This document is generally accessible as http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/univ/academic.management The document was prepared in relation to organisational discussions at the University of Birmingham. It may be relevant to other institutions. WARNING: these are the personal views of the author and should not be taken to reflect the views of the School of Computer Science or the University of Birmingham. This file was last modified: 11 Nov 1998 A proposed definition of a "collegiate" organisation: Management by consensus on the basis of fully shared information, among a community of highly educated, highly intelligent, mutually trusting, collaborative academics who are prepared to make allowances for one another's weaknesses, as part of a long term commitment towards a set of common high level goals. [First draft] ======================================================================= Some comments on Academic Reorganisation by Aaron Sloman, School of Computer Science A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/ Phone: +44 121 414 4775 CONTENTS -- Disclaimer -- The context -- The risks in giving too much power to heads -- -- Selection of academics -- -- A relatively small percentage of heads will be really good -- -- Common types of incompetence in heads (and others) -- -- Standard checks and balances are inadequate -- -- Why additional mechanisms will be opposed -- Some suggestions to address these points -- -- Well designed management committees within schools or departments -- -- Staffing issues -- The concept of "line management" is full of risks -- -- Consultation should always involve more than one person -- -- Heads cannot be expected to communicate everything they should -- More suggestions -- -- At least two members of each school at important meetings -- -- Circulation of notes of high level meetings -- -- Reports from heads -- -- Mentors for heads -- -- Possible objections -- The Head of School's responsibilities. -- -- Deputy heads -- -- Should only professors be heads? -- Appointing committees -- -- Lectureship and senior lectureship committees -- -- Professorial appointing committees -- The functions of the School Assembly (or committee) -- Disclaimer --------------------------------------------------------- Note: the views expressed here were formed long before the present head of my school (Achim Jung) took office. They should NOT be interpreted as implying any specific criticism of him. I wrote about the problems of giving heads too much power in the AUT Bulletin as long ago as 1990. Most of these comments have been discussed with and are supported by Professor Jung. They include some points initially made by him. I've added some points which I've not had time to check with him but I have no reason to expect him to disagree with any of this. -- The context -------------------------------------------------------- The context which provoked this document is the recent reorganisation in the University of Birmingham which considerably reduced the role of Faculties while attempting to clarify and redefine the role of heads of schools. I believe similar things are happening in other universities and in all cases there is a tendency to give far too much power to heads of departments without analysing properly the risks in doing so. The tendency towards this was increased as a result of the Jarratt report on university organisation in the mid 1980s, and more recently they are a result of pressures on universities to save costs by streamlining their administration and management. Some of the changes are a result of a diminishing role for Faculties in the light of increasing cross-disciplinary teaching and research activities which also cross old Faculty boundaries. I suspect that in some cases, decisions about management structures have been based on out of date and half understood notions of what works in industry. For instance this may have increased the tendency of universities to move towards notions of "line-management" with heads given too much power. The removal of faculties, which gave many opportunities for other members of departments to find out how the university works and to feed suggestions into the system has made the risks even worse. Hence this document. Please note that my concern is not with democracy but with the difference between good and bad management. 1. The second consultative document produced in Birmingham at the end of 1997 was a considerable improvement on the draft circulated around Easter 1997 in that it took more account of the need to control heads of schools from below as well as from above. It was gratifying that on many points it took account of criticisms from many members of the university. 2. However, the opportunity has not been taken to address some major flaws in the notion of "line management" where heads of departments have considerable powers and responsibilities. In particular the abolition or dilution of faculties strengthens the role of heads of departments. Failing to introduce compensatory management procedures within schools or departments is dangerous, for reasons which I'll try to make clear. 