Jump Level Leadership: A Management Strategy at the University of Miami Copyright 1992 CAUSE From _CAUSE/EFFCET_ Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 1992. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its date appear,and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information resources in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission.For further information, contact CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301, 303-449-4430, e-mail info@CAUSE.colorado.edu JUMP LEVEL LEADERSHIP: A MANAGEMENT STRATEGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI by M. Lewis Temares and Ruben Lopez ************************************************************************ M. Lewis Temares is the CIO and Vice President for Information Resources at the University of Miami. He is responsible for computing, telecommunications, planning, institutional research, and the testing center. A past chair of the CAUSE Board of Directors, he has presented, published, and consulted in the areas of management, information systems, planning, and statistics. He has an MS from the City University of New York (CUNY), an MBA from Baruch College, and a Ph.D. in statistics/marketing from CUNY. Ruben Lopez is the Director of Computer and Network Services for Information Resources at the University of Miami. His responsibilities include production systems support, security and control, quality assurance, technical support, data center operations, and telecommunications department operations. Since joining the University in 1983, he has also been a consultant to various private sector businesses. He has a BS and MS in mathematics and physics from Florida State University, and an MBA from the University of Miami. ************************************************************************ ABSTRACT: The University of Miami Information Resources department developed and instituted a program called "jump level leadership" in 1989 to open lines of communication between all of its hierarchical levels. Results of the ongoing program have included a free flow of ideas within the department, organizational changes, and happier, more effective employees. This article discusses the successes, problems, and benefits of jump level leadership at UM.M Maintaining a high level of customer service is essential to a college or university's information resources organization. But it must come from a sound organizational structure, one in which the lowest-level staff person is as committed to the organization as the vice president. To get such commitment, organizational goals and direction must be communicated to every level of staff. When management communicates mixed or unclear messages to their employees, customers suffer. The Information Resources (IR) department at the University of Miami[1] initiated an information technology study for the University to get a sense of how well we were serving our customers and determine what more we could do for them in the future. Focus groups gathered information from faculty, students, and administrators on research, instructional, and administrative tasks and the manner in which new technology might enhance their efforts. The message that came back from our constituencies was: "We will no longer accept poor service or pay outrageous prices for inferior products." We judged such dissatisfaction to be the result of poor management and a weak, uncommitted staff. So before we turned our attention to developing a customer service strategy, we initiated a program called "jump level leadership" (JLL) to address the issue of effective communication within our organization. Jump level leadership process The University of Miami's IR organizational structure is hierarchical, with line staff at the "bottom" of the hierarchy, and supervisors, middle managers, senior staff, and the vice president forming the pyramid above them. The jump level leadership process consists of every level of management in the hierarchy conducting meetings with every level below them and their respective staff until the vice president and every manager meet with the staff at the lowest organizational level. JLL is a potentially dangerous strategy. Lower-level managers--or really any manager below the vice president--can feel threatened by employees "going over their heads" to meet with higher-level managers. Thus the vice president for information resources initiated the program by meeting with managers directly beneath him, and working his way down through management and staff before other managers began the process. In this way, the JLL concept could be explained by personal example and be bought into by everyone. JLL was implemented by involving all levels in the organization. The vice president met with his senior staff to schedule the first meeting with their immediate subordinates. The meetings were conducted with no senior staff present. The middle managers were instructed to schedule meetings with their respective immediate subordinates (in this case, the supervisors). The supervisors were instructed to schedule meetings with their subordinates. While the vice president was conducting his top-to-bottom JLL meetings with all the units in the organization, the senior staff started their JLL within their units. At the same time, the lower levels (middle management and supervisors) began their JLL processes. All levels of management were therefore involved in the process as both meeting goers and meeting givers. The first round of staff interviews, taking place over a few days, disclosed apprehension and insecurity about the JLL process at all levels of the organization, with line management feeling it was losing control over its staff and that its leadership was being questioned. Therefore, additional jump level meetings were scheduled for the following month at all levels of the