A roving ambassador for change

Jeff Hicks has taken an imaginative approach to changes in the way the world views management consulting, an industry where 300 billion dollar a year is spent to dispense `advice' and `wisdom.'

It's a strange label to call him only a PhD candidate with his wealth of experience for 13 years in the area of management consulting, working in places as far afield as Tokyo, but that he is, and on Thursday, 17 February, he will defend his dissertation on the subject before a panel of academic peers and conduct a workshop for consultants and clients on the same day.

His research and workshop embraces a pragmatic approach to management consulting, viewing how a triangle of clients, consultants and academics can successfully work together to achieve change initiatives. He suggests in his dissertation book that in order to be effective as a consultant, there is a need to bring all parties to the table for discussions on what is happening at the ground level, in an open dialogue, and without formal language which can cast murky waters over changes needing to take place within organizations.

What began for Hicks as a rather cynical critique of one approach, evolved for him into a more positive co-constructing approach. His workshop is designed to create a neutral ground, where interested parties can have a dialogue in order to accentuate what is working in organizations.

Hicks sees the need to make the informal skill sets of employees more tangible, visible and learnable. He says, `A new language needs to be developed for text books and used in the workplace, expressing what is actually happening on the ground level-to legitimize what is playing in the background and bring it to the foreground- and the `good news' is that it isn't that far away from what we are already doing. Creative and innovative managers are doing creative things all the time, but the skills they use in order to make it happen are not the formal skills that we teach in our business administration and MBA programs.'

Here are excerpts from an interview with the man, who will soon be returning to his family in America. At the moment, he is in contract negotiations for a position as a clinical professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.

`You moved here with your wife and three children. What was your experience?

`We got off to a bad start because we couldn't find a house of apartment. Things you take for granted in your own country like easily finding a house to live easy at all. The moving company messed up the paperwork on our shipment of cars and furniture. We lived temporarily in these vacation houses in Boekelo until we found a house. They are a sort of quintessential Dutch cottages.'

What do you expect to find when you return to America in a few weeks?

`I already make frequent trips back to America. The economic recession is real. It's the worst I've ever seen in America. There are stores that sometimes don't have things on the shelf which is shocking. That's not supposed to happen there. It's real. My reflections on going back to America are based on a theory from my Indian friend; and I think he's absolutely right; you have cultures that get “frozen in time.” One example of a country frozen in time is the U.S. It popped out of this self determination, enlightenment and science- driven 18th Century European model when the constitution was signed in 1776. We are frozen with a more scientific quantitative view than Europe. Europe has moved on. When you go back to the U.S., certainly in the university environment, you'll see a more conservative, archaic model.'

You're saying America is `frozen in time,' but how is it going to thaw?

`We have to get back to what made things successful in the first place, a more pragmatic time when people were still innovative. It's difficult because of the degree of wealth, for instance, you can have a high school education and have a damn good lifestyle. It's hard to sound a voice for reform because people say, “What's the problem?”'

Is it a necessity for America to switch from a capitalistic model to a socialist model, in the direction of European countries?

`No, I don't like big labels like socialism because they are too broad-brushed. If you take a look at the companies we hold up as exemplary, for example, Southwest Airlines, a great company, and they treat their employees really well and fair. They offer a great salary package and good benefits. They take care of mom when she's pregnant and babies when they are born-all of which could be considered on side of socialist values-but you can't label it like that in the US. You can't talk about socialism, but if you look at most of the admired companies, they are in the spectrum of socialist values.'

Is Obama bringing anything to the table to move America in a good direction?

`I think Obama's campaign was disingenuous, because he told us in the campaign that it wasn't the government who would change things, it was the people, and after he was sworn into office, it was all about the government. You have 1950s-style behavioral science research going on.'

Should the government raise taxes?

`I don't think the U.S. has any business to emulate Europe, in the sense of a state-driven model. You need to know that my thoughts have nothing to do with politics and are not politically-driven. My dissertation is on organizations. Big organizations anywhere in the world-be they public, private or religious-simply don't work and are too bureaucratic. They move away from the ideas why they started in the first place. I don't know much about the world, but I do know how organizations work. My comment to Obama is to say that the U.S. need not follow Europe is not from political ideology. It's simply because it won't work.'

Let's talk about your views on the university and the many changes going on. Can you reflect on what you see happening here?

`The UT has a better teacher to student ratio than Rotterdam. They run it like a factory there. Our students get much more hands on interaction with their professors. We need to know where our strengths are, for instance, the tough Twente spirit-practical, more down-to-earth, tough-minded and fair- and not a traitor mentality like you'd find in Amsterdam. Rotterdam cannot copy our strengths. The university should not try to emulate the Randstad universities, but innovate instead.'

Are you saying we should not emulate the Randstad universities?

`I don't think there is ever going to win on the branding issue, if you're Pennsylvania than you don't win the marketing battle with New York. But you can win other battles. This university is never going to win the battle with the Randstad and why should they try. Why go for this glitzy Madision Avenue image to compete schools in the west.'

You graduated with your bachelor degree in English literature. What do you think about the level of English at the university?

`There is a high-level of proficiency in English at the university but people have a “chip on their shoulder” or “complex” about the proper way to speak English. Why does it matter? It's not a school for diction or elocution of the English language. We are not teaching pronunciation. We're here to teach business administration, information technologies and conduct research. Imagine if a French professor were running around asking themselves: `Is our English good enough.' No, this will never happen in a million years. For me, the English is good enough. It's a red herring issue, and it smacks of an inferiority complex. The university has plenty of strengths and plenty to be proud of.'

Any other thoughts on academic life?

`The emphasis on getting published in only A-journal publications is the trend. All the university does is count publications. They shouldn't emulate other universities and they are heading in this direction. This impulse to publish only in A-Journals is coming from the U.S. Once a professor in the US told me: “If you've been published in a couple of A-Journals, I can hire you if you are the anti-Christ, but if you have no publications, I couldn't hire you if you were Christ.”'

Jeff Hick's stern Chicago mobster expression isn't what you get on the inside of the man-he is a down-to-earth gentleman-who opens doors for people and tells them, “Don't slip on the ice and have a good day.” Photo: Gijs van Ouwerkerk

Californian launches new forum for local residents

Hicks spent his high school and university years in Bakersfield, California, and his extended and immediate family still holds residence in this sprawling suburb outside of Los Angeles. Its growing population now stands at 328,692 residents, a little over two times the size of Enschede. His immediate goal to cut through the rampant `political correctness' found in media sources, and also try to promote freedom of speech, Hicks was spurred this past winter to publish the first issue of his fledgling newspaper, the `ForumBakersfield,' on 4 January. The eight-page publication features stories of local interest, politics and `occasional tall tales.' Contributors are primarily local authors, including in the first issue, Professor Louis Wildman, David Lollar, a high school English teacher, Superintendent Wally McCormick, Bob Lipschitz, and Hicks himself. Articles submitted to his `editorial' desk are ironically never edited and let out into the world in the author's voice and style. In his spare moments while writing his dissertation, he has launched an online version of the publication next to the print version. The first issue has no advertisements, is laced with the art work of his teenage daughter, and costs a mere .04 cents per copy to produce. Initial circulation of the first print version, focusing on the topic of public education, was 5,000 copies.

Read the online version www.forumbakersfield.com