Evening all,
Firstly, I'd just like to say a huge thankyou to everyone who read, commented, messaged, or was otherwise a really great human after my last post. As you can imagine it's not been an easy time, but knowing people cared made it easier, and I thankyou all from the cockles of my heart.
So now, that I'm back on the proverbial horse, I'd like to reveal the secret that keeps things ticking. Having a team of smart, dedicated and wonderful people who keep things ticking after I fell in a heap. That's what keeps things ticking, simple. I've had the good luck to inherit half my team, but the good sense to appoint people who not only have the skills to do the things that I'd like to see done (and in some cases can't do as well as they can) but also the bravery and tolerance to keep doing them when things are very difficult, as they have been.
As you'd imagine, times are tight in higher ed. More to the point, budgets are even tighter. University committees are appointed to make getting the staff needed a virtual impossibility. Caseloads keep going up year on year on year. But things don't always just break. They slowly crack, then repair, then then crack more, and so on. I've noticed the team are going down with illnesses more often. Sometimes this is because kids and daycare are disease factories, but sometimes that's just cracking happening in real time. And yet they persist. Obviously we all work for pay (it's a job, not a calling people), but I'd also like to hope that they persist because they are surrounded by a team that cares for them as people more than it cares for "performance." I'm of the view when people don't have promotion schemes (as is the case with professional staff) that performance is driven by intangibles like working with a group whose company you enjoy, and a leader who leads by example, rather than because you're told to do it. Perhaps I'm foolish, and perhaps I'm rambling, but I think there's something in this. I mean, why would people work harder if there's no benefit at all to doing it, if not because of the people you work with? I know I kept going full steam ahead last year almost solely because of the team, putting aside my own cracks. But then I broke.
Currently I find myself thinking how I can help the team avoid breaking, and it's not a simple challenge. There's only so much process improvement you can undertake before those gains are lost in the tsunami. Which (mentally) loops me back to something I've discussed before. We need to stop doing some stuff. As organisations universities routinely bite off more than they can sensibly chew, for reasons they struggle to elucidate in the cold light of day. However, some unis are doing it. Rowena Harper (DVCE, Edith Cowan University) discussed this at a high level, but concretely, in this podcast. It's worth a listen. When a uni's leadership is very clear about what it wants to do, and the reasons they want to do it, things become clearer and easier for everyone below them.
I like to think that as a leader of a team I'm clear about what I want our team to be, and why. We've done remarkable things together, changed the face of how the team operates, and how the uni views what we do. And while I get a fair dollop of credit for the changes, nothing happens without the team. Nothing. And so, to wrap up, to the Complaints, Appeals and Misconduct unit Macquarie uni, I thank and salute you!
Until next time,
KM.
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