IIMs: Director's Role is Complex

Director’s Job is Complex

T. V. Rao

Directors of any educational Institution have a complex role to play. Some times when I think of it, it is even scaring. In modern times it requires a superhuman being to be able to play the role very successfully. No doubt there are a few good examples but most people end up as average or even below average Directors. Normally it a couple of years after the new Director is appointed the previous one starts looking better. Most Directors get to be known as biased, have their own coterie, insensitive to faculty and students' needs and even competing sometimes with faculty to be seen as popular among one constituent or the other (Students, or staff or the Board of Management or local leaders, parents, government etc.). It is not their fault. The role requires management of different constituents or stake holders.: The Faculty, Staff, Students, Alumni, Management Committee where there is one including the owners and investors who have invested their money and effort, Parents, Community around them, local government authorities (including municipal corporation, income tax, service tax, other civic service providers, local professional bodies and industry etc.), new donors or potential donors etc. The Director cannot do justice to all this and to do this he/she should be a good delegator and should know how to sue different constituents appropriately. He should be able to sue his administrative staff deal with and utilise the local government and community for the good of the Institution. The most critical among the roles of the Director in my view include vision and direction setting and inspiring all constituents with the same; effective administration of the Institution and mainly the support systems with the help of the staff; inspiring, developing and managing faculty; utilising and managing the Board or the Management Committee including the owners, donors,  and investors; and linkages with the authorities that manage the education systems in the local or central government (AICTE, Sate or Central Government authorities etc. for accreditation and other matters.). Over focussing on some of these roles and under focusing on the others may lead to issues and problems. For example setting HR policies for staff or faculty without sensitivity to their needs, preferences and priorities may result in unrest visible or invisible and may have disastrous consequences. Similarly inability to sue Alumni resources and Board resources may be missing the boat. When I was Honorary Director of the Academy of HRD I have taken the help of many Board members to support the AHRD financially and was able to manage a good degree of funds through membership and Chairs. However I failed to sue a highly resourceful person on the Board the Chairman himself who donated land to the Institute.   It is with regret I look back how I and subsequent Directors did not cultivate the Chairman and use his popularity as well as services. In the five years of its existence in the same city of Hyderabad the Chairman never visited the Institution. In the beginning I used to think that he did not have interest. It is only latter I started getting the insight that we could not create opportunities for him to visit. Every Chairman who donates his time, money and effort would like to get something in return. The least that they expect is a good name or a great acknowledgement of their contribution. There could have been many forms of doing this but by failing to do this we lost a great opportunity of using the richness of the Chairman of AHRD. It is mainly the Director who has to be held responsible for this missed opportunity which will never come again.

Similarly Alumni of well established Institutions are a great source of strength. They need to be cultivated. Quite unlike the West Indian Alumni don’t always donate liberally to enable the Institution to manage itself financially. There are exceptions. However, most Alumni are more than willing to give their time, guidance and effort in other forms to support their Institution. Appropriate strategies need to be made. The Director may not be able to do it alone but take the help of other Faculty. In the ultimate analysis the Alumni do expect the Director to be present and continuously be with them to encourage and acknowledge their contributions. This is an important role he has to play with the faculty.

The most critical role is with the faculty. They are all knowledge workers and hence like to be heard. They like a Director who listens to them, empathetic, transparent, communicates, honours commitments, and supports them without biases in their teaching, research, administration and dissemination work. His style plays a significant role in managing faculty. Faculty are very sensitive to the moods, statements and actions of the Director. He is watched all the time and judged also. It is a tight rope walk. Information gets shared among the faculty and sometimes selectively. No one reports all the conversation he had with the Director when he or she visits him for an approval or discussion of any grievance. IIMA Director Samuel Paul used to have a small saying displayed on his table: “There are three sides to every story: Yours, Mine and The Facts”.  This is so true what get known is one side always and not even the two sides. Thus Director has to be extremely sensitive in saying what he says as it could be presented differently and rumours started. If he is transparent and communicative the scope for such distortions gets reduced. Hence it is very important that the Director should be open and communicative.