3. There seem to be two main omissions in the reorganisation. The new organisation does not address adequately The need for cross-school communication at lower levels The risks in giving too much power to heads 3.1. The need for cross-school communication The reduction of committees and meetings at Faculty level aims to reduce costs of management and administration, and it will certainly do that, but there seems to have been no consideration of the new costs that will be incurred as a result of the fact that whereas heads of different departments may well continue to meet frequently in various committees other academics will meet less often. Although this may save time, there are two important consequences that need to be compensated for. (a) There will be far fewer opportunities for academic staff who are not heads of schools to learn about how the university works, and what sorts of problems arise and what sorts of solutions are preferred in other schools. This can lead to school decisions and debates being less well informed, and possibly also more self-centred. There will be less sharing of know-how, and fewer serendipitous discoveries of common interests including research interests. (b) There will also be far fewer opportunities for younger members of staff to gain the knowledge and negotiating skills required for them to become heads in future, or to represent the school on central committees. Perhaps more importantly there will be fewer opportunities for people to show their capabilities in representing the school. Thus the choice of future heads will have two problems: 1. fewer candidates with appropriate knowledge and skills 2. less visible strengths and weaknesses in those candidates. I have seen cases in the past where people appointed as heads have surprised their colleagues, sometimes by being much better than expected and sometimes by being far far worse. The risk of such surprises, especially nasty surprises is increased in the new system. Detailed solutions are not proposed here, only partial sketchy suggestions. There are many ways in which the absence of faculty boards and committees can be compensated for by a variety of forms of cross-school communication and collaboration, including more up to date mechanisms than regular faculty committee meetings and circulation of papers. The important point is that the problem be acknowledged and be seen to be addressed. Documents I have seen have shown no awareness of the nature and importance of the problem: their proposals were all motivated by what seem to be shallow notions of efficiency which don't take account of all the real costs, e.g. of reduced mutual understanding. Almost certainly we shall not get the solutions right first time, so any strategy must allow for evolution and review of mechanisms. -- The risks in giving too much power to heads ------------------------ The new type of management structure being adopted by universities acknowledges the needs for "checks and balances" in the form of powers of school committees, but in some cases (e.g. here) what is proposed is actually a solution to only a part of the problem. It is still too much dominated by the need to streamline management and save administrative costs, including staff time. It doesn't take account of the other costs which are likely to be increased as a result -- the costs of things going wrong and the increased likelihood of this happening. University management needs to be rethought in a way which addresses the issues, including the quality of the people available as heads. -- -- Selection of academics Academics are normally selected in the first place PRIMARILY because of their research and teaching abilities. (Most of us would not wish to work in a university that wasn't like that). A direct consequence of this is that when they become heads many of them have not had the training required for the post, and many of them are temperamentally unsuited to the demands of the post. (I know that for this reason when I was head of my school I was a bad head, even though I am perfectly capable of helping with management by collaborating well with a good head.) It is not always realised that the demands on heads actually go far beyond documented official duties and responsibilities, as illustrated below. -- -- A relatively small percentage of heads will be really good Because of all this, for certain percentages W, X, Y and Z: W % of heads will be disastrously incompetent X % of heads will be able to cope but only moderately well, making many mistakes in the process Y % of heads will be capable of doing the job but will not do it well enough because they don't really like or want the job and give higher priority to their research, etc. Z % of heads will be very competent and will do the job well. My guess, based on many years of observation and reports from various departments in various universities is that W is somewhere between 5 and 15, X is somewhere between 15 and 55, Y is somewhere between 15 and 30, Z is somewhere between 10 and 30. The exact figures would require empirical investigation, and this may be difficult and costly to do because some kinds of incompetence are hidden from view. There would also be disagreements regarding what counts as doing the job well. My notion of doing the job well is dominated by the need of a school or department to do high quality, highly rated research and teaching in an atmosphere where there are not internal squabbles and tensions and where everyone contributes and there is generally a high degree of cooperation, mutual support and mutual respect. In other words good academic results are not achieved at the cost of personal trauma. I believe very few academics have the management skills and personal qualities required to bring about such results, but carefully designed management structures can help to compensate for individual deficiencies, by drawing on the resources of other members of the school to help the head. However, this cannot be left to the discretion of the head. (I think my own school is doing quite well in this respect, but through luck and good will among members of the school, rather than because of the university management procedures push us in the right direction. On the contrary they push in the opposite direction.) Of course, people change, and some individuals can progress from one category to another while they are heads, e.g. improving as a result