Open Space
It wasn’t just worth the effort, it was worth the joy
Seven years is twenty percent of my life.
I can still remember coming into the messy, cluttered-up corridor where the administrative services of the faculty were located, with my “permit” in my hand and someone turning round and saying to me from the end of the corridor, “students’ business is further down, this is for staff and teachers”.
This was my welcome to the faculty. I was a boy, with a boyish face, tennis shoes and jeans, but with my heart full of ambition and with the fear befitting someone moving to something they hardly know (now I would say does not know).
The Welcome – The Administrative Financial Section
My expectations were very great in relation to trying something new and being able to help in the development of the institution.
And so it was. Despite this rather clumsy welcome, I started working in the faculty on the 2nd of November 2002, in my faculty of the University of Lisbon (indeed, this one that welcomed me and then became my faculty).
The first days were full of hope, with an almost unknown world in front of me. An enormous building, where I got lost almost every day, and countless names that took me months to learn.
My first job was to organize non-teaching staff applications that had been piling up on top of cabinets in the office at the time. There were hundreds of CVs and application to the many openings that had finally been opened up at the faculty after (too many) years and years of people seeing their career opportunities frozen due to inertia.
So this took up the first days, meeting people and more people and dealing with the applications. I worked in the Secretary’s Office behind the Aula Magna.
On the way, despite some conflicts over hierarchy, my reception was very good; I visited all the administrative areas in the faculty, people were nice to me, and showed some hope that I might solve all the problems in the world.
There were funny situations with the Treasury Office at the time sending me off to pay student fees (I really did look like a kid) and the division head having little patience to put up with me. But there was nothing to be done; we would have to work together.
From Division Head to Faculty Secretary in Fifteen Days
I remember one day that the then Secretary came over to me and said:
- Well. I’m retiring at the end of the year.
The law was going to change and she wanted to retire before the new system came into effect.
What about now? What about the future? I had just arrived and now confusion was all around. I wrote a quick memo to the Dean, someone I had met at a courtesy meeting but whom I had hardly contacted during this period, about the situation I had encountered at the faculty.
A few days later I asked the Secretary about the future and she told me that the Dean was thinking about nominating me Faculty Secretary (to this day I don’t know whether it was the result of my memo). I couldn’t believe it.
Me? I was going to be the Secretary shortly after arriving?
So it was. I immediately started visiting all the units in the faculty. On the 30th of November the Secretary retired and in early December I was nominated Secretary of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon.
It was fantastic. Professor Martins e Silva gave me the fantastic possibility of embracing a project and entrusted me (I hope I didn’t let him down) with a challenge that, looking back, allowed me to grow as a professional and mainly as a man.
From Office to Organization
The Project started, and Professor Martins e Silva, in his own style, convinced me to sign as “M. A.” And told me that it was probably a good idea for me to wear a tie in order not to have to pay student fees again.
The challenge was common to both, as we set off on a project for organizational change in an institution that was still structured through offices and in which the use of modern techniques was to low for us to move forward to being an organization with many young people ready to do their best for a more modern and agile institution.
Professor Martins e Silva, with his vision for the future of the faculty, allowed me to make a study of the function and organizational culture and take the results and make the future guidelines that we discussed so much.
It was without doubt his sense of mission and his capacity for work that helped me implement the measures necessary to change the culture of the time, in which everyone worked at the faculty but very few had this feeling of belonging.
At the same time, the computerisation programme for the financial area was finished, with fantastic results in the management capacity of the faculty and in response to such major challenges as the construction of the new building and even the change and need to find new technicians who could help the institution change.
When we started the faculty had about ten graduates in its technical staff and now there are over sixty.
During this period I had weekly meetings with all the representatives of the support staff and I still have my first speech, when I told them that I was there to do two commissions of duty and I would prefer to do it badly rather than not doing it.
One could see the amazement on some people’s faces. As for the commissions, it seems I was not exactly right, and in relation to the controversial statement, I still defend it.
Many people retired at that time, the average age was very high and their qualifications very low, and some people have unfortunately died.
The increase in the number of students and this process of retirements allowed us to contract more technical staff, which, supported by an alteration in the organics oft eh faculty, led to a greater adapting of the organization to our needs.
