally and trying to sort of think about who I am as a dad, and a son, and a father, while also thinking about how I could best support colleagues who were thinking about this post-crisis period. So the writing process for me, Scott, was, as always, pretty healing and cathartic to write about these issues and to study how leaders were engaged in post-crisis leadership, and I hope it's a book that would make my mom proud as well. So, there are five key leadership practices that I highlight in the text. The post-crisis leadership involves the need to encourage learning, to cultivate resilience, to encourage meaning-making, to pursue reinvention, and to advance renewal.

Scott Allen  4:51 

Okay. So, I imagine, and I love that you're starting with the learning, are we going down a little bit of an after-action review? Like, what are we going to capture from this? What are we going to learn? We're not just blowing forward and not really, really, really taking in the lessons that we need to pay attention to. Is that a piece of this? 

Ralph Gigliotti  5:13

That's so accurate, Scott. Absolutely. And I find, and I don't know what your listeners think about this, but we are often, these days, jumping from crisis to crisis to crisis, and perhaps not engaging in a post-mortem that would allow us to truly dissect what worked well and what we might do differently next time based on what we've encountered during the crisis. Additionally, who's involved in that collective learning process? So, I focus in this book on colleges and universities because that's the site and space that I'm most familiar, but I think it's a framework that could be broadly accessible in terms of who's involved in these post-mortem conversations to encourage learning.

Scott Allen  5:54 

And so, within that learning process, I imagine also that you are really, really focusing on, not only the learning, but, in some ways, the context has changed. And so, we need to learn, and there's probably going to be some experimentation that we're engaging in as we move into this new reality. Is that another personal reason or another reason that you included this after-action review, this post-mortem, this period of learning? How are you thinking about that? 

Ralph Gigliotti  6:23 

I think it's an interesting question. Two of the examples that I draw upon in that particular chapter are a bonfire collapse at Texas A&M, and then also the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007. And so, I analyzed some of the reports that were published in the aftermath of those two tragedies, and also looked at the different policy changes and procedural changes and cultural changes that were enacted based on the learning from those two incidents. I think it gives us a lot to consider in terms of how you can better engage in post-crisis leadership learning, and then to what extent that learning can shape policies, procedures, and practices within the organization.

Scott Allen  7:07 

Yeah. Okay. So, we've got the learning phase. Remind me of number two, I didn't write it down. 

Ralph Gigliotti  7:12 

Number two. Yeah, Cultivating resilience. And may I talk about resilience and renewal and conversation? Because I think it's just such a helpful… I was introduced to this distinction. I attend leadership conferences, my Ph.D. is in communication, so I draw heavily from communication scholarship in the book. Resilience often is described as the ability to bounce back to what once was, and renewal often is about looking ahead to envision what might have never been had it not been for the crisis. So, renewal is very prospective, it's very forward-looking, and it invokes, for me, healing personally, professionally, spiritually. And I think both are made possible because of effective leadership during this post-crisis period. How can we learn together? Going back to that first practice. How can we cultivate resilience as a communicative practice through processes of convening discourse, dialog? And then, how can we heal and look ahead to what may have never been had it not been for the crisis? 

Scott Allen  8:19 

Oh, I love that framing. I really do. So, in the example, like, a Virginia Tech or the bonfire collapse, are there some examples that modeled that well, or did they not model that well in your research? 

Ralph Gigliotti  8:33 

So, I actually, in the resilience chapter, focus a little bit on the crisis at Penn State, and the crisis from a couple of years ago, and some of the interviews that I had the opportunity to conduct on the campus in the aftermath of that crisis. The words ‘resilience,’ Scott, were invoked time and time again from so many of the leaders who I spoke with. And I think if you look at the data in terms of how an institution of that size was able to support victims in the aftermath of a really horrific tragedy, and lean on those core values that make the place distinctive, that spirit of resilience was one that was presented several times in the conversations as something distinctive about the place. And I would just say, in the renewal chapter, I think we could all look at different examples about how our institutions have responded to COVID issues, related to racial reckoning. And even today with some of what's happening globally, particularly in Israel and Palestine, in terms of how we can create space for dialog and healing on issues that are just so complex.

Scott Allen  9:45 

Well, I guess I'd never even thought of it this way, but if you look at this through the lens of what was happening at Columbia University last May 2024, that definitely would be considered a crisis, correct?

