The Advisory Board understands that facilitating and leading change in mission-driven organizations—whether hospitals, health systems, or universities—is different in kind from what is required in a commercial enterprise. Our mission, at its core, is helping individual members overcome obstacles to change, and assisting in the implementation of innovative yet tested ideas from the frontier. In doing so, we are guided by certain core beliefs, among them the following:

Force of Ideas

The Advisory Board believes that strategies founded on innovative ideas and best practices will prevail over sheer size, deeper pockets, larger endowments, or even established reputations—great ideas triumph every time, and ours is the task to find them for our members.

Economies of Intellect

We believe that there are “economies of intellect” in higher education, just as there are in health care, the corporate world, or any large field of endeavor—compelling advantages to the nation’s leading universities sharing insights on common problems. As to any large problem—whether improving student retention or winning multidisciplinary research grants—having thousands of universities, each a laboratory of experimentation, each laboring at a solution, guarantees that some number will arrive at compelling solutions.

The Advisory Board, by tapping into, collecting, and then communicating these best solutions among all its members can facilitate discontinuous change and improvement at a fraction of the cost of traditional consultants.

Spirit of Generosity

Our goal is that neither our members nor our staff views the membership as principally a commercial relationship. Rather, our intention is that each member proceeds as if it held full equity interest in the Advisory Board, as if our staff were its staff, our efforts wholly determined by member direction. Our hope is that members may conclude that they have not worked heretofore with any organization so committed to intelligent service without limitation.