Higher education is full of people navigating complexity at every turn, yet creativity, the very skill leaders rely on to solve problems, is often the first thing squeezed out of the workday. In this episode of Trusted Voices, Teresa Valerio Parrot and Erin Hennessy sit down with author and creative strategist Todd Henry to talk about what it really takes to lead bravely in a noisy, high-pressure world.
Henry, whose books The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, and Louder Than Words have become staples for leaders across industries, begins with a simple but overlooked truth: creative leadership requires emotional energy. Not the “get more sleep and drink more water” kind, though that matters, but the deeper reserves needed to take risks, express conviction, and solve problems in new ways. Leaders, he argues, often overload themselves with decisions that drain this emotional labor, leaving little capacity for the brave thinking their roles demand.
That emotional overload is compounded by nonstop stimuli, 32-hour “days” filled with screens, multitasking, and fractured attention. Pruning both responsibilities and inputs, Henry says, is vital: “Our inbox is everyone else’s priority for our life.” Leaders must make room for high-quality stimuli — ideas that challenge, broaden, and inform — rather than letting noise dictate their thinking.
From there, the conversation moves to authenticity, a concept Henry believes has been watered down. Authenticity isn’t radical transparency; it’s the act of putting skin in the game, taking risks alongside your people and demonstrating what your institution stands for in concrete terms.
It’s a timely reminder for higher ed: in a landscape full of noise, uncertainty, and nostalgia for “the way things were,” what institutions need most are leaders willing to prune, focus, imagine, and act.
Read the full transcript here
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Hello and welcome to the Trusted Voices Podcast. I’m Teresa Valerio Parrot, alongside Erin Hennessy, and in each episode we discuss the latest news and biggest issues facing higher education leaders through a communications lens. For these conversations, we’re often joined by a guest who shares their own experiences and perspectives. But we also make time for one-on-one conversations about what we’re seeing, hearing, and thinking. Trusted Voices is produced by Volt, the go-to news source for higher education leaders and decision makers. Remember to visit Volt at voltedu.com and subscribe to Trusted Voices on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode.
Erin Hennessy
Well hi.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Hi, I have been around the world three times over since the last time we saw each other.
Erin Hennessy
Sounds about right. Keeping in mind that the last time we saw each other was last Tuesday and today is Wednesday, that sounds accurate to me.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
That is just about true. I’m about to hit 1K on United though. So that happens just any minute now.
Erin Hennessy
The things that we cling to when everything else is chaos.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes, yes, it will always be my multiplier of miles. Amen.
Erin Hennessy
Yes, I have dropped to like zero status on American this year. I have not flown nearly as much as I have in the past and I’m tickled by it, I think.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I think, as Todd Henry would say, you’ve been pruning.
Erin Hennessy
I’ve been, or, or my clients have been pruning me and just not inviting me places.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
No, you’re, you’re Acela-ing. Your training.
Erin Hennessy
I am my, my Acela status is solid. I think I’ll be back to select plus. And I rode my first new, what do they call them? Next gen, Acela trains. And I have to tell you, not impressed. Looks like…I mean, the ride’s better, it’s less noisy, but the aesthetics are like out of the 80s.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I kind of loved the 80s. So did they play like New Order and Depeche Mode? Because that would have been great.
Erin Hennessy
They often play that type of music when you’re on hold, but everything looked like if my Barbies in like the late 70s, early 80s had hopped out of their camper and jumped on a high speed train, this is what it would have looked like. A lot of maroon. It’s very strange. I don’t like it.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Can we go back to the fact that you just said that New Order and Depeche Mode, I would dare to guess, The Cure, is hold music? Oof, I think we need to pivot. Let’s pivot, because those are fighting words.
Erin Hennessy
I’m telling you, if that’s what you get, you get some really interesting older music when you’re on hold for Amtrak.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Ah! Stop. Anyway, let’s talk about AMA.
Erin Hennessy
It’s older, I’m sorry. Anyway, here we are. We’re just off AMA and, say things about that. Congratulations on a great meeting!
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Thank you. It was fantastic. Our goal this year really was to bring joy to our colleagues and community as well as knowledge. And I feel like we did exactly that. And the atmosphere was just so light. People really enjoyed it. I actually heard from some presidents who I then flew to later in the week, that they had heard from their chief marketing officers that they had renewed energy and they had some new ideas that they wanted to talk to them about. And that’s really the goal. How do we make sure that we are being realistic with our colleagues, but also giving them some new perspective and some new joy back into what are really hard jobs. And it was fantastic to be with everybody. Thank you for coming. And I loved that we were able to really stress, as Benny Johnson says, he thinks of AMA as “marketing and,” and this year we stressed “marketing and communications.” So you were part of the “and communications” part of that.
Erin Hennessy
I was the ampersand and I had the opportunity to moderate a panel with three fantastic journalists, Lee Gardner from the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jessica Blake from Inside Higher Ed and Chris Quintana from USA Today. And I was really thrilled that in a meeting primarily aimed at marketers, we had on the last morning of the conference, probably 75 to 100 people in that room.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
That’s great.
