Administration from an Ivory Tower vs. Collaboration

Practice Makes Perfect

In many businesses, schools, hospitals, libraries, etc., the best practitioners are elevated to positions of authority. After their promotions, these administrators relinquish their involvement with the everyday functioning of their organizations and begin operating from Ivory Towers. While the concept is ideologically impressive, the actual results are less favorable.

In The Social Life of Information, Brown and Duguid (2002) allude to an experiment at Xerox PARC. Xerox relies upon the successes of their service people. If the machines are not operating correctly, Xerox fails. It would seem that one of Xerox’s priorities would be the involvement of the administration in the face-to-face training, inspiring, and communicating with the service technicians. Consultant Julian Orr found that this was not happening.

Instead of actually collaborating with their technicians—instead of actually operating from the trenches—the administration provided a how-to-manual and expected the technicians to resolve issues by referring to that manual.

Orr “. . . was not surprised, then, to find that what looked quite clear and simple from above was much more opaque and confusing on the ground." (p. 100).

In other words, the manuals were unable to explain and demonstrate in the ways that humans can do.

Orr discovered that the reps were best served by their involvements with informal peer gatherings (breakfasts), where many issues were resolved via discussion.

As a result of these informal gatherings, communities were formed and collaboration evolved.

In collaboration, separate and unique individuals pool their resources, their backgrounds, and their ideas for growth and reinforcement.

“. . . as Orr showed, the reps provided much more than comforting noises. They were critical resources for each other. The informal and extracurricular group helped each member to reach beyond the limits of an individual’s knowledge. . . “(p. 103).

When administrators attempt to lead from their Ivory Towers, they not only lose touch with what is truly happening on a day-to-day basis, they also remove themselves from the collaborations.

In essence, administrators—people who have been promoted to leadership, because of their practical strengths—remove themselves from the actual practice.

And we all know that it is Practice that Makes Perfect.