Scaling Higher Education: An Entrepreneurial Approach to a Consolidating Market:

Changing Higher Ed podcast 311 with host Dr. Drumm McNaughton and guest Dr. Stephen Spinelli

Transcript: Changing Higher Ed podcast 311 

Introduction to Changing Higher Ed^®

Welcome to Changing Higher Ed^®, a podcast dedicated to helping higher education leaders improve their institutions. With your host, Dr. Drumm McNaughton, CEO of The Change Leader, a consultancy that helps higher ed leaders holistically transform their institutions. Learn more at changinghighered.com. And now, here’s your host, Drumm McNaughton.

[00:00:31] Welcome and Guest Intro

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you, David. My guest today is Dr. Stephen Spinelli, President of Babson College. Steve’s had a very distinguished career in higher ed, including serving as faculty member, Vice Provost, and Director of the Blank Center, and he also led Philadelphia University and became Chancellor of the newly formed Jefferson following its merger.

Since assuming the presidency of Babson in 2019, he has guided the college to national prominence, including recognition as the number two college in the United States by The Wall Street Journal and continued leadership in entrepreneurial education. Steve’s got great higher ed creds, but that doesn’t tell a full story. He’s a co-founder of Jiffy Lube International, he’s an entrepreneur par excellence, and he joins me today to talk about the importance of scaling and bringing an entrepreneurial mindset to higher education.

Steve, welcome to the program.

Stephen Spinelli: It is an honor to be here because one, the subject is important, two, I’m excited about life in general, and three, you’re a good guy, and you get me more excited about the subject matter, and I want to talk more about it. You’re a high energy person, and I appreciate it.

Drumm McNaughton: thank you, sir. I look forward to our conversation. I get the same vibe out of you, and I know we’re just going to have a blast today.

Stephen Spinelli: We will.

[00:01:53] Babson Leadership Spotlight

Drumm McNaughton: You are the President of Babson. Babson is one of the top, if not the top entrepreneur institutions in the country. It’s a privilege, I’m quite sure, to lead the organization.

Drumm McNaughton: I want to know how you got here.

Stephen Spinelli: It was a circuitous route, I will tell you, but I think it is an interesting story that is probably… happening much more quickly in today’s world and wouldn’t be a strange story.

[00:02:22] How He Got Here

Stephen Spinelli: We started Jiffy Lube a hundred years ago, or what feels like a hundred years ago.

Drumm McNaughton: Wait a minute, back up. Jiffy Lube as in, drive your car up and get your oil changed?

Stephen Spinelli: Lube, oil, filter, ten minutes, one price. We’re here to help.

Drumm McNaughton: Oh my gosh. So that was your start.

Stephen Spinelli: That was the start.

[00:02:39] Coach and Early Lessons

Stephen Spinelli: I was a young guy, went to a little college, McDaniel College in Maryland, and my college football coach, a guy named Jim Heineman, who was a, I think a genius, and I think a really special entrepreneur. He really saw things, and almost he couldn’t help himself. Made a lot of money, went into coaching after he made a lot of money. Did great, and, would pluck off a couple of guys every year and say, “Let’s go do something.”

And he said, to me and two or three other guys, there’s this little operation in Ogden, Utah,” which no one in the world has ever been to, “called a Jiffy Lube. Let’s go look at it.” So we went out there and looked at it and s- and they were doing a gazillion cars. They were servicing cars like crazy in Ogden, Utah, where there are virtually no cars.

Imagine how many cars they could do in Boston, Massachusetts, where there are actually cars. So, we got all excited. We put in our pennies. The coach put in more dollars, and we founded Jiffy Lube International. Think about this now, Dr. D. We, we named the company Jiffy Lube International, and we had two stores in Ogden, Utah.

It was just hilarious.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, you had the vision.

Stephen Spinelli: a lot of it was the coach, and when the coach said something, it was a great lesson for me. Don’t allow years to hold you back. Don’t lose the enthusiasm of youth. Don’t stop aspiring, no matter where you are. Aspiration is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s when you think you’ve arrived, it’s time to leave.

