Western Michigan University, MI

Progress and Nuance: Western Michigan University Libraries’ Approach to Change

At Western Michigan University (WMU), strategy is a dynamic conversation.

Led by a team of academic library professionals with deep expertise in organizational change, WMU’s University Libraries are demonstrating what strategic implementation looks like when grounded in nuance, shared ownership, and a healthy respect for complexity.

“We’re not doing this just to say we have a plan,” says Mary O’Kelly, Associate Dean for Education and User Services. “We’re using it to focus our work, hold each other accountable, and make visible the progress—and the tensions—we navigate in the process.”

With a doctoral focus in organizational change leadership, Mary brings a rare blend of theoretical fluency and on-the-ground insight to the university’s planning efforts. 

Under her leadership, the libraries adopted Envisio to transform a static, siloed planning process into a transparent, participatory system rooted in shared direction and flexible autonomy.

The Paradoxes Inherent in Planning

In higher education, tradition and innovation often collide–but must coexist. Mary has spent years exploring organizational paradox: how to manage competing truths that can’t be solved with either/or thinking.

“Really, a strategic plan is a change plan,” she explains. “But to grow, we often have to let go of something that’s worked in the past. That tension—like how to honor tradition while pushing for progress—is at the heart of what we do. It’s not necessarily about choosing a side, but more so it’s about balancing that push and pull, without swinging too far in either direction.”

These tensions show up in the day-to-day realities of strategic implementation:

• Control vs. Autonomy: “We assign ownership in Envisio. But ownership doesn’t mean being told what to do—it’s about individuals taking initiative in alignment with the plan.”
  
• Transparency vs. Psychological Safety: “Everyone can see everything in our plan. That’s powerful, but it can also feel exposing. It’s important to have a culture where people feel safe being honest about progress, including what’s not moving forward yet.”
  
• Individual vs. Organizational Needs: “Our updates show where people are getting stuck, and we’ve learned that’s often because they don’t have enough resources. That’s become a tool for advocacy, not judgment.”
  

“These tensions are everywhere when implementing,” she adds. “And they all weave in and out of how we drive forward on a plan.”

A New Approach to Engagement and Accountability

Before Envisio, the team at WMU Libraries managed their strategic plan through a combination of Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. Updates were infrequent and tedious, often initiated only when university leadership requested progress. 

In other words, the old system was static and hierarchical—and not in line with the vision the libraries’ leadership team had for what she knew they could accomplish. 

“We were managing everything manually,” she explains. “We’d pull out the plan maybe once a semester, sometimes only once a year, and by the time we got to page four, everyone was exhausted. The last items weren’t less important—they were just buried.”

Envisio allowed them to digitize the process entirely. With automated reports, scheduled monthly updates, and complete visibility across all teams, the Libraries made strategic planning a routine part of their operations.

“Now we can slice and dice the plan. We can look at Goal Four one month, pull a report of all delayed actions the next. At the beginning of the year, we pull all completed actions and celebrate them. We even have a little party about it. Bring cake.”

It’s not just leadership that has access.

“Everyone gets the reports. Everyone sees everything. We moved from a top-down model to one of shared ownership. That visibility helps us stay aligned.”

Writing a Truly Collaborative Plan

The plan itself was written collaboratively. 32 of the 50 library employees participated directly in the writing teams, and the entire department contributed through surveys, town halls, and all-staff meetings.

“This was not a plan written by leadership and handed down,” Mary notes. “It came from the ground up. So when it came time to assign actions, people already felt invested.”

But implementation introduced new challenges: Would transparency feel like surveillance? Would updates be seen as burdensome?

“That’s where the paradox comes in again,” she explains. “Too much control, and people resist. Too much autonomy, and things lose momentum. Too much transparency, and people feel micromanaged. But too little, and you lose accountability.”

Envisio helped WMU Libraries walk that line. Monthly updates became normalized. Failures or delays were discussed openly—not as shortcomings, but as opportunities to advocate for support.

