A "chainsaw" "axed" people?
 

Your comment Rich lacks context and is therefore unfair.

If there was someone who used systematic lay offs to shape people into compliance with his rule it was another recent HU President, not Faust.

Why don't you take a look at the lay offs of staff and faculty in the professional schools where that President appointed Deans?

"Chainsaw Faust" may want to ask Human Resources to provide her the complete list of all the people laid off, and then have someone contact these people and compile their views about the reasons they were laid off. She might also ask for a report of the gender and race of those laid off.

This is the recent record of lay offs worth investigating and discussing, not speculations about what the next President may do in this regard.

But you do have a point when you say that a discussion of the merits of dismissals should include the perspective of those dismissed and in this omission the Crimson conveys a very narrow viewpoint in discussing such things.

Perhaps President Faust will be wiser than the Crimson in this regard.
 

If Drew Faust had any interest in how staff feel about current management practices she just needs to read the recent staff survey and the follow up conducted in a few schools.

Incidentally, that Survey has received the least publicity of any report at Harvard in recent history.
 

What makes you think that Faust and the members of the Corporation have not read the report 'What is your Harvard like?' based on the survey administered in March of 2006?
 

The purpose of the report was probably to identify the unhappy souls on the staff and fire them.
 

You are not kiddin'

In the professional school where I work the administrative dean met with staff in small groups to discuss the report 'What is Harvard Like'.

The dean indicated that he was spending hours and days going over each table in the report and that he would find out who was most unhappy and in which units. He also invited staff to approach him directly to share their views on the issues examined in the survey.

Many of us knew that HE was the reason of much discontent. Many staff have been laid off since he was hired, particularly those with most experience and those most critical. These staff have been replaced by others HE has hired, many personal acquaintances or colleagues from his formal workplace. Since these meetings took place the lay offs have continued. In some cases this is done subtly, harrassing staff just enough so they leave.

Maybe what 'Chainsaw Faust' has in mind is to identify those kinds of bullies and get rid of them.

Harvard would be all the better if she did.
 

Maybe it would happen faster, 6.27, if you identified on this blog which school and even which dean.
 

There is no need to discuss these topics on a public blog. President-elect Faust is aware of the schools where turnover rates have increased in unusual ways. Just give her time to do what she needs to do to make every school at Harvard a better workplace.
 

How many Harvard schools and departments are characterized by the following?

staff turnover
sickness absence
grievance action
disciplinary action
stress breakdown
suicide or attempted suicide
death in service
customer complaints
ill health retirements
early retirements
reorganisations

These are the symptoms of a toxic manager. Toxic bosses and toxic managers prevent staff doing their jobs and prevent employees fulfilling their duties. They thrive in a toxic work environment. Unpredictable moods, conflicting demands, inconsistent orders, random decision-making, inability to plan strategically, inability and unwillingness to communicate and co-operate, obstructive ... the list goes on. If management suddenly appoint a toxic boss as your manager, you'll realise that toxic shock syndrome is not just a female condition. If you've got a toxic manager, your problems have just begun. And they won't get better.

http://www.bullyonline.org/related/toxic.htm
 

The survey 'What is your Harvard Like' was Harvard's first attempt at 360 feedback. It did identify the bad leaders in various schools. No action has been yet taken based on that metric. Why?

This article explains how bad leaders keep their jobs

http://trainingpd.suite101.com/blog.cfm/bad_leadership_and_mismanagement

How do bad leaders keep their jobs? The worker bees see it, the helper bees (middle managers/consultants) see it but the queens are so busy being royal to notice!


How does mismanagement happen? Do egos cloud judgement? Does power create some sort of blindness (the forest-for-the-trees variety)? If so, how can we prevent it from happening?

To help correct this, some companies are using 360 degree feedback. This type of performance review process, in theory, means that everyone who works under, beside and above the individual being reviewed has input into the evaluation. The trouble is that even though these reviews tend to be pricey in time and dollars, they are sometimes dismissed. The queens and kings go into denial and blame the negative feedback on “disgruntled” workers. Hello! They are disgruntled because no one seems to care or notice that the company is being run by nincompoops!

These low flying leaders find ways to miss being detected by radar. They are expert butt-kissers and find ways to manipulate people to their advantage. Some are corporate bullies and rule by creating fear preventing constructive and honest feedback from being obtained and acted on.

My suggestion to companies who are trying to weed out the bad leaders is to evaluate leaders on metrics that demonstrate effective leadership. A key metric is the amount of turnover of staff in their department. If you can, break it down into the percentages that are due to voluntary termination (quitting), involuntary termination (firing), medical leave (especially stress leaves) and transfers. Also look at departmental performance numbers, absenteeism rates and number of incidents involving the HR or legal departments for resolution. You can track the amount of severance dollars paid per department as another metric.

Keeping track of these numbers will help to evaluate the leaders more objectively.

If you have comments or suggestions on this blog entry, please start a discussion

If you liked this blog entry, try:
 

Anon 8:53--That's the case for business as usual. Just hold tight, don't ask any questions, don't speak your mind, let the higher-ups take care of it. Why not try a little transparency?
 

Hey Richard,

I have an idea. Everytime the Crimson writes a story about Drew or Theda, please please scream 'sexism'! It seems to be your favorite tune and you sing it so well.

