Moving Up

Self-Destructive Tendencies, Part 2

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By Dennis M. Barden

Last month I opined that the hiring practices of far too many colleges and universities are inefficient at best and self-destructive at worst. I began telling the story of a search for a dean in which the university had so slavishly adhered to its hiring protocol that it was willing to sacrifice highly qualified candidates to the gods of process.

Search processes should be constructed to lead to the best possible outcome. In all too many cases, however, "the process" becomes an end in itself, draining the leadership out of the candidate pool.

Of course I'm not suggesting we throw out hiring processes entirely and let the consultants take over. In fact, there are some aspects of the process that should be followed to the letter, and the difficulties arise not because of slavish adherence to process but because of the wanton disregard of it. Let me give you an example of that before I resume our story and tell you how the dean search ended. Consider the case of another search I was involved in a few years ago and remember all too well.

I was hired to help identify and attract a dean for a major academic unit at a flagship public university. The search committee was the largest I had, and still have, ever dealt with -- 25 people, all but about four of them faculty members representing departments that the dean would oversee.

As consultants, it is standard for us to "prep" search committees for their responsibilities early in the process. Two of the most important points we make to members of the panel are: Maintain the confidentiality of individual candidates, and remember that your work on the committee is predicated not on representation of a department, or any specific constituency, but rather on your ability to make good judgments for the institution as a whole.

We weren't halfway through the search before a member of the committee -- a full professor and department head -- violated both tenets.

We had been fortunate to attract a wonderful pool of candidates, including sitting deans at peer institutions. All of those candidates were willing to learn more about the position, to give it real consideration. All they asked in return was a fair hearing and confidentiality. Candidates don't want to be compromised in their current positions while they consider a new position.

One such candidate -- a sitting dean at a peer institution -- was invited to meet with the committee. That dean agreed to be interviewed by all 25 members of the committee and did very well. All went according to plan until the committee met a week after the preliminary interviews to select their finalists.

In that session, the aforementioned member of the committee rose to speak. "I have spoken to a colleague who chairs the same department at this candidate's institution that I do here," he began as the blood drained from my face. That was, of course, a violation of the confidentiality that we had discussed openly with the committee before any candidates were presented. "He tells me that this candidate has eliminated his department there. This is unacceptable to me and to my colleagues in my department, and I insist that this candidate no longer be considered."

And that, as they say, was that. Twenty-four other committee members immediately decided, for that reason alone, that they would no longer consider an excellent and accomplished individual.

I protested, of course. I pointed out that the candidate had already told the committee of the very difficult budget decisions that were necessary at the home institution, the process that was undertaken, and the reasons that various options were chosen. That the decisions were sound, that the process was thorough, that the outcomes were positive were all were judged to be irrelevant. It just didn't matter.

No one asked how many majors the eliminated department had entertained in the past few years -- very few. No one asked how many faculty members had lost their jobs -- none. No one asked how many courses were no longer being taught -- none. All that mattered was that the candidate had made a decision that angered at least one faculty member.

This member of this committee -- who had blatantly disregarded the rules of confidentiality and quite possibly compromised the candidate's effectiveness, if not employment, at the current institution -- succeeded in convincing the search committee that the candidate's behavior was unacceptable and therefore disqualifying.

A great many others would call making such difficult decisions and living with their consequences qualities of leadership, but, as a result of displaying those qualities, the candidate was no longer under consideration by a major academic unit that badly needed that kind of brave and bold leadership.

So, back to the story I started last month. In our last episode, the university in question had managed to identify a small group of finalists for its deanship despite a process that had been highly dysfunctional, to say the least. Three candidates were invited to the campus to meet with the key constituencies and to deliver prepared remarks about their visions for the future.

At the conclusion of those visits, a clear hierarchy had emerged. One candidate didn't make the cut. The remaining two fit a familiar pattern -- one was favored by the central administration and local civic and business leaders, and the other was favored by the faculty. Happily, both were deemed satisfactory by all, so the candidate who had ranked the highest across the board was invited to come back for yet another visit and to bring his spouse this time.

As consultants to the search, we advised the university to arrange for the spouse to have a meaningful and substantive role in the visit, but members of the campus barely acknowledged her presence. She was merely handed over to a realtor to look at houses, schools, and other domestic necessities, and never met anyone at the university.

Neither the candidate nor the spouse was really courted in any way; The university simply assumed that the job would be accepted if offered, heedless of any sense that it was recruiting not a commodity but a leader -- one who had a family and cared deeply about how those family members would view this new opportunity.

The visit went well from the institution's point of view, and the candidate was offered the job. Perhaps no aspect of this story, though, is as surprising as the fact that the candidate actually accepted!

That is the amazing part.

Candidates endure a lot in academe for a job that they only think that they may want. They compromise their current position and institution. They are kept waiting for weeks and then given just days to prepare for major steps in the process. Their privacy is invaded. Their families are ignored. They put themselves through grueling marathons of public scrutiny. And then they take the job! Could this happen in any other sector of the economy?

This, then, is the core issue: The university got the candidate it wanted at the end of the process. It dealt with a pool of candidates it deemed sufficient in number and ability to allow it to choose a dean whom it believes is the optimal choice for the future. The university is happy, and our firm has discharged its duties. The paradigm must work -- dysfunction, inefficiency, and all, right?

Maybe, but no one ever asks in the midst of the celebration of success how many people chose at the outset not to participate because they knew what the process would be and the costs it would impose upon them -- the time commitment for multiple interviews; the risk of their candidacy being made evident to their current employers and the possibility of retaliation if it did; and the potential invasion of their privacy by a search committee that didn't respect the boundaries of reasonable behavior.

Any person interviewing for a job must absorb some of that risk, but search processes in higher education tend to become matters of public record, with candidates held up to public scrutiny in ways that far exceed what most job candidates would consider reasonable.

If even one outstanding candidate has opted out of a search because of the risk of incurring those costs, has the institution not paid a steep price for the dysfunction of its hiring processes? In the story I've told, our client ended up hiring a highly qualified dean. But isn't it revealing that the university managed to make a great hire in spite of -- rather than because of -- its hiring process?

I can't help but wonder if a search that leaves so many fundamental questions unanswered can really be considered successful.