Dr. William Morgan 4:43

I had just landed and and my Chief of Operations called me and told me we’d had some wind damage. We didn’t know there was a tornado so I could better go check this out. So I grabbed my 45 and drove down to the campus and it was a disaster. There was our Already looters already showing up. And I was kind of even on with, like, 45. And anyway, but they, as I got here, it was just utter destruction. It’s like, my chief of facilities came and it goes, so how long do you think it’s gonna take to get back up and running and he’s like, you don’t get it Doc, we don’t have infrastructure, we don’t have water, gas, electricity, it might be yours, we might be done. So that was the first night and it was we, the next day, we got together the whole team together. And they were looking kind of for worn at the hotel we had to meet at. And then I walked in there, got a long face and go, Why the long faces, the only thing worse than $40 million in damage is $30 million in damage. We get to rebuild from scratch the way we would want to. So with it, we’ve turned that around. And within a week, we put in 25,000 man hours of work to renovate the place. Why didn’t build the fake building or not fake buildings, but temporary buildings and tents and other things. And we were able to get us back on on track within one week. Wow.

Carl J. Cox 6:08

So did you have I’m kind of curious about that, because that’s extraordinary. Do you have a contingency plan in place? Or is this just based on your leadership experience of in in your team’s leadership experience of crisis management? give me give me some insight behind that?

Dr. William Morgan 6:25

Well, it’s funny as I’m standing there, the night of the tornado, knee deep and Rubble, I mean, just rubble everywhere. Two of my freshmen drove up and said, so. So Doc, do you have a plan for something like this? Go? Yeah, we have the things like this happen all the time, we have plans. Well, we get together The next morning, and we start looking at options. And this this tornado took a swath through Dallas, 13 miles long, it was just, it was terrible. And what we did, we looked at our options. And let’s realize if we can’t alter that, we if we reclaim the library, we have enough classrooms to fit everybody and of course, with our temporary buildings. So I realized we have to be quick. So we, as soon as we we realized it was a ghost, who’s that electricity came back on, we grab dinner, actually, electricity didn’t come back around whose water came back on. We grabbed generators, we were the first ones to grab portable buildings were the first one to engage these disaster release companies. I’m convinced that if we waited five hours, we would still be closed this year and a half later, because we beat everybody the punch, because everybody else wants their shell shock all the other businesses. We grabbed him first. So we could so we could initiate them. And like I said, if we’d waited five more hours, we would probably make we probably would have never opened up again.

Carl J. Cox 7:43

You know, that message right there. It did interesting, obviously, with your military background, I think you know, I love I have Citizen Soldiers back here, which is one of my all time favorite by Stephen E. Ambrose. And there’s a scene in there where Lieutenant Winters is everyone else’s paralyzed. And he just goes, and he ends up the story is it physically kind of taken on a company, I believe it was of German soldiers, and but it was through his initiative, that they surprise the enemy in one. And if he didn’t do that, if they were just stayed back, they would have been pinned down, they wouldn’t have been able to take advance. Do you think that’s a bit of your military training that you just had the insight to go in and go right away? Or was it something else that kind of drove that?

Dr. William Morgan 8:30

I think it was my team gave me all the information that I needed to make the decisions, and you cannot waffle those now there’s you talk about that I love that book. And that, that what you’re talking about with Lieutenant Winters is still taught at West Point today, that operation where he moved on those, those German cannons, and it still taught today is in tactics. But we talk about strategy. A book I like is Once an Eagle and it’s a tome. But it really solidifies that a good leader can see the situation and when an opportunity opens up there, they have the clarity to think that if we don’t take that hill right now the battle is lost. If we don’t do this, the battles lost that it’s almost like the whole world parts and you can see clearly the path. And if you don’t take that path right then it will close up again. It’ll be lost forever.

Carl J. Cox 9:22

Yeah, Indeed, indeed. And so now we roll and you’ve done all these incredible efforts to get back in and to you know, frankly, what you said a week or only last a week of

Dr. William Morgan 9:34

actual when week but we we got 300 of these workers and all of our staff and faculty put in 25,000 man hours in one row.