of growing more mature personally or learning new skills, gaining new information, or changing their motivations. But it is also possible to become corrupted by having too much power, or to grow too impatient or irritable because of the stresses of the job. The risks involved in the first three categories (W, X, Y, above) will always be there, and this is especially true of first-time heads since there is very little chance that they will be in the top category. -- -- Common types of incompetence in heads (and others) There are several very different types of incompetence, including the following: o lack of knowledge (e.g. about the history of the department, or about the requirements of some sub-disciplines in the department, or about the achievements of some members of the department, or about the workings of the university), o lack of ability to control meetings, o lack of judgement in making appointments and other matters, o inability to get tasks done by deadlines, o lack of understanding risk management and lack of risk management skills, o inability to communicate well with particular categories of people (students, non-academic staff, colleagues, people from other schools, senior managers), o inability to explain reasons for complex decisions even when they are good decisions, o inability to cope with the emotional strains generated by problems and disagreements, o inability to cope with criticism from others (whether justified or not), o unjustified personal bias against individuals or certain classes of individuals, or even certain classes of research topics or teaching, o inability to limit the time taken by administrative jobs, o inattention to detail on management issues, o inability to grasp complex interactions between different needs, o inability to understand subtle causal relationships due to social dynamics, o inability to balance the needs of different groups within the school, o inability to balance the needs of the school and the university, o inability to balance needs of teaching and research, o inability to understand the viewpoint of others with different perspectives, o excessive concern with personal image or ambitions, and inability to recognize one's own weaknesses and their impact on others, and many more. The management systems being developed in universities may work very well for the heads in the top group, who lack these deficiencies. For less competent heads in the other groups it is essential that mechanisms be in place to compensate for things that actually go wrong and also to help prevent some of the things that could go wrong because of the partial or total unsuitability of heads for that role. Such mechanisms certainly add predictable costs to the running of the university, for the sake of preventing errors and failures with unpredictable costs. But that is no different from other cases where costs have to be incurred to increase reliability of a complex system: good risk management involves deciding which costs are worth while. -- -- Standard checks and balances are inadequate The sorts of mechanisms normally proposed in Universities (e.g. consulting members of departments before appointment of heads, voting for heads, requiring certain decisions to be taken by a school committee, etc.) do not come close to meeting the requirement for checks and balances. In part this is because current management procedures are driven mainly by the need to save on explicit predictable costs (e.g. staff time) -- perhaps under the influence of out of date information about management in industry. In addition, I think that most university managers do not understand the risks. Many of them will never have had personal experience of these risks because they are themselves academics who have had "successful" careers. It is also the case that many academics simply do not understand that providing an apparently good mechanism for SELECTING heads of schools is not an adequate way to avoid the risks. For example someone who is thought by everyone to be likely to be a good head may be unable to cope with the strains, or may be corrupted in subtle and unexpected ways by having too much power. A good SELECTION process is NEVER enough, any more than hiring good pilots is enough to prevent airline disasters. The additional mechanisms require a higher communication bandwith between members of a school and senior management and explicit provision for alternative communication channels. Some commercial organisations acknowledge this by explicitly encouraging communication from all members of the company to senior staff, and by making sure that there are downward information flow channels that do not depend on individual managers passing information downwards. -- -- Why additional mechanisms will be opposed Unfortunately, these extra mechanisms required to reduce the risks in having less than perfect heads will make life more complicated and less pleasant for senior managers, so they can be expected to be opposed to them. This is the reaction I have seen whenever the suggestion is made to senior managers in universities. This opposition needs to be understood and undermined by rational argument not emotional appeals to notions of democracy or whatever. -- Some suggestions to address these points --------------------------- -- -- Well designed management committees within schools or departments It is sometimes suggested that a relatively large and representative departmental committee meeting a few times a year to discuss policy issues and other things will suffice to constrain the head. However, there are many kinds of important decisions heads have to take which occur far more frequently than such committee meetings can possibly occur, especially committees of the size required to meet the need for full