Ralph Gigliotti  10:01 

I'd say so. In some ways, crises are socially constructed. So, for what might be a crisis for you, Scott, might look a little bit different for me, but I think we all can pretty much agree that crises disrupt operations, threaten reputations, and impact human lives. And so, the incident at Columbia… And it's not unique to Columbia, so many colleges and universities, Rutgers as well, have had to respond to lots of issues surrounding this really horrific global situation that’s underway.

Scott Allen  10:33 

Yep. Oh, for sure. Okay. So, a few more things from the book that you want to… I don't want to give it all away, but I want to entice listeners, to pique their interest, so to speak. (Laughs)

Ralph Gigliotti  10:47 

Thank you. I'll highlight just a couple. Post-crisis leadership, I think, is often relegated as an afterthought. Again, we understand that we need to be equipped to respond to crises -- COVID taught that pretty clearly for each of us -- however, we are each so busy and our institutions have a number of strategic priorities that we're trying to attend to, that to dedicate time and effort to take post-crisis leadership seriously, it's often an afterthought. So, I'm hoping that this book will elevate the need for a deeper investment in time, resources, attention for this post-crisis leadership work. The second thing, I talk about values-based leadership a ton, Scott, in the work that I do as a leadership educator. And in my original writing on crisis leadership, I think post-crisis leadership provides another avenue for demonstrating values-based leadership. Who do we stand for? What do we stand for? And in what ways can we lead in the aftermath of disruption in ways that reflect and reinforce those core values?

Scott Allen  11:52 

That also really, really, really requires leaders to ensure that we have done some of that pre-work, that we are anchored and we have a strong foundation in that. Wouldn't you agree

Ralph Gigliotti  12:03 

Absolutely. When you think about too, Scott, that reservoir of goodwill that's necessary to draw upon after the crisis, this has to be accounted for prior to the incident or disruption. How are we engaging in the work of trust-building prior to the disruption itself? [Inaudible 12:25] They’re a huge distinguishing factor.

Scott Allen  12:26 

Oh, yeah. And if we haven't done that work, if we haven't laid that foundation and really are clear in who we are or what we stand for, I imagine, even in that resilience and renewal kind of stage, it feels to me like that would be a through line throughout. That would be critical for us to be successful, is to be anchored in that. And a critical role of the leader to remind individuals and bring people back because all of this noise throughout the process, if we're reminding and coming back to that kind of core, I almost think of it as like a lifeline for the leader, that way we're coming back here, and this is who we are and what we stand for. And, at least, in part, keeping some of the focus on that because everyone's focus is going to be all over the place. 

Ralph Gigliotti  13:13 

That’s so well put, Scott. And, gosh, how important that is as we think about an upcoming national election, as we think about -- I know you've talked about this with a number of your recent guests -- increased polarization. What is that common ground upon which we stand? And when we face disruption, whether it be the kind of personal crisis that I mentioned early on in our conversation or the kind of collective crisis that we each endure at our organizations time and time again, to what extent can that common ground provide us with stability and security? 

Scott Allen  13:50 

Yeah. Because, as human beings, we are going to more easily see the differences in the gaps rather than, “We are Americans, Americans, the United States of America.”

(Laughter)

Ralph Gigliotti  14:05 

I feel like this is the start of a political campaign for you, my friend. I'm ready. Let's do it. I won’t vote for [Inaudible 14:12]

(Laughter)

Scott Allen  14:11 

Okay. You had a third element. You had a third element that I interrupted…

Ralph Gigliotti  14:17 

Oh, my third. And I don't think it's groundbreaking in any way, but I think for all of us who have an interest in leadership, scholarship, and practice, I think it would be a common theme across each part, just people matter. People matter. And when you think about, particularly, this theme of leading reinvention, the change that's made possible in the aftermath of crisis can be exciting. Some have described a crisis as a necessary corrective. It introduces new ways of thinking that perhaps weren't possible prior to the incident. However, crises impact each of us disproportionately. And so if we're going to pursue reinvention, if we're going to pursue change in the aftermath of a crisis, we need to take stock of how people are feeling and how we can bring people along in pursuit of that reinvention. So, for each of those phases, I think that the importance of people and principles becomes really credible.

Scott Allen  15:17 

Wow. Well, I'm excited to get my hands on this, Ralph. I think, always love how you're thinking and how you're framing these topics, and it's just so valuable. And I could not agree with you more. I imagine, for listeners, that this is highly relevant to any organization who is in any way, shape, or form, thinking about how to proactively be prepared. The lessons are there. What are a couple of other things that really stood out for you, maybe even surprised you, as you went through this process of writing the book? What was it that made you think, “Oh, wow, I hadn't ever considered that, I hadn't thought of that. That's not something that I would have expected while going through this process?” There's always a couple of those little gremlins that just are right there, and you're like, “Oh, that makes sense.” 

