In the digital age, leadership demands a unique blend of visionary thinking and hands-on execution. Organizations face the complex task of integrating disruptive technologies while ensuring their core vision remains intact. In this delicate balance, how can leaders envision the future while ensuring the practicalities of current digital transformations are well-managed and integrated?

Contributor

• • Anthony Mutti, Chief Information Officer, Springfield College

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Transcript

Sanjog Aul [00:00:22]:
Hello and welcome to CTN. To learn more about the show, please visit ciotalknetwork.com and today’s topic is Leadership In The Digital Era: Visionaries Or Executors? So what am I talking about here? It’s essentially the digital age that we are all living and we are supposed to be as leaders have rather an interesting blend or a unique blend of us being visionaries and we are thinkers. But at the same time they want impeccable executioners, executors, if you will, who are taking care of anything and seeing it down to reality. So you create great strategies, you do great thinking, and then you also see to reality. That’s like, you know. Well, it’s a stretch, but frankly, many good leaders have done that.

Sanjog Aul [00:01:10]:
So now let’s talk about the situation that we are right now. We have a lot of emerging technologies coming up and we are trying to make sense of them, we’re trying to integrate them, we are trying to see if they can create value. Yeah. But at the same time we also have a responsibility towards the organization’s core mission and vision which needs to remain intact and not getting undermined by us following the sizzle that comes with emerging technology. So this is essentially a delicate balance. So how a leader can envision the future and at the same time make sure that whatever digital transformation related activities that they are doing and lately some Gen AI or any other newer emerging technology related transformation that they are dealing with and the practicalities of making sense of it, making use of it and creating real value and make sure that everything that they do in this regard is well managed and integrated but at the same time not lose their leadership acumen and the focus towards the company mission and vision. That’s what we are here to discuss today. And for that I have Anthony Mutti.

Sanjog Aul [00:02:27]:
He is the Chief Information Officer with Springfield College. Hey Tony, how are you?

Anthony Mutti [00:02:33]:
I’m doing well. Thank you for having me. It’s such an honor to be on the podcast.

Sanjog Aul [00:02:37]:
Thank you so much again. So we are talking about this interesting balance and it’s not a newer challenge. I mean even when we had emerging technologies, it has been emerging for like many decades now. And we have always been asked to make sure that we are always visionary and you are able to also take care of any new technology that comes your way. You make sense of it, see if it’s a good fit, then get it implemented, optimize it and make sure any investments that are done are of great value. So is this a newer muscle we are talking, especially in this new age where disruption in technology and fundamental shift, something we have never seen before, which is like AI related disruption, Is this requiring you to flex a different muscle or a new muscle or this is business as usual.

Anthony Mutti [00:03:28]:
So I think AI is sort of the new buzz thing, right, that’s out there right now that we’re all dealing with, especially in higher ed. The more you read about it, you’ll see that generative AI is definitely causing both grief and optimism, right, because it’s going to change the way we need to teach and how and how we use it in this industry. But I think that overall technology has continued to change. It’s been rapidly accelerating for a century. And so if you’re in a technology field, you need to learn to embrace change. And so in that sense, it’s not anything new, it’s just the new challenge that you have to overcome. And I think as a digital leader, you kind of have to have that tech savvy to see these things coming, anticipate where you’re going in the future. You have to use that to set objectives so you can have strategy and think about how we’re going to make that happen.

Anthony Mutti [00:04:22]:
And that could be near term, long term. And then especially in higher ed where you have sort of a shared governance model between administration and faculty, you have to foster a real collaborative approach that you get that buy in, that you need explain why we’re doing what we, why we’re on this path and how we’re going to get there and what the long term effects are going to be for the institution or the organization.

Sanjog Aul [00:04:42]:
So would you say like while we use the word technology and leader along with it, but most of the activities we end up doing sound like management. So if I were to abstract leadership out of it and say, okay, while you’re doing management of technology to get some work done, but the leader in you should not get stifled. In fact, that should allow you to do the same thing much better and at the same time make sure you’re not just executing things, you are leading the organization in a given direction. So especially when the kind of innovation that we are seeing in the digital era and the technology and it is moving at a warp speed, has it stretched you as a leader, not as a manager, but as a leader, to see how do you maintain that eye on the ball which is more the company’s vision and where it needs to go versus the technical or technology ball which you have to handle as a management or as a manager.