Carl J. Cox 9:43

Well, that’s that is an incredible, I mean just effort collective effort to get there. And so then you have this massive effort you get back online. You get a little bit of breathing room, so to speak. And then this little thing called COVID-19 hits. So How did the preparation of this tornado striking Parker University in your recovery? How did that prepare you in one way or another when COVID-19 struck and all of a sudden, we were, you know, couldn’t couldn’t go outside, we had to wear a mask, quarantined, give me some insight behind that.

Dr. William Morgan 10:20

Well, we were already going online, we knew that the future is on online education we’ve been the whole world has been resisting that and faculty tend to want to stick you know, people don’t like change, this force that change. But we had already you can see we’ve got a movie studio here. We’ve already invested heavily in an online, the online experience, and not just online, but the virtual experience. And we’re already jumping to the next thing virtual reality classrooms, where people get head, you know, headsets and they’re actually looking at so we were already set that with that. And then COVID, I mean, then the tornado hit so we could pivot silver classes online. COVID hit, we are ready online, and all of our students had computers already. So we just pivoted, and I was pleasantly surprised how fast and how professionally our faculty and staff just pivoted over. And the students were wonderful to take it out. We have hands on techniques we have to do to so we had to pivot now we’re having to backfill and put a lot more of that in. But for the most part, we were able to do that. Now remember, I had eight buildings destroyed. So when COVID went up now are those who won’t see call them competitors. But those who are in our peer organization, were calling us out like you want to go to Parker during the rebuild well, nobody’s on campus now. So during COVID, so we were at a chance to rapidly do these build outs and right now, and for that next several months doing build out and destruction and demolition, while they’re off campus, we made we try to really maximize that time, when they come back, they’re gonna come back to a brand new when they come back in earnest, because they’re already on campus. But when they come back, fully online love a brand new state of the art campus for them to return to.

Carl J. Cox 12:01

So you had a discuss there briefly that you said, you mentioned in your Prelude where you would actually grow during during this period from tornado to COVID. And where we are today, year over year, and was an industry during this period. Wow. Wow,

Dr. William Morgan 12:18

we’re the fastest growing College in this half of Texas.

Carl J. Cox 12:22

Wow. So, so now let’s talk about some, you know, get get back to strategy a little bit here. You know, we we both share this passion for not only developing a strategy, but getting it done. And and so from and obviously, I don’t want to include any proprietary information, just just kind of basic, basic understanding. But what are some metrics that you have been measuring for your own success in the strategy? And and did you have to make any deputations to that? Or have you been able to stay consistent with what means success at Parker University? Well,

Dr. William Morgan 13:03

what are the metrics was we’re a nonprofit. So we’re seeking advancement, that is gift people who want to invest in our vision. So when there was an a period of uncertainty that took a little bit of a dip, we didn’t change the numbers, though. We didn’t change the numbers of what are those metrics where we also had metrics for student growth and the number of what do you call it? programs. So we’re going to offer we keep adding more programs to those metrics are still in place, and we are tracking on them. Now, we could eat now what everybody loves my I like using the metaphor of levers, levers and buttons and dials. Now, a poor strategic plan would be say, we’re gonna grow where to save money, and we’re gonna make out abilities? Well, you can’t do everything at once you have to pull one lever back, you know, maybe we won’t save money if we’re going to be building buildings and growing. So we were able to tinker with the levers quite a bit. But for the most part, those metrics are still in place. And how we’re moving forward is when we have a board meeting, every one of my my direct reports, when they report to the board, they link that report, how does it fit into the strategic plan? It has to have the paragraph that goes to

Carl J. Cox 14:15

that music to my ears. I remember that was your vision when we first met, you know, and we talked about what you envision seeing and seeing the connection? How much you know, most organizations that when I initially first work with them, they talk all about the lagging indicators. We’re trying to grow 20% or, you know, we’re, we’re trying to make a greater impact and society or something like that. It’s it’s the end result. How much time you mentioned these levers, how much time are you spending in focus on the leading indicators, the things that you can actually control to create the outcomes from a positive perspective, and maybe you could give me an example of something specific that you might focus on there.

