Copyright 1997 CAUSE. From CAUSE/EFFECT Volume 20, Number 3, Fall 1997, p. 30-31, 51-58. 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 Jim Roche at CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; 303-939-0308; e-mail: [email protected]
by Martha W. Gilliland and Amelia Tynan
Because the external environment in which organizations operate is changing unpredictably, traditional leadership approaches, regardless of how well executed, work poorly. Effective leadership is focused on finding the solutions for the future that reside collectively in the organization and enabling them to be implemented. This requires accountability at all levels and living with substantial ambiguity. As implemented in the University of Arizona's Center for Computing and Information Technology and the Faculty Development Program, this leadership approach has produced significant results. Without additional resources, CCIT expanded campus services 100-1000 percent, depending on the measure. The Faculty Development Program produced an alliance with Lucent Technologies, a major center, and special state funding of nearly $1 million.
The context for leadership and organizational transformation at the end of the 1990s is one best characterized by a high level of unpredictability. That unpredictability makes traditional strategic planning, traditional management approaches, and traditional leadership models obsolete and only marginally successful. This article is about a leadership model that works in an environment of unpredictability. Following a brief characterization of this environment, we discuss the leadership model generically. We then summarize its application at the University of Arizona in one major unit (our information technology organization) and one new program (faculty development).
Today, the success of an organization depends on the extent to which it connects and is able to use the network of communications and information available. However, this network also introduces a level of complexity different from anything we have experienced before. Organizations and countries are all connected to the same information and to each other in real time. What happens in one impacts the others directly and quickly.
In short, for the foreseeable future organizations will be responding to an environment of perpetual change and to a level of complexity that is not comprehensible to any one individual. This alters the fundamental nature of the leadership model and management approach that will produce success.
In the old model, when change occurred more incrementally and the future was more predictable, a smart manager could confidently study a problem, find an answer, design the organizational structure to solve the problem, "sell" the solution to the people who worked in the organization, and oversee implementation of the solution. Managers could do strategic planning with a five-year time horizon with some confidence that the strategic objectives were appropriate. This structured approach worked and is a major determinant of the success of U.S. corporations. But it won't work anymore.
The model works as a four-part process (see Figure 1):
Repeat the cycle at the next higher level of intention. The next level is a level that would never have been possible without the earlier level (see Figure 2). Success depends on the four elements -- intention, dialogue, action, evidence -- proceeding continuously.
For an organization, the intention is stated. The organization engages in a dialogue that interprets that intention into action in a host of different ways, many of which are unexpected. The leadership must act by moving on projects and providing the opening for others to act on projects that emerge from the dialogue. As things happen, evidence must be developed and communicated. Through this process, change becomes an emergent property of the organization rather than something imposed from above. The result is substantially different from and produces substantially better results than if the change elements had been developed and imposed by an individual or a group "at the top." Such a process, however, requires major shifts in leadership style and in how leadership spends time.
The four steps are not a sequence nor do they define one set of answers. Rather, lots of parallel processes are ongoing. These processes do not always line up or fit together. They are often based on the passion of persons trying to interpret and implement the intention. Breakdowns occur as some people, perhaps some that have held leadership jobs, lose sight of the initial intention, never make the shift in style, revert to old approaches, or can't assume accountability. Constancy of purpose -- maintained primarily by top leadership -- as these breakdowns occur is a key determinant of success. The following focuses on the role of the leader at each stage.
In this model, the future emerges from within the organization. It is an emergent property, not one decided from above.
The most difficult dimensions of this model for leaders are supporting the dialogue and enabling its outcomes to be implemented. Leaders have traditionally viewed themselves as responsible for the intention. But, then, they have assumed also that they must have the answers about how to attain it and must tell others what to do so that the solutions can be implemented. In contrast, in this model, the leadership is still responsible for the vision, but then everything changes. Leaders must release control, give up having the answers, and support others as they interpret the intention and shape what to do. This is very difficult for most of us to do. It requires living with chaos, confusion, and ambiguity. It requires accountability at all levels. In the end, however, it is the only mechanism for access to the collective intelligence. And, the results are amazing, if not sometimes miraculous.
