“Organisational culture is not exactly rocket science”, said the then rector Rianne Letschert when Peter Møllgaard from Denmark became dean of the School of Business and Economics (SBE). It was about whether an outside hire would be able to understand the mores of the faculty. It’s not rocket science, but it may have been more challenging than it seemed. For this farewell interview with Møllgaard, Observant spoke with several prominent staff members of SBE. Professor of Real Estate Finance Piet Eichholtz is critical. One of his gripes is that Møllgaard should have invested more time in connecting with the professors. “For example, I’ve never had an appraisal interview with him.” Even so, Eichholtz describes the dean as a “warm, kind man”. It’s a view unanimously shared by all interviewees: a support staff member in the Faculty Council, the chair of that council, the scientific director of the Education Institute and two heads of department. But there is a “but”, especially if you ask the heads of department, who tend to work most closely with the dean. “Peter had experience with other business schools”, says Clemens Kool, head of department and professor of Macroeconomics and International Monetary Economics. “The management structure is usually very top-down. The Netherlands has this culture of endless consultation, which requires leaders to build support for their decisions. It caused friction, especially in the first eighteen months to two years.”
Tough decisions
Take the introduction of a new organisational model, a matrix structure, which took power away from the faculty’s heads of department. “When the board says, ‘This is how it’s going to be’, it’s met with resistance”, says Kool. “Peter didn’t shy away from making tough decisions.” His fellow head of department Wim Gijselaers, professor of Educational Research and Development, concurs. “Peter was accustomed to having a greater degree of independence at Copenhagen Business School. He had to get used to the role that heads of department play here. Our input often surprised him in the beginning. In the Netherlands, people will even question decisions that have already been made. It took him eighteen months to two years to adjust to that.”
Møllgaard does not recognise himself in the description of an authoritarian leader. “Yes, big decisions were made, but I always made them together with the rest of the board and after consultation with the department heads. Never alone.” He feels like he was open to listening to anyone with something to say. “For example, the entire faculty is involved in SBE’s current strategic plan.” All major decisions involved regular meetings of the management team (consisting of the Faculty Board, the heads of department and the institute directors). “We took all their input into account, but the board ultimately makes the decisions. That may have been different from what the faculty was used to, but I don’t think the word ‘authoritarian’ is correct.”
Legacy
Despite the rough start, all interviewed SBE staff members are now sad to see Møllgaard leave. He has changed as a dean over the past four years, they say. According to Kool, “He’s more sensitive to the heads of department now”. They feel like his deanship falls into two periods. “During the second period, several good decisions were made that benefited the faculty”, says Gijselaers. He is referring, among other things, to the new strategic plan of the faculty. “We must now stay the course, together with the new dean.”
What course is that? One that makes more room for interdisciplinary research and prioritises data analysis and digitization. Møllgaard has also “embedded sustainability and ethics in the faculty”, says Mark Vluggen, scientific director of the Education Institute. “That’s Peter’s great legacy here”, the interviewees unanimously agree. They all cite Møllgaard’s eye for diversity as well. His deanship saw a significant increase in the number of female professors, assistant professors and associate professors. All SBE assessment committees now have at least one female member, and Møllgaard is the only man who attends meetings of FEM, the network for female empowerment at UM.
Early departure
Deans are ideally expected to stay for two terms. Møllgaard is leaving after one term. One of the main reasons why he is making an ‘early’ departure is his daughter. In the summer of 2020, Møllgaard’s wife and daughter joined him in the Netherlands. “It was in the middle of the pandemic, so the lockdown made it difficult to create a social network. In the end of the academic year 2020/2021 they moved back to Copenhagen.” Around the same time, Møllgaard received a call from a headhunter about a position as dean of the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). It was an easy decision. “It’s the faculty with the largest student body at the university”, he says enthusiastically. And as the name suggests, the faculty covers more disciplines than just economics and business. “It’s a little like a combination of SBE, the Faculty of Law and FASoS.”
What will he miss about UM? Møllgaard points out the window of his office on the fourth floor. “The view and the people”, he says. It’s a politically correct answer, he admits, “but it’s the truth. I’m proud of how the faculty made it through the pandemic. We weren’t just putting out fires, but we used the pandemic to make a strategic choice for technology-enhanced learning. It has made us a stronger school.”
One thing he will not miss is commuting between Denmark and the Netherlands, he says emphatically. “On average, I spent two long weekends per month in Copenhagen.” On those busy weekends, he would spend time with his family, see his friends and visit his 83-year-old mother.
Frank Sinatra
“It was not an easy time to be dean”, says Vluggen. He isn’t just referring to the cyber-attack that paralysed UM around Christmas 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic, but also to complex issues such as the integration of the School of Governance, the Maastricht Sustainability Institute and the Maastricht School of Management. “We’re talking about major organisational changes here.”
For his part, Møllgaard refers to them as “exciting challenges. That’s how you have to be able to look at it if you want to survive a job like this.” He’s sad that the Maastricht School of Management is not yet officially part of SBE. “We’re very far along in the process, but I would’ve liked to have been here for the official transition. It’s a shame, but you leave behind unfinished business whenever you leave a job.”
Møllgaard is returning to Denmark with a lot of experience under his belt, he says. His new place of work has a similar structure: the university consists of five faculties. He’s also impressed by the degree of student involvement at the university. “I’ve worked with various student board members, some better than others. It felt like a good way to keep in touch with the student population. Perhaps I will be able to introduce a similar system at SDU.”
Finally, is there anything Møllgaard would do differently if he could start over? “I’m immediately reminded of the song My Way by Frank Sinatra, in which he sings, ‘Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again too few to mention.’”