Ralph Gigliotti  16:03 

Yeah. Well, I think there's two that, initially… I love the way you frame the question too. The ways in which we can engage in leadership, and it's not just in higher education, but in any kinds of organizations that have shared governance or decentralized systems for decision-making, I think it makes the work of post-crisis leadership even more complex because we're trying to sort of get our hands around the acute issue itself. Trying to engage others, diverse others who have different perspectives and priorities in terms of what the crisis might be, and trying to also look ahead in ways that bring others along for the journey. That's tough work for anyone. And so, if we could think about what that looks like, particularly in colleges and universities who perhaps aren't as equipped to respond to this as maybe other organizational types, it's a challenge, but I think it's also an opportunity because we are values-based, mission-centered organizations that take distributed leadership seriously.

Scott Allen  17:05 

Wow. Okay. So, I had never thought about that, but context matters greatly. It could be a community that's responding to a crisis. So, that could be even the city of Asheville right now as we're recording, they're still really, really struggling through. So, it could be that context where, again, to your point, it's not a very structured, hierarchical organization where a smaller group of people have authority to make a lot of decisions, or, to your point, a campus where that can be spread out quite a bit. So, I'd never thought of that, but context matters greatly. 

Ralph Gigliotti  17:41 

Thanks for bringing that up too, Scott, it does. And even when you look at sort of who is demonstrating leadership in a case like Asheville, of course, we're looking at federal partners and local state agencies for support, but looking at the collective response on the ground, that's the kind of opportunity that's made possible in the aftermath of loss. In fact, Rebecca Solnit writes about this as a disaster utopia, this hope, this healing, this optimism that perhaps is created in that post-crisis period.

Scott Allen  18:12 

Yeah. I think that statement makes me think of a phrase like Boston Strong, or something like that, that then people can kind of rally behind.

Ralph Gigliotti  18:20 

Yes. Yeah. The other thing, and I think this is sort of a selfish takeaway for me, and you use the word gremlin, and this is the gremlin that I feel like is chasing me constantly because I have influence on academic leadership development across Rutgers, so that's part of my portfolio at the university. So, we've infused issues related to crisis leadership in the curriculum for the different programs that we sponsor. How do we teach others about post-crisis leadership when we are, at times, barely keeping up with all of the work that's on our plates today? So, that fatigue, that burnout, the kinds of issues that I think so many of our listeners can probably understand and are living through themselves. How do we add another… I talk about post-crisis leadership, and crisis leadership, more broadly, being a leadership imperative, how many of these imperatives can we take on reasonably? 

Scott Allen  19:19 

Yeah. It's definitely Stephen Covey's quadrant two, important but not maybe urgent in our mind, but critical that we carve out the space. Because if we don't carve out the space to have some of these conversations, well, it can go south very, very, very quickly. But, to your point, I keep hearing the term time-starved. So, how do we ensure that we truly are prioritizing and carving out the time to be proactive and thinking ahead?

Ralph Gigliotti  19:47 

Yeah. That's a really powerful way of framing it, Scott.

Scott Allen  19:51 

Yeah. Well, Ralph, I always appreciate how you're thinking about the world. I always appreciate how you're thinking about leadership. I guess where I'd like to take the conversation for our next couple of moments before I ask you what you're listening to or reading or streaming, what else has been on your mind lately? What are you seeing? What's piquing your interest? Obviously, this book is on your mind, of course, but are there other things that you're thinking about right now that…  I always love learning where your mind is. 

Ralph Gigliotti  20:24 

Yes. So, I have three kids at home, Scott, a nine-year-old, a seven-year-old, and a four-year-old. And, like you, constantly preoccupied with the world around us and what it means for the future of my children. And I think now, as we're looking ahead to a national election, it seems particularly acute in terms of what that future could look like for them. So, I'm thinking a ton about that. I’m thinking a lot about innovation in higher education, and what does it mean to adopt an innovation mindset in colleges and universities when the pressures and threats seem just immense these days. So, that ties into that leadership capacity building that I mentioned previously. And the third thing is just sort of keeping up with the volume of activity and news that seems to be breaking each day. So, your newsletter, shameless plug, Scott, is awesome in just distilling relevant research, relevant data, relevant concepts, and strategies in such a digestible way for anyone who has an interest in leadership. So, thank you for that, Scott, because I'm trying to keep up myself with just reading all of this. And time-starved, I feel that.