The office divisions were created at the same time as the new Egas Moniz building was completed. We had umpteen competitions to contract new staff and we maintained a policy of moving people up on the career ladder, ending the system of freezing positions that had been as unjust as it was damaging to the organization; we set up new premises for all the services in the faculty, abandoning the hidden, uncomfortable working places for services that one expects to be functional and, more importantly, pleasant.
Curricular Change
One day Professor Martins e Silva told me that it was his last term of office and that he would not be standing again for the position of Dean. I recall being frightened.
That was when Professor Fernandes e Fernandes came in, with a style that was very different to the previous dean, with a clear aim for his faculty but maintaining the same confidence in my work, which allowed us, now together with Professor Alexandre Ribeiro, to continue the project to improve the faculty services and to move on into the future.
The number of students increased significantly, going from a thousand in 2001 to two thousand in 2009, with the same number of technical support staff.
There are few organizations in which productivity has increased so much in such a short space of time, particularly considering budget limitations.
The Dean had a clear idea of the changes he wished to bring about in the syllabus of the medicine course, turning it into a continuum of theoretical and practical teaching and coming into line with the best courses available in the world. It wasn’t easy to overcome the entropy of resistance to change, but the results are starting to bear fruit.
We carried on with the project and we started to see external recognition for some of the competences we were developing. These include our newsletter and our integration within several different working groups outside the Faculty of Medicine.
The 2009 Faculty
The 2009 faculty is very different from that of 2002: it is better.
More efficient, more capable and above all more prepared to take on challenges.
It is involved in deep systems of change, in which the computerisation classroom summaries, mark lists and the alteration of relationships with students, both in the first and second cycle, is a reality.
As for the administration, the electronic system of controlling attendance and timekeeping, as well as the virtual office in relation to holidays and process management will become reality.
The library still is and will continue to be a reference among libraries, both in relation to its specific nature and in relation to its holdings, despite the structural difficulties of space.
A system of analytical accountancy and control and analysis centres will become a reality in 2010, allowing a more transparent response.
Among all the work undertaken to modernize the services, what remains is only the faculty’s general archive. All of the other services now have functional spaces and working conditions which are the envy of many organizations.
But there is a great deal to be done. I hope that whoever comes after me has the same opportunities I had, the solidarity of the governing bodies and the support of their immediate superiors in a process of integration. I cannot see it, nor do I imagine it, being different.
It wasn’t just worth the effort, but was worth the joy
My thanks go to all those who believed in me.
To the two deans who believed in my proposals, who taught me a great deal, and who, despite some differences of opinion, allowed this fantastic project to be carried out, improving my curriculum and opening up new opportunities for me.
To the Presidents of the Governing Councils, to Professor Lobo Antunes, president of the Scientific Council, of the Representative Assembly and now of the Faculty Assembly, which places the faculty on a higher dimension. To Professor Bicha Castelo who always supported me. To Professor Victorino, who always showed a remarkable sense of institution. To Professor Forjaz de Lacerda, who was on the jury panel for my application to be Division Head and Secretary, and to Professor Francisco Antunes, who was always available to listen to me. And to Professor Alexandre Ribeiro, who always gave me friendly help.
To Dr Isabel Aguiar, who without doubt helped me most.
To Margarida and to Dr Raquel, who helped me in my great disorganisation.
To the heads who understood my way of working and reproduced it in their units, thus forming a great team.
I thank all the office staff and teachers who supported me and I hope I have lived up to most of their expectations.
In Otília, Piedade, José, Fernanda and Professor Luís Silva Carvalho, I leave my affection for all those who give of themselves every day for this institution.
I know I haven’t thanked everyone. That wasn’t my intention. I wanted what was best for the faculty, and it was in this spirit that I did my job for these last seven years. That was my mission.
Throughout these years I came to work in a good mood, sure that I was feeling good, of being well accepted and cared for. I’m going to miss this.
I’m not going very far. The challenge I have been given by the Chancellor is absolutely the same in size as that I took on seven years ago, but has the added possibility of being able to carry on working for my faculty.
When I came here I brought a hard hat with the symbol of the ISCTE (Higher Institute of Work and Business Sciences); that was what I did in ISCTE when I came here. I was accompanying the construction of the new ISCTE and ICS building.
Now I’ve got a white coat. The white coat of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon and a set of good friends.
