The Game is Changing

What happens when the game changes right in the middle? You started out playing football (either variety will do), but suddenly find yourself in a rugby match. There are similarities, but many of the assumptions and rules are wildly different. This is precisely the situation many independent schools are finding themselves in these days. 

You thought you were "playing to play," to use a term used by Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman Business School at the University of Toronto. The goal was to keep playing, and it didn't matter that there were other independent schools nearby. Their goal was the same: to keep on keeping on. There was enough business for everyone. The for-profit business types could "play to win"—vanquish the opposition—but we operated outside that unseemly competitive milieu.  

But many, perhaps most, of us are no longer in a playing-to-play game. We, too, are playing to win, and have been for many years now. Except that we are approaching the market using the strategies of playing-to-play. It's like we are playing football while the other team is playing rugby.  

What game are you playing? What game do you need to play?