Dr. William Morgan 14:57

Let’s see we have we have a seminar. Founder, Jim Parker had a seminar business and he he ran that. So we’re our goal was, of course, we wanted to have more more attendees than when he was running the bat. So we have, that’s kind of a short fuse, we advertise now we get people to come to those seminars. And our goal this year was 8500 people coming there. Well, that’s one of those things that you have a pretty short fuse on, like becoming 2500 students in our campus. That’s a long aspirational goal that we’re going after. And we advertise today and there’s an 18 month lag before we need a student before they usually arrive. Because it’s a, it’s a, it’s a four year program that you have a four year degree before they get here. So that’s a long time, but the seminars a little shorter period of time. So with that, we’re able to, to pour into that and what we tip for that pivoted to virtual events. And you can, as I said, we we went big into the virtual fence instead of dabbling with it. Like our strategic plan is to get this at 500 attendees that our seminars, so they’re not going to come if we’re doing zoom calls. So we went ahead invested in a product that makes, you know, very high quality events with interaction with with folks and with it, our numbers are still growing, even with our virtual events versus our live events.

Carl J. Cox 16:19

Mm hmm. That’s a that’s interesting is a good example, there of a very good example of driving once again, that things to do, right, you know, ultimately, the strategy is to ultimately end up getting to your outcomes. What you know, today, from other, you know, just again, again, think of your strategic plan that you have helped driving. What do you envision the next year, two or three years ahead? You know, what, how much? How much have you been doing and driving that? And how organized and thoughtful? Do you have your strategies built out for the next few years?

Dr. William Morgan 16:58

Well, the strategy, we had a five year plan, most of it will be done in two years. Well, hiccup, we have a few things that got bumped back, because the COVID, but what happens is, is we’re the action, the energy is attracting people, it’s causing this vortex that draws all light, you know, into us. When I when we we lost these buildings, and I realized how long it would take to get through the building process. I’m like, I needed a quick win. Because I have students who are, who saw it destroyed, it took about a year to get the dis the demo again. In fact, we had a movie studio from Hollywood come to us and they wanted to film in a post apocalyptic movie on our campus. So what we did, we had this beautiful building that Jim Parker had used for his printing and publishing. And it was beautiful, solid, good bones, and we’re gonna make that into the best gym that anybody’s ever seen. So what we did was we went we blitzed into that made this world class gym is right next door. And from that one of our new majors is strengthen human performance. So that is attracting undergrad and graduate students to that we have a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in strength and human performance, which is a hot item right now. So you come to this great gym that wouldn’t have been here if we hadn’t had the tornado and asteroid people and that’s, that creates that buzz and the buzz starts drawing more people.

Carl J. Cox 18:27

Wow. I just I keep on hearing this, this repeated pattern of where through literally through the rubble and through the freezing right of action that have a COVID-19 you’ve just like bulldoze right through and and just taken your organization to the next level.

Dr. William Morgan 18:48

And we’re trying to steal the people are sitting there, you know, just frozen, we’re trying to steal their lunches are sitting there, you know, their hands up in the various various product lines that we have.

Carl J. Cox 18:59

Good for you. Good for you. As as a really exciting around that. Let’s talk a little bit about you have a really interesting, you know, background and some, you know, really interesting stories of can you share a story of where you started to learn strategy, perhaps, you know, I don’t know if you want to go back to your military background or perhaps more recently, when you were setting up your Walter Reed Hospital, the chiropractic clinic, give me some insights into when you really started to learn strategy and what’s kind of like the one or two big things you took away from that you’re still utilizing today.

