The problem with university leaders shaped by an age of abundance

I have a dear friend and colleague who always looks out for me, worried that my frustration with Uni management (from now on Managers = Senior Leadership, i.e.., above Dean) may get me in trouble. Now I know that my tendency to speak out ensures that I’ll never get recruited for a senior role, largely because I’m too unreliable , but I figure that speaking out on things we are expert on is part of our role. And, since I have skin in the game where I work, I also figure we deserve better in terms of leadership and in particular strategy.

So when I caught up with that dear friend in Milan and we discussed what annoyed us, we concluded that it was never personal but that we are tired of having our agency limited by those who, in the present environment, seem to have no obvious answers. And while I’ve mostly liked my managers on a one-to-one basis, last week's VC update to the University (of Sussex) I felt was so cynical and left me with little hope.

There’s a lot written about what presently ails UK universities but one thing that is left out is the seemingly sudden weakness of our once all conquering management to address our predicament. Why are our managers, with a few honourable exceptions, so incapable of innovating and strategizing effectively in the present environment? We hear a lot of reframing the current decline as a category problem, and there’s some truth to that, but there’s also a large diversity of performance within the sector and some universities are much more resilient than others (my own, Sussex, was, despite having lots of warnings and consultant reports, woefully unprepared for the end to growth era).

One of the metaphors that is common about UK universities is the belief that the golden age is over. What this means is that the days of easy money, and to quote Les Grossman (Tom Cruise’s greatest role) “lots and lots of money (and yes, the odd G5 or equivalents)” is gone (and believe you me we literally pissed so much away over the past 25 years). No longer can we expect to enjoy a never-ending amount of growth in recruitment, particularly high fee paying international students (mostly in business subjects).

But what of the managers who grew up in this golden age? What did this endless abundance enable them to do, and critically, avoid doing? And where does it leave us? I have some thoughts, which as always, are my own, and in this case, grim.

First, it created a logic in which growth was baked in. At every institution I’ve worked at, every year, the same dance occurred. The university gave business schools targets. They in effect took the previous year’s growth and then added a percentage. Every year we suggested it was unrealistic and every year we were wrong, often spectacularly so. The so-called stretch goal was not even that hard. But this had two effects: we kept getting more demands for increased recruitment and any warnings we made looked silly.

Despite updates to risk registers in terms of larger class sizes leading to poorer student experiences and outcomes and falls in reputation and recruitment, none of this really came to pass (until recently). Whatever business logic told us appeared to be completely wrong. Our falling rankings (if indeed they fell) had no impact on income. So we were duly ignored (try fighting against indistinctive lazy branding when the numbers keep flowing in - though suddenly our VC is big on brand distinction, she mentioned it a dozen times last week but still doubled down on the same failed campaign of the past 6 years). Since money flowed in, problems, including structural ones, could be spent away, leaving them to fester. And managers could attribute the uni’s success to themselves (woeful governance also played a role here), when for the most part, it was simply a case of rising tides floating all boats (strangely we never heard that called a ‘sector wide benefit’).

Second, we got managers who were focused on ever moving onwards and upwards and with that, and ecosystem of wannabes and supporters. I’ve worked for three VCs in six years at Sussex. The first, was known for never having spent long in any role, moving up the ladder as quickly as he could. But the result of this is one never has a chance to experience making mistakes, and therefore learning and perhaps as Harry Callahan said, being aware of one’s limitations (and therefore forming a stronger team).

One also never sees the effects of their decisions, and I suspect, never really thinks about them. The result of this is constant shifts in initiatives, the perversion of the noble word ‘strategy’ to mean week-by-week hopes and dreams (our present VC admitted her strategic centrepiece has no funds for investment, i.e.., it's a wish), that can safely be ignored by all, bar those who must play along in the hope they get closer to the inner circle (which is why we keep getting cascaded emails of the same bland announcements).

And on that, in a hurry VCs need an entourage and tend to therefore recruit those they know and who they’re comfortable with. This breaks any connection between them and uni staff, and creates a reality distortion field that allows for no criticism or reflection. Unsurprisingly, demotivated good local managers leave.

Third, while they often talk about change being constant, they’ve very rarely needed to act strategically and effectively under urgency. Note how often it takes a legal case, even a death, or a pandemic, for managers to talk of the need for lessons learned. During Covid I watched as students sensibly voted with their feet and stopped attending classes in the days before lockdown. And I watched how staff grew increasingly nervous and angry with being told to wait another week to go online . I knew what to do and insisted staff move online regardless, and I’ve never forgotten the cynicism of managers and HR flunkies who purport to be interested in our welfare.

A further result of this is cynicism towards any initiative and a culture in which stalling for time is an end in itself, which actually kills even the possibility of reform as protagonists argue about wording and tone (before managers eventually handball the problem to the business school to recruit more etc).

Fourth, since managers can spend problems away and ignore all basic business principles, then performativity replaces substance. I'm struck by how rarely you meet a manager who can convince you of the merits of their case. At Sussex our last strategy was focused on kindness. At launch, the then VC expected applause but the large lecture theatre was silent when he mentioned it. The strategy, which quickly got reframed as a goal or a value (I’ve forgotten which, and could care less), to be followed by a strategy a year later (thereby extending the illusion of work) was mostly devoid of measurables. But we did have one - to have all programs in the top 25 of rankings in the U.K. Every ranking that came out was thoroughly analysed (although this too has stopped), and it showed one thing: we were falling further and further behind target. No corrections were ever made and now the present discourse is that strategy has run its course and we need a new one. But shouldn’t we at least review how we did relative to the last ten-year plan.

The effect of all this is few managers who have really implemented serious change. I know there are some and sometimes they’re fairly brutal, but it’s rare to find a VC who can take people with them and convince them of the need for change. I saw it at U of Melbourne under Glynn Davis, I’ve seen it at U of Auckland, and I’ve experienced it at U of Bath. But I’ve also experienced the opposite (a lot).

The result is managers woefully unprepared to overcome resistance to change and with little ability to disrupt in good times to avoid the bad. VCs therefore have few connections with the middle managers so essential to making change happen. Our present one made a big deal of meeting HoDs and even planned to do it regularly. After the first meeting, it never happened again. HoDs know the problems and have the benefit of hanging around, something VCs don't.

During Covid our then VC sent in the friendly Provost (his number 2, no pun intended) to convince HoDs to send what were viewed as recalcitrant staff back to empty classrooms. After waffling on for 30 minutes about his walking around a sunny campus and seeing a summer school class of 10 enjoying an outside lecture, he was stunned when asked how we would run lectures for 600 in October in the UK under the same conditions. Actually he didn’t, I made that up. He, like so many, simply talked down the time despite saying he was there to listen. A second Q&A focused meeting was hastily arranged when Deans were told how badly it went down. Not breaking the habit of a lifetime, he avoided listening again.

So this is where we are. A managerial class bought up in an age of abundance who as a result are woefully lacking in the capabilities necessary to lead us through an age of scarcity and decline. Which means turnaround isn't likely.

I’m reminded of a Zoom chat response to the then acting provost's request for what managers could do - ‘listen’ was my answer and it got a lot more likes than our hapless marketing on this platform ever has. The problem was I plagiarised it from another colleague who’d asked the previous VC whether he ‘would genuinely listen this time?’. He didn’t, and he moved on the bigger things (they always do). There might still be time for our managers to listen but I’m seeing a lot of passionate colleagues close up, sick of playing the same record and being ignored. There’s a lot of hope in the sector, but maybe it’s time to face up to the reality that for a lot of institutions there are few reasons for it.

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