A seminar on ‘Organisational Intelligence’ was held at the Al-Raazi Hall of the Punjab University (PU) Centre for Undergraduate Studies at the New Campus on Monday. PU Vice-Chancellor (VC) Dr Mujahid Kamran, Registrar Dr Muhammad Akhtar, heads of various teaching departments and administrative officials were also present on the occasion. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Kamran said that many PU teachers were performing administrative duties and there were some rules to run an institute. He said that some institutions took too much time to respond to a letter whereas others responded quickly. The VC said that PU was taking all-out measures to overcome this issue and the present administration had succeeded in this regard to a great extent.
Dr Kamran said that some administrators lacked the required skills for administration and even there was no culture of preparing notes of speech. “We don’t organise our thoughts and lack discipline, commitment and loyalty,” he added. Dr Kamran said that people had been struggling hard to stop others’ cases and indulged in leg-pulling. Giving a detailed presentation on the topic, Aqeela Rahman said that it was a major responsibility of the high-level administration to run affairs in a disciplined manner. They had to focus whether mental and physical energies were being fully utilised to achieve the mission of the organisation. She said that top-level people should communicate with each other, give lower people the authority to think, make organisational structure systematic, understandable and rules and procedures should be clear.
Aqeela said that organisations ignore important signals from the environment while good organisations mobilise coherent respond complex approach and have a rational approach to risk management. She said that big organisations failed because of obsessive optimisation addiction to bureaucracy, hardness in hiring and firing and status quo. Aqeela said that bad organisations had problems but used to repeat the same mistakes. She said that there should be strategic priorities and targets should not be kept on priorities.
Aqeela also threw light on the strategic map and evidence-based decisions and highlighted importance of balance in clarifying strategic objectives, measuring performance and managing performance. She said that there should be no gap between goals, actions and outcomes. Aqeela said that one should engage people for reporting of issues, which could really help in improving work and decision-making capability. Punjab Planning & Development Department Director Tariq Majeed Qureshi also addressed the seminar and highlighted importance of the topic.