What follows are supportive leadership behaviors and corollaries to these fundamentals.
Provide information about the organization to everyone
Everyone in the organization must have access to information about the institution and the external factors impacting the institution. Only when people have information can they integrate it into their own framework and factor it into solutions to problems, behaviors, and ideas for achieving the intention. People with a stake in the outcome automatically act on that information. Colleges and universities need to provide ways for everyone to have information about budgets, perceptions of parents, employers, government, and taxpayers so that they can act on it creatively. Controlling information flow out of fear that it will be misused is counterproductive. If, as leaders, we expect people to provide solutions to problems, then we need to give them all the information.
Act as a coach
In promulgating this leadership model, leaders spend most of their time guiding, coaching, asking questions, holding project groups to a timetable, and supporting accountability. Enabling people to come forward with projects that will produce progress toward the intention does not mean leaving them alone. Quite the contrary, it means a lot of listening and shaping ideas into action, trusting that the group sees potential that you may not be seeing.
Ignore the terrorists
An enormous amount of leadership time is wasted on people who are complaining, finding everything that is wrong, or simply not participating in solutions. We fondly refer to these as the terrorists.
Listening to complaints that are not tied to proposals for solutions or offers of assistance is time consuming. Similarly, carefully constructing plans in order to lay people off under the organization's complicated policies and procedures takes too much time and energy. Rather, leaders must focus that precious resource -- time -- on the individuals and the teams that are committed to their project and being part of the solutions. The others will gradually be ignored by their colleagues. More specifically, one cannot mandate productivity; one cannot mandate commitment or passion. But when individuals or groups do step forward, they are appropriating their spirit to the organization. It is that spirit that will produce success. It must be nurtured, enabled, and rewarded. This ought to be the focus of one's time.
Some distinction, however, should be made about how to handle terrorists that are part of the top leadership group vis-�-vis others at other levels in the organization. Those at the top can undermine the effort in a rather significant way. They may, in fact, need to be removed, and that in itself provides powerful momentum. Usually, most people in the organization know who is not aligned; removing them sends a message of commitment. Other terrorists, however, can only undermine if the leadership devotes time to them. They can slow the momentum, but the increase from those who are acting offsets them. Gradually, those who are listening to conversations of blame move toward those who are acting and being rewarded for the action.
Provide training and development
Leaders build the capacity for performance in an organization. A person or a group with a commitment about an idea is not enough. Those people need training and development opportunities in order to perform. Central to success are opportunities to learn and apply information about total quality principles, teamwork, effective meetings, leadership style and leadership models, customer surveys, facilitation, change management, business process engineering, and market perceptions about the organization.
Let go of structure
Give up the attachment to organizational charts. Real results happen as a consequence of relationships anyway; most of us already know that. Many people want to stay in their box in the organizational chart because, if they stay there, they will know who to blame and they will feel safe. They will not have to be accountable for real results; they can hide.
Be willing to live with a high degree of ambiguity and chaos
Moving to solutions is chaotic when one is relying on a lot of people without a lot of structure. But the ambiguity and chaos is the fertile garden for dialogue and creativity.
Don't wait for consensus
Waiting for everyone in the group to agree before acting causes paralysis. Consensus is not achievable anyway. Act with those who are aligned and ignore the rest.
Outsourcing as context of information technology challenge
At the University of Arizona, the threat of outsourcing provided an additional challenge. In 1994, the university engaged an external firm to evaluate whether or not to outsource many of the functions then being performed by CCIT. Many factors led to administration's decision to pursue outsourcing seriously, such as the president's interest in accelerating technology progress, doubts that CCIT could be agile because of a long history of centralized monopoly and bureaucracy, growing pressures for major technology investment, and a general skepticism about CCIT's ability to restore customer satisfaction and credibility. For a period of six months, a thorough review was conducted with campus focus groups, technical team experts, and site visits from the consulting firm.
