University Newsletter
Management's Manager
Sandra Dawson, Director of the Judge Institute of Management Studies. Photo: Alan Water.
The Judge Institute is a building that no-one in Cambridge can fail to ignore. Much has been written about its jelly-baby hues, its pyramid-like proportions, and its metamorphosis from the husk of Old Addenbrooke's.At its helm is Professor Sandra Dawson, a woman charged with the awesome responsibility of managing the Institute for management. Having recently joined the Judge from Imperial College, this is only her third month in office and the department's fourth month in their impressive home. Yet despite having to deal with a new job, a new city, and most overwhelming of all, a new University structure, Professor Dawson remains unfazed by any of these challenges:
"Cambridge is the most amazing place. Like Imperial, it attracts people who are tremendously focussed on their work and it has an outstanding reputation for research and teaching excellence. How it differs, though, is mainly to do with it being multi-faculty, with scholars of every conceivable discipline, as well as its college life and its concentrated geography. I still can't believe how easy it is to walk or cycle anywhere within the University rather than having to trek across London. Cambridge also encourages conversation and socializing after work hours in a way that commuter-led London never could. "Professor Dawson spent over twenty years at Imperial College, where her most recent position was as Professor of Organizational Behaviour. She explains that this is quite a new area of management science which is concerned with the study of organizations and the people in them. "It's not just a question of developing theories, though," she explains,"but more a case of understanding that the subject is not static. In Western economies, for example, people's expectations for increased responsiblity and enhanced rewards - not only in terms of money - are having a big impact on management." She is particularly interested in flexible management systems that can be customized to suit different situations and work teams. "Instead of telling people what or how to do their job, it is often far more effective to explain what you might like to see as the end product," explains Professor Dawson. Structure and strategy are also nowadays thought of as just components of a whole Venn diagram of management - simultaneously reliant on and supportive of other key elements such as technology, personnel and team goals. As Professor Dawson puts it:
"Successful management depends on all key parts working together; if any element changes (a new member of staff, a major overhaul of computing technology, for instance), then the structure and the strategy must always be reviewed."Coming to Cambridge also required Sandra Dawson to resign from being chairman of a large and complex NHS trust in London. For the past three years, she has successfully combined this with her academic work, and she feels that it allowed her to keep in touch with the complex issues of real management and put into practice what she preached.
It is impossible to avoid thinking that Professor Dawson's smooth and rational approach to management must have served her well, if not been partly a product of, her own family life. With three children, now all in the advanced stages of education, she has still managed to reach the top of her field, keep the family together and stay happily espoused. Obviously at times the pull between home and professional life has been enormously 'challenging' (in the words of today's management consultancy). Yet Professor Dawson admits that the structure at Imperial, with a very advanced nursery policy, enabled her as a young mother to carry on with her research and teaching throughout. Dropping her children off before lectures, feeding them during breaks, and then taking them home with her meant that she could stay on the career ladder and maintain a close eye on child-rearing.
"Work and family are two enormously important parts of my life and I have always been determined to do well at both. Although my children would always come first, luckily, I have managed to balance the demands and joys of family and career - yet I realize I could never have done this without having a very supportive husband and the benefits of Imperial's nursery."Whether it is the sheer organizational effort of such a life, the choice of spouse, or the support systems that let other mothers down, women professors are still in the minority at both Imperial and Cambridge. Professor Dawson will be very much a role model for other women around the University and the academic community at large. She also knows that being a management specialist also brings the white heat of public scrutiny:
"People do expect much of me as a management specialist, but I think I will be doing a lot of listening in Cambridge. There's a great art to listening to other people, whilst still having a sense of where you want to go. I do want to get to know Cambridge and to weigh things up carefully in my first few months - meanwhile, of course, I'm working with my colleagues at the Institute to determine how we can deliver the very best of teaching and research in management."This quiet purposefulness of the listening manager makes an ironic contrast with the building that shouts out to all bypassers. Yet, as Professor Dawson says, the Judge cannot be ignored, and for a new subject like management studies, that is a great boon.