Scott Allen  21:41 

Quick hint, this podcast and that newsletter is just systematizing my learning as well. (Laughs) But it's also been really… Just to linger on the newsletter for a second, Ralph, because this is very, very important, I think, for the academics listening. So, every week, I'm putting out four articles that at least have caught my attention. And it's really, really interesting. As someone who's just emerged out of full-time academia, I still have a foot in the water with Southern Methodist University and executive education, but it's so fascinating, Ralph, because 99% of the scholarship is behind a paywall. And when I try and really, really, really locate high-quality articles beyond like a Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan, there's very, very few academics that are putting content out there. And so, it's leaving open the space to a Korn Ferry, to a Bain, to a Gallup. And there's nothing wrong with those organizations, CCL, but so much of that really, really good academic work, it's hidden. You might have Ron Riggio, who is doing a beautiful job through Psychology Today, or Brene Brown, or Adam Grant, Megan Reitz, some of these individuals, Amy Edison, but I keep coming back to those five or six names because all of the other incredible academics, it's $170 book, or it's an article that no one has access to, and then that creates space for, I don't know. Sometimes, the article from Deloitte may or may not be all that rigorous, may or may not be all that relevant, but, you know what? They're a center of gravity. 

Ralph Gigliotti  23:29 

So, do you view that as helping to sort of democratize information, Scott, the work of your newsletter?

Scott Allen  23:34 

I hope it does a little bit, but it's also just made it abundantly clear. Where do I go to find your thoughts on post-crisis leadership? How do I highlight that work so that more people know about it? Because I have 4,000-plus individuals on the list, if they're being exposed to some of this incredible work by a lot of these really, really incredible thinkers, I think we can do great work. But too much of the time, it's either just people kind of thinking about the stuff that's free. ILA has some really, really good blogs that are by some really wonderful thought leaders, Shelly Spiller, and individuals that are doing some really cool work, Richard Bolden, but, generally speaking, it's all behind a paywall. And so, it's been a little bit of a struggle with the newsletter. It's been a bit of a struggle in the sense that there's some individuals work that I want to highlight, but there really isn't too… John Antonakis. I might have a TED Talk on charisma, but where else do we find his thinking about the topic of charisma? Global leader on the topic, incredible scholar, where do I find his work? George Banks, incredible reviews he's published in Leadership Quarterly that really outlines so much of the literature. Where do I find the work of George Banks? I can't. And so, as a result, I think at times, it diminishes us as a center of gravity because it's behind a paywall.

Ralph Gigliotti  25:03 

Wow. And what that raises for me is sort of how information, and especially this expertise, can be made broadly available. And I appreciate what you're trying to do with the newsletter and tackling that. And also, I think it raises perhaps a broader existential question about the role of the university, and what it means to be immersed in community, and how information that's being developed and generated and discovered is being shared more broadly in a community-engaged, community-participatory manner. I know we think about this a ton at my institution, but it's a national, global issue now, and to what extent can this expertise be shared more broadly, beyond the paywall? That's a huge question.

Scott Allen  25:50 

Oh, Joanne Chula, she's at Rutgers. Global expert on [Inaudible 25:56] leadership. And this is not in any way, shape, or form, a knock on these individuals, it's just I wish more of their work was out in the world. And so, Ralph, I'm trying to find some of that because sometimes you have to dig a little bit. Maybe there's a interview with Joanne from years ago, or maybe there's something, but oftentimes, unless it's Megan Reitz, Amy Edmondson, Adam Grant, and they have a website. Wendy Smith, she does a great job with their work on ‘Both/And Thinking.’ She's a great scholar. But, other than that, it can be a little bit difficult. Ron Riggio with Psychology Today. So, that's been a really, really fun project, because, in some ways, it's kind of highlighted what I kind of see happening on the larger scale where you have individuals -- and again, I'm not knocking on these individuals -- but a Jocko Willink becoming more influential in the landscape of leadership learning than any of those scholars that we've mentioned. 

Ralph Gigliotti  26:58 

Yeah. Well, I mentioned innovative leadership earlier as a topic that I’ve become really interested in. And I think, Scott, what you have here with the way you're thinking about it, with the podcast… How many have you done now, hundreds?

Scott Allen  27:08 

This will probably be episode in the 250s, roughly. So yeah, just about [Inaudible 27:14]

Ralph Gigliotti  27:15

Incredible [Inaudible 27:15] Treasure trove of great, great insight, and the newsletter. Thank you for the work you're doing to get these ideas out there to the world.