Have you look into the four other peer colleges with female presidents and college dailies?

Perhaps years of Summers-sighting would make anyone hypersensitive to these concerns.
 

But would you care to address the substance of the point, or no?
 

Richard is absolutely correct. It is the lack of transparent as a normal way of doing business at Harvard that so hurts the institution.

The results of the survey in question have NEVER been communicated to staff or faculty --much less students. A very brief and uninformative summary is available in:

http://harvie.harvard.edu/working/staffsurvey/pdf/July-Supplement.pdf

but even that is only available only to staff working at Harvard under password protection. These results are so hidden that they are only available to those persistant few looking for them.

Why can't the Crimson run a piece discussing these results? Shouldn't the students, and future graduates, be engaged in analizing what those working at Harvard think about it as a workplace? Why haven't these results been distributed to the Boards of Overseers?

Richard, your persistence in calling for more transparency at Harvard is admirable. Unfortunately you stand a better chance in getting the US Government or Corporatios to answer that call.
 

There are plans to repeat the staff survey in about a year.

There are two ways for schools to show improvements on their scores. One is to genuinely work in addressing the deficiencies identified in the survey. The other, more expedient, is identifying the individuals who provided the most negative scores and firing them before the next round of the survey is administered.

While Hewitt Associates did not provide the individual identities of those responding to deans, they did provide information clustered by unit in ways that make it possible to identify which units had the highest levels of discontent.

It would be informative to President Faust to examine turnover rates in different units after the results of this survey were released.
 

Mr. Bradley:

Your confounded logic on this discussion misses the point that Harvard is an institution concerned with research and teaching. These are the main concerns of faculty, students and alumni.

The satisfaction of the maids who clean the rooms of the students, of the janitors who clean the offices or more generally of the staff who work there are NOT the concern of those who should be concerned with doing the best research in the world and studying hard to assume position of leadership.


The management of the University finances, or of the staff, are the singular domain of University administrators, and not a matter for broad engagement of the community.

There are plenty of universities where these specialized roles are utterly confused. Interested Harvard faculty and students are free to move there.
 

Anon 12:20—My logic isn't confounded; we simply disagree.

You say that we wouldn't want those "studying hard to assume positions of leadership" to care about the concerns of the maids, janitors and staff.

Which is to say that Harvard should train leaders who don't give a damn about the people they are apparently going to lead.

What an appalling comment.
 

Not to mention the fact that, at today's Harvard, some of this work is done by students...and many students come from families whose parents do such work. It is perhaps easier for you to dismiss their concerns than it is for them.

When I was at Harvard, I dated a woman whose roommate was the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Her father was a tollbooth collector; her mother was a hotel maid. This young woman worked an eight-hour day at United Parcel Service five days a week to pay her way through college. When she graduated, she went to work on Wall Street and bought her parents a house.

But no, she and every other Harvard student shouldn't care about the maids, janitors, and various other plebeian staff.
 

It's also a stupid remark (12.20's) because everything that frees faculty and students to do good work--call it "excellence"--is impossible or much hindered without staff: departmental administrators, librarians high and low, lab technicians, secretaries and program administrators at the various institutes & centers throughout this university.

One only hopes that 12.20 isn't actually on the Harvard faculty. Or is he (seems unlikely he's a woman) someone who has actually managed to function all these years without notivated, dedicated staff?
 

EADW—actually, he sounded like an alum to me.
 

12.20, perhaps your own logic is confounded, in assuming that there is no relationship between leadership effectiveness in creating adequate work environments and in achieving the institutional goals of each unit.

In the survey in question, for instance, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies ranked AT THE TOP of all Harvard Units in producing 'engagement' among staff. In contrast, the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Divinity School ranked AT THE BOTTOM of all Harvard schools in the engagement of staff.

These are also the same relative positions of these schools in fund raising and in various indicators of organizational performance.

Perhaps having maids and janitors who feel valued, helps Harvard achieve its mission more than you can understand.
 

The report available on Harvard's intranet for staff is not uninformative as you suggest 11.52.

Notice, for instance, the table displaying the favorability ratings by school and unit. The Radcliffe Institute is above the averages for Harvard in 7 of the 14 categories rated and at average levels in 6 of the remaining categories. Isn't this indicative of the leadership effectiveness of Dean Drew Faust? Above the average of her peers?
 

Having just looked at the report in question I have to agree with 1.52 above. I see, for example, that the Education School is significantly below average in 9 of the 14 scores. I remember reading in this blog earlier that the ranking of that school in US News and World Report descended from first to fourth in the last few years. As I understand those rankings they are not based in any way in staff satisfaction. There is clearly a relationship here between these independent scores.
 

The fact that the Radcliffe Institute came ahead of all other units at Harvard AFTER 'Chainsaw Faust' fired 25% of the staff is indicative of the benefit that come from judicious prunning of unhappy and unproductive staff.
 

Hello 1.46 and 1.52. If we are to read the favorable rating of the RIAS as reflective of DF leadership, what should we make of the fact that RIAS scored significantly below Harvard averages in the 'Diversity' category? Isn't this paradoxical for an antebellum scholar?