Word: allison
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...coffee table is stacked with books, his desk is cluttered with papers. You can almost picture Allison slaving away efficiently in a dimly-lit office 90 hours a week, deriving enjoyment from pushing papers and organizing files. There is a touch of the politician in him, as he smoothly introduces strangers and smiles expansively. But when he says he admires "those who run for elective positions, who are out there slugging it out, putting their own skin on the line," the implication is unmistakeable: Graham Allison would never be one of them...
Last week, Allison embarked for the Soviet Union. He had been invited by Russian officials. In the wake of the Olympic boycott and the cooling of the cold war, however, Allison was not about to be injudicious; he called up the State Department to see if his trip was appropriate...
Among K-School administrators, his managerial prowess is almost revered. As Thomas Schelling, professor of Public Policy and a friend of Allison's, says, "He's always working on the hard immediate problems. He spends an awful lot of time doing things most of us wouldn't like to do." Others, like Ira A. Jackson '71, assistant dean of the Kennedy School, bring up his tenacious application to fundraising--one of the less appealing responsibilities of a dean--during the school's high growth stage. And since he assumed the K-School's leadership, he has plunged himself into...
Even the system of governance he has constructed as dean resembles a paragon of bureaucracy. "The school is ruled like the island of Timor," Allison says. "Everyone sits around a big fire. Up comes an issue. Those most interested in that issue gather in the center of the circle. Those in the inner circle study the matter, and bring it back to the outer circle for approval." He compares faculty members to "partners in a law firm...
...Allison concedes that this mechanism, aimed at decentralizing the decision-making process, will prove harder to sustain as the faculty grows larger. In many ways, then, the signals he emits are those of the prototypical bureaucrat, a functional organizer and manager extraordinaire...