March 15, 2013
Kim Morris Lee, Director Organizational Effectiveness
“An institution’s organizational memory might be holding it back,” business professors, Vijay Govindarajan and Srikanth Srinivas offered this point for consideration in a recent Harvard Business Review article.
According to Govindarajan and Srinivas, “organizational memory” – the way we have always done things – can include “obsolete policies and practices, outdated assumptions and mind-sets, and underperforming products and services. This organizational memory creates biases that are embedded in planning processes, performance evaluation systems, organizational structures, and human resource policies. This becomes a big burden when non-linear shifts occur.”
What policies and practices, perhaps unexamined for 20 or more years, are holding UIC back?
· Is there an audit of policies and procedures in enrollment, financial aid, and academic support services regularly to identify policies that impede student success and progress toward their degree? (Read more in the article "Checking for Policies and Procedures that Impede Student Success.")
· Has there been an examination of whether time-honored policies around faculty evaluation and tenure and promotion are helping – or hindering – the University in cultivating a rigorous and diverse faculty? (Read more in the article "Strategies for Supporting a Diverse Faculty.")
· Does UIC still pour resources into a traditional model for delivering developmental or remedial education, despite a low completion rate? (Read about an alternative in "Why Rethinking Developmental Education is a Priority.")
As the pace of change accelerates, and the challenges UIC faces become increasingly complex, an even more critical question might be: How does the University encourage leaders throughout colleges and administrative units to question long-held assumptions and beliefs? On what fact-based evidence are these assumptions supported?
Without letting go of the strengths of UIC’s hard-won and extensive experience (after all, the “organizational memory” of a college or university is measured in decades or even centuries), might it be time to ensure planning and budgeting processes, as well as systems for hiring, training, and evaluation are welcoming of disruptive and innovative questions and ideas? The exercise of questioning and exploring alternative avenues to an end goal often leads to magnified success.