[00:04:10] Learning to Scale Fast

Stephen Spinelli: And it, and the coach was always, “we’ve got to do better. We can do more. You can work harder.” So I got shipped out to Ogden, Utah. We, I started changing oil and figuring out what that business meant, and just the education was unbelievable, the practical edu- education. I’d work in the stores, in the units during the day, and at night I would write up the findings, the operations manual, because we said, “If we don’t scale this is a, this is silly, so we’ve got to find scale.”

Another incredible lesson was look for scale. I don’t think I’m terribly inventive. I know I’m not inventive, but that created in me, an understanding of innovation, and innovation to achieve scale and to find the competitive advantage and then to leverage that competitive advantage.

And if there is a big market, then you can really bring it to scale. That’s what… Consolidating fragmented markets through scale and brand is what I learned to do because of Jiffy Lube and the leadership of the coach. So we founded the company, and, it wasn’t going that well, and I decided to become a franchisee.

So I’m going to open up the stores in New England and New York, and, struggling and thought, “I’m either not smart enough or not well-educated enough if, to make this successful. If I’m not smart enough, that means there’s no hope.” If I’m not well-educated enough, that means I can get education. I said, I opt for not educated enough as the answer to the problem.

[00:05:37] Finding Babson Entrepreneurship

Stephen Spinelli: And, at that time, at least practical, at that time, I looked around and you know how many schools I could find that had a course in entrepreneurship? Not a major, not a vision about, but at least a course. One.

Drumm McNaughton: Imperial College? Oh, Babson? Oh, okay.

Stephen Spinelli: Oh, no, it was Babson College. And so I went to Babson for seven years part-time while I was doing Jiffy Lube.

Drumm McNaughton: Wow.

Stephen Spinelli: And I would go at night, every Wednesday night for seven years. And it was almost my consulting company.

[00:06:11] The Power of the Thought and Action Loop

Stephen Spinelli: But I tell you, the lesson that taught me was thought and action are a synthesized, when a synthesized phenomena is incredibly powerful.

Drumm McNaughton: Yes.

Stephen Spinelli: What is the problem? Let me think it through. Let me act on it.

Let me learn. Let me learn it, bring that knowledge back and codify it. Now let me grow and learn again. And Babson taught me to do that. And it was just opening up a whole world of opportunity. And we grew it to a couple of thousand stores and sold it to Pennzoil, which was a wonderful day.

Drumm McNaughton: Oh, I can well imagine, it’s kind of like a boat owner, the two happiest days of your life, the day you buy it, the day you sell it.

Stephen Spinelli: Oh, exactly right. Oh, exactly right.

[00:06:59] Higher Education: Redefining Value Beyond Money

Stephen Spinelli: Although, it is really an interesting phenomenon. You have to think about, it made me think hard, what is value? For me, I didn’t grow up with any money. I’m not complaining about it. It taught me to be tougher. But we didn’t have any money. And all of a sudden I had money.

Oh, my God. That was pretty good. And so I had concentrated on value being the amount of capital gain I could achieve from this deal. And it was, I could calculate it. I could drive to it. I understood the metrics. Let’s go. Once you have the money, then now help me define value. Is it the same? I like money.

And I want all our students to make a lot of money. I want my partners to make a lot of money. I think it’s a great thing. It’s a reward for making a better world. But there are a lot of ways to create value. And Babson taught me that education was a value lever of some incredible magnitude.

[00:07:51] Understanding How to Scale Knowledge

Stephen Spinelli: That’s when I went off to Imperial College.

After we sold the company, finished my MBA up, said, what now? And went off to Imperial College in London and studied for a doctorate. I said, if I’m going to scale, I got to scale my understanding of knowledge and how knowledge is created. That’s called a PhD. Let me go learn. I went there and I got to tell you, I had a great advisor named Sue Burley, who was Attila the Hun.

She could have

Drumm McNaughton: A on the end, being the female gender, correct? Is this right?

Stephen Spinelli: Oh, yes. Oh, Yes. That’s right.

Drumm McNaughton: We all benefit from those folks in our lives who get us to raise our game to that next level.

Stephen Spinelli: Yes, beautifully stated. That’s exactly it. And there’s some obligation, for that if you’re a mentor, if you’re a teacher, is you have to raise the game. And she could’ve cared less, she respected the business experience, but that wasn’t going to get me one inch closer to a PhD. “You go earn the PhD, and I’ll kick your butt the entire way.”

