In making major budget cuts at colleges and universities because of
the world-wide recession, legislators and board members with
business experience may not understand how to change campus
programs wisely. Avoiding wrong decisions and long-term,
unanticipated consequences requires structured, broad-based input
and buy-in by affected constituencies. Especially when major
reductions in programs are required, extensive participation in
decisions to bring about needed changes must be sought by
administrators to help all parties to adjust to new realities and
bring their best thinking to bear in reshaping the future of the
institution and its budget priorities. Participatory management can
bring wider opinion, more information, and more sophisticated
analysis of alternatives to decision making, increase support for
decisions once they have been made, and make implementation of
decisions easier. Although participatory decision making may appear
to be slow moving and its procedures can be cumbersome, decisions
made in a supposedly quicker authoritarian mode may never be
implemented, in which case speaking of time saved becomes
meaningless. Making Participatory Management Work, published
originally by Jossey-Bass (now part of Wiley) in 1983, was among
the first book-length works on using participatory management in a
higher education setting. It appeared at a time when faculty
senates had become common but on many campuses had limited impact
on institutional decision making, and when many administrators
remained hierarchical despite a national trend in academe toward
increasingly collegial, less top-down decision making. Principles
advocated in the book are especially important today when many
legislators are focused on balancing budgets, not investing in
higher education and research, and disruptive technologies have
changed the economy, employment opportunities, and curriculum needs
of many students. Trustees and regents, and lawmakers at the state
and federal levels may have little understanding of the problems
that have resulted for colleges and universities and how to address
them. Powers and Powers show in step-by-step detail how decisions
are reached through group consultation and how groups with
different goals can be persuaded to cooperate for the good of the
institution. They analyze the leadership attitudes and skills
needed to make participatory management effective; clarify how
leaders can work efficiently with different types of governance
bodies; and describe how participatory management deals with
specific issues, such as budget and program planning, and
structural reorganization. In addition, the Powers consider some of
the ethical dilemmas involved in consultive decision making and
review both the strengths and drawbacks of participatory
management. The model advocated in the book emphasizes that the key
first step of defining the problem is often overlooked in many
participatory decision making efforts and may account for their
inefficiency and their failure. Further steps required include
analysis of alternatives, and drafting and circulating position
papers. Strategies for referral to governance bodies must be wisely
chosen, and their deliberative processes must be respected. Even
after final approval by governance bodies, plans and policies must
be evaluated to ensure that unanticipated consequences are
addressed. At the end, the pragmatic question must be asked: Have
we dealt with the problem?
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