Anthony Mutti [00:05:40]:
I think the challenge you’re describing, that balance between being the person who’s getting certain things done in the near term and also being able to be that dreamer, that visionary who’s able to sort of read the card, so to speak, and kind of set a direction and see where we need to be and I think I don’t. Those are not mutually exclusive, right. And you have to constantly keep an ear out and an eye out and be reading and talking to people, both your peers and quite frankly your team, you know, reaching down and throughout to find out where that those trends are and see where other people are looking so that you can have those that set those objectives in the future. I mean, again, vision is just set of objectives, right. And we have near term and long term objectives and I’ll keep focusing back on that idea that you’re my program, I’m a background as a programmer

Anthony Mutti [00:06:34]:
and so I think there’s a mindset there of taking these big problems and separating them into small achievable goals and that’s not just management, because the management maybe is the execution of that specific task. But as a leader, you have to be able to see where the endpoint is and then you have to be able to influence the organization because again, that’s generally what a CIO does. Right. I don’t write code anymore. I influence the organization. I have ideas.

Anthony Mutti [00:07:02]:
I work with my team, I work with other individuals across the institution and we work together to sort of see where we’re going to go and drive us there and try to do that in the way that has the least amount of friction on our way there. Right? That’s part of it. It’s sort of smoothing the path and I do think that is a continuous job, a job that requires continuous education and involves at an organizational level really pushing an innovative mindset and making sure everyone realizes that change is inevitable and we have to be able to adapt to those new circumstances, we have to learn and we have to evolve and again, continuously preaching, I don’t want to say preaching that, but modeling that and showing people that’s how we’re going to succeed in the future.

Sanjog Aul [00:07:55]:
Has this, given that most of us have a long career in technology one way or the other, or like as leaders, has this recent, you know, 100 miles an hour or thousand miles an hour race and newness and volatility and unpredictability has that shifted anything in your, in the way you deal with leadership or how you act and or how you think as a leader?

Anthony Mutti [00:08:31]:
Well, again, I always rest on that collaboration aspect. Right. So we have to be collaborative regardless of how fast things are moving forward. Because if you, if you try to impose change on folks, it always backfires, in my opinion. In my experience, we have to explain the why and so you have to, you have to put the brakes on occasionally and you have to understand, is this new widget worth worth it in our industry and then help other people recognize either the value or the lack of value that particular thing is. Now, if we’re talking about, you know, and there’s lots of things changing, right. I look at it and see, for me, my biggest concern has to be the what seems like the constantly accelerating game of cat and mouse on the cyber security side of things.

Anthony Mutti [00:09:27]:
You know, and especially at a small private college, you know, resources are not unlimited and you’re constantly trying to provide a balance between the ability of the institution to collaborate internally and externally, while at the same time maintaining your data as being, you know, secure and that is, to me, is the biggest challenge because you want to be both open and closed at the same time and I think that higher ed is specifically a complicated environment because I bring in 2 or 3,000 users on my network, right, who are, who I don’t control. At the same time, on that network, I have all of my administrative staff as well. And in all the systems are kind of a hybrid of folks who, are sort of have to follow the rules and those that don’t. And I think that balancing act is extremely difficult and I think the tools that cyber criminals bring to the table are getting increasingly sophisticated and how do we.

Anthony Mutti [00:10:27]:
Where’s the right balance there in our investments, both of time, money, and resources, in order to counteract that. But that doesn’t actually affect our core competency, right? So our core competency is supposed to be teaching and learning, but we have this focus that we have to also have on the other side of things, on the cybersecurity end, on the teaching and learning side, I think that we’ve kind of got over that hump of online learning, right? I won’t say we’ll say it’s still evolving, but there was a big push Covid helped push that along for those who are a little bit less willing to embrace the idea of a hybrid learning environment and, and utilizing online tools to sort of add value to the teaching and learning experience but we have Generative AI and its ability to be virtually undetectable and now the newest thing is how do we, I don’t think it’s a technology problem. It’s a how do we teach, how do we assess the outcomes of the learning experience? And I think that as a technology leader, I think a lot of times my job is to provide the most up to date information for our faculty and staff. It’s to provide them the opportunities to understand the benefits along with the negatives, to sort of this technology and be a sounding board on how we can use it to better educate our students because I look at things like it’s not going anywhere, right? So it’s really, it’s, you know, it’s one of those things you can’t really fight up against, you’re going to lose, it’s only going to get better. So how do we work within those, that larger construct of the new AI technologies and still keep higher education and what we add relevant? I know that here at Springfield College our mission is to educate the whole person, spirit, mind and body for leadership and service