Scott Allen  27:23 

Yeah. And the podcast is a great way to highlight some of the work of great scholars, for sure. But there's so much good content that, A) We need to be better at translating sometimes, and B) We need to be better at disseminating so that the world can hear from some of these individuals. John Maxwell, or Ken Blanchard, they are marketing machines. And do they have some good content, of course, and I'd like to see some other names out there.

Ralph Gigliotti  27:49 

So, if we don't have similar marketing budgets, how can we do this? You're helping with that, Scott.

(Laughter)

Scott Allen  27:55 

Innovation. Well, okay, as we begin to wind down our time together today, sir, what's caught your attention? What have you been watching, streaming? What have you been reading? It could have to do with what we've just discussed, it might have nothing to do with what we've just discussed. But I'm curious. I'm very, very curious.

Ralph Gigliotti  28:15 

So, what I've been listening to on my morning runs, Scott, I've actually been playing around with different news channels and trying to diversify the news I'm consuming, and just listening to the different narratives that are being put forward. That's been a really helpful, fascinating practice. Talk about social construction of reality and different framing of the lived experience that we are encountering today. That's been really interesting. On the book side, I'm listening to Ron Chernow’s ‘Grant.’ It was published a couple of years ago. It's a huge book, 27 hours or something like that. Fascinating. Fascinating. And I'm also reading right now a book, ‘“Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”: Resistance to Change in Higher Education’ by former president for Macalester College, Brian Rosenberg.

Scott Allen  29:06 

Oh, wow. That's a great title. I like that title. And, ‘Grant,’ is that Ulysses S. Grant?

Ralph Gigliotti  29:11 

Ulysses S., yes. Ulysses S., Scott.

Scott Allen  29:14 

I don't know much about Ulysses. Has it been interesting?

Ralph Gigliotti  29:16 

I knew so little about him, and I'm learning a ton. I'm only an hour four or five in, but it's been a great read so far.

Scott Allen  29:24 

Oh gosh. What do I have for you? Okay. Have you read BJ Fogg?

Ralph Gigliotti  29:29

No.

Scott Allen  29:30

Okay. ‘Tiny Habits.’ So, I joke because we have James Clear, ‘Atomic Habits.’ We have BJ Fogg with ‘Tiny Habits.’ You and I need to write little baby, tiny, subatomic. We'll be billionaires. It's like our six-minute abs, right? (Laughs) But it's really good. BJ Fogg is at Stanford. He really breaks down the science of behavior change. And so, I like James Clear, but I don't know that Clear is immersed in that science to the degree that Fogg is. And I'm listening to it, fascinating listen. And it's so core to our work of trying to help individuals develop, learn, grow. And how do we engage in that work? And it's that knowing-doing gap as well. Like, “Okay, yeah.” I was literally speaking with a leader this morning, and she said to me, “I'm struggling with emotional intelligence in the face of some of these challenges.” And just like in parenting, as you know, it's very easy to say, “Yeah, as a parent, you need to model emotional intelligence.” And both of us look at each other and say, “Yes, yes.” And then drop us in [Inaudible 30:40] fail, right?

Ralph Gigliotti  30:41

Absolutely. Yes. 

Scott Allen  30:42 

So, this leader was observing that she was struggling at times in the face of some of these challenges modeling emotional intelligence, and it was just beautiful. Okay, so now we have an individual who wants to better model emotional intelligence, and they're trying to close that gap, how do we change behavior? And, oof, it's good. It's really good. 

Ralph Gigliotti  31:04 

Yes. And so there’s a course too on this?

Scott Allen  31:05 

Yeah. He has a course. You could do the online asynchronous for 399, and then there's a live course with him. But I'm just super intrigued, Ralph. Super intrigued.

Ralph Gigliotti  31:15 

Yeah. Thank you for the recommendation. I'll definitely be reading that.

Scott Allen  31:18 

After you get through ‘Grants.’

Ralph Gigliotti  31:22 

Hour 90 of ‘Grants’ book. Yes.

Scott Allen  31:25 

“This book is 77 hours.” 

Ralph Gigliotti  31:28 

I don’t know. I’m sure there's a word for this. I'm the kind of reader that, like, I can't stop. So, if I'm going to read this… But even a book… It’s a good book, but a book, even though I'm struggling with it, I have to finish it. Yeah.

Scott Allen  31:42

So good to see you as always, sir. Very, very…

Ralph Gigliotti  31:45 

Likewise. I appreciate it. It's always a pleasure, Scott. Thank you. And thanks to those who listened in. The book is going to be published by Rutgers Press. I'm really excited to get this work out there, and just grateful for this platform. So, thank you, Scott.

