The Adaptability Gap
A few months ago, I returned from a series of conversations across Canada with university leaders, policymakers, sector advocates, and education-technology innovators. Although the settings varied — from boardrooms and campuses to conference halls and coffee shops — the themes were strikingly consistent.
The discussion inevitably turned to change (and the unwillingness/inability to do so when it counts).
People spoke about artificial intelligence, shifting government priorities, demographic pressures, funding constraints, labour-market needs, and the growing expectation that universities contribute more directly to economic and social outcomes. Depending on who was speaking, the emphasis differed, but the underlying message was the same: higher education is entering a period of significant transformation.
None of this was surprising. These conversations have been unfolding for years, and they are not unique to Canada. Similar themes continue to emerge in Australia, where universities are responding to the recommendations of the Universities Accord (and the creation of ATEC) while navigating many of the same pressures affecting institutions elsewhere.
What did intrigue me, however, was how often the conversation focused on what universities need to become, and how rarely it focused on how they will get there.
There is no shortage of ideas about the future of higher education. Across the sector, thoughtful people are developing ambitious visions for what institutions should look like in the years ahead. Governments are pursuing reforms. Universities are launching new strategies. Consultants, researchers, and sector organizations are producing reports that identify opportunities and chart possible paths forward.
Yet somewhere between aspiration and execution lies a space that receives far less attention than it deserves.
That space is implementation.
For years, universities have been characterized as slow-moving institutions that struggle to adapt. There is some harsh truth in that characterization, but I have become increasingly convinced that it obscures the more interesting question. The challenge is often not whether institutions recognize the need for change. Most do. Nor is it whether leaders understand the forces reshaping the sector. In my experience, they are acutely aware of them.
The challenge is that universities are being asked to absorb and respond to multiple waves of change at the same time, often while operating within structures and systems designed for a far more stable environment.
Every new policy initiative, strategic priority, funding mechanism, or regulatory requirement creates additional demands on the institution. What may appear straightforward from the perspective of government or sector leadership becomes considerably more complicated when translated into practice. New expectations must be interpreted, operationalized, communicated, resourced, monitored, and sustained. Existing priorities rarely disappear when new ones arrive. Instead, they accumulate.
Over time, this creates a gap between policy ambition and implementation reality.
I have begun to think of this as an adaptability gap.
Adaptability is often treated as a synonym for speed. We assume that adaptive organizations move quickly, embrace innovation readily, and respond decisively to changing circumstances. Yet the most adaptive organizations I have encountered are not necessarily the fastest. They are the ones that have developed the capacity to learn, prioritize, coordinate, and adjust as conditions evolve.
In other words, adaptability is less about agility and more about capability.
This distinction matters because it shifts our attention away from whether institutions are willing to change and toward whether they are equipped to do so effectively. It encourages us to ask different questions. How much organizational capacity exists for implementation? How are competing priorities managed? What systems help institutions learn from change efforts rather than simply survive them? Where are the bottlenecks that repeatedly slow progress?
These questions are not particularly glamorous. They rarely appear in strategic plans or keynote presentations. Yet they may be among the most important questions facing higher education today.
The future of the sector will undoubtedly be shaped by new ideas, policies, technologies, and partnerships. But the success of those initiatives will depend just as much on something less visible: the ability of institutions to translate ambition into action.
That ability cannot be assumed. It must be developed.
As conversations about the future of higher education continue, I suspect we would benefit from spending less time debating whether universities are changing quickly enough and more time understanding what enables meaningful change to occur in the first place.
The institutions that thrive in the years ahead may not be those with the boldest visions. They may be those that become exceptionally good at implementation.
