The clock is ticking! Time is passing! We are at meetings!

It is really important to stress the need for rapid yet informed decision making and maximising the use of time in our organisations and perhaps even as individuals. It is well known that even for those who had gone to the moon, the time available is 24 hours per day.

In this particular resource we just cannot complain of anyone else having an unfair advantage in anyway. We all have the same amount of time resource. Hence nations differentiating subsequently are based on simply how one makes use of the time.

A scourge perhaps facing anyone who wants to get on doing things are meetings – a necessary evil though at times, especially in a democracy.

Sitting down for endless discussions and attending meetings minus any preparation is a sheer waste of useful time. Preparation comes with interest and commitment. Preparation enables participation and to contribute usefully. Having lost much time overcoming an issue that plagued the nation, it is important that one is decisive on the economic front as well and time management is quite important.

I personally believe that in many local hotel walls and pillars can speak; they can state volumes of wisdom unleashed through a plethora of seminars and discussions though many a participant may have come and gone. It is in one such event in Colombo that Ram Charan (author of ‘Execution Gap’) said one should never have a meeting spilling over more than an hour, while also adhering to who should do what and by when for effective meetings.

I have stated before that of all the resources we have, time is the only one that one cannot recycle. Passage of time with purpose and achievement one can be proud of. Passage of time minus any progress is heading towards extinction.

University in silent mode

When I walk into my university, I find the place in silent mode these days. The current impasse is taking its toll in valuable time lost both of students and staff, though many pocket meetings are going on! These are institutions that should be vibrant across 24 hours with the excitement of moving forward visible to everyone around.

State departments may close after office hours but that should not be the way for universities – real universities anyway. Last week I was in the department where I did my PhD and the head of the department was proudly stating about his department having achieved the second position behind MIT’s (USA) chemical engineering department in a global ranking. I listened with interest.

Their intake per batch was exactly what we do today – 80 in number. The department has only two large lecture theatres to support 80 students in each one. What was evident was that research and innovation via postgraduate education and research is what is promoted.

Leading change

The department has more than 100 PhD students and over 50 post doctoral research workers. This is their strength and it is this strength and spirit that was spilling to the undergraduate education. It was evident that change is part of their DNA. The reality is that they are leading change.

In our system the presence of postgraduate students and research orientation is really missing. We consider the element of free education up to undergraduate stage and concentrate only on that aspect. The rest is fee levying and up to some coordinator or another in a more ad-hoc system, not really offering the system any benefit.

There is no nexus between the PG and UG streams, an essential link for realising the vision of a true university system. Our way of admitting students are to ensure that economic viability of study streams and selection of numbers are based on such thinking.

A department in a nation with a thriving chemical and a life science industry admits up to 80 students per batch while we are pushed to accommodate such numbers and persuaded to take even more to keep accounts balanced! We simply do not understand the relationship between productivity and application strategies between different disciplines.

Today while the system is at an impasse over a salary issue, we are also planning to elevate six universities to world class status – a really an important concept but one that needs to be backed up with real understanding rather than rhetoric. Now achieving world class status is not purely through spending. Definitely the fact that the universities have been starved of funds over a long period is not disputed.

Ernst Rutherford who broke the atom is reputed to have said to achieve results, “Give me an empty room with some water supply and a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign” – and he went on to change the cause of science. It is not always high tech equipment. The conducive environment matters much more. It is the environment that will support creativity and creativity is the fuel for innovation.

Bureaucracy kills creativity

Needless to state that bureaucracy is a sure killer of creativity. Hours of discussion are not what a research university needs. Placing any amount of equipment into a place gagged and bound with red tape is not the way forward when achieving world class status.

The best way to understand required elements are to carry out self evaluations on our systems based on some of the available ranking methodologies and matrices and it would be clear what we have to do to some extent. It is not to say that being absolute copycats of systems will bring us to this intended destination.

We need to create that burning desire within the rank and file to climb up towards this global standing. Only being productive as well as innovative will get us there. It is not difficult. We must not forget that Nobel Prize winners were themselves once students like all of us. Both Malcolm Gladwell’s and Matthew Syed’s writings based on many studies and analysis succinctly describe it is not silver spoon or nepotism that matters in getting to the top but absolute commitment and hard work – the rule of 1,000 hours per year and 10 years of commitment are important findings to indicate to us that super results are possible and within our grasp.

However, creating that desire depends on the environment and behaviour of the individuals and groups within. The leadership has a major responsibility in setting up that environment. Otherwise systems crumble from within as well as susceptible for external negative stimuli leading to gradual decay.

Tuition movement

Educators and planners should not forget the harm the current tuition movement that is having on sound education; a movement that is driven not with the intention of education but pure monetary gain.

I am sure that I am not wrong when I say that the first blow to creativity of the growing generation is delivered by this almost mandatory tuition regime. Examination oriented delivery mechanisms do not request students to find creative solutions, instead they support prosaic solutions. It is these groups which enter the university system and issues that crop up are evident and I would resist blaming the students for what they are.

Undergraduate teaching is mostly handing down ‘what we know’. Within a research university they also get a feel of ‘what we do not know’ and this helps in sparking innovation. Hence it is important to understand that first our universities, at least the six that are being earmarked for world class status, need to be transformed to research universities.

Transformation

The first step is changing HR practices – same circular would not do – and seeking different leadership styles. The transformation is a must along with funding. The same set of committees and endless discussions will not do.

It is important to remember what Jack Welch stated: “I am convinced that if the rate of change inside the institution is less than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight.”

The only question is timing of the end. Maybe one needs to be watchful as sometimes some plans may be set in place to ensure that the end is a reality rather than growth. It is time for us to understand that different results are important. We must embrace a different set of rules to follow as well as not fearing to head into the unknown.

(Professor Ajith de Alwis is Professor of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. With an initial BSc Chemical engineering Honours degree from Moratuwa, he proceeded to the University of Cambridge for his PhD. He is a Science Team Leader at the Sri Lanka Nanotechnology Institute. He can be reached via email on [email protected])