The findings of the consulting firm revealed significant organizational gaps but conceded that the resources, both human and technological, existed within the organization that could enable it to overcome its problems. Clearly CCIT was not achieving the goals and objectives of the university community since many of its customers were aggressively seeking other providers of computing services. Given a choice, CCIT could be downsized to a minor player in university affairs or could rise to the challenge and become a vibrant and significant partner in the future of the university.
Intention. CCIT accepted the challenge to redefine itself. With a new leader and challenge from senior university administration, a process of self-review and transformation was initiated. Quite literally, it began with a formal declaration of a new intention: "to support a flexible structure that will accelerate electronic information exchange through campus partnerships for the successful design of the university's future." In addition, CCIT committed to implement the consultant's recommendations published in Information Technology at the University of Arizona: Strategic Directions for the Year 2000.4 The intention, and this plan, became the magnetic north and focal point that guided the next two years in CCIT.
With this shift, CCIT embraced a new role of facilitator/partner rather than a monopolistic provider of technology services. What followed is a period of breakdowns, breakthroughs, and major organizational accomplishments. The original statement of intent has evolved into next levels of stronger articulation. In a recent IT campus planning session, integration became a stronger emphasis; agility and flexibility, part of the original intention, are now assumed as the modus operandi.
Dialogue. Selling the intention, the offer to change CCIT, meant countless open meetings, major preparation for cabinet presentations (never before done by CCIT), campus focus groups, and visits to department heads and stakeholders. Internally, this declaration of change naturally caused upset -- this was a vulnerable transitional period between the old and the undefined new identity. A management consultant advised CCIT to expect resistance, emotionality, and even "terrorism." Vocal employees expressed doubt; job searches were self-initiated, though only a few left for other positions. For many, this transition meant freedom to pursue new initiatives and define a more creative future for the organization. The mood of empowerment energized a number of self-appointed teams, e.g., the momentum team and a project opportunities team.
Internally, CCIT teams were empowered to create an environment of opportunity where individuals were encouraged to excel and to participate. The pyramid of directors gave way to bottom-up project teams. In a paradigm shift, CCIT made a dramatic shift to a flattened organization that encouraged openness to new ideas and adoption of cross-functional collaborations.
Action. Vision does not translate into action. The successful delivery of results proved to be a key step in restoring internal and external confidence in CCIT. Armed with the outsourcing partner's report, CCIT launched and accomplished strategic projects linked with key recommendations in this published plan. Projects and opportunities were enthusiastically discussed and new grassroots initiatives were born. Top-down, bottom-up, laterally, and vertically -- the coordination of action and cross-functional pursuit of results picked up momentum.
It did not matter who brought it to the surface -- work plans, action groups, and new projects were enabled. Until staff were engaged in action, the idea of the abstract intention did not truly come to life. To date, there is not a full consensus in philosophy and organizational ideology, but there are many projects that demonstrate alignment, competence, discipline, and accountability. This internal process of enabling rapid results required us to abandon or ignore prior structures -- functions that had become silos of turf, budget protectionism, and conflicts of interest. By declaring organization-wide initiatives, the clearing was available for all functions to participate, take leadership and risk, and emerge as contributors and successful project teams.
Evidence. What evidence of success do we have to show since 1994? CCIT accomplished major strategic projects linked with the plan commissioned by the university's president. CCIT started documenting and sharing evidence to depict service responsiveness and to portray proactive leadership on campus. The graphs in Figure 3 speak success. Without major investment increases, CCIT delivered an incredible expansion of campus services, particularly network applications. While all universities experienced similar network growth, the University of Arizona's progress was fueled by a new context of discipline and accountability. A good example is the university's dorm connectivity project dubbed "port per pillow" project. All 17 dorm locations were connected in a three-month timeframe in partnership with Student Affairs. Under previous circumstances, this would have required lengthier discussions, coordination, and funding delays.
