I need university administrators (and probably some other people too, but definitely university administrators) to understand something: you cannot motivate your faculty to do more research or better teaching.
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I need university administrators (and probably some other people too, but definitely university administrators) to understand something: you cannot motivate your faculty to do more research or better teaching.
They are already maximally motivated people. They did not get the job by being unmotivated. A good chunk of them have more motivation than is healthy for them.
Any action you take to "motivate" them is going to be demotivational. Any of them. Yes, even that one that you just thought of. Yes, even the one you heard about from one of your peers at a different institution that you're jealous of.
Lean in close, here's the secret: all you have to do is (a) support them in doing their jobs, and (b) not fuck things up.
@ricci many, many years ago, the deputy director of my lab viewed the researchers as weird animals in a zoo. His job was to stop us running amok. He almost broke the lab.
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I need university administrators (and probably some other people too, but definitely university administrators) to understand something: you cannot motivate your faculty to do more research or better teaching.
They are already maximally motivated people. They did not get the job by being unmotivated. A good chunk of them have more motivation than is healthy for them.
Any action you take to "motivate" them is going to be demotivational. Any of them. Yes, even that one that you just thought of. Yes, even the one you heard about from one of your peers at a different institution that you're jealous of.
Lean in close, here's the secret: all you have to do is (a) support them in doing their jobs, and (b) not fuck things up.
@ricci
Not heard it expressed like this before 
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@ricci If only! At the moment UK universities seem obsessed with profit above all else. They actively making courses worse so they can cut them. They are removing all optionality for interesting modules. Making staff juggle modules from multiple courses and still expect world leading research on approximately the half a day a week that we are not teaching or burdened with unnecessary bureaucracy.
@Research_FTW @ricci yes I think the problem here is university staff are generally maximally motivated to find out interesting stuff and then share it, whereas university administration wants them to be maximally motivated to make the university money
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