Herding Cats

Graeme Davies

Description

The book's four sections - Understanding the Culture; Getting the Job done; Managing the People and Leading Strategically - reflect upon the dilemmas, tensions and pressures that face any new - and indeed current - leader in an academic environment

Sujets

• Gestion et management

Informations

• Publié par: Triarchy Press
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908009104
• Langue: English

Extrait

Herding Cats
Being advice to aspiring academic and research leaders
Geoff Garrett and Graeme Davies
Published in this first edition in 2010 by: Triarchy Press Station Offices Axminster Devon. EX13 5PF United Kingdom
[phone] [e-mail] http://www.triarchypress.com
Reprinted December 2010. Published as ePub by Triarchy Press in 2010.
Geoff Garrett and Graeme Davies 2010.
The right of Geoff Garrett and Graeme Davies to be identified as the authors of this book has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover artwork by Walter Pichler
ISBN: 9781908009104
www.herdingcatsbook.org
Triarchy Press is an independent publishing house that looks at how organisations work and how to make them work better. We present challenging perspectives on organisations in short and pithy, but rigorously argued, books.
For more information about Triarchy Press, or to order any of our publications, please visit our website or drop us a line:
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Cats will not be commanded and can choose their owner
Valeria Manferto De Fabianis (ed.) Cats (White Star Publishers, 2007)
For Janet and Florence - caring and staunch supporters throughout all our professional ups and downs
CONTENTS
AUTHORS FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
HOW THE BOOK WORKS
INTRODUCTION
A: UNDERSTANDING THE CULTURE
1. Aspects of the CULTURE
2. On CONFLICT
3. The difficulty of COLLABORATION and boundary crossing
B: GETTING THE JOB DONE
4. Taking CHARGE
5. COMPOSURE under pressure and the implementation imperative
6. COMMITTEES etc.
7. Managing the CASH
C: MANAGING THE PEOPLE
8. COLLEAGUES not subordinates ( It s all about the people )
9. COMMUNICATION, COMMUNICATION, COMMUNICATION
10. Giving CREDIT
D: LEADING STRATEGICALLY
11. Strategy is about CHOICE
12. Leading and managing CHANGE
POSTSCRIPT - A CLOSING THOUGHT
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
INDEX
AUTHORS FOREWORD
Over much of the forty years we have known each other, we have enjoyed trading war stories around what we have learned, and observed, about the business of managing/leading academic and research institutions - effectively, and otherwise. As a consequence, we committed to the discipline of putting pen to paper in terms of a small guidebook for aspiring (and practising) leaders in our work-world.
It is well known that most academics and researchers like to exercise as much independence as possible in their professional lives. So in offering advice, somewhat tentatively, around leading and managing academics and researchers, the well-known idea of herding cats seemed to us an appropriate metaphor.
As a central part of the process of creating this book, we recognised that it would be extremely valuable to tap into the wisdom and experience of a number of the senior leaders around the world with whom we have interacted over the years, and whom we have admired. From their responses, coupled with our own perspectives, we realised that we might pull together some key lessons that could be worth recording, and sharing.
To this end we posed a series of questions, along the lines of...
What do you know now that you wish you had known back then - when you commenced - or got immersed in - your leadership career?
If you are mentoring a new leader - a head of department, a dean, a programme manager - what would you wish to share, concisely, about operations ?... about strategy ?
What are your favourite war stories ? - providing lessons that we might share with our prospective audience - about herding cats ?
What, in your opinion, brings out the best (and worst) in your people?
This modest volume is what resulted.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There s an old Chinese saying: An evening across the table with a wise man is worth a month of study in books . We have had the good fortune of many such interactions over the years - perhaps not always a full evening (or even a dinner), but quality time in conversation with wise and informed men and women. Their ideas and experiences have helped forge our own thinking, and are greatly appreciated.
We hope our distillation of their thoughts, and our own, will merit your study.
We are especially indebted to the following people for helping us in our quest. Their various contributions, non-attributed, appear (in indented italics) throughout our text.
Joan Adams - Vice President, Battelle, USA
Rich Adams - Senior Vice President, Battelle, USA
Stephen Akers - Consultant, Mollis, Switzerland
Bridget Allchin - formerly of Wolfson College, Cambridge, UK