We became dear friends, although I did think she was going to kill me from time to time.

[00:08:56] Applying Entrepreneurship to Higher Education

Drumm McNaughton: Anyway, let’s take these lessons that you’ve learned. Of course, Babson, everybody knows Babson is the number one or number two school in the country for entrepreneurial leadership, raising value across all organizations. You’ve got tremendous experience in the entrepreneurial world.

How do you apply this to higher ed?

Stephen Spinelli: A quick correction, my friend, just because I can’t help myself. We are clearly number one in entrepreneurship by almost every ranking. We are number two in The Wall Street Journal for overall college, which is a statement about the importance of entrepreneurship. And it is, an incredibly, interesting and a long journey that entrepreneurship had as a kind of an interesting subject to something you might teach.

They did the research. All of a sudden, it’s something you have to have. And it is in direct reaction to the amount of change. When things change, old business models become obsolete. They either evolve or they die. We started our conversation with that. You’re green and growing or ripe and rotting.

And in that phenomenon, the whole higher education model is going through some traumatic times in trying to understand are we green and growing or ripe and rotting? And I think we’re both. I don’t think there’s a ubiquitous model. I think there are a series of models, but the change is happening very quickly.

[00:10:26] How to Define Market Demand

Stephen Spinelli: Clearly driven by, a lot of history, which is a lot of fixed costs that are, that we’re charging a whole ton of money for. And part of it is technology, which is rapidly changing the way we acquire and disseminate knowledge. And part of it is, the demand in society for people who can react quickly to the problems they’re facing, and is higher education able to supply that?

I used to say all the time to students, “what is it?” Can you define the market demand? What’s the nature of demand? If you can clearly say people with a car that need to change your oil. I got it. In higher education, people need knowledge. They need learning. And is that, is the nature of your market demand growing or shrinking or staying stable?

If it’s staying stable or shrinking, you better make some changes and get market share, you could get in trouble. If it’s growing, yee-haw, let’s go. In higher education, for units of knowledge, for learning, it’s growing like crazy. Do you need more units of knowledge today than you do, did yesterday?

Do you expect change will force you into learning more tomorrow? Yes? Okay, I should have a great market. Are we able to deliver it? And can we deliver it across a broad spectrum? Man, is our model really prepared to do that?

Drumm McNaughton: Yes.

Stephen Spinelli: I think there’s going to be big winners and big losers.

[00:11:51] Using AI to Scale Knowledge, Not Replace Education and Learning

Drumm McNaughton: I think you’re absolutely right in that with this big knowledge, it used to be that knowledge comprehension retention was huge. Now you’ve got AI in here. Is the knowledge as important as it was because you’ve got other sources, or is it how you use the knowledge, or is it both?

Stephen Spinelli: I think understanding, foundational understanding of the core phenomenon is important. So you need knowledge so that you’re not being duped. And there’s lots of words around AI that says, that, that’s problematic if you just go along with it. But that is now not the core function of education.

We can get you to that core understanding, or you can get yourself to that core understanding. Can you synthesize a lot of data and look into the future? Do you have some vision of what is on or over that horizon? That allows you to query AI or your, body of knowledge and say, “What’s the best pathway, and how can I get there sooner, and how do I serve that demand over the horizon?”

That takes a nimble understanding, and you’re probably going to have to change a whole bunch of times as you prepare for and then, begin that journey. And I think AI helps us get there, he- helps us map out, helps us give an understanding of the direction and the vehicle you can use. But if you don’t have a vision for that, you’re going to get off into some tangents, and you’re going to blow a lot of money or lose a lot of time, and I don’t think you win

[00:13:25] Strategic Planning and Values in VUCA World

Drumm McNaughton: And thank you for that wonderful segue to the next question I had is vision. Every institution needs a vision of where they’re going, and they need to know their mission and how they get there. What I’ve just talked about is essentially strategic planning. What is the role of strategic planning in this VUCA world that we live in?

VUCA being Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity.

Stephen Spinelli: There’s a couple of, there’s a couple of things, I think that are important about strategy. First of all, strategy without action is frivolous. Action without a strategy is dangerous. So, I think it is the combination of strategy and action that a thoughtful strategy and measured action is the winning combination.

