Why ERP Projects Make Better Leaders

Why a Workday (or any other ERP) implementation will accelerate careers for ambitious business and technology professionals.

There was a moment I knew I’d get the CIO job at Pepperdine. I had connected, not through technical brilliance, but through fit, fluency, and presence. It happened over lunch. At the table, Gary Hanson, the Executive VP and second in command, asked casually but sincerely, “I don’t get why a student PeopleSoft implementation is so difficult.” Based on my Texas A&M implementation experience, I knew the answer:

“There’s a lot of stress and angst about student systems, and that’s not surprising. Unlike finance or HR, there are no universal best practices in student services. Every institution has its own way of advising, enrolling, tracking, and assisting students, and these processes reflect the institution's mission, identity, and strategy. The new system may be configurable, but implementation means asking people to change the way they do their jobs. That’s not just a technical challenge. It’s cultural and human.”

The room shifted. You could see it. Up until then, they had seen the delays and frustrations as a failure of technical competence or execution. No one had framed it as a human, cultural problem. What I offered wasn’t a solution, it was a lens. And once they saw it, they couldn’t unsee it. Ten days later, I got the call and the offer.

In today’s Dispatch, I reflect on how skills developed during an ERP implementation, navigating ambiguity, building trust, and leading through change, set people up to advance their careers and grow into the kind of leaders institutions will crave.

The big picture

Most people don’t volunteer for a Workday (or any other ERP) implementation, and for good reason. These projects are mentally and emotionally demanding. There’s no autopilot, no coasting. Every meeting requires focus, every decision reveals tradeoffs, and every misalignment is laid bare. Implementation work forces you to think across functions, challenge long-held assumptions, and navigate ambiguity hour by hour. It’s high-stakes, high-stress, and impossible to fake your way through.

But that’s why it’s worth doing. For professionals on both the business and technical sides, an ERP implementation is the most intense leadership development opportunity you’ll ever have. It teaches how institutions work, how change actually happens, and how to lead when the pressure is real. If you lean in, this work will change you. Not just in how you manage systems, but in how you show up as a leader.

Here are the twelve skills every future leader builds during an ERP implementation and why they matter long after go-live.

Developing Narrative Intelligence

• Learn to craft clear, compelling stories that explain why your work matters.

• Invest in writing, speaking, and visual storytelling.

• Translate tech initiatives into institutional language: student success, research velocity, mission alignment.

How an implementation teaches it: You learn fast that “the system is changing” isn’t a story. To lead, you have to frame the why: Why this project matters. Why it’s hard. Why it will be worth it. ERP work forces you to translate technical scope into human impact, whether it’s staff payroll, student access, or research enablement.

Deliverable moments: stakeholder updates, town halls, training launches, resistance debriefs.

Mastering Governance Fluency

• Master the art of working through committees, councils, and provostial processes.

• Understand shared governance not as a barrier but as the terrain.

• Learn to structure decision-making frameworks that scale trust.

How an implementation teaches it: You don’t get to change how hiring works without HR. You don’t get to fix procurement without Finance. You learn to work through existing structures, executive sponsors, steering committees, functional working groups, and when necessary, build new governance that earns trust and moves decisions forward.

Deliverable moments: charters, escalation paths, design decision logs.

Learning Negotiation Mastery

• Study both Chester Karrass and Chris Voss. Practice calibrated questions, tactical empathy, and BATNA thinking.

• Most advancement happens through informal influence and structured give-and-take, not job postings.

How an implementation teaches it: Every design session is a negotiation. Who owns this process? What’s in scope? What’s changing vs. staying? You learn to separate people from positions, clarify interests, and work toward shared gains. You also learn when to hold the line, and when to say: “You’re right, let’s adapt.”

Deliverable moments: scope decisions, change requests, vendor conversations.

Mastering Program Management, Not Project Management

• Develop a portfolio mindset: how to drive impact over time, across functions, with limited authority.

• Move from task execution to shaping the environment where good things happen predictably.

How an implementation teaches it: ERP success is never one-and-done. You build a mindset for multi-year, multi-phase transformation; where each deliverable is a stepping stone, not an end state. It teaches you to track dependencies across time, functions, and politics.

Deliverable moments: program charters, workstream alignment, post-go-live roadmaps.

Developing Institutional Literacy

• Read your institution’s strategic plan. Understand enrollment trends, retention risks, and budget mechanics.

• Be able to explain how technology supports or hinders the core academic mission.

• Don’t be caught flat-footed in conversations about cost, value, or reputation.

