Thanks Robert. Really good stuff here. I've been thinking a lot about intentionality and constraints recently. Though I will head back to full-time teaching soon, currently I'm mostly an administrator. A question: It seems like the general principles outlined in your post would still apply to my case, but I'm wondering about the specific techniques / decision points you mention - in part because of the constraints I face in my administrative work. Some of those constraints are quite similar to normal faculty constraints, but others aren't.
Thanks, Craig, and it's a great question. When you step into an administrative role, you are consciously aligning yourself with a position of greater responsibility and therefore greater constraints. But your values and goals at Horizons 3 through 5 also change when you step into that role (or, those changed and you are stepping into the role as a consequence) and you have a different sort of power available to you that makes these constraints easier to work with.
For example, I know a lot of faculty become administrators because they begin to place value on building a program or developing their colleagues' potential, which isn't necessarily a common goal for someone who is "just" a faculty member. If you don't have that as a goal, if you're a faculty member, and you're presented with the opportunity to build a program, you might very legitimately look at that opportunity and say, it looks interesting but it doesn't align with what I'm into. But as an administrator, it would be an almost immediate yes, presumably, at least if the program is under your supervision. It feels less constraining for you as an administrator because the alignment with your values is much greater. So everybody goes through that one diamond that asks, does the thing support or block on balance? But administrators answer that question much differently than faculty members do because the upper horizons are different.
And when you get to that diamond that asks "can you increase or build your capacity", one thing that a person in a leadership position can do that an ordinary faculty member can't necessarily, is delegate. Nobody wants to make meaningless work for other people, but I think leaders sometimes under-delegate things. If you as an administrator have the opportunity to say yes to something interesting that really drives your administrative values and goals forward, but you have too much stuff going on, you absolutely have the right to look at your direct reports and see if there's anybody who would benefit from taking on a project currently on your plate. A lot of times there are especially younger faculty members who want to build their portfolio of work but never have the opportunity to because the administrator is trying to do everything. So there's a possibility with delegation not only to instantly improve your capacity to do other things, but also actually develop the professional portfolios of the people who report to you -- a win-win.
So, in other words, I don't think the process of decision-making, that is the overall flowchart that I presented here, really changes that much when you become more of an administrator or a leader. I just think that your values do, and so the way that you answer each of these questions, the ground truths that you use to inform the answers to those questions can really be different.
Thanks Robert. More good stuff to think about. To respond to two points:
First, I guess I think of Horizon 5 as more immutable than that, or in other words that it shouldn't change because I take on a new role (though it should work the other way, which you note: if my Horizon 5 changes then I may seek a different role). My practice is to actually change Horizon 5 only once a year, though I sometimes take extensive notes on what the changes might be at various review levels (especially monthly and trimesterly). But your overall point here is a good one, and it is certainly the case that I haven't paid as much attention to alignment with Horizons 3 and 4 and how those should change. I'm going to be paying more attention to that.
Second, the ability to delegate (at least directly) depends on the organizational structure. In a flat structure, such as I have, there aren't many opportunities for formal delegation. Still, your point here is excellent, and there are ways to influence folks even if they don't report to me. There are more win-win opportunities here.
Thanks Robert. Really good stuff here. I've been thinking a lot about intentionality and constraints recently. Though I will head back to full-time teaching soon, currently I'm mostly an administrator. A question: It seems like the general principles outlined in your post would still apply to my case, but I'm wondering about the specific techniques / decision points you mention - in part because of the constraints I face in my administrative work. Some of those constraints are quite similar to normal faculty constraints, but others aren't.
Thanks, Craig, and it's a great question. When you step into an administrative role, you are consciously aligning yourself with a position of greater responsibility and therefore greater constraints. But your values and goals at Horizons 3 through 5 also change when you step into that role (or, those changed and you are stepping into the role as a consequence) and you have a different sort of power available to you that makes these constraints easier to work with.
For example, I know a lot of faculty become administrators because they begin to place value on building a program or developing their colleagues' potential, which isn't necessarily a common goal for someone who is "just" a faculty member. If you don't have that as a goal, if you're a faculty member, and you're presented with the opportunity to build a program, you might very legitimately look at that opportunity and say, it looks interesting but it doesn't align with what I'm into. But as an administrator, it would be an almost immediate yes, presumably, at least if the program is under your supervision. It feels less constraining for you as an administrator because the alignment with your values is much greater. So everybody goes through that one diamond that asks, does the thing support or block on balance? But administrators answer that question much differently than faculty members do because the upper horizons are different.
And when you get to that diamond that asks "can you increase or build your capacity", one thing that a person in a leadership position can do that an ordinary faculty member can't necessarily, is delegate. Nobody wants to make meaningless work for other people, but I think leaders sometimes under-delegate things. If you as an administrator have the opportunity to say yes to something interesting that really drives your administrative values and goals forward, but you have too much stuff going on, you absolutely have the right to look at your direct reports and see if there's anybody who would benefit from taking on a project currently on your plate. A lot of times there are especially younger faculty members who want to build their portfolio of work but never have the opportunity to because the administrator is trying to do everything. So there's a possibility with delegation not only to instantly improve your capacity to do other things, but also actually develop the professional portfolios of the people who report to you -- a win-win.
So, in other words, I don't think the process of decision-making, that is the overall flowchart that I presented here, really changes that much when you become more of an administrator or a leader. I just think that your values do, and so the way that you answer each of these questions, the ground truths that you use to inform the answers to those questions can really be different.
Thanks Robert. More good stuff to think about. To respond to two points:
First, I guess I think of Horizon 5 as more immutable than that, or in other words that it shouldn't change because I take on a new role (though it should work the other way, which you note: if my Horizon 5 changes then I may seek a different role). My practice is to actually change Horizon 5 only once a year, though I sometimes take extensive notes on what the changes might be at various review levels (especially monthly and trimesterly). But your overall point here is a good one, and it is certainly the case that I haven't paid as much attention to alignment with Horizons 3 and 4 and how those should change. I'm going to be paying more attention to that.
Second, the ability to delegate (at least directly) depends on the organizational structure. In a flat structure, such as I have, there aren't many opportunities for formal delegation. Still, your point here is excellent, and there are ways to influence folks even if they don't report to me. There are more win-win opportunities here.
Thanks again.