But part of that, I think there is a value set in what is the values that you have as an organization, what are immutable, and how does that guide us in this process? And when you have what I like to call values-driven entrepreneurial leadership, you have a better chance at success.

And entrepreneurial leadership is about having a vision for the future and relying on relationships to help achieve that vision and to shape that vision as change occurs, and as it will occur.

[00:14:52] Scale and Partnership Networks

Stephen Spinelli: And the more we have an understanding and trust and faith, in our relationships, one-on-one, one to many to many, we can start to build scale.

And in scale, there is some comfort. If I have one Jiffy Lube, I could make a lot of money. We had some stores that were outrageous. But if it fails, you’re out of business. When we had 2,000 Jiffy Lubes, we had hundreds and hundreds that did really well. We had a few that were dogs, but the scale gave us a competitive advantage and gave us sustainability, and we’ve got to work towards scale.

And higher education has not done a good job even thinking about scale. As a matter of fact, there’s… a lot of times they’re anti-scale. They try to contain more. And I think for us, for Babson, it is a lot about partnerships. We will help build an entrepreneurial education network that allows people to grow in their markets and with their specialty, and to add their special perspectives, and to share them, so our network can continue to grow

Drumm McNaughton: And you just hit on the one thing that most of the top schools, I mean the Ivies, Harvard, Stanford, they have that network of alumni to go forward to be able to leverage what they’re doing.

[00:16:10] Human Skills and Liberal Arts Edge

Drumm McNaughton: But you’ve also tapped into another one of those skills from a liberal arts degree is relationships and how do you work in teams?

How do you build those relationships? Most people are so focused on STEM education nowadays that they leave out that people part, and without the people, you’re not going to get anything done.

Stephen Spinelli: The people part is what is going to really guide us into the future. It is that values-driven perspective. It is that, sense of humanity and that broader definition of what value is. And it is… the reason we really pivoted from entrepreneurship to entrepreneurial leadership is to focus on the human aspect of this endeavor.

L- listen, I tell students all the time, on the day we die, we have the same amount of net worth. We all get the same amount of net worth. It goes to zero. So the rest of it is a scorecard that we’re working on as we go along, and that’s the human phenomenon that we have. Can we make life better for ourselves, for our family, for our communities, for the world?

And that is an integration with a liberal arts mentality. And if… And in an AI world, that becomes more important. That’s the texture that sees around the corner or over the horizon.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:27] Risk Management Vision Mission Action

Drumm McNaughton: Let’s take this down to a real hard skills perspective. We’ve got there– We’ve got to build value for an institution. That’s critical. We also have risk management we have to think about as well, and the risk management piece is becoming more and more important. Unfortunately, too many institutions out there are risk-adverse So how do we work with our senior teams, our boards, to work in this to drive value and at the same time be smart about the risks that we have to take?

Stephen Spinelli: I think it is a complicated, but definable phenomenon. There, I think a, an equation. W- what is our vision for why are we here? What is our vision for the world, and where do we play in that vision? So what is the vision for us, our vision is that, to use the example of Babson, we believe that entrepreneurship is core to humanity, that the human spirit is aspirational, and it seeks to solve problems, to create value, and to make a better world, and that we can do it for ourselves, our family, for our community, as I said.

And that if you have that core belief, then what are we doing? What is… if that’s the vision, what’s our mission? Well, our mission is to create entrepreneurial leaders who impact communities everywhere. Oh, okay. So we’re going to focus on teaching students, teaching learners how to be leaders, and leaders that can identify where the pain is and how to relieve the pain, and that would, will create value.

Okay. And if you do that, how are we going to go about doing that? Well, we’re going to have a curriculum that is supported by incredible research, a textured, curriculum, and outreach programs that brings thought and action together and synthesizes it, and then we’re going to do it in partnership with a lot of other schools.

So we… if you have vision, mission, strategy, action, and you bring them together, and you’re guided by that formula, then you’re motivated to keep going, and you change when the market tells you have to change, but not your core principles. You change the actions and the management around it.

If you’re going to change the core principles, then you were wrong, and you go out of business. It- it’s okay. You… That happens. It’s one of the, it’s one of the great things about, our system is that, if you’re not able to change, then someone with a new and better idea is going to win, and life will be better for more people because of that, I believe.