organization, to both further acclimate everyone to the JLL concept, and get beyond it to find and address problems. The information gathered at these meetings was broken into three categories: critical problems, common-sense inputs, and improvement suggestions. The process exposed a rigid bureaucratic structure that bred poor customer service. The effective "open door" policy of jump level leadership brought to our attention an unwillingness among our staff to accept the rigid autocratic system implemented in some of the operational areas. We also found ample evidence of not enough staff input in some areas, or failure of management to act on staff input. For example, staff members had developed a documented procedure for an automated emergency system, but it was not implemented by management; other, comparable requests had reached a dead-end at middle management. In many cases, the dissatisfaction stemmed from relatively minor and easily solved problems. For example, the vice president's first meeting with the second-shift computer operators generated a list of twenty-seven requests from the operators. The first item was rechargeable batteries that would act as a back-up power supply for the lights in the computer room. The request had apparently been made of their managers but there was no follow-through. The morning after the meeting the manager of operations delivered the batteries. Some of the other twenty-six items were as easily handled, some took longer, and some were refused. But the staff saw immediate results and was kept informed of the status of its requests by its manager, and therefore felt better heard by management. Jump level leadership impact and benefits The information uncovered and ideas generated by the JLL process impacted all levels of the IR department and led to a number of changes within the department. The IR organization was flattened by re-assigning middle levels of management and, in some cases, eliminating layers altogether. The middle managers in computer operations decentralized the responsibilities of hiring, firing, and performance appraisals to the shift supervisors. Middle managers continue to be responsible for the efficiency of their departments by fulfilling the contracted service levels. Telecommunications operations hired an end-user customer service manager with responsibility for customer training, help desk implementation, newsletters, and generation of user guides. Other units within Information Resources are also introducing and implementing customer service programs, based on ideas that emerged from the free flow of information in the JLL process. All levels of the organization, as well as our customers, benefited from JLL. Before JLL, middle managers in computer operations had to rely on the power of their offices to force staff to get things done. JLL, by seeking input from employees, increased their enthusiasm and team spirit, so they now willingly put extra effort into their jobs. IR staff department-wide started working more as a team, treating each other as allies rather than subordinates. The entire organization's support has been enlisted to implement staff and customer suggestions and provide staff with career paths. If a staff person has a large number of allies throughout the organization--be they peers or subordinates--he or she will have a good support network willing to put out extra effort to help the staffer and the organization achieve goals. When such teamwork is established, even people who were not allies pitch in because they want to be a part of a winning team. What was altered most was attitude; our internal customers--our own staff--benefited greatly from the changes. And with this consequence, noticeable change in behaviors and services could be observed by the external customers--the University community. Other University departments have seen the change in attitude and level of service brought on by staff empowerment. User requests are being made right to the people who can fulfill them, rather than through traditional bureaucratic channels. Turn-around on telecommunications repairs has dropped from 10-14 days to one day. Requests for programming changes are being prioritized with the project manager. A letter was sent to the community disclosing our progress on their comments from focus groups and surveys. These were concrete results from jump level leadership. Surprise! Surprise! Top IR management had some serious concerns when they initiated JLL. First, would the process controls in place disintegrate because of staff bypassing their managers and going "straight to the top"? Second, would so much time be spent on JLL meetings that work-in-process would increase, along with scheduled project implementation dates, resulting in lower productivity? Happily, neither event occurred. In the first instance, because all managers participated in JLL and kept abreast of its findings, they opened their channels of communication wider with their own staff, actually reducing the need to go "straight to the top." Suggestions, awards, employee-of-the-month recognitions, and quarterly breakfasts for the entire organization were instituted, negating most feelings of neglect at all levels. Promises of follow-ups were immediately fulfilled by status reports and more ideas with promises of follow-ups. In terms of effect on workload, because of the group discussions and the educating of management at JLL meetings, time was actually saved and project deadlines were met early. For example, the online systems were able to stay real-time for three hours longer each day as a result of operators' comments passed on to programmers who did not realize there was a problem with the daily "production window." Some code changes to vendor software alleviated pressure in operations and in customer (user) areas, as well. Early on in the