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On May 1, 1991, when it was her time, the Dean approached the lectern:
“Good morning,” she said, “I appreciate these opportunities we have put aside for me to share my thoughts with you each month.”
After a brief pause, she began:
“Today I want to direct my remarks to a single subject: two contrasting paradigms of how organizations might operate.
“The one model is of diverse, distinct factions within the organization competing with each other for the available resources, attempting to serve their own interests or their own special agenda for the organization, with the organization as a whole proceeding by balancing these competing interests off against each other in order to maintain a tolerable working relationship.
“In the other model, the members of the organization think of themselves first as members of the organization as a whole and only secondarily as members of any sub-group or faction, working together to achieve commonly shared goals.
“When it operates successfully – as it often does - the first system is characterized by competition, confrontation, and compromise. The second system, when it operates successfully, is characterized by communication, dispute resolution, and cooperation.
“Now, it will not surprise you to hear me say that the second model - colleagues working together to achieve commonly shared goals - is the one I believe appropriate for an educational institution like ours based on free inquiry (rather than dogma), research, reason and observation (rather than mere custom), and freedom of expression.
“When I arrived here as your Dean five years ago, however, I found the other organizational system in operation: factions competing against one another, in our case for scarcer and scarcer resources.
“When decisions were made - and sometimes it seemed any decision was made reluctantly - they were unstable compromises among competing interests.
“The point is, I think we at this fine old school, fighting to draw back from the brink of financial collapse, should be able to recognize more clearly and more certainly than others that the system of competition, confrontation, and compromise does not work well here. We have seen, close up, that this mode of operation will fail.
“As we move through our work together in future years, I am asking you to keep in mind the two paradigms - competing factions representing diverse interests as opposed to colleagues working toward common goals –
“…And to work with me to eliminate any vestiges we still have of the old system, avoiding any actions that would entrench still further our unproductive habits in this regard.
She looked up:
“Or at least, let’s give it a try. “
Looking at her watch, she said, “We seem to have a few minutes for questions…?”
One of the older members of those listening put down his newspaper and stood up.
Facing those seated around him, he said: “Do we have to submit ourselves to these little sermonettes? We could be having lunch by now!”
He sat down again: “…Nothing personal, Dean ‘D----',” he said.
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