That doesn’t… and I don’t mean to minimize the pain that can occur. The- there, there’s a lot of stress in life. But w- but I’m not Pollyanna-ish about it either. There is going to be pain, and there’s going to be pain in the… And there is pain in the current environment in higher education and all the changes that are happening.

Drumm McNaughton: Really?

Stephen Spinelli: Well, I’ve got to tell you, it is the craziest market ever. You have demographic issues, you have financial issues, you have political issues, you have governmental issues, you have policy issues, you have economic issues. There are a lot of things going… And the technology is banging away at all of that.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm-hmm. it’s interesting. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I had Gordon Gee on my program, and this was back literally six years ago. And he, he– I’d had him on before, and then we had… No, this was the first time I had him on, and it was going into COVID. And he said, “COVID is accelerating needed changes in higher education by a decade or more.”

And it’s, it certainly did that, the going online with programs, changing delivery, pedagogy, et cetera. But then this thing called AI came along, and it almost took a sledgehammer to what COVID did and accelerated it by tenfold at least.

Stephen Spinelli: That’s right.

Drumm McNaughton: And so if higher ed’s arou- about building value for the next generation, you’ve got to define that next level.

Can we do that at this point?

[00:21:48] Consolidation Credentials and New Entrants

Stephen Spinelli: I tell you what I think there’s going to be a couple of fairly dramatic interim steps, and I think there’s going to be a, a consolidation in the market. This is a classic example of how a market is going to consolidate. And so we will see continued failure, and there’ll be lots of mergers and acquisitions and government funding and…

But we’re going to have to reconcile this whole infrastructure that we have. And, th- then we are going to say, “Where is the competitive advantage and how can we scale that?” And there’ll be fewer players with lots more networking and partners, and there’ll be a whole series of franchise-like collaborations that I think will deliver much better education.

And frankly, again, if all the problems are solved, we don’t need education. If there’s a problem out there that needs to be solved, then we need education. Does anybody believe all the problems are solved? I can’t find one person to say yes or there… Or mostly. How about 51% of the problems? No. Okay, then I’m in a position to add incredible value, but I– but if I can’t do it at a, in a cost-effective way that meets the timing of the learner, which is much more rapidly than we currently do it, then I’m going to go out of business.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm-hmm. Disruption is the key for an entrepreneurial mind. They want to disrupt what’s going on, and we’re seeing more disruption now, I think, than we’ve ever seen.

Stephen Spinelli: Yes. Yes, w- we are, and it ain’t going to slow down, I’ve just to tell you. It’ll, I think it’ll get dramatically, more increased. Part of the disruption is going to be around the credentialing. We’ve had an almost oligopolistic system where, you have to get accredit- go to an accredited college and get an accreditation and certifications as is outlined.

And frankly, there’s an incredible amount of value to that because it really was a value measure. And it was a consistent value measure. I think the units of education that we deliver are going to be much more contained, and your ability to measure that value is going to be easier, and in smaller chunks.

And so what is the role of the new entrant and the, sort of the dissimilation, the dis- dissembling of units of knowledge, of coursework or of, u- understanding or expertise, and what will the new entrants do? It’s a fascinating… We’ve– we think in terms of, okay, there’s a new college or there’s a new, community college, or there’s a new graduate program or a new program here.

What if there’s just a new entrant? And a lot of it’s– I’m starting to see a lot of that happening, where peop- and it ty- typically starts with industry specific entry. I’m going to teach you how to program. I’m going to teach you how to change oil, or I’m going to teach you how to fix a car. I’m going to teach you how to do, computer, science.

And it’ll get into, I’m going to teach you how to do accounting, and I’m going to teach you how to do strategy. And by the way, you can be a customer of mine for the next fifty or sixty years as you deem necessary to have the knowledge, and then you go and prove it in the marketplace. That’s not a bad system, and it’s an interesting one.

Higher education has a huge lead in all of that, and we could meet a lot of that need now. How do we shape our offerings to get that done? We’ve had one size fits all for the most part.

Drumm McNaughton: Yes.

