A SOUND VISION
Unitec's vision and the rationale for change was sound. The leadership recognised that the education landscape is changing. Information is more accessible, skills required by the workforce are evolving quicker than institutions can develop courses to teach them and the costs for students (both living and opportunity costs) are rising higher and higher with each passing year - just to name a few. So, the vision was to bring work and education closer together into a model of "work-integrated learning" or "learning-integrated work". It marked a shift away from the traditional 3-years-in-a-classroom approach and it was intended that the whole experience be more flexible, agile and relevant to the needs of the job market. So far, so sensible.
TOO MUCH...
To be clear, this was a fundamental departure from the standard operating model. It was a visionary, ambitious endeavour for a state sector organisation. In order to make it happen, Unitec recognised that major changes would be required across:
- Teaching and learning method and practice
- Student support and experience
- Administration and reporting
- Management structures and practices
- Staff profile
- Organisational culture change
- Institution policies and procedures
- Technology
- Campus redevelopment, including new buildings and space utilisation changes
- Employer and community partnerships
- Brand and communications
...to name a few. This was comprehensive, wholesale change. In a very real way, they were attempting to create a new organisation out of an existing one. As it turns out, it probably would have been better to start something fresh.
...TOO FAST
In any event, it was a huge change programme and they could choose to either phase things over time or try to do it all at once. They chose to do the latter. From the outside, this seems like extraordinarily poor judgement (and, it turns out, it was) but it is easy to say so from an armchair. It's possible to see how they talked themselves into making that decision - lots of others may well have done the same thing.
The change programme was so enormous that if Unitec had phased it in a way that the organisation could easily absorb, they could have been in a change process for 10-15 years. They didn't believe they had that kind of time.
WHAT HAPPENED?
So they tried to push it through in just a few years. Everything from the phone and photocopying systems, through to the teaching spaces; from outsourcing of their enrolments management to a commercial company, through to a total redesign of management, administration and teaching structures; from building new buildings to changing use of existing spaces - and more, including hundreds of redundancies.
It was more than the institution (the staff and its students) could take. What was the consequence?
- Staff engagement plummeted
- Teaching and learning quality deteriorated and they were downgraded by NZQA
- Students became increasingly dissatisfied
- Staff turnover climbed, some resigning just months after arriving
- Enrolments (and revenue) dropped
These are just some of the effects of poorly managed change. Was it just down to speed? No. Despite millions being spent on the Unitec transformation process, they made all sorts of other mistakes. One senior manager said "we have no discernible strategy". There probably was one but their statement is a good indication of how poorly it was communicated. But we'll get into issues like that in future posts.
WHAT SHOULD WE LEARN?
There are lots of lessons about change to take from Unitec's transformation but, for now, there are 4 worth highlighting:
- Ask yourself: should we try to change what's there or start something new?
This is really important. There are a range of factors that will go into this decision, including... - Understand your organisation's capacity to absorb change
Depending on a host of factors, some organisations can go through loads of change and maintain their equilibrium. For others, moving the office printer can send the team into a spin - at the wrong time, that can cause major problems which bring us to... - Choose your moment
Unitec probably left their run a bit late. In 2010, they had over 10,000 Equivalent Full-Time Students (EFTS). It's easy to say in hindsight, but they probably should have commenced their change programme then. They left it until 5 years later when their enrolments had established a declining trend. But then the need for it wouldn't have seemed as urgent in 2010 and, therefore, would have been even more difficult to sell to the organisation. - Organisations are living and breathing organisms
An organisation chart, skills matrix and set of job descriptions can only tell you so much. They need to be tended and nurtured - especially through times of change. Always keep a healthy respect for the fact that organisational change impacts real people, their lives and their livelihoods.
In the next post in this series, we'll look at other challenges from this case study and the lessons we can all learn from them.