Erin Hennessy
And I was, yeah, I was not expecting that many folks, but it was fantastic. And there were a lot of conversations afterwards. And I’m always pleased when people in those kinds of sessions ask questions and don’t stand up and like try and sneak their pitch into their question. But there was a real, in that room, there was a real empathy on both sides of the panel table for what the other side was doing, a real empathy for how hard it is to be a reporter and to do that well in an age where there’s so much distrust and people aren’t necessarily inclined to talk to reporters. Lee told a story about something he’s working on, which is a good news story, a positive story. He reached out to six institutions and none of them responded for a good news story. But there was also a lot of empathy from the journalists on how hard it is for communicators and marketers and folks on the campus to be doing their jobs. And so it was just a, it was a real warm fuzzy in that room. And because I know, sorry, I just wanted to add, because you are so loyal to your most recent alma mater, there was a marketer from SMU in the room wearing… What are they? The ponies? Sorry.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
The Mustangs! Mustangs are mightier than ponies, Erin.
Erin Hennessy
The Mustangs. Shoot. Whatever. Anyway, he was wearing pants with red mustangs embroidered on them. And I give him all the credit in the world for living the brand.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Okay, I know who you’re talking about and I will give him that shout out. So there you go.
Erin Hennessy
There you go. I think I just gave him that shout out.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yeah, yeah, you did. That was the bookend to a panel that we had for senior leaders that was editors. And we had an editor from the Chron, Inside Higher Ed, Hechinger Report and EDU Ledger. And here’s the interesting thing, all four were women. Isn’t that awesome?
Erin Hennessy
Oh, I love that.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
We actually heard back from all four independently and they said, thank you. That was really cool to be on a panel of all women. But it was the same sort of vibe. Carol Keese led that session and it was very much a, we understand that your job is hard and there was grace on the other side. We understand your job is hard. And they had an ask me anything kind of time to just ask the editors what’s going on, what are you working on and vice versa. And I think having those open lines of communications with the media is critically important.
Erin Hennessy
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
So I was honored to be able to bring those to the community.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, it was great fun and I got a lot of hugs and got to see people and I have a list of people I didn’t get to chat with, which was sad, but yeah, it was great. It was great fun and let me tell you, I slept 17 hours over two nights in that hotel.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
That hotel, there was something about it that was remarkable, except the two nights that they started testing their holiday Christmas extravaganza at 1 a.m. The first night I thought the hotel was getting attacked because we were in D.C. So this tells you everything you need to know. I ran to the windows. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do.
Erin Hennessy
Of course you did. Of course you did.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yeah, but I was going to save America. And Kevin was like…
Erin Hennessy
Or the Gaylord National?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
…the Gaylord National. And my husband was like, you should have gone into the bathroom, into the tub, as if it was like a, like that’s what a sane person would do if you really thought there was an attack. But I did not. I ran to see like, do I need to get the sheets and tie them into knots and crawl down my balcony to save America? And it was just a Christmas extravaganza.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, I got to see the trapeze artist practicing.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
So there you go. And that is a brave habit. So with that, that’s my pivot.
Erin Hennessy
Well, that’s a brave habit. And that’s also how you die empty by falling off the trapeze.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
For those who don’t know, both of those are titles by Todd Henry, who is our opening keynote. And I’ll just give you a quick background. We decided as a committee to have someone who would just lift everybody’s spirits and would set the tone for the rest of the conference. And Todd did it beautifully.
Erin Hennessy
Well, let me tell you a little something about Todd Henry.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes.
Erin Hennessy
I don’t know, that’s a really lumpy transition, but Todd Henry, as you may know, teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. And don’t we need more of that? He is the author of four books, The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, Louder Than Words, and Herding Tigers, which have been translated into more than a dozen languages. And he speaks and consults across dozens of industries on creativity, leadership, and passion for work. With millions of downloads, his podcast, The Daily Creative, offers weekly tips for how to stay prolific, brilliant, and healthy. Side note, if you have not listened to his interview with Charles Duhigg, who wrote Super Communicators, I highly, highly recommend it. Todd’s book, Die Empty, was named by Amazon.com as one of the best books of 2013, and his latest book, Herding Tigers, is a practical guide for every manager charged with leading their team to creative brilliance. I didn’t get to see his session at AMA because of my own travel schedule, but I’m really excited we had this chance to chat with him. And here we go.
Teresa, I’m going to let you dive in here now that we’ve shared Todd’s bio, because I know this is something you have been looking forward to since AMA started.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Actually, before that, when I first met Todd. The first time I talked to Todd was on a Monday. It was a very gloom and dark higher ed day. I started my day with him and it felt a little bit like therapy. And by the time I was done, the other two AMA committee members and I said, he needs to come and talk with us because we felt energized. So with that, Todd, I’m gonna jump into some questions for you.
You really centered your AMA talk around the accidental creative. And within that, you have a framework that you list as FRESH, F-R-E-S-H. And two of those elements are about energy and stimuli. And those are related to how to stay sharp and effective. And that really caught my attention because I think the interplay between the two of those is critically important. And in some ways, they create a flywheel together. Can you talk to us a little bit about how, as leaders, you think about energy and stimuli as ways to stay sharp and effective?
Todd Henry
Yeah, so often when we talk about, and by the way, it’s so good to see you again. And I had a wonderful time at AMA. It was just incredible. So often we talk about energy, we default to talking about things like managing your sleep, making sure you’re getting plenty of exercise, you know, taking physical care of your body, eating well. And those are all really important things.
Erin Hennessy
Protein, so much protein.