In addition setting a personal example is always an important one.  Only yesterday I was told an interesting incident of one of the Chief Ministers of Gujarat. When he appointed a Deputy Chief Minister the Dy CM wanted that he should be given a red light car like the one the CM had. As there was no rule permitting the Dy CM to have such car, it needed the permission of the CM. A note was put up and the CM write on the note withdrawing his own red-light car and permitting any Minister interested in having a red light car to be free to have it. Apparently when the order was issued no other Minister asked for it.” One of the Directors of IIMA used to travel by his car from Residence to office which a few hundred yards of distance. As no other Faculty were doing this, he also started walking every day. This has got him to meet other faculty and feel one among them. To develop the feeling of one among the equals is a highly desirable quality. If the Director is coercive or critical to faculty or not available to faculty or staff it sets a whole lot of dynamics among them and vitiates the academic climate.

Normally I have observed how so ever good a Director may be his ratings with the faculty decline as the time passes. This is because every year there will a few added to his hate list- not those whom he hates but those who hate him or critical of him. One faculty or staff whose requests are not granted or who ahs been treated with slight neglect becomes a rival. Thus all Directors like the HRD Department in a corporation run the risk of creating enemies from within. Hence the competence of interpersonal sensitivity and tact become essential. Ravi Matthai used to be known for this. He used to use every evening to reflect on the transactions he had with every single faculty and other visitors, evaluate himself and take necessary steps make everyone involved and inspired. Even if he had to disagree he would give long enough explanation. Often the explanation was good enough to get the other party to retrieve. Like once I am told when the Senior faculty expressed their unhappiness over only Juniors being sent to Harvard to do their Doctorates, and a team of faculty went to meet him, he sent them back smiling without granting their wish. He apparently told them that as senior faculty they should go and teach at Harvard rather than go there as students.

This kind of interpersonal sensitivity is difficult to get. It plays a critical role in managing the most important constituent of the Institution.  A good way of ensuring these qualities and effective management of an Institution is by seeking 360 Degree Feedback once a year from all possible constituents. This needs a specially created tool for the same. However in my experience I am yet to see a Head of an Institution to seek such 360 Degree Feedback.

I have summarised in the enclosed appendix the Roles and qualities of the Director of an Institution particularly with reference to IIMA when the Search for the New Director was set in motion 2012.

Roles and Activities:

1.       Articulating or developing vision for the Institute along with Faculty and other stakeholders and driving the institute towards the same.

2.       Maintaining Excellence and improving on the standing of the institute locally, nationally, and globally in terms of education, research and innovative management theories and practices. This can be done through orchestrating various processes in the institute and working very closely with faculty. Identifying their talent, projecting their talent and creating opportunities of them to make an impact.

3.       Balancing traditions and at the same time initiating and managing change with stake holder involvement.

4.       Protecting the faculty autonomy and maintaining peer culture and ensuring technological, financial and administrative support available on a continuing basis for faculty to work.

5.       Mobilising and managing finances and financial autonomy of the Institute by liaising well with the Industry, Government, Global institutions, other business schools, Board, Society at large,

6.       Inspiring and developing faculty to do excellent work- ensuring balance of teaching, research and dissemination.

7.       Ensuring safe, and motivating environment in the campus- infrastructure, technological support,  facilities management etc

8.       Respecting faculty for their work and projecting them to the outside world and ensuring that the outside world uses faculty resources for mutual benefit.

9.       Seeking 360 Degree Feedback, sharing results and showing change.

10.   Faculty recruitment and Development- investing time and effort on the same.

Qualities:

1.       Communication skills- willingness to communicate and use communication to t=enthuse and motivate faculty, staff and visitors,, tact and articulation and presentation skills

2.       Respect for faculty and staff – ability to trust them and engage them to be accountable

3.       Respect for systems and processes

4.       Openness to ideas – including willingness to receive feedback and criticism and reflect on it

5.       Willingness to change impressions and not carrying biases about faculty and staff

6.       Networking skills- network with various agents and agencies and sue the same for the benefit of the Institute

7.       Resource mobilisation- funds, faculty and other resources

8.       Empowering attitude

9.       Transparency

10.   Time management (his term is only 1825 days and approximately 20,000 hours).

11.   Credibility, character and values are the most critical things. Credibility may be gained on a continuous basis by his own actions and exemplary conduct.

Directors Job is Complex. I have written this article also for everyone to reflect that it is difficult to get a person who is next to God to head an Institution. The Directors or Heads of Institutions should have or at least try to cultivate as many of these qualities as they can to manage the Institution. If for some reason some of them are lacking in the Director, the faculty and other constituents (the Board) may need to plan and work out mechanisms for creating the circumstances that take care of what is lacking rather than spending all the time of tenure of the Head criticizing and cribbing. I don’t know if this is a distant dream but can we make this happen by thinking about “How to manage your own Director?”