How will Time4UNIchange support HEI management to change the culture towards external engagement and entrepreneurial activities without making rigid structures and templates that risk killing initiatives?
INTRO
“It is interesting that people think that templates could change the culture. The way of thinking as such is absolutely incredible”. This was expressed by an expert in change management and work organisation. Writing this, you shouldn’t throw bricks when you live in a glass house, comes to mind as our project aims design a toolkit of templates, interventions and nudges for HEIs, to support their efforts to become more engaged and entrepreneurial. But fortune favors the bold, so here goes.
ARGUMENT
In our interviews with experts, there was a general scepticism towards rigid structures for cultural change set by management. This could manifest in e.g., templates and/or directives that are expected to be followed without being questioned. This top-down approach could, according to experts, kill creativity and hinder collaboration and entrepreneurship.
“We are given templates for everything, and we may not go aside set frames. From change management to standardization.
I think we have moved towards starting to standardize so extremely much, we get templates for everything, we are not allowed to go outside the framework with anything. Everything must follow templates. So, I think our entire change process has gone towards standardization. And that restricts creativity and I also think it has a very big impact on what we teach the students. I would say that in such cases, I have learned that it is not good. It’s limiting. There are lots of good ideas too, it’s not that it’s just bad. But it’s dangerous if you standardize everything. Then you restrict creativity.”
It is obvious that a strict top-down approach doesn’t necessarily change the culture. Standardization can limit creativity and thus weaken the academics’ motivation for external engagement and entrepreneurial activities.
A way around this, working with a sort of structure and templates, could be that management encourage the desired culture by, for example, raising awareness on good examples of how academics’ work with external engagement rather than the published academic results.
To not become a rigid organization where creativity and external engagement is limited it is important to consider the balance between structure and individual freedom to explore ideas for external engagement and entrepreneurial activities.
CONCLUSION
Fortune favors the bold. Continuing the work on this project, we will keep the comments from the experts in mind. How can we make templates that allow and inspire creativity and employee initiatives? Our aim is to help management setting structures to enhance external engagement and entrepreneurial activities among HEI staff. Stay tuned.
Author:
External Relations Team at the School of Engineering, Jönköping University