involvement and "ownership" of major strategic decisions within the school. Moreover, some of the regularly occurring problems are too sensitive to be discussed before a full school committee. It is therefore desirable that every school or department be OBLIGED to do what is already done in many departments where heads appreciate these points, namely set up some sort of SMALL management committee which the head must consult regularly either by email or in weekly or fortnightly or monthly meetings. The appropriate size of the group and the frequency of meetings will depend on the school, the experience of the head, and how well established the culture in the school is. Where people have been working together successfully for a long time there is more scope for mutual trust, with fewer checks and balances. Where there are many new people, including new senior people the needs are different. (In my school the management group mostly meets once a week for an hour or more.) Exactly how the group should be constituted and how its members are selected can be left for each school to decide: but the mechanism should be approved by the school committee and its nature reported centrally (e.g. to the Dean or a senior management committee). Where appropriate the school could be advised by the university on ways to improve the arrangements proposed. A number of good models could be available as a guide. Of course, it is also to be expected that additional more specialised committees will be needed for dealing with various technical and academic issues, e.g. development of new courses, examining, etc. -- -- Staffing issues Some of the issues a head needs to address, e.g. staff promotions, increments, etc. involve individual members of staff and cannot be discussed in school committees, and in some cases they may also not be appropriate for a small management committee which helps the head with most issues. It is not appropriate that the head alone be consulted on such matters. In fact it can be regarded as SERIOUS MISMANAGEMENT by vice chancellors or other officers if they ask heads to comment in confidence on colleagues without ensuring that there is some check on what the head says within the school and always a second opinion from within the school. This is because there are often cases where a less than perfect head has a personal bias against an individual requesting promotion, or doesn't have a balanced view regarding the needs of different subgroups in the school, or is not sufficiently thorough about collecting information relevant to making such judgements about colleagues, or has not been in the university long enough to know all the relevant facts, or.... (About 8 years ago the AUT Bulletin published a paper of mine criticising the growing post-Jarratt tendency to increase the powers of heads. As a result I received several confidential letters with examples illustrating the problems. I have also witnessed such cases in several universities.) One way to deal with the problem of reporting on individual members is to require each school to set up a small group of senior members of the school to function as a staffing committee, and to be involved within the school in all cases of promotions or discretionary increments. Exactly how this is done could vary from school to school, but some mechanism should be set up which is approved by the school committee, has the confidence of the school, and is reported to the Dean, who should check that it is an appropriate mechanism. The requirement to have such a staffing committee should be written into the formal procedures of the university. Where the head has to report on senior members of the school it could be appropriate to require a process of consultation of the whole school, with the results of the consultation being made available to a senior person outside the school. No formal report from a school on an individual member of staff should ever be accepted unless it has been read and signed by at least one other member of the school than the head (unless it concerns a professor, in which case it will be up to the Dean and/or VC to make sure that the matter is dealt with objectively, e.g. through some approved consultation process). If the head wishes to send in additional informal confidential comments on a member of staff, that is always possible, and that is acceptable as long as there is also a report that is not only from the head. This will ensure that in the case of bias or ignorance in the head the chance of an opposing or moderating view coming from the school is increased, reducing the risk of unfair treatment. It is also morally IRRESPONSIBLE for senior management to ask heads to report on individuals without the individuals knowing that this is happening and what the purpose is. I think it should be illegal. (Perhaps it is?) These procedures may reduce the risk of unfairness, and in addition reduce the risk of bad decisions which lead to litigation or staff members invoking trade unions against the university, etc. They may also reduce the frequency of decisions (e.g. regarding promotions) which produce bitterness and low morale among members of staff: an example of a serious hidden cost of bad management procedures. -- The concept of "line management" is full of risks ------------------ The notion that all important communications between senior management and a school or between schools should primarily go through heads and that only heads should attend major strategic meetings at which issues involving the school are addressed (e.g. implementation plans, and relationships between schools) is fraught with dangers, given the assumptions above. Often in such discussions school representatives need to be able to think on their feet, to remember important relevant facts