Dr. William Morgan 19:37

Well, like all of us were we gravitate towards towards tactics and nice and small unit. Unit combat is a recon and reconnaissance Marines were jumping scuba, or Sergeant Linscott , then Sergeant Linscott 45 years ago. You’re you’re doing tactics, but sometimes tactics create aid and strategy and what I love It is, for me, it’s the direct reports how to how to how to transmit the strategy is, I’m really big and having small teams, the Marine Corps is based on a four man rifle team that reports there’s four teams and a squad who reports to squad leader. There’s four platoons and a company the four companies in a battalion for a company, for battalions in a regiment for so you get it, it goes all the way up to the Joint Chiefs who has his for the direct to him, you can manage four people pretty well and, and get the information out. So that’s the model I go with. But also I’ve had the opportunity, if you imagine over the last 20 years, I’ve had, I’ve talked to 36 presidential candidates, are these three presidents, a couple Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, I think, half dozen, you know, Chairman, chairman’s, and sometimes I’m flying with them in private aircraft. So you sit, you’re sitting there for hours, and you’re actually talking about leadership, and what made you you know, in decision making things like that, so I kind of had a serendipitous MBA and leadership through being exposed to the leaders of our age, and being and being exposed to them just, you know, listening to their process, and sometimes hearing them make decisions, you know, like the fly on the wall?

Carl J. Cox 21:23

The, I love that. Can you share a you know, and maybe not, you don’t have to give it a direct to any, you know, obviously, anything confidential. But But what was from one of these, whether it be a past president, or you know, a key congressional leader or Supreme Court leader or somebody in the Supreme Court, what was something that you took away from watching them in their role and all the responsibility that they had an irregular basis? How did they carry themselves and what type of characteristics they have, so they can deal with all that pressure.

Dr. William Morgan 22:02

But I’ve got lifelong, do not disclose agreements that could put me in a place making little ones out of out of big ones. But a couple of you know, I remember with one service head, who would come and give purple hearts to people at our hospital and found me that one of his service members had died, just seeing the physical pain of that person to realizing that he lost one of his one of his troops, even though hundreds of 1000s of them report to them. But also realizing the mission, the main thing is the main thing, I would say that the whole reason to have a military is defense. It’s not a social, there’s not, you know, there’s social agendas within the military. But the main thing is the main thing, our mission, the Marine Corps, winning battles, not fighting battles, winning. The Nation does not need the Marines to go do a good job or do their best. The nation needs the Marine Corps to win battles. And to know that’s what your driving force for everything every decision they make. Does this help us win battles? Or is this fluff? And in for me, like my staff, does this get us to our end goal? So the more people understand that the strategic plan I have now, the least they have to interact with me. We, when we had the strategic plan, we shared it with everybody to the point of the custodial staff. And I had the person who cleans our fountains stopped me and he goes, you know, Doc, been working here for 40 years. I know why I’m cleaning this out. Now. I know where I fit in, in that strategic plan. Because of you explaining it down to everybody. So everybody understood it. Our SATs powerful. But is it was part of our SWOT analysis, that was our weakness. We need to make sure people feel safe on campus. And he was he knew exactly how he fit into that plan.

Carl J. Cox 23:52

Yeah, that was part there’s something you touched on there. And it’s probably its own episode or three. There, there’s we all know that we stumble when we try new things, right? There’s always there’s always this but there’s almost this over pursuit of almost celebrating failure today. It’s kind of a cliche thing to say I failed this and I failed that. You just said something really profound. You can’t it’s it’s not good to fail in that chart. people’s lives are at stake. So what’s your thoughts on that you know, when you hear like this common you want people to have the confidence to move through and realize that not everything is going to succeed but how do you create this so you’re you’re having a greater likelihood of success? How do you put that mindset in that I dare dare not say it you know, failure is not an option so to speak. But but but really at the same time we are we are going to do the best to succeed.

Dr. William Morgan 24:54

Well, there’s there’s there’s two ways one thing I did see the military was something I didn’t like it became the is the One failure, and you’re out 0 million. So what happens is that economy is someone who takes chances makes a failure. They don’t get promoted, they’re out. You drag it in if you’re a ship’s captain, if you’re anchored drags, you’re done, though you’re firing leadership’s captain. And you’ll never command again. That could be the only mistake you made in a 40 year career, but you’re done. Arleigh Burke was our fame. He was a CNO, a CNO, that Chief of Naval Operations having for four tours. He actually in World War Two, he fired on some other Navy ships by mistake you live to today, he’d be done. He ended up being one of our greatest naval heroes, Arleigh Burke. And so you need to allow for mistakes. I mean, the bigger goal is you can have mistakes, and you don’t want to have it be a one mistake institution where, Hey, you, you screwed up, you’re gone. You did that. Hope you learn from it. But the big goal is to win wars, the Marine Corps, you can lose battles. Don’t want to record what it is they’re gonna win battles. It’s a matter what the cost is. For us, we’re gonna win the battle. And if we if we fight smart, the cost isn’t as great as if we don’t play smart. Yeah.