Todd Henry
So much protein, right? Exactly. And those are all obviously, those are very important things because you cannot separate your body and your mind. Your body, the health of your body affects the performance of your mind and vice versa. So yes, yes, yes. But that’s not really where my interest was drawn when I started looking at this topic. When I talk about energy, what I’m talking about is our ability to bring what Lewis Hyde calls emotional labor to our work. Creative work requires energy. It requires a special kind of personal care and concern and vulnerability. And there’s an emotional aspect to doing creative work because we’re in some ways we’re, you are not your work, but in many ways your work is an expression of your identity. It’s an expression of how you see yourself in the world when you’re doing creative work. And so, it’s a very vulnerable thing. So you have to preserve the energy necessary to take those creative risks. So when I talk about energy, what I’m talking about is ensuring you’re not overloading your life with too many decisions requiring that kind of vulnerability to the point where you don’t have the emotional labor necessary to be able to put into the work you’re doing. So one of the things we talked about was the importance of pruning. It’s really easy for us to get to a place in our creative life where we have so, because creative people like to say yes, they’re all about ideas, right? We’re all about new projects, new initiatives, new things. And so we say yes to all these things and suddenly it’s sort of choking out our energy. Good things are all good things. So the big question we have to ask is what good thing might need to go away to free up the space that I need to focus on the more important things right now in my life and work. It’s usually not the bad things we have to get rid of. It’s often the good things, the good projects, the things we’re excited about, the things we really want to work on, right? But as we’re thinking about it, we have to realize strategically, okay, those things need to go away. Well, how does this apply to stimuli to your question? Well, stimuli are all of these dots that we absorb, these ideas that we absorb, the things that form our creative throughput. Creativity isn’t about output, it’s about throughput. We take what comes in, we combine it in new ways, and we find new expressions. Steven Johnson talked about it as pursuing the adjacent possible. He borrowed the term from evolutionary biology, which is that in evolution, biomechanisms are constantly exploring the area directly around themselves and playing with ideas and combining them, and then boom, something wins. that that becomes an evolutionary leap, right? Is when something wins, but it might take a long time for that to happen. Well, creativity and innovation are the same thing.
We’re exploring the adjacent possible around an idea, playing with ideas, connecting dots. Well, the more dots we have to connect and the higher quality those dots are, the more likely we’re going to make those connections in the moment. The problem is many of us are just filling our days. We’re cramming our days with stimuli that have little to nothing to do with anything that we’re working on. Any of our priorities were scrolling, TikTok, watching videos, we’re allowing Instagram to define…or just even frankly, just like our email inbox or our you know, Twitter feed or whatever it is, or our Slack messages. We’re just like letting that define where our attention goes. I once heard Merlin Mann, the productivity writer say, your inbox represents everyone else’s priority for your life. And I thought that was a really great way to describe it. So how are these two related? Well, we have to prune the stimulus that we’re letting into our life as well. We have to preserve our mental energy, preserve our focus so that we’re actually consuming high quality stimulus. We’re communing with great minds as Steven Sample from USC put it, right? We’re allowing ourselves to get inside of the thought process of great minds who may not directly be involved in our industry, but who challenge our thinking, who allow us to think systemically across domains and come up with higher quality dots to connect. So that’s…and then the other part of the stimulus piece, sorry, I could go on for like all of our time together.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Oh, I love this. It’s like you see into both of our lives and we need to prune and also we need to be more selective about our stimuli. But keep going.
Erin Hennessy
Well, can I jump in before I let you keep going?
Todd Henry
Yeah, please. Yeah.
Erin Hennessy
Here’s some more stimuli. Because I saw this and I shared this graphic with the team a week or two ago, that, it’s data from Activate Consulting. And it says that the average day length per adult in the U.S. is 32 hours long. When you take into consideration, we’re spending 13 hours on technology and media. We’re getting about six and a half hours sleep. We’re doing about seven hours of non-work. We’re doing about five hours of work activities. Because of all this multitasking, we are on average living days that are 32 hours and 17 minutes long.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I feel it all.
Erin Hennessy
And I think that illustrates exactly what you’re talking about. There’s so much stimulus. There’s so much coming in. And I think one of the things that social media has broken for us is our ability to prune that. I’m spending a lot of time with my family lately and sitting in my sister’s living room while my mother is watching MSNBC, while watching videos on her Facebook, while my brother-in-law is watching TikTok and it’s just, it’s driving me crazy and I’m not watching half of the stuff they are. It’s so much.
Todd Henry
Yeah. It is so much. And that’s an interesting way to look at it, that basically we are trying to cram 32 hours worth of attention into 24 hours, right? And that’s a really, or even 16 hours, because we should be getting, you know, seven to eight hours of sleep a night anyway. That’s a really interesting way to think of it. I’ve never considered that before. One interesting test that I have put on myself lately, and I fail very often, is like, how often am I watching, you know, a TV show with my wife or watching a sporting event or something like that with a second screen open and sometimes a third screen open, you know, because I’m doing email while I’m also checking, you know, to see what everybody’s saying about the game while I’m trying to watch this thing or whatever it is. It’s like, we’re just, our attention is so fractured. And so it’s no wonder that we feel overwhelmed, that we feel anxious, that we feel like we don’t have the energy to do anything well. And even when we have an idea, this is how this affects our creativity, our creative process. So then what happens when we actually have an idea?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Right.