process, staff displayed a somewhat suspicious attitude of "does the boss really want our ideas, or is this some ploy to get us to approve the boss's ideas?" That attitude is no longer prevalent. The resistance to change encountered initially has been minimized by finding solutions that can work through the process. Staff members now feel they are a part of what is happening. Senior management had wrongly assumed that traditional work roles and rules were participatory. Instead, the prevailing work mode was that management planned and gave orders and workers executed plans and produced. A new process was needed to get these ideas heard; JLL provided that process and showed us how dissatisfied staff were with management, supervision, career opportunities, rewards, and input into decision-making. Summary The Information Resources department at the University of Miami has emerged from a dangerous cycle. Our sights are now on a common goal to unify the department and align ourselves with University goals. IR customers have become beneficiaries of our new vision. Naturally, we have to nourish this idea and the staff to motivate all levels of the organization. The most important step was to shift control downward, empowering those who do the work by giving them more say about how much they do and how they do it. Each member of the staff has been placed in a more instrumental position. By transferring more responsibility for the unit's success or failure onto their shoulders, staff members are becoming more actively involved in the organization. The tasks and objectives of the units are well understood and established by the employees. This allows free discussions of the objectives and goals in such a way that the employees can commit themselves to them. The key factor in implementing JLL is gaining the support from staff at all levels. Understanding jump level leadership, and the reasons behind it, is not easy. Staff members cannot thoroughly support what they do not understand. Therefore, the more we communicate with them about goals, constraints, and department's needs, the better they can understand and support the process. JLL is an ongoing process in IR at the University of Miami, with meetings held twice a year to maintain the degree of open communication we have achieved. Today's organizations must be sensitive to changing technology, and structural flexibility is essential for effective integration of change. An "open door" communication policy can bring hard information about the state of your world from the other side of it. Sometimes subordinates merely need to let off steam. If you are concerned about wasting time by the parade of subordinates coming through your office doors or you feel the advantages of being accessible are not worth the trouble, then you are in trouble. You have to work with it--keeping in mind the door opens both ways. You do not listen to people only to make them happy, but because you need to know what is going on to solve skirmishes before they become battles. We cannot allow internal communications to deteriorate. Our employees expect accurate and timely communication. They want information from their immediate supervisor and from top management. Moreover, the quality of communication traveling upward as well as downward can have a significant impact on the internal and external quality of service. We must have clear and understandable communication among ourselves before we can serve the larger community. According to Theodore Levitt, "Everyone doing his best is not the answer. It is necessary that people know what to do. Drastic changes are required. The responsibility for change rests on management."[2] We need to walk the thin line between formal and informal communication. Middle management is the direct link to the rank-and-file. If you communicate directly with the rank-and-file, you run the risk of side-stepping chains of command and ruffling feathers, but if you communicate with them through intermediaries, your messages may not be clearly received. We need to establish and maintain open lines of communication in which managers and first-line staff feel free to talk with their bosses up to and including top management. Through jump level management and empowering all levels of staff, we are making sure the University of Miami's community and mission are being served. ======================================================================== Footnotes: 1 As the youngest of only twenty-two private research universities in the country operating both law and medical schools, the University of Miami is ranked among the top ten in size (with an FTE of 14,000) and is the largest in the South. UM's fourteen colleges and schools offer ninety-two undergraduate, 164 graduate, and eight professional programs on four campuses with over 2,600 full and part-time faculty members. 2 Theodore Levitt, Thinking about Management (New York: Free Press, 1991). ======================================================================== For further reading: Blanchard, K., and R. Lorber. Putting the One Minute Manager to Work. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1984. Blumberg, Donald F. Managing Service as Strategic Profit Center. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991. Deming, W. Edwards. Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Center For Advanced Engineering Study, 1982. Fudson, Arnold S. A Manager's Guide to Making Changes. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1966. Hodgetts, Richard M. Management: Theory, Process and Practice. New York: CBS College Publishing, 1982. Levitt, Theodore. Thinking About Management. New York: Free Press, 1991. Rodgers, Buck. Getting the Best Out of Yourself and Others. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. ************************************************************************