David Xavier
david.xavier@fm.ul.pt
I can still remember coming into the messy, cluttered-up corridor where the administrative services of the faculty were located, with my “permit” in my hand and someone turning round and saying to me from the end of the corridor, “students’ business is further down, this is for staff and teachers”.
This was my welcome to the faculty. I was a boy, with a boyish face, tennis shoes and jeans, but with my heart full of ambition and with the fear befitting someone moving to something they hardly know (now I would say does not know).
The Welcome – The Administrative Financial Section
My expectations were very great in relation to trying something new and being able to help in the development of the institution.
And so it was. Despite this rather clumsy welcome, I started working in the faculty on the 2nd of November 2002, in my faculty of the University of Lisbon (indeed, this one that welcomed me and then became my faculty).
The first days were full of hope, with an almost unknown world in front of me. An enormous building, where I got lost almost every day, and countless names that took me months to learn.
My first job was to organize non-teaching staff applications that had been piling up on top of cabinets in the office at the time. There were hundreds of CVs and application to the many openings that had finally been opened up at the faculty after (too many) years and years of people seeing their career opportunities frozen due to inertia.
So this took up the first days, meeting people and more people and dealing with the applications. I worked in the Secretary’s Office behind the Aula Magna.
On the way, despite some conflicts over hierarchy, my reception was very good; I visited all the administrative areas in the faculty, people were nice to me, and showed some hope that I might solve all the problems in the world.
There were funny situations with the Treasury Office at the time sending me off to pay student fees (I really did look like a kid) and the division head having little patience to put up with me. But there was nothing to be done; we would have to work together.
From Division Head to Faculty Secretary in Fifteen Days
I remember one day that the then Secretary came over to me and said:
- Well. I’m retiring at the end of the year.
The law was going to change and she wanted to retire before the new system came into effect.
What about now? What about the future? I had just arrived and now confusion was all around. I wrote a quick memo to the Dean, someone I had met at a courtesy meeting but whom I had hardly contacted during this period, about the situation I had encountered at the faculty.
A few days later I asked the Secretary about the future and she told me that the Dean was thinking about nominating me Faculty Secretary (to this day I don’t know whether it was the result of my memo). I couldn’t believe it.
Me? I was going to be the Secretary shortly after arriving?
So it was. I immediately started visiting all the units in the faculty. On the 30th of November the Secretary retired and in early December I was nominated Secretary of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon.
It was fantastic. Professor Martins e Silva gave me the fantastic possibility of embracing a project and entrusted me (I hope I didn’t let him down) with a challenge that, looking back, allowed me to grow as a professional and mainly as a man.
From Office to Organization
The Project started, and Professor Martins e Silva, in his own style, convinced me to sign as “M. A.” And told me that it was probably a good idea for me to wear a tie in order not to have to pay student fees again.
The challenge was common to both, as we set off on a project for organizational change in an institution that was still structured through offices and in which the use of modern techniques was to low for us to move forward to being an organization with many young people ready to do their best for a more modern and agile institution.
Professor Martins e Silva, with his vision for the future of the faculty, allowed me to make a study of the function and organizational culture and take the results and make the future guidelines that we discussed so much.
It was without doubt his sense of mission and his capacity for work that helped me implement the measures necessary to change the culture of the time, in which everyone worked at the faculty but very few had this feeling of belonging.
At the same time, the computerisation programme for the financial area was finished, with fantastic results in the management capacity of the faculty and in response to such major challenges as the construction of the new building and even the change and need to find new technicians who could help the institution change.
When we started the faculty had about ten graduates in its technical staff and now there are over sixty.
During this period I had weekly meetings with all the representatives of the support staff and I still have my first speech, when I told them that I was there to do two commissions of duty and I would prefer to do it badly rather than not doing it.
One could see the amazement on some people’s faces. As for the commissions, it seems I was not exactly right, and in relation to the controversial statement, I still defend it.
Many people retired at that time, the average age was very high and their qualifications very low, and some people have unfortunately died.
The increase in the number of students and this process of retirements allowed us to contract more technical staff, which, supported by an alteration in the organics oft eh faculty, led to a greater adapting of the organization to our needs.