Todd Henry
It feels overwhelming. Like we almost want to ignore it because of what it’s going to take to execute it because we already feel overwhelmed. We already feel like we’re behind on all of our work and our attention. We have so much going on. So in some ways we almost subconsciously limit our own effectiveness, our own productivity because we don’t want the pressure of having to execute the idea that we just came up with. It’s taking everything we can just to hold it all together. So I think that’s how that interplay works out between energy and stimuli. And we have to treat both very similarly. We have to be very selective in what we allow into our mind. And we also have to be very selective about where we spend our energy, our emotional labor, because creative work requires a deep well of energy.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I’m gonna go back one click and then a couple of clicks to what you were talking about. This past weekend, I was able to spend time with presidents and chancellors of public access institutions. And we had an activity and the person who did the intro, this was the mistake they made. They said, we’re gonna ask you to be creative. And as soon as they said that, these presidents just shut down. Some of them actually left. And I want you to talk about that because the way that you described creativity and that there is an emotion behind it, and the framing that you gave is what presidents do every day. But I feel like as people move up a hierarchy, they start to think of themselves less and less as creatives. And in my mind, that starts to lead us to some of where we are in this stuckness, I’ll make up some words, of where we are in higher education. So can you go back just really quickly and talk about how you think about creatives and what that looks like in a leadership role, especially if you hear that word and you think that’s not me or that’s no longer me?
Todd Henry
Right, think the unfortunate thing is that that word creativity often conjures up images of finger painting and nerf guns and Koosh balls and let’s just get wacky, everybody put on a different costume and we’ll run around and come up with an idea, know, which is, which is in my mind unfortunate because really creativity at the heart of it is about the ability to strip everything away to its essentials and identify a problem and then to think abstractly. It’s inductive, meaning it calls us to a higher way of thinking, a more systemic way of thinking about what we’re doing, right? But in order to do that, you have to strip away all the non-essentials. Creativity is problem solving. That’s all it is. And I think what often happens is we assume higher and higher levels of leadership in organizations is that we’re burdened with more information. You know, it’s really easy for a junior member of an organization to come in and say, we should do this and this and let’s think this way and let’s think bigger. But the leaders are thinking like, you have no idea the constraints we’re under, the pressure we’re getting from our trustees, the pressure we’re getting from faculty, the pressure that I’m getting from my peers at other institutions to, know, tallest blade of grass gets cut, right? Like, don’t, like, don’t stand out too much. We all need to stay together. So I think what often happens is we hear that word creativity and we think, well, that’s not for me because they don’t understand what I’m dealing with. The creative act for leaders often is the ability to strip away, to understand, to see through, strip away all of those burdens and to be willing to suspend disbelief just long enough to look at a problem simply and ask what if. What if we did this? It’s not, ideas are not dangerous. Poorly executed ideas are dangerous. Inappropriately executed ideas are dangerous. Stupid ideas are dangerous. There are stupid ideas, by the way. People say there’s no stupid, yeah, there are stupid ideas.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Amen, Todd, amen.
Todd Henry
Yes, but here’s the thing. I think sometimes we’re not even willing to engage in that intellectual exercise because it feels like wasted effort.
Erin Hennessy
Do you think there’s also a fear of vulnerability there? I mean, if I…
Todd Henry
Of course.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, if I strip it down to, you know, being in, we’re all gonna go around and share one fact or we’re gonna, you know, whatever, whatever. For me, the discomfort comes from the fact that you’re asking me to be vulnerable and to potentially look silly in front of people I don’t know, or I feel some kind of pressure to impress. And I feel like that’s in our presidents heads as well.
Todd Henry
100% yeah, because there’s an aura, there’s a persona you have to protect, right?
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, yep.
Todd Henry
When you’re in that position of leadership and I mean, being a university president is a very serious thing, you know, and that’s kind of how we see it. And it is, it’s a very big responsibility, because of that. But I think because of that, we ignore part of the bigger responsibility we have, which is to envision what the future might look like. You know, what, what could be possible for us? And so often we live with, I didn’t talk about, I don’t think I talked about this at the AMA event. What I called ghost rules. Ghost rules are these invisible narratives that we live with often as leaders or as organizations that say like, well, you know, people like us can’t do things like that. Or institutions like us don’t do things like this, or people in leadership don’t ask questions like that, you know, and, we don’t say these ghost rules out loud, but they guide our behavior nonetheless. And often they’re just absorbed from what we see other people doing or what we see other institutions doing. And so we assume falsely based upon what we observe, what is and what isn’t in the cards for us. So again, back to the creative act, you know, I mean, every, I mean, this sounds cliche, but it’s cliche because it’s true. Every brilliant innovation and education looked insane until somebody did it.
And then they did it and everybody’s like, well, why haven’t we done this before? Right. that’s kind of the way it is. And so are you willing to ask dangerous questions. This week on my podcast, I released an episode. It’s called Five Questions Every Creative Pro Should Ask right now. And one of them was where in my life am I afraid of looking foolish right now?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Nice.
Todd Henry
Because I think that’s a question and you just brought that up. That’s a question every university leader should be asking. Where am I afraid to speak up, to say something, to ask a question because I’m afraid I’ll look foolish? And the second question, and this is something we did talk about at AMA, was where might I be in danger of succeeding my way into failure? And I think part of the role…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I think that one’s huge. That one I wrote down because that one resonated for me and it resonated as I think about some of my presidents. So keep going.
Todd Henry
Yeah. Yeah, well part of the role of a leader is to ask the right questions and to set the direction for the organization. And so if we’re measuring ourselves by metrics that were handed to us and we’re just trying to keep the ship afloat, we’re not trying to take the ship anywhere, we’re just trying to keep it safe in harbor, we might succeed in doing that and completely fail in our mission. And so the question we have to ask is what is our mission? What are we trying to do? And sometimes that’s going to involve taking some risks, you know, in order to, and it might even involve taking a couple steps back, it might look like failure to other people, while we redirect toward whatever our core mission is going to be. I had a great conversation with someone following my talk from a university that has just chosen to go from a Division I, Division I to Division III, right in terms of how I think they compete in athletics and the whole thing.
And it was a big controversial thing. But the reality, I think that the university president, from what I understand, the reality was they realized, listen, we’re never going to, we’re going to, we’re trying to fight a losing battle here by competing and everybody is oh, this is much better. It’s division one. It’s, know, the prestige and whatever, but we’re never going to be able to compete anymore because of the way that things have changed. But if we make this big risky change, we’re going to be able to be like a bigger fish in a smaller pond. And we’re going to be able to like, attract resources and have great student life, culture and all this. That’s a very creative way of thinking about something that for most people, they would feel boxed into their situation. But instead thinking, wait a minute, what are we trying to do here? We’re trying to create a great student culture. We’re trying to have great academics. We’re trying to attract the best and the brightest from our region. That’s a very different way of thinking about it. And so when I say creativity, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s like the willingness to ask inconvenient questions and to maybe just pull some threads that feel threatening or overwhelming in the moment.
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Teresa Valerio Parrot
And I think that shakes up one thing that you talk about in Die Empty. So you talk about comfort as settling into what’s comfortable instead of continuing up the growth curve. You’ve become known for a thing, and now you’re protecting the thing that you’re known for. And I think in a lot of ways, that’s higher education. We get tied into these cycles, right? It has to be that you have this many hours in the classroom. We have fall semester, we have holiday break, then we have spring semester, then we have graduation, then we have summer.
We think about these things in blocks and how they’ve always been. People tie into that comfort of the cycle. They tie into the comfort of the roles that they play. They tie into the comfort of the traditions of higher education, whether it’s athletics or campus traditions, whatever it might be. And we stop thinking about that growth curve for ourselves and for our institutions. And that’s where I think right now we’re also, circling it all back, starting to see some of that energy just slip away from some of our colleagues.
Todd Henry
I think it’s not, that’s not exclusive to education. I think it’s what I’m seeing a lot in the marketplace as well. But you know, one way to think of it is to get where you are today as an institution, someone took a risk. And probably people took a series of risks in order to get where you are, to make you known for a thing. Like think about that. Like think about some of the, some institutions, like think about MIT, for example, and what it’s known for today, or Stanford, and what it’s known for today, or any number of other, know, think about some of the great, you know, smaller liberal arts colleges that have become known for a thing. It’s because someone at some point said, we’re going to plant a flag, we’re going to do something and it might fail, but because they did that, they, they were successful. Now others have tried that and have failed and that’s fine. They’ve probably gone on to become known for something else. But I think what unfortunately happens is then, and I think in universities, this is especially problematic in some ways, the alumni and the donors are sort of like your shareholders, right? In a way. And so they’re constantly putting pressure on the administration. Well, I want it to be the way it was for me in 1971, or how dare you change it, you know.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
When tuition was $300 and I worked my way through.
Todd Henry
Exactly. It’s like seven blueberries and a graham cracker for your whatever, right?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And a paperclip, right?
Todd Henry
Exactly. And, know, I mean…
Erin Hennessy
Yeah. Yeah. And that shows up, that shows up often on the board as well, because it’s the alumni and major donors who want to keep that place exactly as it was because it was perfect then and never a day since. Yes. Yes.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
The board reflects alumni, right?
Todd Henry
Sure.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I had three buttons and a penny.
Todd Henry
Of course. And frankly, and I don’t mean to belittle that because I know a lot of people worked really hard to put themselves through school. And that was a lot of, mean, a lot of money back then and, but, you know, things have changed. Like I worked during the summer and paid for most of a big chunk of my college by working in the summer. Like my kids right now, I have three, I have one who just graduated with his master’s. I have a junior at a public institution and a freshman at a public institution. There’s zero chance they could pay for any meaningful part of their education by working in the summer, right? Like it’s basically their spending money is what they’re working for. So I mean, that dynamic has changed. But I think also what we often lose sight of is we, so these conversations and it happens in business as well is, we talk about this fixed point in time as if we want to keep things the way it was at this fixed point in time, but we forget the ethic, the underlying ethic that caused it to be that way at that point in time. It’s not about the external manifestation. It’s about the philosophy and the values that caused it to be at that point in time, the way it was. And that might have a completely different expression today, but we have to stay true to the values, not to the expression of those values, but to the core values themselves.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes.
Todd Henry
And we see that I see this in the business world all the time. You have companies who are constantly evolving, constantly doing new things, constantly adapting the way they’re communicating to their customers because they’re driven by a core ethic. They have a set of principles that are guiding their decisions. And those principles are not compromised. Those principles remain fixed, but the expression of those principles is going to change over time. And so often we feel trapped by nostalgia or trapped by past decisions that have been made. When in reality, what we need to do is just keep our eyes fixed on the core principles that guided those decisions and make sure we’re living by those principles, regardless of what that means in the marketplace today.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I think you just differentiated something so critically important for people who are listening to this, and that is the difference between mission and nostalgia, and how we need to think about the two of those so differently and not conflate them, because that’s where I see leaders really tripping up and not sticking to the core values as you’re describing.
