As a (former) manager of a department in a design school, I defined three managerial imperatives:
1. Get rid of old, dead wood. Given that our program is scaffolded, with each course building upon the preceding, A single low performing lecturer can bring down the quality of an entire program. Don’t trust student feedback when identifying such people. They favour nice lecturers over effective ones. Getting rid of low performing team members in a university can be a low process. It can sometimes be quicker to find programs they would be happier/more productive in, and engineer a transfer.
2. Hire effective new blood. Well duh, I hear you say. Finding good new hires can be a difficult task. For those who I really wanted to hire, I did my research on who they were and what they might want, and tried to show them that I was willing to build a nest for them.
3. Have a vision of what the department should be. This vision requires constant maintenance and should always consider input from the team.
#2 is considered taboo, but IMO if a team is full of people who are checked out, it may be time to make huge changes.
People become jaded and start to tell you all the ways we can't do something, or it will take too long. They often don't realize what tools are at their disposal to help make change easier, and instead insist there is only one good path to a solution...
Fresh talent really helps get people excited again, after the initial shock of layoffs. Not to mention new talent always comes in excited for an opportunity.
1. Get rid of old, dead wood. Given that our program is scaffolded, with each course building upon the preceding, A single low performing lecturer can bring down the quality of an entire program. Don’t trust student feedback when identifying such people. They favour nice lecturers over effective ones. Getting rid of low performing team members in a university can be a low process. It can sometimes be quicker to find programs they would be happier/more productive in, and engineer a transfer.
2. Hire effective new blood. Well duh, I hear you say. Finding good new hires can be a difficult task. For those who I really wanted to hire, I did my research on who they were and what they might want, and tried to show them that I was willing to build a nest for them.
3. Have a vision of what the department should be. This vision requires constant maintenance and should always consider input from the team.