*With Apologies to Augustine’s Laws
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine%27s_laws)
I am a big fan of Norm Augustine’s Laws. Borrowing his style, I offer these tongue-in-cheek observations from my time at a university.
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10 pounds of execution is worth 100 pounds of expertise.
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Out-of-the-box solutions must first start with a definition of the box.
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Overlapping functions and levels in an organization serve a purpose. If it were not so, anyone could communicate.
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The gulf between generating great ideas and supporting solutions based on those ideas is deep and wide.
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When organization identity is a moving target, it may also help to move the organization.
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Any new initiative must follow certain rules, if they can be discovered.
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We are all one big happy family, until we endeavor to act like it.
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Sound business practices are necessary for the continued existence of for-profit organizations. Lest there be confusion, one must be reminded that a university is not a for-profit
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Committees defy the First Law of Thermodynamics, i.e. the heat supplied is greater than the net work done.
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No act of reaching across campus to communicate with other entities shall go unpunished. The severity of the punishment depends on the sincerity of the communication attempt.
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Deadlines will drive one of two behaviors – a sharp increase in activity, or the disappearance of all activity.
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Understanding university politics and solving a Rubik’s Cube have some similarities. The difference is, one can obtain solutions for the latter.
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The wisdom of saying “we will try something new” depends on who is saying it.
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The importance of time is highly overrated, especially as it applies to the start of a scheduled meeting.
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In a large, diverse organization, information distribution is challenging for people in stovepipes. However, it can be virtually non-existent for the people in the stove.
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Any outside entity contracting with a university must be aware of a co-existing, parallel universe. It is called the academic calendar.
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It is easy to get a decision, unless you really need it.
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All employees are empowered to pursue innovative ideas. The definition of innovative will be determined after the pursuit is well established.
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Ego is derived from the ideal gas law, i.e. it expands to fill the volume of the room it occupies. A corollary is that volume is reduced commensurate with the presence of other egos.
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The term project urgency is only relevant before it is communicated to your colleagues, or when communicated to you by your boss.
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Parkinson’s law says that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. At a university the opposite is also true, i.e. work contracts so as to not fill the time not available for its completion.
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There are more difficult processes than defining and approving a new facility on campus, but none that don’t require an act of Congress.
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Email is the last, best hope for communication between professionals. Unfortunately, Sent Mail by itself does not constitute email.
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A National Academy membership is the second highest honor that can be bestowed on a distinguished academic. The highest honor is a reserved parking space.
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