Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/59976
job often is laced with frustration. The provost's efforts to reconcile the needs, wants, and values of theolo- gians, engineers, sociologists, com- puter scientists, historians, chemists, philosophers, psychologists, mathe- maticians, anthropologists, and econ- omists is much like someone trying to bring harmony to the Tower of Babel. It makes the dean's job of rec- onciling the differences between accounting and finance professors seem like a picnic. If your provost views herself as a leader/manager, she will probably let you operate independently. If she's a bureaucrat, you and your school may be just another department, another source of irritation, another demand on her time and resources. It will be up to you to discover in which camp your provost resides and act accord- ingly. It helps to know what the provost goes through, so that you can make her job easier and create a useful rapport. As a business school dean, you may pride yourself on running a "businesslike" operation, with finan- cial analyses, marketing and business plans, cost-benefit ratios, and gross operating margin calculations. But all of this useful analysis can be anathe- ma to a provost, arts and sciences dean, or even university president. Find out first what data your boss wants and needs; discover what "sells well" to other deans on campus. Then, keep it to that. 6. What are the perks? As you interview for potential positions, don't get so focused on the job's many responsi- bilities that you forget to ask about its perquisites. Will you get a car or an automobile allowance? Paid mem- berships to key social or country clubs? Expense accounts for meals ARE CONFIDENT ANSWERS TO THESE EIGHT QUESTIONS A GUARANTEE FOR SUCCESS? NO. BUT I CAN SAY THAT NOT ANSWERING THEM IS DEFINITELY THE FORMULA FOR FAILURE. where you might want to teach and live after your days as dean come to an end? 8. Do you have an exit strategy? Before you accept the position, be sure to identify a clear path out of it. Do you have tenure? Do you know what your salary will be if you resign and return to teaching? Is there a sabbati- cal at the end of the tunnel? If you have dependent children, do you receive tuition or private school ben- efits? To think of leaving your posi- tion just as you're accepting it may sound defeatist. Years ago, however, I read research about how high per- formers always first consider worst- case scenarios of a course of action. If you can't live with the realities of what will happen after you are dean, you shouldn't take the job. Are confident answers to these eight questions a guarantee for suc- cess? No. But I can say that not answering them is definitely the for- mula for failure. Survival at your first dean's posi- Peter Lorenzi and travel? Will you be expected to teach? Will you be prevented from teaching? What percent of time will be spent off campus? What is the job's weekly calendar, the schedule you'll be expected to keep? This will be your life. Get an idea of how you'll live it. 7. Is this a place where you'd like to teach? If you are from another school, be sure to look at the entire university community before you accept a dean's position. Is this a place tion can be tenuous. You must find the position that will truly suit you best for the long term. Good judg- ment comes with experience, but too many first-time deans earn their experience through bad judgment. How well you embrace the good and avoid the bad depends on whether you ask these questions—and how well you respond.s z Peter Lorenzi is a professor of management at the Seller School of Business and Management at Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland. He served as the Seller School's dean from 1995 to 2001, and as the dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway from 1992 to 1995. BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2005 55