The office divisions were created at the same time as the new Egas Moniz building was completed. We had umpteen competitions to contract new staff and we maintained a policy of moving people up on the career ladder, ending the system of freezing positions that had been as unjust as it was damaging to the organization; we set up new premises for all the services in the faculty, abandoning the hidden, uncomfortable working places for services that one expects to be functional and, more importantly, pleasant.
Curricular Change
One day Professor Martins e Silva told me that it was his last term of office and that he would not be standing again for the position of Dean. I recall being frightened.
That was when Professor Fernandes e Fernandes came in, with a style that was very different to the previous dean, with a clear aim for his faculty but maintaining the same confidence in my work, which allowed us, now together with Professor Alexandre Ribeiro, to continue the project to improve the faculty services and to move on into the future.
The number of students increased significantly, going from a thousand in 2001 to two thousand in 2009, with the same number of technical support staff.
There are few organizations in which productivity has increased so much in such a short space of time, particularly considering budget limitations.
The Dean had a clear idea of the changes he wished to bring about in the syllabus of the medicine course, turning it into a continuum of theoretical and practical teaching and coming into line with the best courses available in the world. It wasn’t easy to overcome the entropy of resistance to change, but the results are starting to bear fruit.
We carried on with the project and we started to see external recognition for some of the competences we were developing. These include our newsletter and our integration within several different working groups outside the Faculty of Medicine.
The 2009 Faculty
The 2009 faculty is very different from that of 2002: it is better.
More efficient, more capable and above all more prepared to take on challenges.
It is involved in deep systems of change, in which the computerisation classroom summaries, mark lists and the alteration of relationships with students, both in the first and second cycle, is a reality.
As for the administration, the electronic system of controlling attendance and timekeeping, as well as the virtual office in relation to holidays and process management will become reality.
The library still is and will continue to be a reference among libraries, both in relation to its specific nature and in relation to its holdings, despite the structural difficulties of space.
A system of analytical accountancy and control and analysis centres will become a reality in 2010, allowing a more transparent response.
Among all the work undertaken to modernize the services, what remains is only the faculty’s general archive. All of the other services now have functional spaces and working conditions which are the envy of many organizations.
But there is a great deal to be done. I hope that whoever comes after me has the same opportunities I had, the solidarity of the governing bodies and the support of their immediate superiors in a process of integration. I cannot see it, nor do I imagine it, being different.
It wasn’t just worth the effort, but was worth the joy
My thanks go to all those who believed in me.
To the two deans who believed in my proposals, who taught me a great deal, and who, despite some differences of opinion, allowed this fantastic project to be carried out, improving my curriculum and opening up new opportunities for me.
To the Presidents of the Governing Councils, to Professor Lobo Antunes, president of the Scientific Council, of the Representative Assembly and now of the Faculty Assembly, which places the faculty on a higher dimension. To Professor Bicha Castelo who always supported me. To Professor Victorino, who always showed a remarkable sense of institution. To Professor Forjaz de Lacerda, who was on the jury panel for my application to be Division Head and Secretary, and to Professor Francisco Antunes, who was always available to listen to me. And to Professor Alexandre Ribeiro, who always gave me friendly help.
To Dr Isabel Aguiar, who without doubt helped me most.
To Margarida and to Dr Raquel, who helped me in my great disorganisation.
To the heads who understood my way of working and reproduced it in their units, thus forming a great team.
I thank all the office staff and teachers who supported me and I hope I have lived up to most of their expectations.
In Otília, Piedade, José, Fernanda and Professor Luís Silva Carvalho, I leave my affection for all those who give of themselves every day for this institution.
I know I haven’t thanked everyone. That wasn’t my intention. I wanted what was best for the faculty, and it was in this spirit that I did my job for these last seven years. That was my mission.
Throughout these years I came to work in a good mood, sure that I was feeling good, of being well accepted and cared for. I’m going to miss this.
I’m not going very far. The challenge I have been given by the Chancellor is absolutely the same in size as that I took on seven years ago, but has the added possibility of being able to carry on working for my faculty.
When I came here I brought a hard hat with the symbol of the ISCTE (Higher Institute of Work and Business Sciences); that was what I did in ISCTE when I came here. I was accompanying the construction of the new ISCTE and ICS building.
Now I’ve got a white coat. The white coat of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon and a set of good friends.
David Xavier
david.xavier@fm.ul.pt