Anthony Mutti [00:12:28]:
and that is based on humanics philosophy, which is essentially balancing and so how do we balance technology, education, the whole person and make that sort of work? And again, I don’t see that as a wholly technological piece. It’s just one component in the process and I’m really there as someone to help educate and help move the organization forward.

Sanjog Aul [00:12:56]:
So now one is of course you as the torchbearer of what the vision is and working alongside the executive team to make sure all of that happens. And then on the ground you have to make sure that all the things that you’re supposed to do in terms of getting the technology adopted, you get that done. Now another thing is to get people used to that constant shift in newer, emerging technologies getting adopted and, or introduced to them where they say we don’t, we didn’t sign up for this change all the time, which comes back to a culture into an organization which would say, you know what, stable is good, but you’re saying no, change is good and I will keep bringing change to you and we expect you that you would wholeheartedly embrace it.

Anthony Mutti [00:13:47]:
I think that is, yeah, that’s the heart of it, right? I mean, we change, we don’t have a choice. I keep saying, I think I said earlier, change is inevitable and we’re going to have to embrace that change. I think that gone are the days of sitting and doing the same thing the same way over and over again because if we continue to do that, there’s not going to be an innovation. There’s not going to be any shift towards a better version of what tomorrow can bring. So we have to continually be willing to evolve but at the same time we have to understand that people can only change so much and so quickly and so it’s always going to be a balancing act between, you know, bringing in a new system.

Anthony Mutti [00:14:27]:
How long do you sit on that new system before you go on to the next new system? And I think that’s partially just reading the room, so to speak. And you do have to sort of occasionally go, I just had a conversation recently where I said, you know, we may have to put the brakes on, on something because I think that we’ve, we’ve done too much too quickly in some areas and we need a little bit of room to catch up and there’s a few folks in the room who breathe a sigh of relief and there’s other ones who go, no, I see, I see we’re so close to getting to whatever that next place is. But I think that if you, if you’re, if you push too hard, you risk burnout, you risk just an over overwhelmed sense of what it means to move forward. Right. You need people to have a breathing room and then move on to the next and I think that again, that is the problem. Right.

Anthony Mutti [00:15:18]:
That’s what we’re trying to solve here and again, it’s sort of that practical implementation strategy and being willing also to sort of back off the brake, back off the gas a little bit occasionally and say, all right, we’re going to have to push that objective forward a little bit, long term strategy. But I think that always having, you’re always trying to move forward, even if it’s slow, is better than stopping. So I always encourage folks just to continue moving forward but you get to slow down a little bit at times. Maybe you increase the time between objectives in order to give people a little bit more breathing room but again, it’s just not going to stop. I mean, and I think that you have to keep saying that and keep reinforcing that.

Anthony Mutti [00:16:00]:
We have to continually innovate, we have to continually change. If we don’t, then we are going to sink and hopefully you have the right people there.

Sanjog Aul [00:16:12]:
So Tony, when you had mentioned about this leadership all along. Yeah. And when you explained this whole concept of introducing a culture where changes would keep happening, and I’m assuming you referred to the group that you lead, right.

Anthony Mutti [00:16:29]:
I think that it’s not just the team I lead. I mean, I think that you have to have from your IT organization, they have, they have to support you and understand where you’re going, right. You have to have sort of, I always give a three, four year plan sort of the things I have on the docket but I just did this recently and I explained to everyone this is all the stuff and I have it all in this particular format of happening certain years. But that does not actually mean those are the years it’s going to happen in or those are the months it’s going to happen in. These are the things we’re trying to accomplish and we have to be agile, we have to be adaptable.