about the school and the university, to anticipate problems, to find good arguments to convince others in the discussion. Expecting every head to be able to do all this well is expecting far too much. It is especially unreasonable during the first year of headship, and even more so in a university which is reducing the opportunities for potential heads to gain relevant knowledge and experience in advance of becoming heads. In particular a novice head can often be easily out-manoeuvred by a more experienced head from another school where there is a conflict. -- -- Consultation should always involve more than one person It is much easier for senior management to deal with only ONE person at a time, but it is naive to assume that this is an optimal management mechanism when a high proportion of those individuals will be inferior heads in categories W, X, and Y, and especially when some of them are new to the job, even though they have the potential to improve. It is especially difficult for a single head fully to remember and represent all the needs of a large department when having discussions outside the school. -- -- Heads cannot be expected to communicate everything they should Another problem is the requirement of heads to be able to communicate all relevant information to members of the school. Expecting all information coming from above to be properly reported downwards by heads in the lower quality categories is unrealistic. -- More suggestions --------------------------------------------------- For these reasons new mechanisms should be developed. This requires careful analysis, and as ever it is likely that the best solutions will not be found immediately. Careful reviews and evolution will be required. -- -- At least two members of each school at important meetings It should be the norm that at least TWO members of the school always be involved in discussions of strategic plans for a school or department, and not just the head. (This is potentially valuable training for future heads and also reduces the risk of errors being made.) Especially where problematic management issues are discussed with individual heads or small groups of heads, the normal procedure, should be for the head to be accompanied by a member of the school management committee. The normal assumption that problematic issues should be kept confidential may impair problem solving by limiting the number of really good brains contributing to the problem and preventing a full flow of information relevant to finding the solution. -- -- Circulation of notes of high level meetings Where senior managers (e.g. vice chancellors) address meetings of heads, they should ensure that the most important points are recorded and also circulated in some other form (e.g. electronically) to a wider audience. (Obviously there will be a few cases where this is inappropriate because they concern named individuals.) -- -- Reports from heads Whenever a head is asked by some higher authority to provide a report or answer a question about options open to the school, whether this is a report on someone's promotion prospects or a comment on academci or other preferences, the document produced by the head should include the following information: 1. which members of the school were consulted, and in what way 2. whether the consultation process revealed unanimity or at least a consensus regarding a compromise 3. whether a vote was taken and if so what the voting figures were 4. what the dissenting opinions were, if there were any 5. whether the head's recommendation is different from that proposed by the school This will mean that whoever reads the report will not merely know what the head thinks but also how well founded it is. This may be useful information where, for example, a discussion involves two schools where the heads disagree, but most staff in both schools agree with one of the heads. -- -- Mentors for heads Every new head should have a mentor with at least three years experience of headship, for at least the first year. It should not be the Dean to whom the head currently reports. It must be someone who is willing to meet often with the new head, answer frequent questions by email or phone, etc. Whether it is a former head of the same school or an experienced senior member of another school could vary according to circumstances. -- -- Possible objections Of course, these suggestions could make the chairing of some meetings more difficult, but by the time people are in the higher levels of office (Dean, Pro VC, VC etc.) they should already have demonstrated their competence in managing these things. Otherwise they should not have those jobs. There will always be exceptions of course: we've all come across incompetent Deans, Vice Chancellors, etc. However, this increases the need for people other than heads to be present at meetings with senior managers. In general, it is more reasonable to expect that people at senior management levels can cope with the difficulties of larger meetings than that heads can cope with their tasks. -- The Head of School's responsibilities. ----------------------------- Often only "upward" responsibilities are listed in defining the head's responsibilities. E.g. the head is responsible to the Dean for some things and to the Vice chancellor for others. There should also be "downward" responsibility to the school committee, for example in relation to: o transparency of management, o timely dissemination of information, o ensuring wide consultation on matters of general importance to the school o fairness in allocation of resources, teaching loads, etc. o fairness in dealing with promotions, discretionary increments, etc. -- -- Deputy heads The need for a "deputy" head is often acknowledged, though sometimes only in relation to chairing