[00:25:05] Modular Learning and Corporate Partners

Drumm McNaughton: I agree, and I think Michael Crow’s done a good job with this there at Arizona State. Most colleges, you sell one time, you bring them in as an undergraduate. Michael has gone, we can touch everybody in their own, quote, ‘life cycle,’ from undergraduate, seventeen years old, all the way up to eighty years old.

We can offer them something that they’re going to need the whole way.” Brilliant.

Stephen Spinelli: Yes, and I think companies are going to be– corporate organizations are going to be important partners in this because they consolidate resources and have a support system and scale and structure under that. And to bolt into that and understand how to be a learning partner of organizations will give incredible advantage.

Frankly, we, you– I think the advantage comes in any industry, but business in general, I think the healthcare industry is already doing a lot of that, and bolting into the healthcare models and the hospital systems, and those kinds of partnerships. Partnerships are going to be far beyond other colleges or educational institutions.

They’re going to be much more three-dimensional in industry.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm-hmm. I haven’t said this to– on air. I’ve tossed it around in my own mind, but this is kind of what I think is going to happen with higher education. You’re absolutely right. We’re going to see a lot of consolidation. We’re going to see a lot of partnerships. I mean, I received an RFP from the seven schools, all New England schools, big names who are wanting to study how to partner better to sa- to save resources.

I think what we’re going to see is a three-year degree. It’s going to teach skills, both hard skills and soft skills. It’s not going to be a standalone, “Hey, we’re going to have the general education.” We’re going to have all the soft skills incorporated into the hard skills, and then we’re going to start seeing more just-in-time certificates that work toward what businesses and what industry needs to be able to keep people trained the way they need to go.

Does this make sense?

Stephen Spinelli: It makes sense, but it makes more sense today than it did two years ago. And it makes more sense today because I think AI is going to allow for scale advantages in the delivery of that education across small units. Before, those small units were so expensive to deliver, it didn’t have a cost effectiveness.

And so you had to get them here and charge them a lot and do all of those kinds of things and add a lot of things, and it was a, an elite kind of education. Now we j– these chunks of knowledge can be scaled through an AI support system in, in agentic AI. That changes the world a lot. That allows me… I think I could teach franchising to a thousand students.

I think I could do that right now. And then you start to think, well, who are the, the twenty-five people that might teach franchising? And that’s all we need is twenty-five professors who can teach franchising. I don’t know, special areas of marketing or accounting.

There could be huge advantage in the scale that can be achieved through, AI.

Drumm McNaughton: you’re absolutely right.

[00:28:24] Competency Based Outcomes and Lifelong Learning

Drumm McNaughton: And I think also, and we chatted about this a few days ago, the historical measures of success are going to change.

Stephen Spinelli: The historical measures of success for colleges and for students and the measures of w-what are– We are going to a much more competency-based because we can te-test it almost in real time now. But what– A, a college degree was a proxy for an understanding of how to do something. You’re a g- you’re a great thinker, or you’re a good accountant, or you know how to do the math.

N-now we’re going to test it in small bits, and it is going to be integrated with the actual function. So I’m going to know you didn’t do the job or, oh my God, you did the job beautifully. That education really works. And that integration, that thought and action paradigm that was so important in my life becomes more actionable almost on a daily basis I think that is an exciting phenomena.

And if you can have a learning part– I, I talk about this all the time. I’ve got a doctor, I call him my doctor. I have a lawyer, I call him my lawyer. I own that relationship because it’s so important to my health and wellbeing. I want my educator. I want Babson to be– I want you to own this relationship, and we’ll be there for you.

Drumm McNaughton: Yes. What a concept. And given the high economic stress that we’ve got for higher education, we’ve got to make these changes.

Stephen Spinelli: We do, and there has to be a pr- a provable outcome. Listen, I think making a better world is ultimately what we’re trying to do. Again, your net worth is zero the day you die. But there’s a lot of pain between today and that day, or a lot of gain b-between today and that day. And people have to go out and measure that value in both social and economic terms.

And if we can show that this education and these units of knowledge are helping you create valuable social and economic value, then you’re going to want to have more education. And it’s… A-again, I go, Most people I ask, “Is education good or bad?” Almost all of them say it’s good. Now, there’s bad parts of it, and you don’t do it as well.

