Higher Education stuck in Win-Lose Rut

The Higher educational system at this college is showing serious signs of stress in my college due to management’s lack of willingness to work with employees or the employee union to achieve a win-win for the college, the students, the employees, and the voting public. For years now we have had a top down management style which has prevented our college from receiving the highest awards.

Management has worked at Win-Lose for so long that they refuse to do it any other way. The new president has now decided that she will reorganize the college with very little input from the people being affected by the changes. When she does set up meetings to discuss change the decisions have already been made and it is clear to anyone trying to provide input that their opinions matter very little. People are left waiting for the management to make the final changes with little to no idea how those changes will affect their work environment and fearing for the worst in most cases. Middle management and the union are out in the cold and are beginning to show signs of anger and resentment toward upper management because of the lack of communication never mind them really trying to listen to the employees.

This type of management style has resulted in very poor working conditions for the college employees and will only harm the level of education in the near future. The college management is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs of higher education in this institution. I have to admit to not being surprised by this result since one of the first interactions I had with the new president showed that she had very poor communication skills. Let us hope that at some point the Governing Board begins to understand the degree of harm this new president is doing to the college they confess to love so very much. I strongly suggest that they being in a management expert such as Stephen R Covey to work out better systems and processes for change before it is too late. The cost of doing nothing will simply be too high for this city and the state.