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Responsive.
Measurable. Accountable. These are more than buzzwords for the new chancellor of
the University System of Georgia—they are guiding principles.
Erroll B. Davis Jr. assumed the leadership of Georgia’s 35-institution USG in February 2006, a year after retiring as president and CEO of Alliant Energy Corp. headquartered in Madison, Wis., where he remained as chair of the board until coming to the USG.
His corporate background brings a new perspective to the state system, which has traditionally been led by individuals who have risen through the ranks of academia.
“I certainly don’t bring any academic expertise to the table,” he admits, then modestly adds, “but, I do bring some modicum of skill in complex organizational management.”
He’s also modest about his “lack” of academic experience. Mr. Davis served on the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents for seven years and is a life member and former chair of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon University. He is also a member of the University of Chicago Board of Trustees.
His career includes finance positions at Xerox Corp. and Ford Motor Co., as well as working his way through the ranks from vice president of finance to president and CEO of Wisconsin Power and Light. He oversaw WPL’s transition to Alliant Energy, a holding company with nearly $8 billion in assets, annual operating revenues of more than $3 billion and holdings worldwide.
Chancellor Davis thinks many of the business principles he used at Alliant Energy can be applied to improve business processes and financial resources for the university system.
“We need to have measurable and aspirational goals, then we have to implement strategies that let everyone know what is expected,” he says in his pleasant but direct manner. “I do believe very much in accountability.
“We do wonderful and unique things in our classrooms and in our laboratories,” he says. “But, our back offices are no different than those of any other organization. Our payroll systems are the same, our [human resources] systems are the same, our transportation, our logistics, our maintenance systems are the same. On a systemwide basis, we are not performing anywhere near world-class in any of these areas. We have pockets of excellence, but we don’t measure, to a large extent, how we perform in these areas because they’re seen as less important—but they’re also valuable sources of revenue and areas of great cost to us.”
Controlling costs and maximizing revenue sources in these back offices will enable the system to better support and enhance its educational mission, he says.
Chancellor Davis readily admits some business principles won’t transfer as easily to the academic arena.
“It’s difficult to focus academic organizations, much more difficult than it is to focus commercial organizations,” he says. “Commercial organizations are focused very simply around how much money you are going to make. But, how do you measure teaching? How do you measure research? Is it really the amount of research dollars you bring in or is it the number of breakthroughs or the significance of those breakthroughs? Public service—how do you measure that? You can certainly talk about the number of interactions and activities, but how do you measure the quality of those activities?”
The first step, he says, is to initiate strategic planning that will engage the institutions in setting objectives for the entire system, then determining the strategies and tactics that will define each institution’s role. “We have to make sure that we have a common language for setting targets and objectives, that we have consistent ways to measure outcomes and results and that everyone has access to the same toolbox. We need to be sure we are all pulling the oars in the same direction and that we’re maximizing the taxpayers’ resources and the resources of our supporters and friends.”
The second step will be to empower the presidents to manage across the system in specific program areas. “[MCG President Daniel W.] Rahn is a good example of that,” he says, referring to Dr. Rahn’s recent appointment as senior vice chancellor for health and medical programs. “He is now assuming responsibility for leading health and medical program planning for the entire system, so I have no doubt that we will have a much more coordinated planning approach to our offerings. He’s first out of the chute, and others will soon follow.”
Chancellor Davis also expresses concern over the systemwide lack of depth in management leadership. “I have noticed here that we under-invest in leaders,” he says. “Because many perceive management as administration and not as leadership, not enough people aspire to lead. We don’t train people to lead and we don’t have a full appreciation of the power of good leadership to shape and change the future, to anticipate and manage risks, and to motivate people to outcomes that they didn’t dream they could achieve. If we are to become a high-performing organization, an excellent system, we must have great leaders at every level. We must have leadership in depth.”