Anthony Mutti [00:17:02]:
I like to have a lot of shovel ready projects, right. You never know when opportunities are going to present themselves, whether that’s funding or just, you know, one project has to fall away because whatever situation happens and now you have to go and start the next thing. And so I believe in having sort of that list and all those things are sort of driving you towards a more innovative institution that has the technologies we think we need to exist and thrive in the future. But again, you have to. So that’s within my organization. Right. And explaining that this is the roadmap.

Anthony Mutti [00:17:42]:
But the roadmap can change, you know, all good plans. No, no, what’s the, what’s the quote? I think no good plan survives first impact with the enemy or for, you know, because the planning is just part of it. It’s all that process of getting through the planning that is important. And then you are able to adapt as things change on the ground as you move forward. So that’s my team. But also as a CIO beyond your team. Right. You have to influence the institution.

Anthony Mutti [00:18:09]:
You have to have conversations with the stakeholders. You have to make it clear that this is sort of the path we’re on and you have to bring people forward. I mean, people are at the heart of all this change, right. And that effective communication with all constituencies is key. So it can’t just be with the team. The team supports me, I support the team but I also support the institution.

Anthony Mutti [00:18:33]:
And my goals are not my team’s goals. They’re an institutional objective. So it has to be something that everyone else understands and so being able to communicate that broadly to get as much involvement and participation from the organization as I can and you know, and be prepared for a little bit of resistance and embrace that resistance because usually people are not resisting because they don’t want the institution to thrive. They’re resisting because they’re concerned and their concerns are legitimate and you either have to address those concerns or, I mean, you have to address the concerns one way or the other. You may not be able to shift the strategy, but you should be able to at least recognize them and call them out and understand them as something that has to be heard.

Anthony Mutti [00:19:19]:
And then you just continue. And I think over time, as you, as you gain successes, then I believe the institution comes along with you and understands and embraces that change as well. So it’s about those successes. And you’re going to have fumbles. That always happens. But, but, you know, you, hopefully they. You have more successes than fumbles.

Sanjog Aul [00:19:41]:
Now, if you are going in this direction, where every time a new change is coming, right? And if you keep going in that direction and things keep changing, how do you get people to not feel that this is a recipe for burnout? Because one is their interest in joining hands, another is to make sure that it doesn’t prove out to be a reality, that, you know what, this is not the place for me or this is not in my best interest.

Anthony Mutti [00:20:14]:
That’s a great point and I think that is. Again, I go back to reading the room. If you are not careful, you will get burnout within your own team because you’re always moving forward and also within the organization and again, I think it goes back to having lots of conversations, talking broadly and widely within your organization to get a sense of where people are. And there are certain things you must do and there’s certain things that you want to do and that get in the want to dos are the things you have a lot more control over when you’re trying to sort of add a little bit more, slow things down a little bit or speed them up. And I think the other thing to remember is resourcing. You know, you also.

Anthony Mutti [00:21:01]:
It’s okay. This is my opinion. It is okay to feel uncomfortable. I think that feeling uncomfortable with change means you’re not just repackaging what you’ve already been doing. You’re actually doing something different. And so when you’re doing something different, hopefully that’s the path to pushing boundaries. Hopefully, that’s what you’re doing.

Anthony Mutti [00:21:25]:
So I’ll tell a little story. So I actually was a teenager. I think a lot of teenagers do this. I loved magic and I thought I was going to be the next David Copperfield at some point and I had a number of mentors and I actually did shows. Not a lot of people know that, but I did Little, you know, shows, magician shows for, you know, nursing homes and birthday parties and I had a magician once tell me, you know, I was always nervous, and he’s always like, you should always be nervous, because if you’re not nervous, that means a, you probably don’t care enough, and you’re probably not taking any risks, and your audience will know that. And I think that I’ve always carried that with me because I think it works in a lot of different senses, right? If you’re not.

Anthony Mutti [00:22:05]:
If you’re not a little uncomfortable, then you’re not doing anything different. You’re not taking a risk. You’re not. You’re not pushing the boundaries a little bit. I heard one time that you want to operate on the margins of ignorance, right? And I don’t think that’s completely true because I don’t want to be that far off. But I think that if you’re not learning something through the process, then you’re not doing anything that will change the status quo. And that’s. In the end, we’re trying to get to that point where we’re.

