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ANNUAL REPORT 2010
THE METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE – DENMARK
SUCCESSFULLY ALIGNING LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY
Quartz+Co
The merger of a high number of vocational schools in 2008 resulted in the creation of The Metropolitan University College with more than 1,000 employees responsible for the education of 10,000 students in Copenhagen. The merger was part of a political decision to consolidate the sector in order to reduce costs, improve professionalism and ensure continuous progression to the benefit of students and employees. The educational focus of the new, consolidated Metropolitan University College was quite diverse and included basic and advanced education of teachers, nurses, social workers, midwifes, etc. – fields with very distinct outlooks, challenges and opportunities. The question was: how could Metropolitan University College craft a common and unifying strategy across this diversity – without compromising the individual fields? Joint sense of purpose To the executive management team, the dilemma quickly became clear. What made each part of Metropolitan University College unique and appealing – the passion for each profession, distinct cultures and close contact to the academic and professional environments – was also what potentially made it difficult to create a joint sense of purpose for the new Metropolitan University College. In many ways, the executive management team itself reflected this exact conflict of being responsible for an individual field on the one hand and being responsible for the interests of Metropolitan University College as a whole on the other. Using strategy as an integration tool Based on this insight, the management team decided to conduct an unorthodox strategy process that encompassed the needs and complexity of the organisation. Instead of a classical top-down or bottom-up approach, the executive management team chose to use the strategy process as an integration tool, focusing on both strategy and leadership development at the same time. The strategy was developed at two levels: an overall strategy for Metropolitan University College as a combined entity and a number of local level strategies based on each field’s specific situation. The goal and challenge were to ensure a strong connection between the two levels and no clear
hierarchy. In order to implement this in practice, each level of management was given full responsibility for crafting strategies for their own areas, but also for ensuring alignment and consistency through the leadership teams in which they participated. All schools had to relate to, contribute to and challenge the common strategic themes, which created a natural dialogue across Metropolitan University College on topics such as student retention. In this way, co-operation across professional borders was encouraged, and silos were made permeable.
“What made each part of Metropolitan University College unique and appealing – the passion for each profession, distinct cultures and close contact to the academic and professional environments – was also what potentially made it difficult to create a joint sense of purpose for the new Metropolitan University College.” The strategy has been very successful in mobilising and uniting the diverse management group around common goals, but also in appreciating local uniqueness. However, there is still some way to go. The institution is now in the process of applying these insights to the crafting of new leadership evaluation processes and training programmes that help realise the vision of delivering “Knowledge that works – knowledge that challenges” to all students and employees.
ABOUT Metropolitan University College was established in 2008 with the merger of several professional colleges including the University College CVU Øresund, the Frederiksberg College of Education, The Danish School of Public Administration and SUHR’s School of Domestic Science. In January 2009, the two major nursing educations in Herlev and Copenhagen followed. Metropolitan University College is headed by rector Stefan Hermann.
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