The two-year period of unparalleled growth was astounding even to CCIT staff. During that period they saw:
During this same period and using existing budget resources, CCIT acquired or replaced major systems. Final negotiations for a supercomputer for research computing are under way, IBM 3090 was retired and replaced, IBM SP2 for mail and instructional services was put in place, a cluster of HP servers was deployed, and a disaster recovery program was implemented. A major business process reengineering study was completed, including an integrated information architecture map for institutional data.
Today, simple process improvements can be initiated without fanfare or formality (e.g., the account creation process now takes 10-20 minutes, compared to the two- to three-day turnaround a year ago). The idea of "partnership" is now firmly imbedded in CCIT and is the standard of practice in all endeavors. Countless formal and informal partnerships are now supported, including faculty development, campus standards coordination, classroom renovation, and technology planning. A staff-initiated Project Opportunity Web page screens and reviews project ideas for formal adoption by the organization.
Relationship-building and partnership success had its biggest payoffs in the business side of information technology. In alliance with campus budget officers, CCIT made major strides in strengthening its fiscal state, including the retirement of a computing deficit and the successful disengagement from federal regulatory constraints. CCIT's willingness to be subjected to an open and honest financial review led to a more credible stewardship role for IT infrastructure management.
CCIT results have not gone unnoticed. External validation of a new CCIT identity comes from several fronts. Monthly random customer satisfaction surveys substantiate the positive turnaround in CCIT relations. In 1996, the governor of Arizona awarded five service awards to CCIT in a statewide competition for quality and excellence. For three years in a row, individual CCIT staff received campus awards for excellence (including the vice provost for University Information Technology). In 1997, the president's annual team award went to the telecommunications installation team. Through CCIT's leadership, the university successfully obtained an NSF grant for vBNS (Very high Bandwidth Network Service) connectivity, a nationwide competitive grant program. Campus IT planning sessions now attract large attendance, whereas in the past, open forums were ignored or attended only by a handful of technicians.
In summary, transformation at CCIT involved stepping into unexplored territory. It started with a declaration, a statement of intention made to our senior administration, but without the knowledge of how to do it. Reframing people's attitudes about their technical role required breaking through thick walls of traditions; it required adoption of a new mental framework while the loyalty remained with the status quo. The structures from our past had to be ignored as the campus engaged in a frenzy of projects to leapfrog to the next level. The coming years will involve new intentions that are different from the initial one. As the concerns of the market changes, so will the intentions.
Volunteers from the faculty were solicited via an article in the university newspaper with a clip-out coupon for return. Everyone who turned in the coupon was invited to an initial meeting that was a formal brainstorming session aimed at developing some initial projects and the intention. Some faculty never returned after one meeting, having come primarily, it seemed, to identify past injustices. Those who committed to the effort took charge of several projects aimed at capturing the attention of the faculty. This began a process that continues to spiral toward more results.
The intention that emerged from this initial team was: "Faculty development provides the climate and support through which faculty can become independent creators of new learning environments. It provides expert technical support; mentoring and collaboration opportunities; inspiration, information, and infrastructure; technology for courseware creation, teaching, and learning; and approaches for measuring learning outcomes."
This intention emerged only after several false starts. Its power is in the fact that what it says enables others to act. It is in stark contrast to an intention that delineates an organizational structure or identifies specific activities that will be supported. In fact, one of the early suggestions that failed miserably was to set up a hierarchical structure with departmental level committees and deans having certain responsibilities to oversee faculty development activities aimed at improving and supporting teaching.
Similarly, this intention does not identify a location or an administrator. What it says is: this is an effort that supports, with resources, what a faculty member or group of faculty members see would be helpful. It says that the leadership will trust ideas that come from the grassroots and, furthermore, will embrace these ideas and support them. In so doing, it implies that the leadership will trust the faculty to know what to do.