Michael Barber - Vice-Chancellor, Flinders University, Australia
Michael Battaglia - Theme Leader, CSIRO, Australia
Robin Batterham - Rio Tinto Corporation and formerly Chief Scientist, Government of Australia
Curtis Carlson - Chief Executive, SRI International, Menlo Park, USA
Ian Chubb - Vice-Chancellor, Australian National University, Australia
Geoffrey Crossick - Warden, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Glyn Davis - Vice-Chancellor, University of Melbourne, Australia
Ian Dean - Leadership consultant, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Annie Duncan - formerly Chief Executive, Questacon, Australia
Peter Duncan - formerly Chief Executive, Shell Australia
David Eastwood - Vice-Chancellor, Birmingham University, UK
Charles Elachi - Director, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA
Boel Flodgren - Professor of Law, and former President of Lund University, Sweden
Margaret Gardner - Vice-Chancellor, RMIT University, Australia
John Greene - University of Cape Town, South Africa
Julia Goodfellow - Vice-Chancellor, University of Kent, UK
Paul Greenfield - Vice-Chancellor, University of Queensland, Australia
Peter H j - Vice-Chancellor, University of South Australia, Australia
Richard Larkins - formerly Vice-Chancellor, Monash University, Australia
Erkki Leppavuori - President and CEO, VTT Technical Research Centre, Finland
Ramesh Mashelkar - formerly Director General, CSIR National Laboratories, India
Graham Mitchell - Chief Executive, Foursight Associates, Australia
Robert Morris - formerly Director, IBM Almaden Research Center, now Vice President, Services Research, IBM, USA
Gus Nossal - formerly Director, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Australia
Jim Peacock - CSIRO, formerly Chief Scientist, Government of Australia
David Penington - formerly Vice-Chancellor, University of Melbourne, Australia
Max Price - Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Alan Robson - Vice-Chancellor, University of Western Australia
Craig Roy - Executive Director, Human Resources, Safety and Sustainability, CSIRO, Australia
Louise Ryan - Chief, Mathematical and Information Sciences, CSIRO, Australia
Ron Sandland - formerly Deputy Chief Executive, CSIRO, Australia
Bernard Shapiro - formerly Principal, McGill University, Canada
Margaret Sheil - Chief Executive, Australian Research Council, Australia
Adrian Smith - Director General for Science and Research, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, UK
George Smith - University of Oxford, UK
Mark Stafford-Smith - CSIRO, and formerly CEO, Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre, Australia
Ian Steadman - Director of Development, Oxford Brookes University, UK
John Stuckey - former Managing Partner, McKinsey Company, Australia
Mandy Thomas - Pro Vice-Chancellor, Australian National University, Australia
Rick Trainor - Principal, King s College London, UK
David Watson - formerly Vice-Chancellor, University of Brighton, UK
Paul Wellings - Vice-Chancellor, Lancaster University, UK
Bert Westwood - formerly Corporate Vice President of Research and Technology, Lockheed Martin Corporation, USA
David Williams - President, University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA
John Wood - Imperial College, London; formerly Chief Executive of the Central Laboratories of the Research Councils, UK
Alex Zelinsky - Group Executive, CSIRO, Australia
* * *
We are particularly indebted to Ian Dean, David Williams and John Wood who generously gave of their time, not only to share their insights, but as key readers of the manuscript, offering numerous helpful suggestions.
Two texts, in particular, provided us with inspiration - in very different ways, indeed chalk and cheese some might say: Francis Cornford s Microcosmographia Academica , which first appeared in 1908, and from which we have borrowed the sentiment for our title; and Robert Townsend s Up the Organisation (1970) which provided a helpful, alphabetical taxonomy for arranging the substantial feedback we have received. These two volumes, written six decades apart, are also direct and to the point, a practice which we have tried to model in our own text.
We are also grateful to Sean Davies of Cordiner King Associates Pty Ltd, Melbourne, for providing copies of their excellent career booklets ( Taking Charge and Maintaining the Balance ) which provided us with a guide to the useful consultation and quotation approach we have employed, we hope with positive effect.
Special thanks are due to Biddy Greene of Cape Town for editorial support - without her eagle-eyed professionalism and her cheerful, constructive input we would have had a much less polished manuscript. Also to our publishers, Triarchy Press, specifically the enthusiasm, advice and commitment of Managing Editors Matthew Fairtlough and Imogen Fallows.
Finally, we would again like to acknowledge, with thanks, the encouragement and learning opportunities provided,