Apparatchik

So, a week in to my new apparatchik position, what have I done:

• Spent the inevitable half of every day on the phone to desktop support trying to get all my new systems working
• Conspired with the Learning & Development bloke and the Web bloke to made changes
• Sent out an all-staff email round up using the organisation’s only existing IC tool
• Taken part in a meeting about benchmarking and positioning the org’s website
• Taken part in a meeting about how to explain to people, in simple and non text-heavy terms, what it is that the org does
• Tried to map the org’s role amongst the many other orgs in the sector who all do slightly different and complimentary things
• Joined the Government Communicators’ Network
• Begun to understand the immensity of trying to procure anything around here (and the fact that doing it yourself doesn’t seem to be in the culture)
• Done a lot of listening to try and understand the organisation’s shibboleths
• Tried to understand the odd short-to-medium term situation (a kind of slowburn demerger and corresponding relocation)
• Tried very hard not to jump to quick fix solutions before having done a lot more listening (and persuading people)

This last is why I’m fighting the temptation not to list here all of the things that I want to get my teeth into… yet…

You watch – the list will be up within the week!

Filed under: Administration, Internal Communications, Me, Work

To Do

Writing about http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/04/wellbeing.to.do.lists

• Ring Mum & Dad
• Ring Grandma
• Ring Anna
• Buy Charles’s birthday present
• Buy cat diet food (on vet’s advice)
• Give cat medication (on vet’s advice)
• Prevent cat from trying to eat her stitches (on vet’s advice)
• Food shopping (for start of pre-St Lucia diet)
• House cleaning & tidying
• Garden Cleaning and tidying (following instructions from Himself)
• Arrange to view family portrait pics
• Decide whether am going to Paris for marathon runner supporting
• Find out more about girls’ Greek Island holiday
• Start thinking about b-day pressies for Himself
• Start thinking about Xmas pressies for everyone else
• Decide about Halloween
• Audit summer clothes/products for St Lucia

Filed under: Administration

Laurie Taylor Vs Jamie Targett

I love The Poppletonian, Laurie Taylor’s mock university corporate news colum in the Times Higher Education (yes, we’ve lost the Supplement bit).  I also love his cast of character including the desperate Jamie Targett, Director of Corporate Affairs, and the hippy-dippy useless Jennifer Doubleday, Head of Personal Development.

I was thrilled when the VC welcomed the new look on 10 January this year as I was just broaching the topic of a refurb of Open House.

Speaking shortly after his return from an exhausting nine-day conference in the Maldives on the future of higher education, our Vice-Chancellor declared that he was “really on the whole fairly excited” by the new look of The Poppletonian.

He told our reporter, Keith Ponting (29), that in his opinion, the previous newsletter had often spent too long concentrating on “the many negative aspects of the university” and on reporting “lots of minority views that failed to represent the true nature of the institution going forward”.

It is so clever in so many ways, so many in-sector jokes perfectly judged and aimed in all directions!

In today’s edition the dogged Jamie Targett makes an urgent appeal:

In a shock statement this week, Jamie Targett, our Director of Corporate Affairs, announced that he was introducing an “urgent” quota system in response to the dramatic increase in campus e-mails bearing the word “urgent”.

While administrative staff would retain the right to use “urgent” at all times, academics would be restricted to 12 “urgent” e-mails per term. He believed this was the only way in which “urgent” could regain the original meaning of “urgent”.

The cleverest, cleverest thing is that it is all so on the button. As perfect satire must be.

Filed under: Administration, Comedy, Higher Education, Internal Communications, Joke, Press, Work

A Factotum: Nature or Nurture?

I’ve just been having a cup of tea with a colleague who, it strikes me, is the perfect factotum: efficient, organised, quiet, amazingly discreet, tactful, diplomatic and a wonderful problem solver.

And clearly these people are vital in the world of internal comms, these are the people who make organisations work.

A while ago she mentioned in passing that she thought she’s got her job for her soft skills rather than for her relevant experience…  and her skills are polished!

Which brings me to my question, is one born like that or does one learn to be like that?  I think the former.  These qualities are all the ones that I admire most but which drive me to distraction.  Very often I want to grab these awe-inspiring people by the lapels and shake them until they tell it straight.  Whilst all the while slowly turning green with jealousy.

I too want to be able to make oblique references to a myriad of things and in so doing probe and work out how much someone knows before drip feeding a bit more (but never too much!).

Instead, I’m far more likely to err a touch on the side of indiscretion in a bid to inspire a mutual exchange of confidences and then check myself by explaining why I can’t say any more.

Suffice to say that if it’s nurture I’ll be putting my best foot forward…

Filed under: Administration, Comedy, Internal Communications, Work

Looking at it By and Large

I caught part of a rerun of Yes Minister last night….

Hacker: When you give your evidence to the Think Tank, are you going to support my view that the civil service is overmanned and feather-bedded, or not? Yes or no? Straight answer.

Sir Humphrey: Well Minister, if you ask me for a straight answer, then I shall say that, as far as we can see, looking at it by and large, taking one thing with another in terms of the average of departments, then in the final analysis it is probably true to say, that at the end of the day, in general terms, you would probably find that, not to put too fine a point on it, there probably wasn’t very much in it one way or the other… As far as one can see, at this stage.

…and was reminded of trying to read scads of explanation about the Comprehensive Spending Review and the HEFCE Consultation on, and Modelling of, the impact of the Equivalent or Lower Qualification Decision.

And worse still trying to explain the situation to others!

An example from the HEFCE Explanatory Notes:

3. These explanatory notes are essential to gain a proper understanding of the modelling that we have provided, and to avoid misinterpretations or erroneous conclusions. In order to avoid these notes becoming overly complex, they have been written on the assumption that readers have some understanding of our teaching funding methods. For those that are less familiar with these methods, the following publications, available on our web-site, are recommended:

Quite so.

And as for the new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, I’m going into a corner to mutter darkly about them.

A lovely meaty issue to welcome me to my new institution….

Filed under: Administration, Campaigning, Higher Education, Politics, TV

Professional Administrators?

Writing about Copying Harvard (well, a wee bit) from Prole Art Threat

The concept of being a professional administrator seems to be one
which is unique to the fields of education, health and national and
local government.

Amongst my non-academic colleagues here at
Warwick there is a very definite divide between those individuals who
see themselves as ‘generalists’ and therefore professional
administrators and those who see themselves as ’specialists’ and
therefore people who happen to work in their area of expertise (the
fact that it is in a University is immaterial).

There has
been a lot of talk recently about the benefits of ‘rotation’ or
secondments in breaking down the perceived divide between
administrators in academic departments and administrators working in
central services.

The idea is that by walking in someone else’s shoes for a bit you:

• get an understanding of the whole process, not just your end of it,
• gain a rounded understanding of university administration, and
• learn more about the University

This is an excellent concept for improving internal
communication and increasing give and take and is very popular amongst
friends and coleagues who consider themselves to be generalists.

The question is – how do you define which staff members are specialists and which generalists?

Filed under: Administration, Higher Education