How an implementation teaches it: To design a system that works, you have to understand the institution’s inner workings. You dig into payroll cycles, grant accounting, academic appointments, hiring bottlenecks, and tuition models. You leave knowing how the university really runs and where it struggles to.

Deliverable moments: business process inventories, future-state workshops, data mapping.

Learning Digital Simplicity

• Learn how to say no to complexity.

• Advocate for fewer systems, tighter integrations, and stable platforms.

• Push for adoption over invention. The true innovator reduces friction, not adds features.

How an implementation teaches it: ERP shows you firsthand what happens when complexity goes unchallenged: bolt-ons, exceptions, and bad data. You begin to advocate for simplicity, not because it’s elegant, but because it’s what scales, integrates, and survives turnover.

Deliverable moments: process redesigns, “lift vs reimagine” debates, integration reviews.

Demonstrating Leadership Through Presence

• Show up in rooms you’re not required to be in. Build coalitions before decisions are needed.

• Develop calm in uncertainty and become the person others want in the room when the pressure hits.

How an implementation teaches it: The people who show up, consistently, calmly, and constructively, become the real leaders. ERP is messy. People get frustrated. Stakeholders disappear. You learn to be the adult in the room, to stay visible when things get hard, and to model the behavior you want from others.

Deliverable moments: steering meetings, crisis huddles, sponsor briefings.

Learning Cultural Architecture

• Understand that leadership is not about charisma, but about shaping the norms, language, and rituals of a team or institution.

• Be intentional about how meetings are run, how wins are celebrated, and how people talk about the work.

How an implementation teaches it: You see how deeply behavior is shaped by language, rituals, and norms. You begin to notice which teams trust each other and which avoid each other. You realize that redesigning a process also means redesigning how people talk about work. ERP lets you become an architect of alignment.

Deliverable moments: naming conventions, onboarding guides, decision rights frameworks.

Developing AI as a Tool, Not a Threat

• Skill up in using GenAI to enhance communication, workflow, and strategy.

• Position yourself not as a prompt engineer, but as a translator of institutional problems into solvable patterns.

• Help others see where AI simplifies, augments, or reshapes, not just where it dazzles.

How an implementation teaches it: Workday bakes in predictive analytics, role-based security, and workflow automation. But it also exposes inefficiencies ripe for AI augmentation, like how people build reports, respond to tickets, or update training content. ERP shows you where AI can help long before the flashier use cases arrive.

Deliverable moments: report libraries, help desk redesigns, data audits.

Learning Risk Framing and Trust Accounting

• Know how to talk about risk in language executives understand: financial, reputational, compliance, mission.

• Build a trust ledger: what you’ve delivered, where you’ve held the line, how you’ve protected the institution.

How an implementation teaches it: You can’t eliminate risk, only frame it wisely. ERP teaches you to speak the language of stakeholders: what this decision costs, what it exposes, what it protects. You also learn that credibility compounds: deliver on early wins, and people will trust you with bigger ones.

Deliverable moments: go/no-go decisions, mitigation plans, stakeholder escalations.

Demonstrating Mentorship as Leadership

• Invest time in developing others. Teach what you’ve learned. Share the frameworks, not just the war stories.

• The clearest path to executive credibility is helping others grow, not accumulating titles.

How an implementation teaches it: Some of the most lasting impacts are quiet: helping a colleague see the bigger picture, coaching someone through change fatigue, showing a rising leader how to run a meeting. ERP exposes how fragile teams can be and how powerful it is to share what you’ve learned.

Deliverable moments: peer training, design workshops, role modeling feedback loops.

Mastering Internal Clarity

• Build your own reflective practice. Know what you stand for. Be able to say no to roles or projects that don’t align.

• Career advancement without self-awareness is just escalation. With clarity, it’s stewardship.

How an implementation teaches it: ERP will test your boundaries, your bandwidth, your patience, and your professional identity. You’ll be tempted to over-function or burn out. But if you stay grounded in why you’re doing this, and who you’re trying to become, it can refine your leadership in profound ways.

Deliverable moments: self-assessment check-ins, role clarity conversations, coaching sessions.

The final word

ERP implementations aren’t just technical. They’re transformational, if you let them be. Yes, they’re stressful and they expose friction. But they also sharpen the very skills today’s institutions desperately need: clarity, alignment, leadership under pressure.

The people who grow through these projects don’t just survive change, they become the ones trusted to lead it next time. So don’t just check the boxes. Pay attention. The real payoff isn’t in go-live. It’s in who you become by getting there.