Power Failure in Administrative Environments

• Do you believe you possess the requisite power and influence to effectuate your decisions? Discuss why (or why not) this is the case.
• What strategies do you employ to accomplish things (tasks, ideas to action)? How do you implement a decision once it is made? What organizational characteristics do you consider as you are trying to effectuate your ideas?
• Why are some administrators in academic organizations more powerful (influential and effective) than others? For example, why are some people able to implement their decisions while others cannot? How do executives maintain power and influence in your institution?

1. We express our appreciation to Dr. Patricia Gumport, associate professor and director, National Center for Postscondaary Improvement, Stanford University, for her assistance in this project; and Brian Fijal, retired vice president; and Professor Alexander Gregor, former director, Center for Higher Education Research and Development, University of Manitoba.

2. A complete list of institutions where our respondents worked can be found in Appendix I.


• What are the foundations of power in colleges and universities? How does a person gain power, and what is it based upon? What are the behavioral patterns of powerful administrators? What is their management style and how do they attain goals? How do powerful administrators get things done? What are their fundamental strategies and tactics?

• There is clearly a failure in the power circuits at the University of the Southland. No group or individual has the requisite will, authority, skill, power, or influence to steer the system away from the impending chaos. The Senate, union, administration, and faculty have different priorities. Each power bloc cancels the actions of the other. Individuals and groups are paralyzed. Taking an action or making a decision may offend someone, help an adversary, seem politically incorrect, and/or hurt a personal or group agenda. Too many people are involved! There is an overemphasis on "process" and underemphasis on obtaining results or concrete objectives. There is no coherent structure to address problems that span academic and staff related jurisdictions. Committees are formed, disbanded, and formed again, but there is rarely closure on the "mission" of a particular program, unit, or committee.
  
• Systems (or people) rarely engage in the proactive exercises needed to avoid crisis. Once again, in hindsight, their vision will be 20-20. Would it have not been easier to devise a proactive approach; reach out to the Teamsters, endeavor to make them into allies, not adversaries? Certainly, the Teamsters have better things to do than call in hard earned "due bills" on behalf of the graduate students, because they are not a core Teamster constituency. Warring factions in the chancellor's office coupled with campus system "politics" prevented any one group or individual from having the clout to steer the system toward a different approach.
  
• Academic administrators abhorred working with the Teamsters or unions of graduate students, but they lacked the experience and expertise to realize what an enraged Teamster local could do. At this juncture, campus food deliveries have stopped, the unionized engineers are not working on heating and air conditioning systems, etc. However, none of these issues was forecasted or brought forward at so many vice presidential and Deans Council meetings. In fact, the "right" people do not attend these meetings, and, when they do, academic administrators may dismiss the labor and human resources staff: who are "they" to tell "us" how to run our school! At this point, we can be sure the governor's staff will!
  
• A lack of respect between campus and system officials destroyed an opportunity for a working partnership. Ruptured personal relationships at the executive and senior levels in the OC also hurt. What could have been done to address these issues? Why wasn't a strategic plan or a structured decision-making process in place, where actions and ideas could have been considered in a less politicized environment? It is too easy to blame the chancellor in this context -- which is what will happen inevitably.
  
• A changing of the guard in the governor's office should have precipitated a reappraisal of system actions and strategies at the state capital. Instead, folks in the system were reluctant or too complacent to reexamine fundamental assumptions and operating procedures. Also, why rock the boat when people are thinking about retirement?
  
• Once again, an unmanaged human resources issue serves as a focal point for conflict and will ultimately lead to the departure of a chancellor, presidents, vice presidents, and deans.
  
• The chancellor, who was not without fault, was not well served by his own staff. In a real sense, he lacked ideas and the power to force the partnerships needed to manage this issue, power and influence having been decentralized or diffused through a myriad of systemwide councils.
  
• As conflict increases, the likelihood that third parties will dictate system actions increases. A system in paralysis serves as a pretext for the involvement of other agencies and individuals who may not have the system's best interests in mind. Certainly, no one at the OC or on campus was prepared to recognize the dangers of moving forward without an agreed upon strategy and action plan, nor were they sophisticated enough to appreciate the damage the Teamsters could inflict at the state capital and on the system. An ambivalent Senate played into the hands of more militant faculty factions at the University. Eventually, the governor will force the issue to be resolved. He could care less how the academic Senate feels.
  
  Our framework provides the following analysis on the administrative environment in the distance-learning case.
  

• There was a lack of up-front conceptualization of the issue, potential problems, and consequences. Although the provost assumed responsibility, he never really had control of a project that required the agreement and cooperation of other faculty and administrators. A business plan, with expenses and projected revenues was never completed. The chief business officer reacted to data built on soft assumptions. The administrative consequences of implementing distance-learning programs were not fully thrashed out. This is not uncommon in meetings where the required time is not allotted or because of the political nature of academic life, not everyone who knows the most is always consulted. At many meetings, who speaks is often related to one's status, those with lesser status often not wanting to look silly or sound ignorant.
  