Todd Henry
I think that’s true and I think that’s true culturally as a whole right now. I mean, we see a big nostalgia push right now. We see it in the arts, we see it in politics. I mean, much of what is driving today’s politics is nostalgia. It’s a, wanna return to what I remember as being a better time or whatever, right? Which we can debate all day long, whether it was actually a better time, but it doesn’t matter because it’s what people feel, it’s what people want, right? It’s what they remember. But things are always changing. And so what drives that nostalgia instinct? It’s fear of uncertainty. It’s things are changing and I don’t know that I any longer have a grasp on it because they’re changing so quickly. I don’t have a grasp on it. And so I want to grasp onto something that makes me feel grounded, that makes me feel real, you know, that reminds me of the way things should be. And I think that’s true in a lot of businesses too. So Jim Collins, one of my favorite books by Jim Collins who wrote Good to Great…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Oh he lives in my town! There ya go.
Todd Henry
No way! Oh wow!
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yeah. Yeah, I have all of the books here. He hired a number of my friends from college. Yeah, there you go. Keep going.
Todd Henry
That’s fantastic. Well, if you see him, please tell him that I’m a big admirer. I’ve never actually met him in person, but, you know, most people talk about Good to Great, or they talk about Built to Last, or some of these other, Great by Choice, some of these other big books he wrote. But my favorite book by Jim Collins is How the Mighty Fall. I think it was an outstanding book. And part of what he describes is how these once great institutions become irrelevant. And the, the very first phase of that is when people understand what we’re doing, but they lose sight of why we’re doing it. When we’re copying tactics, but we forget the strategy that led to those tactics to begin with.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Amen.
Todd Henry
And when that happens over time, what happens is you base people just basically settle in to copying tactics of people who came before them, but they don’t understand then when the marketplace shifts, how to adapt those tactics for the new uncertainties of the marketplace. Well, we see this in institutions like universities, I see it in big businesses that have been around for decades or a century, is that we basically, it’s like, well, what did we do back in 1997? You know, that’s kind of the question. It’s like, well, let’s just copy those tactics and do it again. Well, no, I mean, the world has changed just a little bit since 1997.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Or we want to be like this institution, so let’s just market ourselves just like them.
Todd Henry
Right, exactly. And there’s no compelling, authentic, internal narrative, right? There’s no, so I wrote a book called Louder Than Words that kind of…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I was gonna go there. Yeah, I have a question about that.
Todd Henry
Oh, you were? Okay, well please go ahead and ask your question.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
So here’s my question. Authenticity is such a buzzword right now. And every time, well, sometimes when I hear authenticity used, I just kind of twitch a little bit. I love how you described it in Louder Than Words, in part because it has a bit of fight to it. Usually when I hear people talk about authenticity, it’s just buzzy and it’s about, I’m gonna tell my truth and I’m gonna be this and that, but there’s no fight in it. So can you share how you think about authenticity and you described it in Louder than Words?
Todd Henry
So we often conflate authenticity with transparency, right?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes!
Todd Henry
We think those are the same thing. Transparency is not authenticity and transparency isn’t always useful in leadership or in marketing or in messaging. Transparency can be, actually can be detrimental to achieving our goals, because people don’t need to see everything all the time.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Amen.
Todd Henry
We have to selectively reveal. But when I talk about authenticity, what I mean is that we’re showing people what we care for, care about. We’re putting skin in the game. We’re actually putting ourselves on the line for the thing that we say that we believe in, right? So I want to be a part of organizations, institutions, movements, where the leaders aren’t just saying, look at us, look at how cool we are. Look at the things we do. Look at the, you know, but they’re actually saying, hey, we believe in this so much that here’s what it’s costing us to do this, right?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes!
Todd Henry
We’re putting ourselves on the line. We’re actually taking a risk because we want you involved in this movement. And if we go down, we’re all gonna go down together. So that’s authenticity. Again, not to get back, I’m not talking about politics in the like, literal, like the specific sense, but in the general sense, what’s the big rub that people have with politicians is like, well, they’re so inauthentic, they’re always posturing, they’re always preaching at people, that’s sort of like the rub people have with politicians. And I think when you encounter someone who is genuinely authentic, a leader who genuinely is like, listen, I might fail miserably, but I am going to…Ken Burns’ new documentary, right? American Revolution, he highlights, know, we pledged together our lives, what our lives, our liberty, our sacred honor, our fortunes, our whatever it is like that. I forget the exact quote, but it’s basically like we’re basically like if we go down, we’re all going to get down together, right? Doing this thing. And that’s the kind of authenticity I think that attracts movements that attracts people. And then the other thing in.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And the kind of leadership, right? That is leadership, period.
Todd Henry
That is leadership. Leadership is I’m going to go first. Leadership is I’m going to tell you what to do. Leadership is I’m going to go first. And if any of us fail, I’m the one who’s going to be responsible. I’m going to bear the burden. Now there’s a difference between failure of effort and failure of execution, right? So failure of execution, like, okay, we have conversations, we have a coaching conversation with that person or the organization, whatever. Failure of effort is a completely different thing. There was an accountability that has to come with that, right? Or whatever, but the leader has to be willing to put themselves on the line. If the leader’s not willing to do that, then people smell it out. Like, well, why should I take a risk? If you’re not willing to take a risk, why should I take a risk? And the best organizations, the best leaderships, the best cultures are built on the foundation of authentic leadership that says, we’re all in this together, let’s make it work. And then, and I know we didn’t…this is a little ancillary to that, one of the other important elements to effective communication, I talk about in Louder than Words, is precision. So many leaders in the face of uncertainty become very imprecise in how they communicate. They talk about these high platitudes and high principles and, know, character is very important to us. So that’s great. But let’s be a little more precise about what that means, right? Let’s be precise about how that plays out. Let’s be precise in how we communicate that so that we attract the right people and we repel the wrong people. That’s what it’s about. And I think so many leaders are afraid to repel the wrong people. They just want to build a big tent. But we have to be willing, if we want to be effective, we have to be willing to repel the people that should not be part of our movement. Like there should be colleges and universities saying, here’s why you should not come to our university. And being very precise about it, if this is you, don’t come here. Right?
