“The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”
W B Yates: The Second Coming
CAN THE CENTRE HOLD?
Managing a university through a merger
Dr Maarten J Venter
Executive Advisor (Office of the Vice-Chancellor)
October 2009
STRUCTURE
1. Vision or Organization: which comes first?
2. The processes crucial for stability
3. Tying the processes together
4. The complexity of organization
5. And then?....
VISION OR ORGANIZATION: WHICH COMES
FIRST?
Insights:
– Existing momentum destroyed will be extremely difficult to
regain due to non-merging universities cherry-picking causing
staff-flight followed by student-flight
– Job insecurity is the first killer; then position insecurity; then
general insecurity
VISION OR ORGANIZATION: WHICH COMES
FIRST?
Core decisions:
– Create organizational security and irreversibility of the merger
as a fact, fast
• Do not get bogged down in “policy arguments” or “best of
breed” dreams
– Shared vision only comes after shared trust, and shared trust
comes with face-to-face contact
• Create opportunities for face-to-face contact
– Focus a significant part of management on keeping and
improving core business activities
VISION OR ORGANIZATION: WHICH COMES
FIRST?
Central Philosophy driving the structure:
• A specific individual must be solely accountable for the
performance of each operational unit; given adequate
direction and resources and the choice to consult
• Units must be grouped to enhance coordination of
institutional output; and grouping may not impinge on
accountability
– Hence a simple divisional structure of “head office for policy and
shared support” and three fully operational campuses
STRUCTURE
VISION OR ORGANIZATION: WHICH COMES
FIRST?
ViceChancellor
Institutional
Office
Campus Rector
Mafikeng
campus
Campus Rector
Potchefstroom
campus
Campus Rector
Vaal Triangle
campus
VISION OR ORGANIZATION: WHICH COMES
FIRST?
Campus Rector
Campus Vice-rector: Academic
Campus Vice-rector: Quality and Planning
Campus Registrar
Campus Director: Finance and Facilities
Vice-Chancellor
Institutional Registrar
Executive Director: Teaching and Learning Support
Executive Director: Research Support
Executive Director: HR and OD
Executive Director: IT, Finance, Facilities, Budget
Executive Director: Corporate Communication
VISION OR ORGANIZATION: WHICH COMES
FIRST?
Central Philosophy driving the structure:
• A specific individual must be solely accountable for the
performance of each operational unit; given adequate
direction and resources
• Units must be grouped to enhance coordination of
institutional output; and grouping may not impinge on
accountability
– Hence a simple divisional structure of “head office for policy and
shared support” and three fully operational campuses
– Not all coordination is possible through structure, hence
coordination committees, task-teams and positions (more on this
later)
THE PROCESSES CRUCIAL FOR STABILITY
Two processes were immediately designed and
implemented
• A performance management process with the potential to translate
whatever vision is decided upon, into individual task agreements
– Initially aimed at academic staff
– Tied to organizational outputs as per (existing) plans, e.g.
• Teaching load and throughput
• Research dreams and publications
• Implementation of expertise and contract advantages
– Expanded to support staff in terms of service level agreements
and process improvement
– Supported by frequent eye-to-eye discussions
THE PROCESSES CRUCIAL FOR STABILITY
Two processes were immediately designed and
implemented
• A participative budgeting process to create transparency and trust
around allocation of resources
– The prevalent culture in both organizations was centrally driven
budget allocations after numerous top slices
– Income is now shown where earned and matched to cost
– Cost centres are visible: especially the Institutional Office as it is
carried by contributions from other business units;
– Budgetary centres are created down to sub-school level to
enhance ownership
– An ERP system assist in moving the culture from expense
control to variance management
TYING THE PROCESSES TOGETHER
As trust developed, staff themselves recognized the need
for a common vision and pressure to create one, grew
• Shared vision must define the mountain and intermediate hilltops in
such a way that we all “journey towards the same mountain”
• Time spent on semantics might seem to be time lost, but this is the
beginning of a new vocabulary
• We had a few iterations but we aimed for a balance between change
and stability: vision – stable; mission – fairly stable; mission
elements – fairly stable; goals – adaptable
TYING THE PROCESSES TOGETHER
An obvious necessity
– A properly documented (rolling) Institutional Plan is essential
– The plan should be based on the goals (and vice versa)
– “Plan your work, then work your plan” implies no “other”, “extra”
or “unwritten” goals
– “Not-to-do” lists are becoming as important as “To-do” lists
• Initially “The IP” was centrally ‘collated’ and ownership got lost
• Now planning is much more decentralized, given the participatively
created goals, mission elements and mission
• It will always be an iterative process, preceding the also iterative
budget process
THE COMPLEXITY OF ORGANIZATION
An organization structure is created as part of the effort to
coordinate organizational output
– It can never fulfil all coordination needs
– One must decide what coordination will be done through
structure, and what through other means
• We decided geographical accountability is of prime
importance, and structured around that, but
• A divisional structure always creates diversity, hence
• We needed to create lateral structures to build unity:
– Standing academic committees of Senate to coordinate
curriculum output
– The central performance measures of Institutional Office
staff drive their effort toward integration
– Senior Management meetings to share vocabulary and
values
THE COMPLEXITY OF ORGANIZATION
Many issues remain to be addressed:
– What organizational coordinating elements are still missing?
– How dynamically to balance unity needs with diversity pressures?
– What to centralize and what not?
– Where to best locate new elements?
However, these are all “normal” issues of a divisional structure
Valuable lessons learnt:
– Distinguish between atoms and bits in the centralization debate
– Invest in formalized face-to-face coordination meetings
– Learn from others, but recognize the importance of context
– Implement stopping rules and “not to do” disciplines
– Tension between the centre and campuses will exist and is
energizing but must be managed
AND THEN?.....
Perennial topics for attention:
–
–
–
–
The “crucial few” useful internal metrics
Performance contracting with academics
Benchmarking, external comparisons and definitions
Snapshots vs. longitudinal studies
Lessons learnt:
– Metric overload is easy and destroys steering capability
– Sectoral agreement on definition and method is needed for
serious benchmarking, else it is a marketing game
– Sectoral approach to the inherent time lag is needed
– It is easy to become “academic” in university management, that
is, still more insight but no plan
– Impressive qualifications do not imply good management skill
The centre can hold, but not without huge effort
If you are interested to discuss any aspect in more detail, please contact me:
[email protected]
Landline: +27 18 299 4905
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION