John resigned as Director of Oxford University’s Said Business School in July 2000. A year and half later, he breaks his silence to talk about some of the frustrations of attempting to help the university face up to the challenges of the twenty first century.
The University of Oxford is one of Britain’s great institutions.
It commands depths of affection and respect that are envied by universities the world over.
Yet today there is also a sense of malaise, both inside and outside the University: a belief
that Oxford finds it difficult to adapt to changing educational and social needs, a fear that
it can no longer maintain its historic pre-eminence.
There is real cause for this
disquiet. My object here is not to address the substantive, and difficult, question of how
Oxford needs to change to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. It is to discuss,
from my own experience, a prior issue: why it is that the University, as presently
constituted, is unable to address this question.
It is not easy to describe the
governance structure of the University of Oxford. The difficulty is not just my own.
Management consultants Coopers and Lybrand, reporting on this governance structure, noted
that “in one of our meetings, the expression of bewilderment by one person was explained
by others as being due to the fact that he had been in Oxford for only seven years.”
The essential point is that the University has no structures of authority,
responsibility and accountability, and many of its officers and members have no real concept
of such structures. The system is best described as a morass of committees with ill-defined
and overlapping jurisdictions.
I once spent an entertaining half-hour going through
the terms of reference of committees on which I sat, highlighting words that were euphemisms
for “meddle”. By this I meant phrases that conferred the right to be involved in a
decision, but not the obligation to take responsibility for its consequences. I identified
terms such as “monitor”, “have oversight of”, “propose”,
“liaise with”, “advise” – even, delicious phrase, “be recognised as
having an interest in”. Almost every paragraph included some such words.
The
important practical consequence of this miasma is not the waste of time and paper, large
though that is. It is the absence of any means of resolving contentious issues in a
consistent way, or often at all. As Coopers and Lybrand observed “in many cases,
University decisions are not specifically made at all, they just emerge and it is often
difficult to tell at what point a discussion became a decision.”
Both government
and corporate bureaucracies are similarly afflicted with committees designed to diffuse and
deflect responsibility. But there is no doubt in either case that ministers or senior
executives have the authority to make decisions, that they are identified with these
decisions, and that they are accountable for the consequences of their decisions.
In
Oxford there is no equivalent. The only source of ultimate authority is Congregation – the
“parliament” of all the faculty of the University, some 3000 in number. The
impracticality of Congregation as a forum for decision-making is so clear that one came to
learn that the comment “this might have to go to Congregation” was, with some
reason, regarded as a very powerful argument against a proposal.
In the absence of an
effective means of resolving issues, a number of devices were employed. The most frequent was
simply to avoid raising any matter that might lead to dissension. This process of evading
issues was called “building consensus” and was a universal recipe for inaction. The
institution clings so tightly to this custom that to raise a contentious issue will invite
opposition to it on the simple ground that the proposal is contentious.
Often, such
opposition is rationalised as an objection to the way in which the proposal has been brought
forward. In my time at the University, I do not think I encountered a single person who
admitted they were opposed to the University establishing a business school. But I heard
dozens of ostensible objections to the process and procedures used in its establishment. And
because the process and procedures of the University are so ill defined there is always an
arguable case for these procedural criticisms.
Other ways of avoiding decisions
included deferral. Since time is not valued and urgency is not felt, it is thought
unreasonable to resist the suggestion that decision be delayed. Referral to another committee
is an effective means of procrastination. Ambiguity – the search for a means of describing a
discussion that appears consistent with every different view that has been expressed – is yet
another device for avoiding real decision. These mechanisms are used endlessly.
Some
decisions are made by examining precedent. At first it puzzled me why so much time was spent
discussing whether a proposed action had a precedent – whether it resembled some action which
had been taken before – and so little reviewing the substantive merits of the action itself.
I came to realise that since you did not have a means of making a new decision you could
sometimes arrive at a conclusion by asserting that the issue was predetermined by a decision
that had already been made. And because this procedure is so often used, it aggravates the
problem of making any new decision: such a decision might have unforeseeable implications in
future discussion of quite different matters.
The procedure was eloquently satirised
by Francis Cornford in Cambridge a century ago
The Principle of the Wedge is that
you should not act justly now for fear of raising expectations that you may act still more
justly in the future – expectations which you are afraid you will not have the courage to
satisfy. A little reflection will make it evident that the Wedge argument implies the
admission that the persons who use it cannot prove that the action is not just. If they
could, that would be the sole and sufficient reason for not doing it, and this argument would
be superfluous.
The Principle of the Dangerous Precedent is that you should not now do
an admittedly right action for fear you, or your equally timid successors, should not have
the courage to do right in some future case, which, ex hypothesi, is essentially different,
but superficially resembles the present one. Every public action which is not customary,
either is wrong, or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that nothing should
ever be done for the first time.
(Microcosmographia Academica, being a guide for the young
academic politician )
The result of these practices is that although there are
endless meetings very little time is ever spent debating real issues, far less resolving
them. Discussion is largely devoted to procedures, to precedents, to forms of words, and to
the interpretation of ambiguous forms of words which were been agreed at previous
meetings.
What Cornford correctly perceived was that precedent is relevant only in an
institution that lacks confidence in its present and future ability to reach conclusions on a
rational basis. Sadly, little has changed in the last hundred years.
If you cannot
decide, it is hard to say yes but also hard to say no. One instance of this indecisiveness
was a running sore for me. The Oxford Centre for Management Studies had been established, in
loose association with the University, but outside it, at a time when Oxford was highly
ambivalent about a business school. While the Centre had kept the torch of management studies
burning by the Isis, it had not succeeded in establishing a strong reputation in the business
world or in achieving intellectual credibility within Oxford itself. When the University
wished to develop a business school, a number of alternative courses of action were
available. It could restructure the Centre and use it as the basis for its new initiative; it
could close the Centre; it could let it develop outside the University; it could establish
its new institution and merge the older one into it.
The University did not adopt any
of these alternatives, since each might have been contentious, and it may not have had the
power to implement any of them. Instead a bizarre series of events was allowed to unfold.
Following a donation from Sir John Templeton, the Centre changed its name to Templeton
College. Although this institution was not a college of the University of Oxford and did not
resemble one, it formed an aspiration to achieve recognition as a college. The University
procrastinated, sought to impose (but did not enforce) conditions on admission, and
eventually gave in. In consequence, there is a charitable foundation on the edge of the
Oxford bypass, whose principal business is to run corporate training courses for junior and
middle managers who have no other connection with the University. The University does not
admit students to these courses; nor does it supervise, accredit, or derive revenue from
them. But Templeton College enjoys the governance arrangements and status within the
University of foundations such as Balliol and Christ Church.
Since it would have been
difficult to find anyone outside Templeton College itself who really thought this arrangement
was a good idea, it is reasonable to ask how it happened. The resolution of contested issues
can be postponed for many years by avoiding discussion, by deferral, by ambiguity, by
referral to other committees, and by other forms of procrastination. But eventually these
devices run out. If a small group of people is sufficiently persistent, it stands a good
chance of getting what it wants, after a long delay. This is true however small the group and
however weak the merits of its case.
Quality control requires clarity and firmness.
These standards are acceptable: these other activities are not. So the lack of either clarity
of firmness is potentially disastrous for an institution with aspirations to high standards.
I was involved in an assessment of a probationary lecturer. The case was entirely clear. The
individual concerned had poor teaching evaluations and a thin research record: an external
assessor from a redbrick University affirmed that the person concerned would not qualify for
tenure at his own institution. Both Oxford and the individual would have been better off if
the lecturer had been translated to a post at a less exalted University. This solution could
easily have been arranged.
But Oxford is full of kind and well-meaning people, so
non-renewal would have been contentious. I learned that a decision not to renew the contract,
even if agreed by all the senior academic staff at the business school, would have to go
first before a committee of sixteen people (several more junior than the individual
concerned) and would then have to be reviewed by a still larger committee. That committee
would contain nobody with any knowledge of the subject or of business education, but which
might well overturn the original recommendation: it would certainly scrutinise procedure in
minute detail and seek common ground between conflicting positions. It was apparent that
non-renewal was simply impracticable.
A further consequence of this fundamental
inability to resolve contested issues is that there can be nothing that the world outside
would recognise as budgeting, resource planning, policy or strategy formation, since
difficult choice is the essence of all of these activities. The lack of such procedures means
that in reality there is no management process at all.
This absence of management
process is illustrated in the Coopers and Lybrand report, which describes three new
initiatives: the extension of two courses, and the establishment of an Institute of Molecular
Medicine. It is an agreed convention that in recognition of the budgetary pressures on the
University, no new initiative will today be considered unless it is claimed by its proposers
that it requires the expenditure of no additional resources. Such assertions are obviously
untrue – how can it be seriously suggested that you can extend the length of a course by a
year without additional resources – they are rarely effectively challenged. This is partly
from na•veté, partly from the desire to avoid disagreement, partly by dint of
lobbying by the advocates of the initiative. Since all proposals supposedly have no cost,
there can be no meaningful discussion of different uses of the University’s resources, and
there is inevitable acrimony when the implications of a proposal in due course emerge. This
is exactly what happened in the establishment of a business school.
Thus, the
University proceeds by a mixture of general inertia and random initiatives. The business
school was the largest of recent initiatives. When I was appointed as its Director, it was
clear to me that the first priorities were to establish a strategy for the school’s
development, to identify the early steps needed to implement that strategy, and to put
forward proposals for the operational management of the school.
The preparation of a
strategy went well. I held enthusiastic meetings with senior colleagues. We spent a day with
all our management faculty discussing and formulating a draft strategy document. The paper
runs to fifty pages, defines the immense potential of a business school in Oxford, and I am
still proud of it. My hope was that we could discuss this strategy with the University and,
after clarifying what the University expected from its business school, begin the
implementation of an agreed policy.
At this point, the process ran into the ground.
The University had no mechanism for proceeding with such discussions. I was advised that I
had to turn the document into specific proposals which would then be considered individually
by diverse relevant committees. Of course, this approach missed the point. A plan to
establish a new institution rests on a serious of interlinked initiatives. You cannot discuss
courses, staffing and buildings independently of each other, even if there were different
committees for all these things.
But protests were to no avail. The draft document
was circulated to senior officers of the University. I do not know whether any of them ever
read it – certainly I never received a single comment or reaction. The only serious
discussions of the document outside the embryonic business school were with our business
advisory council and with Mr Said’s trustees. Both these groups consist of people well
accustomed to the idea that agreeing objectives and strategy and decentralising
responsibility for implementation are the means by which organisations normally undertake new
ventures. They offered valuable feedback. The University was unable collectively to engage in
the process of determining strategy. Its method of doing business was to await specific
proposals, to which it would react through the usual mechanisms of deferral, referral, and
criticism of the process by which these proposals had been brought forward.
So we
moved on to such specifics. The burning questions to be resolved were the relationship
between the School and Templeton College, and the problems of salaries and recruitment. I
lost count of the number of times I was asked to explain the relationship between the
University’s business school and Templeton College, especially to potential corporate
supporters. But I could not explain it, because I could not understand it myself. Nor could
the College, as is evident from Templeton’s extensive press advertising, and its website. I
inherited an entire drawer of a filing cabinet, containing records of discussions going back
to 1982 on the relationship between the University and Templeton College: but the discussions
had no conclusions.
I was present at similar discussions for a further two years;
these added to the volume of paper but contributed nothing to any resolution. Officers of the
University exerted no influence to secure such a resolution, and urged us to seek refuge in
further ambiguity. The plan was that we would announce to the world that there was an
agreement on the complementary roles of the institutions, although we would have been unable
to explain the nature of the agreement because none could be reached. I encountered
considerable hostility by resisting this notion. When there are conflicting interests, and no
mechanism for adjudication, discussions can continue interminably, and these did. I expect
they are proceeding still.
We encountered the same crippling incapacity to reach a
conclusion in relation to salaries and recruitment. It is not possible to attract
internationally distinguished business school faculty if a newly appointed lecturer is paid
less than £20,000 and the standard professorial salary is around £40,000. (Would
you listen to a lecture on corporate finance or option pricing from someone earning for less
than the pay of the receptionist at an investment bank?) But the University of Oxford, like
other universities, cannot afford to pay all its staff at rates necessary to attract capable
business school teachers.
Arguments for salary equality which should not be lightly
dismissed. One of the strengths of Oxford is the cross-disciplinary nature of its colleges,
and that solidarity risks being eroded if two colleagues are paid radically different
amounts, not because of differences in distinction, experience or achievement, but simply by
virtue of the marketability of their skills. Still, if it is to maintain that egalitarian
stance, the University has to abandon aspirations to establish a business school and will – as is happening – find it increasingly difficult to teach subjects such as economics,
engineering and law.
But although I spent many, many hours at meetings discussing
salary questions, this fundamental issue was never discussed. Since the substantive problem
could not be resolved without contention, it was not allowed to arise. Sometimes the meetings
focused on deferral – I was criticised for my insistence on raising now an issue that might,
in some unspecified manner, be settled in the future. There was much discussion of precedent – could we discover some previously adopted salary practices which, however spuriously, might
resemble the present case? But the greatest time was devoted to the search for ambiguity – could we establish a formula that in fact paid people more while appearing not to do so? In
the end this approach offered no real answer: when it comes down to it, people are either
paid more or they are not. After two years of these perambulations, we were no closer to any
resolution.
At one level, the mental dexterity that went into these exercises was
impressive. Yet their principal characteristics were irresolution and ineffectiveness, and
endless time was spent on evasion and little on issues of real substance. There was always an
element of ritual, of games played according to arcane and implicit rules. The vast majority
of participants had worked in Oxford for all or most of their careers. They had virtually no
knowledge or experience of the business or commercial world, and little knowledge of other
organisations. They had spent much of their lives learning the Oxford processes, and did not
recognise their peculiar and idiosyncratic nature, although there was a certain pride in the
uniqueness of the Oxford way. Some individuals of outstanding ability and external reputation
arrived in Oxford from elsewhere, but for the most avoided entanglement in the central
affairs of the University.
The incoherent and committee-based nature of the governance
structure poses particular problems for those who hold University posts, such as
Vice-Chancellor, or Director of a Business School. These officers have executive titles, but
virtually no executive authority. They enjoy responsibility without power, the converse of
the power without responsibility embedded within University committees.
Such jobs are
profoundly unattractive – for myself, ultimately impossible – to undertake. Certainly for
anyone who wants to do anything substantive. Consequently the posts are often occupied by
people who enjoy the processes of the University for their own sake; or those who relish
prestigious titles even if the powers they have do not correspond to the title. More often,
senior positions and membership of committees are filled by academics with a strong sense of
obligation to Oxford as an institution: they wish to contribute, but feel deeply frustrated
by the time they are wasting, and long to return to their proper duties of teaching and
research.
It is difficult or impossible for people outside Oxford, used to normal
management processes, to deal with those who hold executive titles but who do not have
executive functions. Outsiders expect to negotiate agreements with responsible officers on
the basis that the results of such negotiation will be honoured. But this expectation cannot
be satisfied, because the individuals who conduct the negotiations lack appropriate
authority. This situation was a constant source – at first of incomprehension, then of
frustration – to Mr Said, who spent five years trying to persuade the University to accept a
£20m gift.
It is difficult to exaggerate how damaging to the University this
problem is. One day, the consequences will prove directly costly to the institution, when
people inside or outside refuse to accept the excuse that apparent commitments cannot be
fulfilled because no-one ever had authority to make them, and become litigious rather than
merely angry.
But the indirect costs are already very large. The consequential
inability to engage effectively with the world outside limits the capacity of the University
to undertake new initiatives and reinforces inward-looking instincts. Discussions with an
outside body that do not proceed along already well-trodden paths will – at best – be
immensely protracted. Apparent conclusions prove to be no more than the basis for yet a
further round of prevarication. This state of affairs is demotivating for those inside – if
the prospective arrangement is in any way novel, one is daunted by the prospect of
interminable discussion and delay – and frustrating for those outside, whose initial goodwill
towards the institution is so often dissipated.
What was – is – evidently needed is to
co-opt the enthusiastic support which is so readily available to the University. With my
business school colleagues I sought to establish a governance structure that would enable the
Business School, at least, to make decisions. We put forward proposals under which an
executive committee of the School would have reported on operational matters to a Board made
up of senior members of the University and experienced outsiders – we identified a group of
non-executive directors whose services any corporation would have killed to have – and on
academic matters to a University committee. This corresponds, more or less, to the way in
which successful academic institutions around the world are run.
I was not successful
even in securing serious discussion of these suggestions. The substantive involvement of
senior business people in discussion and decisions was particularly objectionable. It had
been discovered that they were liable to be critical of Oxford’s processes and the best means
of dealing with this was to keep them at arm’s length. This position was defended by
reference to assertions of democracy and academic integrity. These assertions were spurious.
It was often embarrassing to contrast the rigorous insistence of outside supporters of the
University on the maintenance of the highest academic standards with the constant willingness
of university officers to fudge and compromise in the interests of domestic harmony. The
essential problem of Templeton College – that it had not managed to reach academic standards
consistent with the reputation of the University of Oxford – was widely recognised outside
the University but could never be acknowledged or articulated, far less addressed, within the
University itself.
The clarity of responsibility I sought was not the Oxford way, and
by diluting the role of committees would undermine Oxford’s ostensible democracy. It was at
this point that I finally understood that the aspiration of creating within Oxford an
institution that could compete effectively with major international business schools could
not be realised within the context of Oxford’s current procedures and practices.
One
needs to ask how an institution that is quite so badly run as the University of Oxford can
have been successful for so long. The answer runs, I believe, broadly as follows. The art –
and it is not an easy art – of managing a successful academic community involves balancing
the essential need for pluralism and individual intellectual freedom with shared commitment
to the values and success of the institution. The decentralised collegiate structure of
Oxford, combined with its inchoate committee processes, sustained that balance for many
years. But this achievement depended on a high degree of social homogeneity among the members
of the University, a relatively slow-moving environment, and little external pressure. The
Oxford structure contained and contains no mechanisms either for making and reviewing
policies or for effective negotiation with the world outside. Faced with internal
heterogeneity, much greater outside pressure, and a rapid pace of change, this structure has
ceased to work.
For activities that are well established and reasonably successful –
and this is true of most of what Oxford does – paralysis of decision-making and an absence of
capacity to devise policy or strategy result in slow decline, but not immediate disaster.
Oxford is not collapsing, simply sliding gradually into mediocrity. One can argue about the
significance of published league tables, but there is no doubt that Oxford is losing its
pre-eminence among British academic institutions, and that these in turn are falling
increasingly behind the top US schools. While the power of the Oxford brand is still
extraordinary, and the quality of the best students, teaching and research remains
outstanding, an increasing amount of activity is mediocre and amateur. The University’s
presentation of itself compares poorly with that of much less distinguished institutions.
These characteristics are true of the University as a whole. The problems I faced in
the business school were more acute, partly because there was no history to rely on, but
mostly because a major new initiative required many decisions across a range of issues.
Without any mechanism for agreement and implementation of strategy, and without recognition
that it is often more important to make a decision than to debate yet again what the best
decision might be, or the process by which a decision should be arrived at, it is impossible
to create a distinguished new institution such as a world-class business school.
The
problems of Oxford are structural, and should not be blamed on individuals, most of whom are
able and well-intentioned. There is a comprehensive failure of leadership, but nothing worse.
A deplorable Oxford characteristic is the degree to which justified dissatisfaction with the
performance of institutions is held to be the fault of particular people. No doubt it is true
that if the Vice-Chancellor combined the management skills of Jack Welch, the communication
abilities of Tony Blair, the political acumen of Machiavelli, and the patience of Job, all
would be well. But effective management structures are those that can be operated through
people who are less than perfect. I was myself the constant victim of this feature of Oxford
life: it remains simply unbelievable to me that my inability to achieve the things that
obviously needed to be done was held to be my responsibility by the very people who denied me
the authority to bring them about.
There is a widespread perception within Oxford
itself that the governance structure is in need of reform: there has even been a recent
Committee of Inquiry, led by a former Vice-Chancellor, although the ultimate results of this
inquiry were of little consequence. But the capacity to generate reform internally is limited
by a lack of understanding of the nature of the problems.
These problems were well
identified by the Coopers and Lybrand report to which I have several times referred (prepared
as part of the background to the Committee of Inquiry). In passing, one might note that a
similarly devastating report into the governance of any other organisation, public or
private, would create expectations that the senior officers of that organisation would
immediately offer to resign. No one imagined even for a moment this would happen in Oxford.
Partly because those officers felt no responsibility – and largely had no responsibility – for the state of affairs that was revealed. But more seriously, and damagingly, because
Coopers’ comments – although made with obvious respect for the institution – were generally
brushed aside. There are those who think that that any criticism of the University or its
procedures – even from its own consultants or members – must be the product of
misunderstanding or malice.
As Coopers emphasised, the search for participative
democracy is doomed to failure. It is not just that an organisation of the size and
complexity of the University of Oxford cannot be run by an assembly of 3000 people, important
though that point is. It is also that even if they could do it, they should not. Any reader
of John Bayley’s admirable Iris and her Friends will recognise immediately that the
characters described are people who should be left free to develop the products of their
extraordinary and unique talents while others, with fewer intellectual gifts but more
relevant experience, worry about the level of student fees, the design of the reception area
in the new business school, and the salary paid to a new computing assistant.
The
inability to understand that democracy does not preclude delegation is quite general. The
construction of a business school is a £30m project and it was obvious to me that we
needed on our staff a technically qualified project manager, who could answer on our behalf
the questions constantly raised by the architects and engineers – questions, for example,
about the ventilation system or the materials to be used. I was refused permission to hire
such a person. I was told that in Oxford the normal, and appropriate, way of dealing with
such issues was to appoint – of course – a committee of academics.
There were two
parts to the misunderstanding here. The first concerns legitimacy. The key issue was not how
to make a good decision but how to make a proper decision, and that meant the involvement of
some committee. The second was an inability to understand that the real problem was one of
expertise – only by chance would a group of academics have any relevant knowledge or
competence. There was an incidental issue that hiring someone would cost money while the time
of academics, who should have been doing teaching and research, was assumed to be
free.
This problem went deep. All the support functions of the University – from
accounting to fundraising to marketing – are underpaid and underresourced. Professional
skills are not valued and the individuals who have them are not valued either. As a result,
the University fails to take advantage of the talents and often extraordinary commitment of
its non-academic staff, who in turn feel demoralised and fearful of any show of initiative.
This resistance to professionalism was particularly embarrassing for a new business school, obliged to compete with modern, well-managed institutions elsewhere. Oxford’s neglect of these essential support functions does not prevent the university spending disproportionate amounts on administration. Most of this expenditure, however, goes on detailed mechanisms of internal control and on the servicing of committees. The institution would be better off if most of these tasks simply ceased to be performed.
The notion that effective management and free intellectual inquiry are incompatible derives from the belief that if you give people authority to fix Iris Murdoch’s bookshelves they will soon start telling her what to write. This fear should not be discounted completely – there are people like that – but there are also ample means of safeguarding against them. The ideal of a community of scholars is well worth preserving, but we should be clearer about what it does, and does not, mean. The most vibrant academic institutions – like Harvard and Stanford today or Oxford in its g;pru days – are those which give scholars the financial and practical freedom to pursue the goals of scholarship. In a modern world, this is achievable – as at Harvard and Stanford – only through effective professional management of the institution.
It is widely understood in Oxford that the participative model has failed. Members of the university believe, correctly, that they are offered the appearance of participation but denied its reality. They think real authority has been assumed by someone else – the administration in Wellington Square or a clique of University politicos. They are not entirely wrong, because the paralysis of formal mechanisms has led to the parallel development of informal processes. When decisions are made, or meaningful discussions take place, it is often in secret and within groups with no formal status. In this way, a system which is notionally open and democratic is in fact the very opposite – a paradox noted by Coopers – and there is a lack of real integrity at its core. But these parallel processes are mostly concerned with minutiae of procedure or appointments, rather than matters of substantive policy. It is not that power has been usurped, it is that it is nowhere to be found.
I have already referred to the existence of a view in Oxford that criticism is the product of misunderstanding or malice. Some readers will receive these comments in just that vein. But nothing could be further from the truth. One of my great sadnesses was the number of people I met inside and outside the university who felt they had benefited greatly from their time at Oxford, who loved the institution and respected its core values, who wanted to help it adapt to a changing environment, and who found their efforts to do so rebuffed. Eventually I became one myself.
John Kay
25th October 2000