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I was having that conversation with presidents this weekend, same group of presidents. And anytime that any of them described, I was going around asking questions among all of them. And anytime any of them described their institution based on buzzwords, I would say, I need a real word that you would use with the real person. Anytime any of them used a tagline, I told them that’s for promotion, that’s not for connection. And it was interesting to see how hard it was for a number of them top actually describe these amazing institutions doing amazing things because they have it so ingrained that they have to be using these buzzwords and that they have to be talking in ways that make them sound more similar and generic rather than make them sound like someplace you want to be.
Todd Henry
Yeah.
Erin Hennessy
Or like a place that’s real, that isn’t just the tagline and the…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yeah, like a place that you want to invest in because that’s what tuition is.
Todd Henry
Yeah.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
That’s you want to tie your name to. Yeah.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, and that’s what your time is. Yeah. Yep.
Todd Henry
I think there is a real ethic of, don’t want to mess this up as opposed to I want to build something great, right? And those are very different mindsets. Are you in maintenance mode? Or are you trying to really build something great? Are you trying to leave something behind you when your leadership is finished? Are you trying to leave something behind that’s in better shape than it was when you got there? And that can look like different things. are some universities probably where it’s like, hey, the shoring up of our financial base is the most important leadership thing I can do right now. And that’s going to involve for us, but it’s not going to look like big grand, what looks like creative flashes, right? But that’s a creative act in and of itself. How can we more creatively shore up our financial base so that we’re positioned for the next president to come in and do whatever, you know, whatever the next step is for us. There are different, different kinds of leadership are required at different moments. But I do think that so many of us just slip into I got a pretty nice life, a pretty nice role. I don’t want to mess it up, right? So let’s just maintain.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Yes. So that leads me to my last question, and you’ve been so gracious with your time, and this has been great. You talked at AMA mostly about the accidental creative, but my takeaway really was about the brave habits balance of optimistic vision and agency. I am a Pollyanna.
Erin Hennessy
Accurate.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
A realistic optimist.
Erin Hennessy
Less accurate.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
With this framework in mind, how would you advise higher education presidents in today’s climate? That optimistic vision and agency balance.
Todd Henry
We live in a world of doomsayers. We live in a world where everybody’s, because that’s how you get attention is by screaming about how terrible things are all the time. And things are definitely, there are definitely bad things happening in the world. No question about that. I think people are craving any kind of pragmatic, optimistic vision that says, hey, yeah, things are difficult, but you know what? Things have always been difficult. There’ve always been things happening in the world. There hasn’t always been the mechanism to profit off of making us feel bad about that, right? But, and that’s really what’s different today is you have an entire, you have entire industries set up to monetize our fear and our uncertainty. But I think a president, university president, a university leader needs to be asking right now, what is the optimistic vision that I am painting? And is it authentic? Meaning we’re, we’re not just saying this, we’re putting ourselves in the game. Is it unique to us or are we just copying other people? Is it precise? Am I being precise about what it will look like when we get there? Right? Am I exhibiting empathy for the people who I want to bring along? In other words, am I walking alongside them and help, and speaking to them, how they’re going to play a part in this? And is the timing right for this vision? Because it’s one thing to plant a flag for 2075. It’s another thing to say, we’re going to do, by 2027 this is what will happen. Right? So we have to think about it. So that casting a vision is really important, but equally important. We have to be speaking agency into the people who are part of the movement that we want to lead. So we have to be helping them understand not just here’s where we’re going to go, but here’s your role. Here’s something you can do to help us get there. And it’s going to involve risk for you as well. But I guarantee that if you do, if you take those risks, I’ve got your back. And if you are aggressive and you fail, I’ve got your back. It’s okay. We’re going to get there. We’re going to have to fail a little bit in order to get to our ultimate place of success. So, and frankly, also part of that sometimes is saying, and if you’re not about this, I don’t want you around.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Right.
Todd Henry
Like, I’m sorry, but if this is where we’re going and you know, there are a lot of great institutions out there you could go be a part of. If that’s not what you’re about, then you probably just want to go find a place where you can live a nice, comfortable life, have a nice, comfortable job and you know, whatever, that’s fine. But this is where we’re going. And so if that’s what you’re about, I guarantee you we’re going to get there and we’re going to get there together, but it’s going to take all of us to do it. So people are craving that right now. And that for me, that’s the place where I’ve observed that bravery most likely occurs is when you have optimistic vision of the future and you have a belief that we have the agency to bring it about. When you have those two things, that’s a really powerful catalyst for brave action.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Thank you, that was wonderful. And as always, you made my day and you’re making me think about so many things from pruning to authenticity to that balance of optimistic vision and agency. We appreciate having you on today.
