Management Approaches Within Organized Anarchy

This post is part of a series for a current Itana community discussion of "organized anarchies" -- the idea that the business architecture of some higher education institutions is characterized by "many autonomous actors operating with bounded rationality in an environment with ambiguous goals, an unclear link, between cause and effect, and fluid participation with the activities and subgroups of the organization." [1]

How are universities organized?

If you've worked in higher education for a while, you've heard an "origin story" along the lines of: Lo these many years ago in the Middle Ages, the first universities were founded to enable individual faculty to independently create and preserve knowledge. Since then, universities have been governed by faculty to protect their academic freedom, and this history drives the management culture of modern universities -- even as they have grown to include hundreds or thousands of non-faculty employees in all the functions needed to run a mid size corporation. [2]

While I agree that the universities I've worked in demonstrate characteristics of an organized anarchy, my own take on this is that it's less because of individual autonomy (as in the classic origin story), and more because of a multiplicity of unit-level management approaches. Many units within a university are far from anarchic (try asking your registrar or campus police chief what kind of team they lead.) But at a large university, the sheer diversity of management approaches in play, and their interactions, results in a complex system that is very challenging to steer. [3]

As a business architect, thinking of it this way makes the university tractable to some analysis and planned change (though often at such great effort that the change still isn't worth it). If I believed every individual in the institution were autonomous, I'd throw up my hands at any change involving more people than I can fit in a conference room. But if we can understand and connect up diverse management approaches, then change leaders have a fair chance at larger initiatives (though still at great effort).

So what's really going on inside a university?

Thinking about the many different university units I've worked with, I can see a diversity of management approaches. You may see others, and have different names for them, but here's a range:

There are good reasons for this diversity. It's natural for each unit to shift toward a management approach suited to its missions and strategies. Managers in a unit may consciously choose an approach to execute on a strategy [4], or the approach may be evolving and not "self aware" yet.

So even when a university is an organized anarchy with a very Autonomous management approach overall, it contains a multitude of "enclaves" with their own management approaches and cultures. In a large university a map of a few units and their management approaches might look like this:

These different management approaches are constantly in friction when work crosses units, as in this very common example:

Admissions applications to the university have increased dramatically, and the Financial Aid office is desparate to improve technology for processing financial aid offers. The unit is Process Driven, with a flat organization and specialized roles responsible for each part of an intense process that has hard deadlines throughout the academic year.

When Financial Aid goes to Central IT for help, it encounters a Podular unit, where IT service teams work semi-autonomously within their own service strategies, with just a few lightweight shared processes (for IT service management) and shared functions (such as a Project Management Office). [5] Few of the managers in either unit are self-aware of their unit's management approach or the differences between units.

Over years, each time Financial Aid and Central IT try to work together on major improvements, they drift apart again in mutual frustration. Financial Aid is staffed to focus on its processes, and can't free up resources to do business analysis for IT changes. When Financial Aid does state requirements, it needs results by specific points in the year when changes can safely occur. The Podular teams in Central IT have little practice with hitting hard deadlines, and they don't collaborate often enough with each other to be able to pull together the full package of IT that Financial Aid actually needs. 

Multiplied over many units, initiatives, and years, the net effect for the university is organized anarchy. Senior leaders struggle to understand why obviously beneficial changes aren't executed. Participants grow frustrated with how hard it is to obtain a decision or follow through, and develop defense mechanisms to be less accountable. Key opportunities are missed and the backlog of unresolved problems multiplies.

How can we do better?

I think change leaders (and the architects supporting them) can improve the success of cross-functional initiatives by recognizing the multiplicity of management approaches and applying that recognition as suggested below.

Identify the management approaches in play. You may be the first person to ask this question for the initiative, and the participants may not be self-aware of their management approaches yet. Ask questions about how people expect to see goals set, accountability established, decisions made, and outcomes assessed. Note differences that could be pitfalls for the initiative.

