…before you start nodding your head in agreement,  it’s worth a moment to pause and reflect:  Academic research shows over and over again that organisations with effective performance management practices outperform those without.  Yet University HR teams struggle to get performance management properly implemented.

This particular Dean claimed to have 25 direct reports.  Frankly that is too many.  So it is true – the Dean doesn’t have time, and is almost certainly not able to manage all those direct reports effectively.

The implication of the headline though, is that ‘other things’ are more important.  Really?  This is a business school!  Surely this is the one area of faculty that can demonstrate effective management practice within its own ranks.

Yet, we know (from hard won experience) that engaging senior academics in value adding performance management (as opposed to box-ticking, which they will rightly reject) requires a special, evidence based approach.

Typical push back includes ” my staff are intelligent, they know what to do“,  “it’s not appropriate to set goals” and even “it will be very divisive to rate people’s performance“.

Want some ideas on how to deal with these and other challenges?   There’s a short video interview on the front page of the website that gives some insight into how to create high performance people management in highly academic workplaces.

Hope you enjoy it.

Meanwhile, just suppose the Dean of a Business school said ” I don’t have time to complete my research/ finish my book/ publish my paper.”  ….