And with leadership comes accountability, he says. “Ultimately, the people who will be held accountable for decisions are the ones who must make the decisions. Any good decision maker will try to make an informed decision by bringing in knowledge from others. But a really good manager will also know when to stop collecting and when to start moving.”
The chancellor sees it as his role to provide the resources for making and carrying out informed decisions and characterizes his own management style as “situational.”
“If the situation is more urgent, I tend to be more directive. If I have more time, I would prefer to be Socratic, to ask enough questions to get people to where I want them to be and then they have better ownership.”
Time management is critical in improving the USG, says Chancellor Davis. “I firmly believe if you do things in half the time, you can do twice as much with the same set of human resources.”
He shared a story with University System presidents about the Allied powers gathering at the end of World War II to redesign the monetary system for the Western world. “It took them 11 days and it lasted until Richard Nixon changed it in the ’70s. ‘So if you’re doing something bigger than redesigning the monetary system of the Western world,’ I told them, ‘take more than 11 days,’” he says with a smile. “I got a great line from [Lt. General Russel L.] Honore, who oversaw the Hurricane Katrina disaster: When one of his subordinates during Katrina was explaining how long it was going to take to get something done, he said, ‘Son, you’re looking at your calendar and I’m looking at my watch.’
“The concept that the decision-making cycle in education is slow is too broad a generalization,” he says. “From what limited viewing I’ve seen so far, it is not education, it is higher education. K-12 moves much more quickly than we do. The [Department of Technical and Adult Education] system moves much more quickly. We have to learn how to move more quickly.”
Chancellor
Davis acknowledges these changes may be difficult. “We have a tendency, I
believe, to talk with ourselves too much and convince ourselves of our own
wisdom and importance and uniqueness. Sometimes, it may take perspective from
someone outside the organization to recognize those things which are unique and
should be preserved and cultivated and maximized versus those things that are
not. As I’m fond of saying, no one likes to be changed but babies.
“Some will come along and some will choose to stay behind; those who choose to stay behind will be left behind. I don’t believe in putting poor performers elsewhere in the organization,” he says, explaining that poor performance often reflects management’s failure to provide the proper training, the right resources or insight into organizational values. “But every once in a while, you provide all those things, as good management should, and they still don’t perform, in which case you can only conclude that either they don’t share your values and your aspirations, or they’re incompetent. And, it doesn’t make any difference which it is. They should exit the organization at that point.”
The chancellor believes most USG employees share the values and aspirations of creating a better system of higher education in Georgia. “They want to be a part of helping to create things, good things, better things and doing things faster,” he says, pointing out that the governor’s new customer service initiative is a start. “It’s small, but it’s attitudinal. It gets us focusing on getting better and pleasing people. We have to do more of that.”
Chancellor Davis acknowledges that lofty goals require a lofty time commitment, and he is happy to oblige. “I am not a good person to give advice on a balanced life,” he says with a laugh. “I appreciate it and I really admire our younger employees... they much more adamant than my generation about having a balanced life because they watched parents work morning, noon and night and decided that it was not for them.
“The fortunate part is that I love my work and I love to work, so it’s not really work for me. If you give me a choice of things to do on a Saturday, I’d rather process my e-mail and do a lot of paperwork than do anything around the house or even some recreational things,” he says.
He does, however, try to stay fit by getting out before 5:30 at least five mornings a week to exercise. An avid bicyclist, he prefers to “ride a quick 15-20 miles before work,” but Atlanta is proving to be less accommodating than his old neighborhood in Madison. “There are some great hills but still too many cars going too quickly and not enough bike lanes,” he laments. “I’m looking for spinning courses and on the weekends some places to throw the bike on the back of the car. I need to go up to Dahlonega where there are some good-looking hills.”
But traffic notwithstanding, Chancellor Davis is confident that his move to Georgia was the right one. “I’m happy to be here,” he says. “I’m impressed by the commitment that the people of this state are making to education. That challenges me to make sure that the investments they make give the greatest returns possible and to ensure that we will continue to do excellent things.”
- Caryl Cain Brown