Plan for the extra effort and skills needed to bridge different management approaches. At what points in the initiative will differences be the greatest obstacle? It might be in discovery, design, implementation, or operations -- or in other factors such as enforcing a time or budget constraint. The approaches can be bridged, but it takes time and it takes a team with the skills, experience, and position to do so. If that will be a problem for the initiative, you've identified a major risk to escalate.

Help units and individuals solidify their own management approach. Crossing management approaches is even more difficult when the people involved aren't following a consistent approach within their own units. If you can't help management of the unit clarify their intent, at least help individuals clarify how they are going to work. How will they represent their unit? Contribute to decisions in the initiative? To what degree can they realistically commit to the initiative? How do they plan to participate in the work of the initiative?

Manage expectations with sponsors and key stakeholders. These often come from a management approach that is different from that of the participants or the initiative, and get frustrated as a result. For example, a CFO from a Hierarchical unit sponsoring a cross-functional initiative that works Collaboratively with participants from a variety of management approaches is going to start with unrealistic expectations.

Be clear about the management approach of the initiative. Each initiative needs a defined approach to manage its own work, and it may well be different from that of the participating units. Here are some examples of efforts "layered" onto the sample university above:

The approach your initiative takes is what is most under your control, so pick a viable approach and communicate it clearly, early and often. If necessary, train people in the approach. Time spent "onboarding" participants to how they are going to work together is never wasted.

With that effort applied, the example started above might continue something like this:

A new change leader in Central IT hears about the history of working with Financial Aid and decides to look more closely. She spends time in Financial Aid to understand its management approach and needs, and also takes a skeptical look at how well Central IT is applying its management approach. She finds allies and willing participants, and convenes a sponsor group that is ready to understand the cross-functional challenge and exercise influence accordingly.

A cross-functional initiative is formed with a clear management approach, and the participants understand how they will need to behave differently from their normal ways of working. Though the problem space is still very challenging, the initiative now has a chance of addressing it.

And yes, that is a real-life example and the initiative is still producing results after several years.

Is it worth it?

Is it worth it to do the above analysis? Only sometimes. The kind of change leadership and business architecture work needed to bridge management approaches is effortful and time-consuming. It might not take place for any of several reasons, including:

• The benefits of the initiative simply aren't worth the effort
• The urgency isn't there yet; the stakeholders are fine with letting the initiative "drift" rather than work on being more aligned
• The key decision-makers involved aren't ready to discuss, understand, or recognize the consequences of the multiplicity of management approaches

You might also be asking yourself: Is it worth it for universities to operate this way? In my opinion that's a personal leap of faith, similar to the "glass half full" metaphor. Organized anarchy is an extremely wasteful way for a university to operate -- or a quite reasonable way to operate -- depending on whether you tend to see:

• Duplication of effort -- vs. -- Adaptability to meet local needs
• Costly unexpected course changes -- vs. -- Agility to respond in the moment
• Ineffective use of resources -- vs. -- Setting aside resources for experimentation
• Lack of transparency -- vs. -- Protection from interference
• Lost opportunities -- vs. -- Freedom to pursue diverse goals

And so on. Personally I think a better version of the question is, is the university getting the most it can out of its management approaches? That applies to the overall model, each different approach selected for a different purpose, and initiatives that cross the university. And that's something we can all work on.

So how do you see it?

Endnotes

1. Matthew House, A Career in Organized Anarchy: Building Interpersonal Relationships in Higher Education, ACM SIGUCCS Annual Conference (2018).
2. There are problems with this version of history. For a debunking, see George Keller, Academic Strategy: The Management Revolution in American Education (1983).
3. That is, parts of the system are easily understood, but their multiplicity and interactions result in unpredictable behaviors at the level of the system. See Wikipedia, Complex system.
4. As an example framework for this, see Jay Galbraith, The Star Model.
5. I'm borrowing the Podular label from Dave Gray, The Connected Company (2014). For a good intro to the topic see this blog post by Dave Gray: The Future is Podular (2015).