The language strategy as a model for organisational change

The Language Strategy has been carried out as a project that implements an idea across the organisation, thus resulting in the organisation gradually evolving and changing to allow for the incorporation of the new idea into existing practices. The Language Strategy can thus be seen as an example of how large-scale development projects can be implemented in the future. The organisational experiences are summarised in the following list:

1. It is worth investing time and resources in a broad consensus. It adds strength and stability to the project and frees up time and energy for the actual content of the project. The Language Strategy committee (2012-13) spent a year preparing the project, delimiting the remit, developing the objectives and agreeing on the conditions.
2. Maintaining the consensus needs to be formalised. This happened through the steering committee with representatives at associate-dean level from all the faculties, from the central administration and the student council.
3. The project needs a clear mandate from the central management.
4. Although the project is initiated from above, it should be possible to implement its components bottom-up to ensure that the details of the project appear clear and relevant to the local units.
5. It will be beneficial to engage in an inclusive dialogue with the users of the project as they will often represent fundamentally different user groups. The Language Strategy has operated with three user groups: the students, the academic environments and the directors of study.
6. It is recommended that clear, shared and uniform premises are established for the activities aimed at the academic environments. It is important always to ensure that all activities are carried out in compliance with the conditions of the local environment. The Language Strategy and the steering committee made a big effort to ensure this compliance when the project was launched by defining strict criteria for the allocation of funds for pilot projects.
7. It is an advantage to invest in local people with true commitment. If one starts where the interest is greatest and skepticism smallest, results will follow easily and the activities can be set up as best practice.
8. Implementing a strategic project can often be perceived as threatening in the local environments. One constantly has to bear in mind that the project can result in a new mindset being incorporated in the discourse of the academic units.
9. A large-scale development project requires a central agency which is considered legitimate by means of its official status. There will often be a need for help in adjusting local wishes, writing applications for partial projects and supporting local initiatives. The overall project will also need to be managed financially and allocated the necessary resources for this.
10. The generative idea of the project must always be in clear sight. It is essential to signal willingness to define, explain and place the conceptual framework of the project in perspective. It will often be tactically unwise to suppress or minimise the conceptual framework in order to accommodate criticism and resistance, because the long-term strategy will eventually make the concepts that carry the project accessible to all. The generative idea behind the Language Strategy, which has triggered discussions of the need for language as part of content, can be summarised in the following three statements:
    1. There is no academic activity without some form of language.
    2. Language is crucial for both learning and use of academic competence.
    3. Supporting language competences promotes academic understanding and practice.