Anthony Mutti [00:22:31]:
We’re operating at peak efficiency, and we’re providing the best value to our students and to our staff, and we are servicing them in a way that they feel focused on and so I think that when they leave here, they have the best feeling that they. The best experience, that they got everything they could get out of the institution. And that’s kind of where our end goal is, right? With all the technology we’re implementing, how do we be the best institution for our students?

Sanjog Aul [00:23:02]:
If you were to look at the way you are at all times, the different technology keeps coming, and we try to push hard with something new, try to do innovation. And people have spoken about this like a bimodal, that, okay, you haven’t upgraded, upgrade, you know, existing technology somehow to do it incrementally, or you rip and do, rip and replace, or you have coexistence. And coming from academia, you know, you might have a certain tolerance or the business would have certain tolerance to say how much change is acceptable. So how do you juggle or rather prioritize what to do first, especially when you’re so tempted with so many things could be fundamentally improved with the emerging technology.

Anthony Mutti [00:23:52]:
So I think a great question, unfortunately, or fortunately, some of that’s driven by budget, right? So, I mean, there are certain things you’d love to do that you just can’t afford to do, and that shouldn’t always be the answer, but that’s the answer, especially at small private colleges where, you know, one of our fundamental goals is to remain affordable. And so you can’t, you can’t and we, and we’re tuition driven. So there are certain things you just can’t do or can’t do as quickly as you’d like to do because the, just the expense is too great too quickly. But I think that we look for opportunities that can give us the greatest impact for the dollar spent and perhaps opportunities to decrease costs for students. I’ll give you an example. So right now we are exploring and this is nothing terribly new, but it’s new for us, the idea of moving to an all access textbook model. So the primarily that would be a shift to digital textbooks, probably 75% and paper for the rest. And the idea there is that over four years, most all of our cost modeling shows that by going all access, this gives our students a lower cost for their materials.

Anthony Mutti [00:25:11]:
It allows faculty a confidence that the students have the materials when they need the materials before being in class. So it should lead to better learning outcomes in the end. And students have the option to always opt out. So if they don’t want to be part of that all access, they can opt out and go figure out a different way to get the textbooks. It is a win I think for everyone. And so looking for those opportunities. Another thing that we’re looking at right now along with that same mindset is going to a single device platform where maybe everyone gets a tablet of some sort or a laptop so that we can, we can make sure that there’s equity across the campus. Everyone has the same access to technology.

Anthony Mutti [00:25:58]:
We can look at, have faculty know and have confidence that students have the technology that they can do different things on so that they can build their curriculums around an expectation that’s, achievable. And it also allows the students to use things like financial aid to help make sure that they have those tools they need and if you go with a textbook model, then that also gives them a device to consume those textbooks on. And so looking at strategies where we, where we’re moving forward and we’re also providing these values for everyone. That’s a great way to sort of be able to prioritize things. Lastly, I’ll add we’re looking at a not, not super new, but we currently print digital, we print off IDs and I’m looking at mobile credentialing because that adds huge value to the students. You know, you don’t have to sit in line waiting to get your I.D. you don’t, you know, send us the picture.

Anthony Mutti [00:26:52]:
You get it sent to your phone. Almost everyone has a smartphone. You can have physical ID if you need one. But most people, I can send that credential electronically to you. And now you have access to your residence halls. You can pay for your, go get your meal at the dining hall, you can prints, do whatever and again, you don’t have to stand in line, you don’t have to schedule a meeting. We can set up with somebody to take a photo or print out an id

Anthony Mutti [00:27:14]:
e can do that all electronically. And it saves time for me because I don’t have to have staff member who sits at a desk for, you know, 15, 20 hours a week waiting for people to show up so they can print off IDs because the vast majority are digital. So we’re looking at that as a near term project that we’re going to go implement. And again, it’s all looking for those win opportunities. Now some things aren’t going to be win win. So we are in the final phases of replacing our legacy ERP with a new ERP, a SaaS model ERP. That’s difficult but we look at things like, you know, here’s, we don’t have the ability to make as quickly data driven decisions.