Todd Henry
Oh, well, good.
Erin Hennessy
Thanks so much, Todd.
Todd Henry
Well, thank you. And just to all of the all of the leaders listening, I mentioned I have three university students or former university students, one former and two current. And just thank you for all the work that you do. I know I can’t even fathom the complexity of what you deal with every day. And so every time I’m speaking with anybody from the universities, I’m always like, hey, thank you for what you’re doing, because I can’t imagine the complexity of what they’re trying to deal with. But I’m just so grateful that there are people willing to invest their life’s work in helping other people build their life’s work, which is basically what I see universities as doing. So thank you for that.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Thank you.
Erin Hennessy
Thanks so much, Todd.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
So apparently I have some pruning to do.
Erin Hennessy
Oh my friend, you have acres and acres of pruning to attend to. I have a list of suggested prunes.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Well, so here’s the good news. Life is also pruning for me because I just finished as co-chair of AMA and I’m about to roll off of the PRSA board. So life is also pruning those opportunities for which I had said yes.
Erin Hennessy
That is exceptional. I feel like I’ve pruned pretty well recently, more on the personal side than on the professional side, but I’ve done some personal pruning. Indeed. I’ve hired other people to do my pruning quite literally, and they came yesterday to, to blow my leaves and mow my lawn.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Excellent
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, yeah, that was a really interesting conversation. I will admit to sort of having a healthy skepticism about those kinds of conversations that I don’t know, sometimes they feel like they exist in a world that’s easier than the world we live in, but I feel like Todd is different in that he really acknowledges the current realities and it’s not just do this and do that and everything will be perfect.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
It doesn’t, yeah, it doesn’t feel like seven habits that you read and then you put down and you walk away. Instead, as I was listening to him, I’ve had so many self-reflective moments. And now I get to choose what I do with those and I better take them to heart. But I also think there are takeaways for others in ways that all incorporate his language into how I’m talking to leaders and to presidents.
Erin Hennessy
Agreed.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
I love the way he talks about authenticity because I am such a strong believer in it, but I’ve been waning on it lately based on how it’s been co-opted. And I so believe that it has to have a fight in it. And I love how he talks about the vulnerability associated with leadership, with authenticity, with the hard jobs that we all are here to do.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah. Yeah. I’m hopeful that he didn’t, you know, talk too much about any work that he does do with universities beyond just the speaking gigs, but I’m really hopeful that, there are universities out there tapping into some of these approaches and talking with senior leadership teams, talking with faculty, about how we can make some of these leaps and shifts in ways that don’t leave people behind, but also address some of these real existential questions that we’ve got ahead of us as an industry.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And as a committee, and this was my suggestion, I’m so pleased that the committee was willing to trust me in this, we opened with Todd Henry and we closed with Kevin McClure, and it felt like just the right set of bookends to do exactly that. How do we think about this bravery and making sure that we aren’t stagnating and to take these bold steps so that we really are focused on mission and not nostalgia?
But then also to bookend it with, how do we do it in a way that is caring for our people? To me, it feels like exactly where we should be in 2025. And if I left one thing as just the fingerprint that I wanted to leave this year, that’s really it. Be brave and be bold and do the good work, but do it in a way that is representative of your institution and is so aware of what your people need. All of that.
Erin Hennessy
Yep. We’re a people business and we forget that at our own peril.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Agreed. And those people include our students. And often we forget that those people are our students. They aren’t just consumers. And especially at something like the AMA, when we’re talking about consumers, I always want to have us shift back to talking about students.
Erin Hennessy
Well, I’m very happy for you that the meeting was such a success. I am very happy for us that we will have a little bit more of your time back until you, those of us who know you know that it won’t be long until you take something else on.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Haha, that I don’t prune. A new shute is going to grow, Erin. That’s what it is. When you prune, sometimes a shute grows from where you cut that branch.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, yes, you’re, yes. Well, I’ve just…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And I want to say I’m so thankful that you came to AMA this year. That meant a lot to me, especially because this was my last year as co-chair and to be able to have you there and to have you a part of it means so much to me because I adore you and I adore your brain and I think you’re the bee’s knees.
Erin Hennessy
Nowhere else I would have been and not just because I got 17 hours of sleep.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And with that, I’m thankful for you. I am thankful for our listeners and I am thankful that next week is Thanksgiving and I’m going to get some rest.
Erin Hennessy
Yes. And those faithful listeners out there realized that this is a little bit of a deviation from our usual schedule. Cause we’ve done, the crossover podcast and then we had a guest. So next month, early next month, sometime next month, you’ll get to hear from just Teresa and I about the year that was and why we’re so excited to kiss it goodbye, baby. Cause this is…
Teresa Valerio Parrot
And I’m thankful for that.
Erin Hennessy
Yeah, love to watch it go. But thanks for listening. Happy Thanksgiving to those who observe and we’ll see you back here in December.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
Bye.
Erin Hennessy
Thank you for joining us for this episode. You can find links in the show notes to the topics and articles referenced, as well as a copy of the show’s transcript on the Volt website, voltedu.com. Remember that you can always contact us with feedback, questions, or guest suggestions at trustedvoices@tvpcommunications.com.
Follow Trusted Voices wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to check out the Higher Voltage and Campus Docket podcasts also on the Volt network. Until next time, thanks to Teresa Valerio Parrot, DJ Hauschild, and the Volt team, including Aaron and Maryna, for a great episode. And thank you for listening.