“Someone updates a task and says, ‘I can’t get this done because I don’t have student employees.’ Now that’s visible. Now we can respond.”

From Mission to Measurable Action

With Envisio, the library team tracks high-level goals and individual action items simultaneously. Here are a few highlights of completed goals:

• Hosting the Michigan DPLA Service Hub: WMU Libraries became the lead institution for Michigan’s digital contribution to the Digital Public Library of America. “It serves a national audience. And we made it happen,” says Mary.
  
• Launching a Rotating Student Exhibit Space: In the library’s rotunda atrium, the team created a permanent venue for showcasing student scholarly and creative work. “It’s routine now,” she adds. “Every semester, new submissions go up.”
  
• Quadrupling Seed Library Distribution: WMU’s Libraries partnered with sustainability teams to offer seeds and gardening resources. “We aimed to double our output. We ended up quadrupling it,” she says. “And we created a special collection of horticulture books that became our second-most circulated.”
  

These initiatives are not just completed; they’re celebrated. “It’s so easy to focus on the to-do list you haven’t finished,” Mary reflects. “But taking time to say, ‘Hey, we did this,’ is vital for morale and purpose.”

The Power of Strategic Simplicity

O’Kelly evaluated more than 15 different platforms before selecting Envisio.

“We didn’t want the tail wagging the dog,” she says. “We had a strategic plan already. Envisio was one of the only tools that let us implement our plan as-is, with no rewrites required.”

Her key requirements:

• A clean, intuitive interface.
• Easy report scheduling and sharing.
• Accessibility across the entire department.
• Real-time updates and visibility.

Other tools were too complex or too limited. Envisio struck the right balance. “It’s that Goldilocks zone. Robust, but still usable. Structured, but still flexible.”

Building a Dashboard, Telling a Story

Now, the team has launched a public-facing dashboard. But choosing what to include hasn’t been easy.

“We collect a lot of data. So we’re trying to narrow down to 4 or 5 key datasets that help us tell a story. The dashboard helps us turn performance into narrative—not just strategy-speak, but meaningful updates people can actually engage with.”

She adds, “It’s a visual story. Not just a long list of actions and objectives, but something that makes people say, ‘Wow, I can see the impact.’”

Rethinking Strategic Planning for Higher Education

Higher education, Mary believes, needs to rethink how it approaches planning altogether.

“Strategic planning, as a term, comes from the corporate world. It’s about market expansion and profit. But higher education doesn’t work like that. A lot of what we do is qualitative. It’s not always measurable in the traditional sense.”

She points to common challenges:

• Goals like “reputation,” “engagement,” or “belonging” are hard to quantify.
• Operational work gets overlooked in change-focused plans.
• KPIs don’t always reflect what matters most to students and faculty.
  

Mary and her team take a different approach. “Some things can’t be measured with hard numbers, but we know they matter. We’re working to find meaningful ways to show that.” 

One example? The seed library’s ripple effect: “We tracked how it boosted circulation in our gardening collection. That’s the result. That’s impact.”

A Culture of Shared Storytelling

Mary sees Envisio not just as a software solution for higher education strategic planning, but as a cultural shift.

“Yes, we’re collecting data. We’re also inviting everyone to participate in the story of our progress. I can add updates, but so can my colleagues. We all have a role to play.”

As a result, silos have started to break down.

“You hear all the time that higher education is siloed. But when we look at who’s listed as contributors across different plan items, we see people from across departments collaborating all the time. The reports actually help us see that we’re more connected than we think.”

Looking Ahead

“We want people to be curious. We want them to see where we’re heading, not just what we’ve done. And we want to build that trust through transparency—without overwhelming people with detail.”

With a strategic framework grounded in paradox management, internal engagement, and shared storytelling, WMU Libraries are showing what’s possible when a university doesn’t just talk about change, but structures it into its everyday work.

“We’re motivated by purpose and progress,” says Mary. “And that’s what this plan—and this platform—help us hold onto.”