Anthony Mutti [00:27:52]:
So you look at the, fact that we need that flexibility in order to stay competitive and that justifies the need to move. We also were hosting everything on campus. You know, my core competency is not running data sensors on a small campus. So looking at a SaaS product that can do that, management of the infrastructure for me and provide high availability, but provide all that new capability to our faculty, staff and administrators that a newer product can bring to the table. But it’s hard work and you know, it does those things we talked about earlier, burnout. I mean, it’s a real risk because we are trying to continue to use things in our old system while building all those integrations and bringing everyone along for that change and it’s about communicating. I can’t, I think that it’s listening to what folks have to say and trying to find approaches that can help them move from where they were to where they’re going to be.

Anthony Mutti [00:28:52]:
And those are all going to be in many cases custom for the individual you’re talking about or for the office you’re talking about or for that smaller portion of the organization. But again, it’s just a focus on the benefits and rewards and acknowledge some of the shortfalls and work through them.

Sanjog Aul [00:29:16]:
One last question. So like, you know, you have, as I said, paid your dues and got your bruises in terms of what works, what doesn’t work, and you learned those lessons. But then at the same time, every time something new happens, you could do it because you build the muscle, you’ve understood the organization, but at some point you also want to build a system, a methodology, a framework, or maybe adopt some that are available so that this learning that you’ve had and your ability to adapt as a leader or getting a group to adapt or organization to adapt, can this be not templatized, but can this have a method to the madness versus dependent on a few strong leaders like yourself? So anyone besides you or after you within that organization can continue to embrace newer technology with confidence, exude leadership that is required, take care of the vision, all that, you know, we all aspire for, but not be dependent on an individual?

Anthony Mutti [00:30:22]:
Well, I think so. That’s a very tough question because I think that, you know, we. It takes individuals oftentimes, almost always to create the spark, to set the frameworks in place to change the conversation at organizations toward a different approach or a different way to embrace. But I think that hopefully that individual establishes a culture at the institution that they work at that is embracing that change, that understands the need. Hopefully there are lots and lots of wins through that approach of that individual or individuals who are pushing that forward that when that individual leaves, it’s clear that they have to continue going down that direction. I don’t think there’s such thing. Things change too much. I mean, I love templates.

Anthony Mutti [00:31:15]:
I love the idea of a template. But the problem with templates like rules is they are the antithesis of agile.They’re not adaptable. Right. They don’t allow you to, to focus your energies quickly because you go, well, I have, I always say that rules, rules and regulations are, are the thing that people who don’t want to do lean on as the crutch not to do things. And so, you know, you have to be. I’m very much about intent. What is the intent? It’s.

Anthony Mutti [00:31:45]:
Intent is not a rule. Intent is a purpose, a driving force. It’s, the why we’re doing something, not the what we do it. And so I think that you build a culture as a, as an individual and hopefully that survives your, time at an institution and it, hopefully you are able to grow other leaders within that organization and other people within that organization to embrace that same change. So I don’t really, I’m not really a template person. I’m. I won’t say that I don’t like the idea. It’s just that in practice it oftentimes backfires.

Anthony Mutti [00:32:20]:
But I think that you can build culture and I think culture, itself is something that is harder to break and lasts longer than individuals. So I think that’s, that’s where I would landed. I think that you just have to really be holistic in your approach and drive an organization’s culture towards that change.

Sanjog Aul [00:32:38]:
Well, so once again, thank you so much, Tony, for sharing your insights about how in this interesting digital era and AI era, a leader can be both a visionary and an executor and build an organization which is ready to take on any such disruptions that keep coming our way. And it’s going to happen that way. And it’s important for leadership to be learned and unlearned and relearned to make sure we adapt to the changing times ahead. So thank you.

Anthony Mutti [00:33:14]:
Oh, thank you. It’s been wonderful. Hopefully we can do it again sometime.

Sanjog Aul [00:33:18]:
Absolutely. So listeners, love the conversation with Tony. Hope you got some nuggets as well. Please connect with us on social media. Subscribe to our podcast. Once again, thank you for listening to CTN. This is your host, Sanjog Aul. Till next week Take care and god bless.