meetings when the head is absent. This is only one of many roles that are normally fulfilled by the head which will often have to be taken on by someone else because the head is absent -- including: signing documents, dealing with student problems, dealing with urgent requests from members of staff, resolving conflicts, etc.. The person with all these functions should be designated Deputy Head of School, and the head should be obliged to keep the deputy sufficiently well informed to be able to cope alone when necessary. In a large school there may be a need for more than one deputy, in case problems arise when both are away, e.g. during the summer conference period. In some cases the deputy head would be the obvious person to accompany the head to meetings with senior management. This is especially relevant where the deputy is the person likely to be the next head, and therefore in need of relevant experience and knowledge. It is perhaps worth mentioning that in many other contexts (e.g. parliament, company board meetings) the chief executive is not allowed to chair meetings. There are good reasons for this. Perhaps heads should not normally chair departmental meetings, only deputy heads? -- -- Should only professors be heads? It is often assumed that only professors should be heads or that the normal expectation of every professor should be to take on headship at intervals. I think that this is one of those many traditional ideas widely accepted in universitys that are misguided and counter productive. I see no evidence that in general the main abilities for which professors are appointed, namely outstanding research, intellectual leadership, inspiring teaching, should be correlated with the ability to perform well as a head, which increasingly involves spending considerable amounts of time on management, dealing with ever new detailed requirements coming from other parts of the university or from government, handling difficult members of staff or difficult student cases, representing the school in a range of committees. There could be a recognised career path for very able, conscientious, reliable people who are not capable of being professors to make a significant contribution to the university by taking their turn at being head. There might be extra financial rewards for non-professorial heads. Of course, even if they are not heads, professors can be expected to play a major role in helping to run the school and the suggestions made above would give them opportunities to do so. A university which adopted this strategy and made it publicly known might suddently discover that the task of recruiting outstanding professors had become easier. -- Appointing committees ---------------------------------------------- This University seems to have inherited a notion of appointing committee structure which was probably first devised when faculties had far more power and authority. In particular, the requirement that normally only TWO members of the school should be on each lectureship appointing committee (the head and one other) is not appropriate in cases where the selection is not a foregone conclusion, though it is probably a good idea for such committees to be chaired by someone outside the school. -- -- Lectureship and senior lectureship committees The norm for a lectureship or senior lectureship should allow for the fact that although people outside the school may be able to assess some aspects of candidates, the final selection may require analysis of relationships between the candidates and various research and teaching activities in the school. So I'd propose wider representation from the school, e.g. (a) Chair appointed by Dean (or Dean) (b) Head of school (or nominee) and one, two or three others according to the school's wishes and the nature of the appointment. (c) One or two people from other schools with relevant concerns (e.g. where the lecturer may be teaching an elective course or service course, or contributing to a joint degree course.) (d) A member of staffing services. Where more than one appointment is being made involving more than one area of teaching a larger committee with more members of the school may be required. -- -- Professorial appointing committees The norm for a professorial appointment panel should allow for more than one member of the school to be involved, not necessarily a professor. I found it amazing that this university recently felt that a single member of a school could suffice when a new chair was to be filled. Some universities where I have been an external assessor have included ALL the professors on the apponiting committee. This certainly reduces the risk of partial information being fed into the final decision making. However, I don't see why there should not be an elected non-professorial member of the school on each chair appointing committee. The notion that only professors can be involved in appointing professors would be further undermined by encouraging non-professorial heads, as suggested above. Chair appointing committees should also have a lay member of council. Not including them expresses a kind of academic arrogance which is unjustifiable. I have seen several cases where such people have given excellent advice, and this could also help to strengthen relations between the university and the community. -- The functions of the School Assembly (or committee) ---------------- Often the definitions of these functions are close to vacuous. A major function usually not listed which should be is To receive and discuss the head of school's annual report to the Vice Chancellor, and the implementation plan for the next session. I am pleased to say that most of what is recommended here is already in place in my own department, with the full concurrence of the head. [end]