Abstract

In this paper, we investigate a case of strategy implementation at the University of Helsinki (UH) focusing on how to enable academic freedom and ownership in the process. The Case Roadmap, i.e. building a roadmap for implementing multidisciplinary research themes at UH, highlights the use of participatory, interactive development methods (such as workshops), allowing the creative power of the academia to be put in use in an organisational development context. We study the narrative of the case with sensemaking (Weick 1995; Brown et al. 2015) perspective with auto-ethnographical method. The approach is rooted in organisational research that is interpretive, social constructionist, processual and phenomenological.

Strategic thinking is mainstreaming in the University context in Finland. However, the University’s institutional journey from a governmental office to an organisation that is not business-driven either, is by no means trivial. While Universities have written strategies to ensure their success in the future, in real life the conceptual strategic thinking remains rather distant to the actual academic core people.

Case Roadmap started at the beginning of 2021 as an implementation action for the current UH strategy 2021-2030. Assigned as task to us, experts in strategic development at UH Research Services, we initiated a collaborative activity with the academic leadership. During 2021, the academic working group formed by representatives from faculties and independent research institutes convened five times in workshops. The work was supported by our RMA project group with multidisciplinary backgrounds and skill sets, including facilitation and coaching.

Early on we found ourselves engaged in such an interpretive process that required a shift in both how we understand strategy implementation, and how we see our own position as Research Service professionals. We argue that organisational sensemaking can offer a useful perspective to strategic development in Universities, where development processes may often be open-ended in nature. In Case Roadmap, an essential part of the work was making sense of the purpose of roadmap, its contents as well as its relationship to other strategic development at the University.

Moreover, we argue that the open-ended process can be best supported with a coaching mindset and facilitation skills, allowing us collectively to safely enter the state of “not-knowing-it-all-yet” and enduring the uncertainties as the learning unfolds. This way we can create a new state of collective strategic understanding, that only take place in interaction with each other. Our key takeaways for RMAs involved in strategic development are:

- Self-reflection: As RMA, become aware of the conditions for adopting facilitating and coaching approach: Which roles are expected and available for you as RMA in the development activity and what is the general readiness for a shift.
- Letting it go: In complex strategic development activities, take care of your own/team’s sensemaking and keep it separate from the collective sensemaking (e.g. academic leadership, process owners). Keep the focus on what you as RMA really are responsible of.
- Sense & sensibility: Try to embrace the open-ended nature of the work and work step by step. Sensing the moods, interpreting, and summarizing the collective sensemaking are key.
- Mindset: Create conditions for others to endure the state of “not knowing it all”. Trust the process – active engagement to sense-making creates ownership and self-organisation!