{"id":26,"date":"2025-09-19T11:43:29","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/?p=26"},"modified":"2025-09-19T11:43:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:43:29","slug":"im-the-dvc-ask-me-or-tell-me-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/2025\/09\/19\/im-the-dvc-ask-me-or-tell-me-anything\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m the DVC \u2013 ask me (or tell me) anything\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It\u2019s an unfortunate truth that it\u2019s very easy for those in senior positions to become relatively insulated from the reality on the ground in their institutions. Our bandwidth is as limited as the next person\u2019s, and as remits tend to become broader as you move up the organisational structure the depth it\u2019s possible to go into in any particular area becomes limited. We sometimes have to rely on summaries that work their way through various layers \u2013 from Heads of Department, to Deans, and on to myself, for example.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with this of course; I certainly don\u2019t want to become a micro-manager, poking my nose into the fine detail of activities that others are perfectly able to run with on their own. But I do think it\u2019s important to have a sense of what people are thinking and feeling at different levels of an organisation. And there\u2019s no better way to develop this sense than by going out and about; talking (and, more importantly, listening<\/em>) to people.<\/p>\n

In my adopted field of epidemiology, you would sometimes hear the phrase \u201cshoe-leather epidemiology\u201d \u2013 the field work and data collection that gives you a sense of what the data mean in a way that the data alone, once they\u2019ve found their way onto a spreadsheet, can\u2019t tell you. In other words, getting out of the laboratory or office. The equivalent for me is shoe-leather management \u2013 getting out of my office and going out to speak to and hear from our community.<\/p>\n

In my first few months I\u2019ve spoken to most of the Heads of Department and Division across the three Faculties and the School (with a few more meetings lined up). This was an opportunity to get to know people, and to give people an opportunity to get to know me, but most importantly it was an opportunity to listen. My question was always: What do I need to know? What\u2019s going well and what could be better? I emphasised that the unvarnished reality is more helpful for me than a glossy brochure.<\/p>\n

(It was also a way of learning to navigate the University\u2019s building naming conventions!)<\/p>\n

I typically ended the meetings with an invitation to get in touch if anything else came up that I needed to know. I\u2019m now looking to extend that shoe-leather principle further. I\u2019m planning to spend time working in the different coffee shops around the University, so that anybody can grab me to say hello and introduce themselves, and tell me anything they think I need to hear. I can\u2019t promise to be able to act on everything I\u2019m told, at least not immediately, but it will help me develop a better understand of where we are.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fully expecting to hear about things we could do better. If themes emerge, and those align with evidence from other sources, that consistency and triangulation will help us prioritise where we need to focus our attention (given the limited bandwidth problem, both individually and institutionally). But of course it would also be nice to hear about things to celebrate, or just things that we\u2019re individually proud of. And you may have questions you want to ask me too \u2013 it\u2019s up to you!<\/p>\n

We are a big and complex organisation, and we all have a part to play in its success. The Team Bath ethos that has long been associated with sport at Bath could, I think, be usefully applied to all our efforts. Individual and collective successes are successes for all of us; and sources of friction hold all of us back. Effective teams foster a culture of support and challenge; but for that to happen those of us in senior positions need to model that culture. By making myself available \u2013 to be challenged and to support (as best I can) \u2013 I\u2019m hoping to contribute to that culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s an unfortunate truth that it\u2019s very easy for those in senior positions to become relatively insulated from the reality on the ground in their institutions. Our bandwidth is as limited as the next person\u2019s, and as remits tend to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2010,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/dvc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}