When we were clear about our intention and when we felt it was stated in a clear and even powerful way, faculty groups were invited to participate in dialogues about this intention. Of course, many did not trust that we, as administrators, would support what they said needed doing. Nevertheless, some faculty did take on projects, and we did support them. Beyond the results of the project, which were themselves significant, the real power was in the change in the way we were doing business -- supporting ideas that were aligned with the intention but came from the bottom up. As that cultural shift was experienced, the number and quality of projects grew. As a corollary, the leadership cannot support projects that are not aligned with the intention. Many of these old pet projects will be put forth.
The initial dialogues were between the faculty development team and us, between the team and other interested faculty, and between the team and the president's cabinet. Several of the team members organized a Valentine's Day forum with opportunities for faculty to drop in and out all day, be heard, and hear the intention.
Four early projects produced substantial momentum. First, an orientation was developed for new faculty, with workshops on teaching resources at the university, the nature of University of Arizona students, pedagogy, and the use of technology to enhance learning. Second, a symposium for all faculty with similar workshops was offered over a period of a week, culminating in a reception with prizes from technology vendors. We, of course, asked deans and department heads to encourage their faculty to participate in the workshops; some did and some did not during the first attempt. Third, a group produced a video on technology enhanced learning. The video was shown to the Board of Regents, the president's cabinet, and small groups of legislators. Fourth, another group created a video of teaching excellence models from our own faculty.
As a consequence of growing momentum, the president's cabinet decided to make a faculty development effort a priority for new funding from the legislature; $940,000 to support the effort was acquired. This caused even the cynics to notice. We stayed true to the intention and did not set up a new structure with new administrators. Rather, the money was used in two ways. First, four existing organizations formed a partnership and agreed to hire technical support people who could be made available to the faculty. The new faculty development partnership included CCIT, the library, the University Teaching Center, and the Treistman Center for New Media (a part of the College of Fine Arts). Second, a grant program was launched with a request for proposals to the faculty for curriculum and course development with an offer of equipment and technical support for successful proposals.
The results were of two types: improved teaching and learning and a feeling on campus (now with clear evidence) that the administration was supporting faculty initiatives and was supporting teaching. Again, for the long run, the latter is more powerful than the former.
For 18 months, the program remained a "virtual" faculty development effort run by a faculty team and the original four partners plus the university's video services unit, which decided to join. Together these partners provide a complete infrastructure for supporting all aspects of curriculum innovation project design, development, delivery, and assessment. Recently, 7,500 square feet has been set aside to bring the partners together. The next-level intention, developed by the partners, is to provide education and support for faculty who are engaged in creating new learning environments that:
This new Faculty Development Center has become the heart of the UA/Lucent Technologies Alliance for Learning. The alliance is aimed at combining content specialists from the university and communications specialists from the Bell Laboratories to design "classrooms" for cyberspace aimed at merging voice, video, and data to create integrated learning environments.
These outcomes -- the amount of activity, the quality of the activity, the creativity in the projects, the number of faculty participants, and the space and dollars that have begun to flow toward this program -- could never have occurred or been predicted using a conventional administrative process that creates an official organizational structure and establishes programs predetermined to be the most needed.
1 Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1992); Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos ( New York: Harper Collins, 1987); Peter Block, Stewardship (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1993); Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, (New York: Doubleday Currency, 1990); and Donald Tapscott, Digital Economy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996).
2 David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Ark Paperbacks, 1980).
4 UA Information Planning Team, Information Technology at the University of Arizona: Strategic Directions for the Year 2000. June 27, 1994.
Martha W. Gilliland ([email protected]) is Provost and Graduate Dean at Tulane University. Prior to coming to Tulane, Dr. Gilliland was Academic Vice President for Information and Human Resources at the University of Arizona.
Amelia "Mely" Tynan ([email protected]) is Vice Provost for University Information Technology at the University of Arizona.
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