Professionalism and College Management

Continuing with my views on how management can run the colleges more professionally:

It’s no doubt that allowing private players in the education sector has added a lot of quality and value to education. Needless to say, it has also increased the competition among the players there. Contrarily, this competition has led to ‘education business’ whose primary objective seems to be only making money. Yes, objective of any business is ‘to make money’; but unfortunately people seem to miss its additional clause, ‘legally and ethically’. If this clause is forgotten while running the business especially in the education sector, I think that’s where the system starts failing.

What I expect managements to ensure professionalism in their running of education system:

• Have a long term vision – though it may look like rhetoric, I think that’s where problem lies if you are not sure about where you want your institutes to be in a long term. The sight of the brighter, long-term vision and its benefits could be easily lost in the course of making few quick bucks in the short-term (without bothering if it’s legal or not). Such (unfair) practices if any, even small, certainly don’t carry the institutes for long (E.g.  Going for pirated software, showing wrong accounts, too much of penalties to students, decision making based on gossips / here says, etc.)
• My views on achieving immense benefits in the long-term (which I would like to address from 3 different perspectives)

• Infrastructure / systems in the institutes – don’t compromise on its quality. Go for branded, good quality products (e.g. computers, UPS, machinery, etc.). Though it may seem expensive initially, they certainly last longer without causing any maintenance hassles or annoyance to its users. Automate routine work using software systems. There’s absolutely no doubt that it’ll bring in huge, huge amount of benefits (which can’t always be measured in terms of money of course!) Gone are the days of manual, routine task based systems. It definitely proves to be a profitable proposition in the long-term.

• TRUST your people – from whatever I see, here and experience, this aspect majorly seems to be lacking in institutes. If the management doesn’t trust its people, how can it expect its staff to trust the management? The ‘handshake’ seems to be missing or very loose!

Managements also seem to be indifferent with its staff. It looks as if they take it for granted that if they pay the money (salary) regularly, the people will just come and do their work. There is somewhat like master-slave relationship. It appears as if sycophancy (chamcha giri) is prevailing in there. This is leading to a major chasm between these two parties. All such things should go.

Mind that there are very learned, highly qualified and experienced people in there. I think they command a respect even more than a company would give to its employees. Regularly meeting them to listen to their woes and suggestions would certainly take the institute to newer heights. It also makes the staff get ‘more involved’ in the overall system. Any disgruntled staff can spread his / her unhappiness within no time.

• Whether or not the institute goes for any kind of accreditation (like NBA) or certification, I think there should be proper procedures to every process and it should be meticulously documented and followed very strictly (e.g. examination process, attendance process, administration process, etc.) and it should be continuously improved based on feedbacks and suggestions. Though exceptions may be derived from such things the exception itself shouldn’t become the main process! Now there seems to ‘reinventing the wheel’ approach every time when new tasks are taken up. People don’t seem to learn from the past (lack of proper knowledge management). Setting up a proper process framework is the need of the hour.

These are some of the points that if implemented will certainly take the institutes to newer heights. I have not written these blindly by referring here and there to sound like rhetoric; I’ve experienced it personally and have seen the benefits which such long-term plans can bring in.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are certain reflections of my mind while I blogged them. Any resemblance or similarity with any person, institute or event is purely coincidental and unintentional.

Professionalism and College Day function

Couldn't resist writing this blog after attending a college day function few days back!  It was for 3 days with one objective each day. Conducting it for 3 days with different committees to look after various functions like stage preparation, decoration, prize distribution, cultural program, food, transport, discipline, etc. is certainly commendable. A strong and cohesive coordination among these committees was very much required for a smooth running of these events. Kudos to all those who were involved in those committees.

However, there are many things that could have been done better which would have brought in more professionalism into the whole exercise. Am mentioning a few of them (primarily focusing on the formal stage function) though to limit the length of this blog entry:

1.  No. of people on the dais or stage - Ideally, those people who are going to speak in the function (where the no. wouldn't exceed 5-6) will be sitting on the stage. Those who don’t speak, who do not have any reasons to sit there, shouldn’t be sitting there, whatever may be the relationships that they have with the organizers or sponsors; it certainly doesn’t set the right encomium for the stage. I thought it’s only on the first day. To my surprise, I could see it happening all 3 days.

To top it, they were being greeted with flower bouquets by dignitaries and their names were also mentioned during ‘vote of thanks’ for their support! That looked really funny :-) Remember sitting among the audience is not a disgrace; rather, sitting on a stage without any momentous reason, well ...!?

I have seen in a NDTV program, where our former President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam sitting among the audience when a debate over a hot topic was being discussed with many businessmen and other dignitaries on the stage. In fact, for some time he was sitting on floor of the stage whilst other dignitaries were sitting on their chairs, when he was putting across his side of the arguments. That was a quite amazing program!

2. Prize / certificate distribution – A simple one. If there are too many people who are eligible to receive the prizes, usually the top category ones are given the prizes on the final day, managing rest of them in an earlier function say, at each college level.  So that, the main prize distribution will complete in 10-15 min. Believe it or not, the no. of people who were called on the stage to receive their certificates was, hold your breath ... 450+!! I pity the chief guest who gave away these awards and appreciate his patience.

3. Reading the reports on the stage – another common sense. It’s a usual practice to read school / college reports during such functions mentioning the highlights of various activities done in the school / college for the previous year. Audience will start getting restless if it takes more than 5-6 min to read the report. Again, believe it or not, around 10 – 12 reports of various colleges were read on this day which were very ‘dry’ to listen to.  Apparently many reports started with the lines, ‘this college started on so-and-so day and year, by so-and-so, with ...’.  Just a few highlighting points with 1 min per college would have been more than sufficient. Rest of the points could have been displayed on the big screen that was used for the function. God saved the people (both on and off the stage) from boredom that day!

4.  During its ‘final review’ meeting (just before the event), I could see a convener still using PPT of the previous year’s function, editing it and fixing the mistakes in front of 40-50 people from various committees (as if it was being edited for the first time this year!)

The chief guest on the first day had advised students to have ‘common sense’ which is very important when they are coming out of the college. The whole function seemed to contradict his very words!

Yes, I know it’s easier to criticize about anything so long as you are not part of it. Well, I don’t intend to do it here and that’s not the objective of this blog too. Having firsthand experience in organizing functions at various levels and committees, having seen them being conducted professionally in other occasions, I think I can take that freedom to express myself to improve things in future - that's my humble submission.

Long-term perspective

Long-term perspective - I think it's another buzzword that corporate folks like to cling on to. Whatever it may be, it certainly has its own positives. In the hurry of making quick bucks or reaping the low handing fruits so to say, we loose sight of much better fruits that are high above. No. of people to fetch the low hanging fruits is also high and whose quality is also not as great as the high hanging ones. Enough of theory I guess!

Why am I saying so? After the paradigm shift of my professional life (Industry to institute), it looks pretty evident to me with the kind of things happening around me. No doubt education has become another business domain nowadays. In the process of making quick bucks, it's quite unfortunate to see people missing sight of many more years to come. A clear vision, focus on quality, a standardized process, time management, commitment and more importantly the true professionalism, is severely lacking. (I see 'vision' statement board in most of the colleges though; however may not be connected to the things they do) All these take a back seat in this environment. Even if somebody mentions it, they just nod their head without actually thinking through it. If you are not well equipped with such things, how can one expect it pass it on to students who are going to be the future professionals or entrepreneurs?

People seem to be quite complacent with things in whatever state or level of quality they may be. I think it's also got to do with the exposure. The more you travel, the more you interact with different kinds of people and the more you become 'open to ideas'. Once you are to yourself and don't accept suggestions from others, that's where you stop growing in life!

I think it should change. I'm trying to introduce such changes in the institutes slowly. I know it's a tough challenge - going against the odds. I'm not sure if we can use the same aggressiveness that we use in the corporates to do stuff here. I've just started this new journey. Let me see how much do I succeed in here ...