Leadership that disdains relationships typically disdains the idea (if they have considered it all) that there is such a thing as tacit knowledge within an institution, and that it matters. "Rationalism".
Yes, absolutely. This is a wonderfully succinct way to put it: they reject tacit knowledge, they reject culture (wanting all institutions to be the same as manageable assets, even as they tout the supposed differences in their product to prospective students), they reject that there should be any customary or understood values and practices that would restrain their own managerial freedom of action. They don't want to do that by arguing against the content of tacit knowledge or culture, so they argue instead that there *shouldn't be* or even more infuriatingly that there is not nor never has been any cultural norms or understood values. Because where is that written down? Where is that in the job descriptions or the handbook?
The use of external (and expensive) consultants on various aspects of "strategic planning", the idea that leadership can be brought into an institution from very different institutions or sectors, arise from the notion that actually important knowledge is what outside specialists bring, not what long-term members of the institution have acquired through the years, through practice and through conversation. It doesn't mean that cultural norms are always good ones. But you can't even begin to try to shift those norms without first really understanding from whence they arose and why they have lasted.
Right on. Culture can be a problem that needs a solution; it can't be solved by someone who doesn't even believe it exists--or understands what it means to the people who inhabit it.
I think it has a great faculty and a lot of resources; like many of the best public universities, it has been dealing with serious underfunding for a while (Pennsylvania is one of the worst underfunders, depressingly) but also some pretty flawed leadership--the article I linked does a great job of explaining the problem of a very micromanaging board that's relatively atypical.
Leadership that disdains relationships typically disdains the idea (if they have considered it all) that there is such a thing as tacit knowledge within an institution, and that it matters. "Rationalism".
Yes, absolutely. This is a wonderfully succinct way to put it: they reject tacit knowledge, they reject culture (wanting all institutions to be the same as manageable assets, even as they tout the supposed differences in their product to prospective students), they reject that there should be any customary or understood values and practices that would restrain their own managerial freedom of action. They don't want to do that by arguing against the content of tacit knowledge or culture, so they argue instead that there *shouldn't be* or even more infuriatingly that there is not nor never has been any cultural norms or understood values. Because where is that written down? Where is that in the job descriptions or the handbook?
The use of external (and expensive) consultants on various aspects of "strategic planning", the idea that leadership can be brought into an institution from very different institutions or sectors, arise from the notion that actually important knowledge is what outside specialists bring, not what long-term members of the institution have acquired through the years, through practice and through conversation. It doesn't mean that cultural norms are always good ones. But you can't even begin to try to shift those norms without first really understanding from whence they arose and why they have lasted.
Right on. Culture can be a problem that needs a solution; it can't be solved by someone who doesn't even believe it exists--or understands what it means to the people who inhabit it.
My son is at Temple, so this is of interest, and deeply upsetting.
I think it has a great faculty and a lot of resources; like many of the best public universities, it has been dealing with serious underfunding for a while (Pennsylvania is one of the worst underfunders, depressingly) but also some pretty flawed leadership--the article I linked does a great job of explaining the problem of a very micromanaging board that's relatively atypical.
Wow, this is powerful, Tim. Thanks. Layers of loss.
I’m thinking Ozymandias, Tim. The lonely sands stretching far away…
I quoted the less quoted part. :)