Leanda Lee
It seems we are at risk of losing faith in our tertiary institutions. In terms of the fabric of such an organisation, there are a multitude of destructive forces: administrative superciliousness (never a good thing amongst professional thinkers), management’s unfamiliarity with the complexity of the internal and external environment, a failure to set job performance expectations or to quell a culture of group think and personality politics. A Human Resource professional could coach senior management to understand work motivators of professional staff and set performance criteria, and also champion the employee so that management becomes familiar with the depth of professional peer loyalty, and also develop in the executive a willingness to take on board internal criticism. When there are clinicians who quietly voice their professional views on the pathological lack of compassion and empathy in an institution, you know there are problems.
On the receiving end, a sense of betrayal, lack of trust, rumour and innuendo can each contribute to organisational cultural rot. Human nature being what it is, once the unsavoury is experienced and pointed out, we continue to search for and find even more evidence to validate our biases. It may be merely the opinions of a body of bitter ex-staff (there are many) and disenchanted students, or others in the community that have grievances against the institution: Mere opinion, and thus so easy to discount. But bad news and criticism are generally carried first by those that care and second by those that are betrayed. In this context a misplaced word in the public sphere that could have been averted by the astute advice of a Public Relations professional can be the final straw that breaks the camel’s back. At a minimum, it is a critical incident. When internal criticism is suppressed, eventually it will find its way to the surface.
And best it is, too, to surface, for then something can be done about it if there are willing ears. Even if management recognise the problems and the causes, rebuilding trust in an institution that has lost much of its good name is formidable.
The University of Saint Joseph (among other institutions) and its recent managerial decisions have had scathing publicity of late. One sympathises with the many dedicated professionals still on board, knowing that regardless of any dictum, it’s not ‘business as usual’. My experience is that this institution had a powerful sense of community, of protection and guidance of the students, generosity of spirit whereby staff used their own mobile phones, lent their entire book collections to the library and hung their artwork on the corridor walls. There were the totally disorganised but brilliant scholars well known in their field of esoterica, the loud and rambunctious lecturer who trusted his students would eventually learn to stand up for themselves under fire, the quirky designer, the creative musicians and poets who still leave behind their legacies. It was an eclectic group of diverse backgrounds, skills, virtues and vices which all provided the energy and excitement, forever trying to imbue in often damaged learners the joy of learning and living. There were conflicts as you’d expect but there were more times when staff worked together to try to build something to be proud of. That’s the pity and sadness of it.
Psychologists and change management specialists, Newton and Davis, observe that rebuilding an institution is possible – from within. Such significant cultural change requires positive influencers – we know them. They are the ones aware of what’s going on because everyone talks to them. They are the ones who can change the schema that staff and stakeholders hold of their organisation. They build the pride, they are the ‘master motivators’ who inspire others through positive methods: by removing micro-management, by informing others of the value of daily work contributions, and by rewarding peers and subordinates, recognising each member of the institutional community for their good work. They are not necessarily senior. Pride-builders focus on autonomy, purpose and recognition, not just for the select few but for all. Positive attitudes such as pride are contagious. Recognising and supporting pride-builders is but a small start towards organisational cultural change and rebuilding, but a powerful one.
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