Scott Allen  31:57 

You bet. And, for listeners, we're probably going to be releasing this after the book has been released, so there'll be links, all kinds of links in the show notes for you to access this work. And Ralph, is there anything that you want to say as we close out?

Ralph Gigliotti  32:10 

One of the other really exciting things I've been involved with, in addition to my work at Rutgers and my involvement with ILA, is serving as the president for NCCI, which is the Network for Change and Continuous Innovation in Higher Education. And I know a ton of your listeners are interested in change leadership or doing change leadership at their college or university, so I thought it could be a cool opportunity to highlight some of the work we're doing. 

Scott Allen  32:34 

Oh, very cool. Okay. Oh my gosh, we have two more people on the Zoom now. What's going on here? Rick, tell us about you.

Rick Wernasi  32:42  

Hey, Scott. I'm Rick (?Wernasi?) Associate Vice Chancellor for Operational Excellence at UNC Chapel Hill. And I also am serving as the president-elect for NCCI. Happy to be here.

Scott Allen  32:53 

Awesome. And Kim, you're in the room now.

Kim  32:56  

I am, Scott. So good to be here. Thanks. I'm the Senior Director of Organizational Change and Culture, and the immediate past president of NCCI. 

Scott Allen  33:05 

Oh, wonderful. Okay. So Rick, how have you found your experience in NCCI to be helpful, and in what ways are you engaged in change, leadership, organizational effectiveness at your institution? Tell us a little more.

Rick Wernasi  33:17  

Once I found NCCI, I felt like I found my people, and you'll hear that a lot from our membership. It's a membership of like-minded people that have a passion for transformative change. And so, I think about, in addition to the formal programming that NCCI has, I've benefited from the thought partnership that is just a phone call away. And so, recently, a couple of members of my team, Operational Excellence team, and I had the opportunity to visit the Strategic Consulting Group at Georgia Tech, as well as the Institutional Excellence team at Clemson University. And it was a great two full days of just sharing and learning from one another. And back at Carolina, so I was charged in 2018 to start the Office of Operational Excellence, and since then I've had the opportunity to work with many areas of campus, working on faculty and staff hiring process, space governance and optimization, and the student registration process, as example. We also have worked on executive-level priorities such as building out our innovation junction and our Carolina Community Academy. So, our work comes from the chancellor and provost, the chancellor's cabinet, the campus community. Through a highly collaborative approach, we bring our campus partners together through a holistic approach to strategy and operation. So, it's inspiring work that kind of connects to our mission of our university and the people, and the campus kind of build around that energy and the passion for the mission.

Scott Allen  34:47 

Awesome. Okay. And so, as I understand it, there's now a new organizational effectiveness institute that NCCI is putting on. So, Kim, what led to the development of this new convening for Senior leaders seeking to enact change at their institutions? What do you think?

Kim  35:03  

I love this question, Scott, because you're taking me back to those conversations that were just so incredible. Honestly, the idea for the institute sprang organically, almost from several directions at once. And it's really because as changes in higher education have become more apparent, and the landscape ahead has become harder to predict, Ralph and Rick and I and our NCCI colleagues have been fielding requests from senior leaders to learn how to embed capacity for this work on their campuses. And there are just so many benefits to doing that, whether they resource in-house capacity in a centralized way or a decentralized way. And so, I'm really thrilled about this institute because I know that the concerns felt by senior administrators are real, and the institute is going to give them a safe place to discuss and understand practical ways that they can really set their universities and colleges up for long-term success.

Scott Allen  35:58 

Great. Okay. So, that's awesome. I'm going to put some links in the show notes. And, Ralph, is there anything that you want to say as we close out? 

Ralph Gigliotti  36:06 

There's so many challenges and pressures facing higher education right now, so to build internal capacity in order to do this work well, to lead change and transformation, I think it's an important undertaking across higher ed right now. So, I'm so excited, Scott, that you would allow two of my great friends to join us for the last part of this conversation, and would just like to plug the great work that's being done across ILA and across NCCI to really help advance change.

Scott Allen  36:31 

Oh, that's awesome. Okay. Well, thanks for the good work that you all are doing. Yes, a lot of seismic shifts in higher education, and how do we stay ahead of that? How do we do that work well? And change, oof, wow. Much respect to you all. Thank you so much for joining me. Take care. As always, be well. 

[End Of Recording]