“Oxford was a sort of Utopia to the Captain . . . He continued to behold towers, and quadrangles, and chapels, through rose-colored spectacles,” wrote the English Novelist Thomas Hugh in his book titled – Tom Brown in Oxford.
This writing in 1861 was one of the first known uses of this word in print – “rose-colored spectacles.” The Captain isn’t the only one who has been distracted from reality by the “Rose-colored Spectacles” phenomenon which today we refer to as rose-colored glasses. Most schools’ leadership, at one time or another, place these lenses over their eyes. Independent schools are notorious for being distracted by the “rose-colored glasses” syndrome.
Each school believes they are a better choice than the competing schools without using any analysis or commonly understood public facts. Each school parades its features – quality of facilities, quality of faculty, quality of program, quality of students and quality of philosophy – and becomes clouded to the realities that they are facing in today’s enrollment market place – there are other best choices and some of them are free.
When are Rose-colored Glasses being worn? You are wearing rose-colored glasses if you fail to realize that families have choices. When you don’t understand that:
- other schools also have features that are good or even great
- some of your competition has a tuition cost of $0 and that can sway a parent’s decision
- it takes more than just constructing a beautiful building to get them to enroll
- external forces – economy, geography, external environment, or politics – can have an impact on your enrollment success
- more advertising will not, by itself, solve your enrollment problems
- failure to pay attention to the full-pay market as an essential element to your business model will lead to financial problems
- as a leaders and lover of your school, it is easy to overlook too much and succumb to the “rose-colored glasses” phenomena.
Why do Rose-colored glasses hurt you? Rose-colored glasses hurt you because your thinking becomes clouded from doing good enrollment management work. It prevents a careful evaluation and delivery of high quality educational services. The rose-colored glasses mentality distracts you from making your program truly distinctive. It leads you to providing a service or educational methodology that is not differentiated – either in word or in deed. Maybe, if the school is lucky, it has a “better than another” advantage. (“Better than” doesn’t always guarantee success against a free education offering.)
Why does it lead to lower enrollment? To maintain your desired quality and quantity of students, you need to have focus and accountability. Schools tend to be reactive. When there are positive program successes – we won the New England Soccer competition – we rejoice in it, as we should. When there are negative program signs – several faculty are not very good teachers -we don’t respond in a timely manner, or at all.
Your rose-colored glasses become your enemy. Resources are not directed in the right places, employees’ expectations aren’t maintained and unified, and the board isn’t prepared to
govern the school with the right information. When the time comes to tell the full story to the leadership, no one wants to take off the glasses; thereby, leading to a program that may be good, but not good enough to achieve the revenue objectives. Parents are reluctant to pay the tuitions, because they are uncertain about the quality or the true differentiation. When they do pay, they choose based on a combination of quality of faculty, facilities, programs, students and costs. Schools with weaker brands are left with fewer full-pay applicants from which to choose.
Which enrollment group is affected? The rose-colored glasses will hurt your current and prospective full-pay family numbers. Parents want great value for a high costing tuition payment. Hearing that the teacher doesn’t return papers in a timely fashion, the rooms are dirty, or the math class curriculum is weak, when the school still claims to be of the highest quality, doesn’t resonate well with parents who have choices.
Prospective families are looking at the long-term investment and they hear those voices of your current parents sometimes providing a lackluster recommendation to the prospective families. The prospective family is equally astute and will do their analysis and will choose the best school according to all the information within their reach and adjust for what is “worth the cost.”
What can you do to fight the rose-colored glasses phenomena? The school must have a clearer vision about the program it is offering. Then, it needs to measure how well it is achieving that outcome with students and parents. Almost all employees need to be on the same page with the expectation you are trying to achieve. Encourage positive criticism from stakeholders which will lead to healthy conflict and ultimately, give you more information on which improvements will bring out your excellence.
As nice as the rose-colored glasses make us feel and they should be use at certain times, they need to be occasionally removed from your eyes. Schools are fortunate to have many loyal people who are willing to stick by their sides, even when there is adversity in our program. Schools need to mobilize that loyalty, put the glasses aside and seize the opportunities to provide a consistent and high quality service and attend to the needs of the customer – both students and parents.