• The provost did not get requisite commitment from the deans and failed to grasp the consequences of not having key faculty and department heads on board. In fact, the deans may have lied to or misled the provost. The provost was not savvy enough to realize what was happening until it was too late. Indeed, the Arts and Humanities dean may have been aware of the reaction of his senior faculty and simply took no action to warn anyone or discourage debate. Why should the dean stick his neck out when he knows the faculty would have then focused on him? In this case, the Arts and Humanities dean simply followed orders which, in academe, can be the same as sabotaging a supervisor.
  
• The lack of adequate consultation coupled with the arrival of a paid consultant created a leadership vacuum. Once the consultant delivered a report, the project gained legitimacy in the eyes of the president. Consultants can create a dynamic of their own. At this phase of the process, the provost should have taken a reality check, obtained explicit commitments from key players, and, perhaps of greater importance, he should have been more direct with the president.
  
• The old quip, "friends come and go, but enemies remain," holds true in this case. The provost underestimated the strength and the zeal of the dean and certainly did not take seriously the actions of the dean vis-à-vis senior faculty. In this case, the dean felt strongly enough to put his own job on the line. A number of questions arise: was the dean doing the right thing for himself, for faculty, or for the institution? In whose best interests was the dean acting? Did the dean plan for or encourage faculty to react as they did when he announced he would resign? Or, was the dean a truly authentic individual who realized he may not have been the right person to oversee the project?
  
• It is apparent that when an individual "puts his or her job on the line," the stakes are high. Those who are willing to risk confrontation in this context often prevail. Individuals who have real power and influence are still standing when the dust settles after the conflict. Conflicting issues and ideas often provide the necessary stage to determine who really has authority and "pull" and who does not! What seems so evident after the fact is sometimes not as clear when parties embark on a course of action!
  
• Colleges and universities are governed in ways that make it difficult to hold people accountable, particularly in academic divisions. Relieving a dean of his or her job often sends the person back to the faculty where he or she earns a comparable salary as that of dean, work fewer hours, and don't supervise anyone. It is difficult, but not impossible, to "manage" deans or faculty in the traditional sense. This characteristic of academic administration must be considered before situations arise where one executive may endeavor to hold another accountable.
  
• It would appear that other senior executives did not step in to assist the provost. Worse, they may not have been cultivated to become allies in times like this.
  
• The incentive issue caused tension which finally boiled over. Faculty often resent situations where colleagues are awarded extra compensation for work others consider part of a regular workload. The introduction of new ideas demands concomitant incentives to implement ideas. In this case, what may have worked as an incentive for one project, may be viewed as a disincentive by others.
  

• The president's initial error was to inaccurately gauge the possible consequences and reactions to this program initiative. Here is a classic case of a "top-down" rather than a "bottom-up" management style. While it is possible to generate ideas, at the level of president, provost, or Council of Deans, ideas are effectuated by others. More importantly, in academic institutions, those who implement ideas must have a stake in their outcome, a "buy in," and they must "believe" in program goals. In this way, if problems occur, budgets must be readjusted, and everyone accepts the consequences and searches for a solution. The chances of success are enhanced if the implications of proposals are known, people are warned of possible consequences, and key players are not bypassed.
  
• The president was too isolated and relied too heavily on the provost's opinion. This is understandable, but it was fatal for the provost in this case. Perhaps the president should have taken a more active role when controversy ensued. Maybe the provost should not have been the point person. He could have requested a more detailed analysis of the proposal or asked if the project could be given a "sheltered" start in another smaller division. Perhaps he could have diffused the apparent confrontation between two trusted senior executives: the provost and the dean. Here again, one can think of arguments and reasons why the president should or should not have gotten involved.
  
• All parties to disputes should realize that in academe, unlike many organizations, issues get reopened on a regular basis. We refer to this trait as an "issue carousel." Faculty, for example, may feel no compulsion toward abiding by a decision made at the last senate meeting. Memories are short, players come and go. There is a tendency to reopen issues, even after a decision is made and strategy to implement them agreed upon. The president made the mistake of reassuring board members without really being able to deliver on this project. Board members, in turn, fundamentally misunderstood the nature of influence and authority in academic environments -- (e.g., they assumed a "dean" can simply order the faculty to do something). The trustees' conception of power was "positional" and "hierarchical." The president did not dispel this myth and was thus eventually exposed to his own board.
  

1. Structure Decision-Making Processes
   
2. argue that decisions in and of themselves do not result in action. More efficient and concrete outcomes arise when decisional processes used to implement decisions are managed and structured: meaning that committees are appointed, tasks are defined, priorities are set, and perhaps most important, core constituencies and key individuals are given a vested interest in outcomes. The most effective decision-making structures are those that blend ad hoc and permanent constituent members who are given legitimacy through a formal appointment. The right people must be appointed regardless of their status. Committee processes must be managed carefully, or endless debate may ensue. This kind of structured approach enables administrators to implement decisions even if they lack the "status" of president. Structured decisional processes, when used correctly, preclude an "end run." Committees that mandate everyone "agree" with the process (even if individuals may disagree with a specific recommendation) can be especially effective when (as is often the case) decisions and recommendations cross formal jurisdictional lines.
   

1. Strategic Positioning