But if you did it perfectly, oh my God, it would be the greatest thing ever. So we have almost universal understanding that this industry is important. Very few industries have that advantage. Shame on us if we get lazy about it, and maybe we have.

Drumm McNaughton: Yes. What you say takes me back to my old degree, Maslow’s hierarchy. At the top is self-actualization. It’s not about money. It’s not about fame, et cetera. It’s about how we are growing, and it’s coming to that understanding that unless– if we grow, everybody else around us grow. It’s not a selfish type thing.

Stephen Spinelli: That’s right. And, you– listen, I want you to have a great life. I want every student at

Drumm McNaughton: I’d like that for you too.

Stephen Spinelli: Yes, the, it, the human condition is very warm. You know what I mean? There’s nothing wrong with you, you having a good life and doing what you’re doing and adding value, and I want you to eat well and drive a nice car or do whatever.

I want you to be happy. We can do all of that. We don’t have to say it– there’s a trade-off between, a better world and economic success. I think we can say, “Yes, let’s bring that together.”

Drumm McNaughton: Absolutely. Well, Steve, this has been a fascinating conversation. I love being able to get into these. In some ways they’re esoteric, but in others they have such a deep meaning for the world right now. So thank you.

Stephen Spinelli: Listen, we’re in the humanity business, Dr. Drumm. It, if we do better, the world is going to be a happier place and, we’ll be happier, too

Drumm McNaughton: Absolutely.

[00:32:06] Three Takeaways for Higher Education Leaders

Drumm McNaughton: If you would, sir, three takeaways for your fellow presidents and boards. What do they need to be doing right now?

Stephen Spinelli: Yes, I think they have to have a crisp and understandable, value proposition. We are here because we believe. We have a vision for the world. And then you have to have, That vision for the world has to be, driven by a mission with a clear set of values, and bring your organization together and do the hard work, and then have a strategic plan that is actionable and that you’ll be held accountable to.

Drumm McNaughton: Mm-hmm. And that is not a static strategic plan. That is a plan that needs to be updated the way things are changing probably every three, three to six months.

Stephen Spinelli: I report to the board every quarter on how we’re doing in the strategy. Every quarter. And I make myself and others measure that with critical objectives and key metrics.

Drumm McNaughton: Yep.

Stephen Spinelli: And it doesn’t jerk us around, it informs us.

Drumm McNaughton: As it should.

[00:33:11] Whats Next for Babson

Drumm McNaughton: What’s next for you? What’s next for Babson?

Stephen Spinelli: Babson will continue to grow. W- with the, entrepreneurial leaders impacting communities everywhere. The one that is the most, We’ve made incredible pro- progress on publishing literature and, doing really great research on entrepreneurial leadership and why it’s so important. We’ve built curriculum now with a concentration in entrepreneurial leadership.

We have 72 programs in our centers and institutes that help you build those skills. We’ve brought the thought and action together. We’re building a new executive leadership, conference center for executives so that we can stretch throughout your career, and we can have a home here as well as the technical infrastructure.

We have an all-in on AI strategy that I think is inc- it is incredibly expensive, and I think it is incredibly expansive. But we’re measuring ourselves against the rest of the industry, and I think we’re ahead there, but there, there’s no resting on that. And I think that we can have an impact on a more global scale.

The everywhere piece of this is a partnership phenomenon, and there’s, just a bunch of really great schools that we’re partnering with now, 45 or 46 schools that we’re partnering with to build out this entrepreneurial leadership framework and deliver it to people across the globe.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, thank you for all you’re doing, not only for Babson, but its students, its alumni, and the world. It’s so much appreciated to have a conversation with you.

Stephen Spinelli: Doctor, you are, an inspiring guy and a pleasant person to be with. I always leave these, wanting to work harder and smiling about it.

Drumm McNaughton: Very good, sir. Likewise. Thank you again.

Stephen Spinelli: friend. Thank you. Bye.

[00:34:59] Final Thanks and Sign Off

Drumm McNaughton: Thanks for listening today, and a special thank you to my guest, Dr. Steve Spinelli. Steve, thanks for being on the program. I think we had a great conversation, and as it is, I learn something new from you each time we talk. Thank you. To my listeners, thanks again for tuning in. See you next week