This is a longish post, with some original thoughts based on my experiences on leading B schools.
Faculty
Management
I
found faculty the easiest to manage, for some reason, in my few years as head
of various institutions. According to me, the key is to treat the faculty as an
equal unless you have some reason to exert your authority. I was a faculty
member once, and found this above-mentioned facet to be a key differentiator in
the way I was dealt with by various bosses.
I
am not suggesting that this is the same as abdicating your responsibility or
not thinking problems through. For example, assertiveness is required in some
situations. For instance, I have had to sack faculty in exceptional
circumstances too, but they were exceptional. I was also forced to take a call
on performance evaluations at times, in unpleasant ways, but did not shy away
from it.
But
in the normal course of events, faculty are your biggest assets, and should be
respected as such. They will actually go beyond the call of duty, and do, if
their basic need- respect- is given to them by the bosses and the management
(owner/promoter). This can happen in any level of B school, not just in the top
ten or fifteen. Sometimes, even the reverse happens- resulting in better than
expected performance in lesser known B schools.
How
do you gain the confidence and respect of a faculty member of your team and
help them perform better? First, you need to convince them that their
development is aligned with the name and fame of the institute. Philip Kotler
is an asset to Kellog’s at Northwestern University, and not vice-versa. Srikant
Datar has brought fame to Harvard with his book on ‘Rethinking the MBA’ in
recent times. Parasuraman of SERVQUAL fame is better known than his university,
in fact. I am not sure which university he works for.
So
a faculty member can actually play a major role even in branding his institute.
But above all, he must contribute more than just good teaching. He could
develop his training skills by offering or teaching in Management Development
Programs, or publish scholarly work in journals of repute, or write a text book
(where would Kotler be without his famous text?).
Value-added
Activities
I
call these value-added activities, and these are as important as teaching. Of
course, your students will remember you if you teach well, but the whole world
will salute you if you do more in different forms suggested above. You could
also lead a PhD program or at least be a guide to some doctoral students, or
start a journal for your institution, or do some more innovative things- for
example, consulting. Faculty need to excel in at least two of these besides
teaching. And then you will automatically become a much sought-after person in
your field of expertise.
Setting
Expectations
At
PESIT, Bangalore, I first set out my expectations that every non-PhD faculty
would get a PhD. To their credit, every single faculty who did not have one,
enrolled for one, and we had 100% faculty who either had one or were registered
for one- including a 58 year-old! It helps to set out expectations in terms of
teaching, research, Ph.D., training, and academic administration.
Let
me tackle some of these. Academic administration is the toughest. Most faculty
members ask, why should we do this (unpaid labour)? My answer is, I expect you
to be a Dean or a Director of a B school in a few years. These are valuable
experiences along that path. I was once a placement chair in an institute. Not
a very good one, I might add, because my selling skills were weak. But I learnt how to handle students and placement chairs after that stint, which was
to prove useful to me later on. I was
also an MDP chairperson at another school, and a research chair at IIMK, in
addition to coordinating admissions and the Post Graduate Program at various
stages in my career. All of these were useful stints, and helped me grow. I saw
one of my major successes in appointing the right people for the right job, in
some of my later stints as head of an institution.
Teaching
Load
for teaching needs to be defined, and should not be exceeded beyond a maximum. It is an
exhausting process when you include preparation and evaluation (in an
autonomous school the faculty does this himself), particularly when class sizes
are large. Therefore, to find time to do other things that are important,
teaching hours need some control. Unlimited teaching may produce a good teacher
incapable of adding value to himself or the B school over a period. Four
courses could be a good starting point, for an annual academic teaching load at
a top autonomous school, because grading papers takes a lot of time in these.
In some cases, you may need one or more additional courses to be added.
Publication
Either
empirical research or case study publication is a must to prove that you are
pursuing current knowledge. Contribution to the profession is also measured
through publications. Accreditation agencies like AACSB, EQUIS, and NBA, and ranking agencies evaluate a B school on
the basis of their faculty’s publications, which is counted towards the
intellectual capital. Therefore, for various reasons, publishing your work is
crucial. Training and hand-holding of new faculty may be needed to help them
achieve this goal. Journal lists of potential journals to publish in must be
generated and updated. You could start an institutional journal. Research
seminars by internal faculty can be organised regularly for sharing of work in
progress. Training on research methods could also be imparted internally or
through sponsorship to programs done by other B schools.
Conferences
Conference
papers are more easily accepted than journal papers, but do need effort. They
can be co-authored with faculty from other B schools or your own. The
presentation of papers is a break from routine, and can expose you to new ideas
as well as new peers. I once found a co-author at one conference at MDI
Gurgaon- he happened to be an Indian working in a New Zealand University and it
led to a decent international publication.
Industry
Interaction
This
can take several forms. If the budget allows it, faculty must get industry
speakers to come in to their class for a couple of sessions in a course. This
builds a network with industry, and exposes the faculty to some industry jargon
and events. Also, consulting or training opportunities may come as a result of
these interactions. Industry
seminars on a theme that is current or
trending, can be organised as a day-long event, with the help of student
interest groups. This may create leads for placement or projects.
Case
Writing
I
believe, and have proof for this assertion, that anybody can write a case. In
fact, students have written several cases for me based on both real and
simulated or fictional data. Faculty can certainly do so, if they put their
mind to it. I have had a faculty colleague write a case in I.T. , and I have
thought about cases in other areas that I know nothing about. Of course, in Marketing or Organization Behavior, it is far easier to think of case
situations. I have also done a video case by interviewing the protagonists once.
A novel idea we tried out at IMT Nagpur is writing cases on the companies of
participants in an Entrepreneurship program. This involved documenting and
rewriting the experiences of a dozen participants of a long training program,
where they presented their own case studies. Rewriting these for a particular
set of problems or questions made them very good topical case studies for
teaching. We
also encouraged people to write cases at a conference that we (IMT Nagpur)
conducted at Goa every year. Budding case writers were encouraged to write
cases and were given feedback by experts who have written several cases for
teaching or publication.
Evaluation
of faculty
Usually
a mix of criteria, that include teaching quantity and quality (measured through
student feedback and other criteria such as novelty, etc.), publications, and
service to the institution through academic administration are used in
evaluating faculty contribution. You can devise a method that suits the goals
of the organisation. But this needs to be clarified many times orally and in
writing. Goal-setting for the institution also needs repeated discussions with
individual faculty and in groups.
International
Exposure and Development
You
need to handle faculty with care, as an important resource. Their developmental
needs can be met through exposure to training, foreign teaching, and networking
opportunities. Future leaders can be groomed through such exposure. For instance, at IMT Ghaziabad, over 80 partner
institutions are available for faculty and student exchange, as MOUs have been
signed with them. In a given year, at least 10-12 faculty go out and teach
internationally. This brings in great exposure and an incentive for faculty to
continue with the institution. In other words, it is a retention tool for those
faculty members who value such opportunities.
Designing
Faculty Development Programs
While
designing FDPs, there are three major (and one minor) areas that must be
covered.
1. Research techniques and
methods, which help in publishing
2. Use of cases and other
innovative pedagogical tools
3. Publishing avenues and strategies
4. Networking with faculty and industry
The
programs can be designed and conducted in-house with internal resources (if
available) or external resources, if these are not available. Usually, the
payoff is immediate, in terms of increased productivity, if the exercise is
handled correctly. For example, in a Bangalore based B school, we had faculty
papers going up from nearly nil to about 15 per year, including conference and
journal papers.
A
liberal policy of encouraging conference participation funded by the
institution needs to go hand in hand with raising expectations and conducting
FDPs or sending people to attend them elsewhere. It is probably cost-effective to
conduct them in-house for the topics/themes mentioned above. For specialised or
technical training which is very narrow, they could be sent out to other
institutions, or even to industry as ‘interns’.