Carl J. Cox 26:16

That is, that’s a great, great analogy there is we’re getting to that point of that. Once again, I love talking with you, Bill. We’re gonna get to that that close to wrap up stage. I know you’re a big book reader, you’re looking back and going I felt like you know, it’s some your library back here. Just give me what’s what is one of your favorites, that you just have this tendency to go back to regularly, you know, it’s not like a one time deal book.

Dr. William Morgan 26:46

Boy, of course, Think and Grow Rich is one of those books that I go back to. It’s one of those ones you almost should should read every year. It’s a little dated. But, you know, it’s if you take it in context where it was at Napoleon Hill, you know, understanding the value of masterminds and just how money works. There’s other there’s other books. The Art of War is good enough. There’s tidbits in it. It’s kind of a dry read, but it’s also good I you know, I love a sea of Jocko Willink, who’s one of our speakers for Parker seminars, Extreme Ownership. I think that’s important. I like Duckworth book Grit is, as I say, you’ve got my library behind you. I see Grant Cardone’s book The 10X Rule. Once when I go back to quite often. I had to go I actually read quite a bit. Oh, Good Strategy Bad Strategy. That’s, that’s it right there.

Carl J. Cox 27:39

Yes or no?

Dr. William Morgan 27:40

bad strategy? Yeah. Every CEOs library.

Carl J. Cox 27:45

So what what book are you now what’s the what’s what’s a book that you just recently finished or you’re in right now?

Dr. William Morgan 27:50

I just I write, I write fiction. Sometimes, too. For evidence. I just finished a book called The Last Fifty Pages. But the one I’m starting now is General McChrystal is a Team of Teams. Of course, I’m big on team. So that’s, that’s one and then another one. I’m reading simultaneously. One’s a book on tape, what I’m reading is Unstoppable Teams. And it’s written by a navy seal. And the thing about Navy SEALs is everyone is required to write a book upon discharge. That’s a joke. But it’s both of those are our team. So once in my easy chair, once I’m like commute, you driving around

Carl J. Cox 28:30

that that’s fantastic. And more than what and I I’m sure you’ve read this one, Jocko Willink book on Leadership Strategy and Tactics.

Dr. William Morgan 28:40

I’ve seen that. So I think frankly, most seals, they emphasize the tactics more than the strategy. So I’m trying to go That’s why I’m going with the General McChrystal. He’s, he’s gotten from special ops up to the tactical level

Carl J. Cox 28:52

level, and like courage that one I am a Oh, I put it in my I have a pretty strong top 10 strategy books and it hit the top 10.

Dr. William Morgan 29:03

Okay, I’ll get it.

Carl J. Cox 29:05

So it It blew me away. He really put the whole thing and leadership strategy and tactics all together and really did a great job of defining the differences between them, which is often misunderstood. You know, you had to just do all your experience, but it’s pretty well done. So yeah, I do. I do encourage that one. Bill, this has been fantastic. I appreciate so much. Once again, we’ve been talking with Dr. William Morgan, President Parker University at Bill where can people learn more about you and the university?

Dr. William Morgan 29:37

Well, it’s parker.edu is is our website. And of course, through Facebook, I have a presence on Facebook, William E Morgan, DC on Facebook, and I’ll respond to your your, your messages within reason.

Carl J. Cox 29:55

That’s perfect. Now, Bill, thank you so much for your time. This is Carl J. Cox for Measure Success Podcast learning from great leaders to make a positive difference. And Bill, thank you so much for helping to launch the Measure Success Podcast. You’ve been great early guests. Thank you so much.

Dr. William Morgan 30:11

Thank you, Carl.

Outro 30:14

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