Bad habits of archaeological managers and where they came from

Some of the stranger attitudes displayed by senior archaeological managers are inexplicable without some reference to the changing nature of archaeology as an activity and a business over the last 25 years. What I want to present is an alternative narrative of that change, highlighting the implications for the viewpoints of those involved.

1982: old-style Rescue

This is the first stage where I have direct experience. I started as a Volunteer. This status needs some explanation to younger readers. The archaeological bodies at the time used the term 'volunteer' as a legal manouvre, so that technically the site staff were not employees, and thus did not have to have things like NI, sick pay or holidays. It was just about possible to work full-time as a digger on the circuit of government-funded rescue digs around the UK, although it wasn't comfortable: the only accommodation provided was a campsite. This rigorous apprenticeship weeded out all but the fanatical would-be diggers. So summer excavations (in particular) had very large numbers of very poorly paid staff who would be expected to leave after a fairly short period.

Myth 1: It's not worth training people, you won't get the benefit

This sorry state is perhaps well-enough known. Less well-known is the other side of the coin: the supervisors and directors, in contrast, were quite well-paid, and enjoyed generous subsistence allowances. As a result, those diggers who did make it into their ranks suddenly enjoyed a transformed lifestyle.

Myth 2: You don't have to treat people well now, they will get rewarded later


The natural rhythm of the rescue year was an alternation of a short and intense period of excavation and then a quieter post-ex time for the core staff.

Myth 3: Don't let the diggers get near recording, they won't be around to analyse it


1986: MSC Schemes

The economic problems of the early 1980s led to the creation of Manpower Services Commission and its Community Programme, aimed at using the long-term unemployed to do some socially useful work. Archaeologists found that projects which would have attracted no other funding were suddenly viable; having large teams was a positive benefit. There were some downsides to this: the proportion of supervisory staff was limited to less than 1 in 10; the diggers, drawn from the local unemployed, were completely unskilled in archaeology, and were in some cases unwilling draftees.

One of the principles of the CP was that the staff had to paid the rate for the job; since council's didn't employ archaeologists, the nearest equivalent was chosen (unskilled manual staff). The paradox resulted in which experienced graduate diggers were being paid less than their MSC counterparts, who also enjoyed employment rights.

There were some very good results of this enforced contact with the general public. It sowed the seeds of the emphasis on outreach and education that eventually created the TV archaeology boom of the recent past. The certain knowledge that new staff were unfamiliar with the excavation process meant that induction and training were formalised. And the social background of archaeologists was diversified, as it was discovered that being a middle class graduate was not a necessary qualification.


But because of the structuring of the funding, anomalies in tasking arose. Anything that could be done by non-archaeological staff was effectively free. Anything that could only be done by archaeological staff unencumbered by people to supervise was almost impossible. Anything that involved spending money on equipment or external staff was severely restricted.

Most projects found themselves caught in a cycle of running an excavation team to provide the funding for some post-ex work on the previous excavation, and then needing a new excavation to fund ... and so on

Myth 4: Keep digging, never mind the post-ex

Restrictions on funding for specialists led to a healthy tradition of DIY finds work, and an unhealthy tradition of ignoring finds and environmental work completely.

Myth 5: Specialists? What do they know?


1989: PPG16 and contract archaeology

PPG16 was a shock to the established archaeological structures, the county archaeologists and the regional units. It is not surprising that it was met with suspicion and indeed outright hostility. It is unfortunate that the terms of debate, such as it was, took place in an information vacuum, in which nobody understood business or commercial practice.

The closest that county archaeologists had come to this within councils was the then-current process of floating off the direct labour departments as separate businesses, driven by CCT: Compulsory Competitive Tendering. Since this was what they had heard of, they assumed that the best, or perhaps only, way by which developers would procure services was by competitive tender, heedless of the few voices that pointed out that this was only appropriate when the task could be clearly specified and quantified in advance.

Myth 6: Competitive tendering is how business works

This is nonsense. Most archaeological evaluations fall well below the £25K threshold for public bodies to run an open tender; private bodies wouldn't think twice about using their preferred supplier for such a paltry sum.

There was also a paranoia about standards, or more particularly cowboys. I recall the baffling sight of archaeologists who had previously complained bitterly about the poor excavation standards, inadequate records, and nonexistent publication plans of their local unit desperately defending them against outsiders who might, well, ok, do the job, and write a report, but they weren't local.

Myth 7: Only the locals can do archaeology properly

The question then arose of how you can define good practice, now that it was something to worry about. The answer was to specify in minute detail the way to dig (even though in the past considerable freedom had been granted to excavators to select their own approach). A long and comprehensive brief was answered by a longer and more comprehensive specification. The fact that, prior to excavation, nobody knew what would turn up and how to deal with it when it did was simply ignored.

Myth 8: Specifying methods in advance ensures correct outcomes

Sadly the tendency towards long briefs has eroded the idea that somebody digging a site has a duty to familiarise themselves with the context of the site by reading about nearby sites, attending lectures and conferences, and talking to other archaeologists.

Myth 9: Archaeology is about digging, not understanding



Discussion

The myths I have listed above emerged from the particular circumstances of the time. I have implied that many were recognisable as myths, or at best partial truths, at the time; but they certainly form poor insights into modern practice. But the senior archaeologists of today will have been exposed to those conditions in the past, and unless they have unlearned them they will still hold sway subconsciously.

This is an important point: it is only by trying to articulate the beliefs now that I have recognised their source; you would be hard pushed to get anyone to say any of these out loud, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't inform their thinking.

Keep this list to hand, and see how many myths you recognise a someone tells you why you don't need a finds budget, or you have to write a 20 page spec for a three-day evaluation, or you shouldn't worry about junior staff's employment conditions.

Step 3: Image

I have written before on my literary blog, A Few Words about the interaction between codes of dress and business in the realm of archaeology.

All across the country, favourite jumpers were consigned to bonfires or dog bedding, as the strange new world of short hair and clean clothes opened out. For the die-hards, it only took a couple of occasions on which their opinions or assistance were dismissed by busy businessmen because they looked like the people who cleaned the site toilets to recommend a change.

This was perhaps a simplistic view. What I struggled with was how to explain the culture of archaeological dress. Now I propose to follow a more roundabout route, going back to first principles: what is the function of clothing?

A recent study reported:

"… students indicated why an item of clothing they particularly valued was important to them, including perceived functional and mood-related benefits, but also clothes as means for expressing personal and social identity."

Jason Cox and Helga Dittmar, "The functions of clothes and clothing (dis)satisfaction: A gender analysis among British students" Journal of Consumer Policy 2-3 (1995) [text not available online to non-subscribers]

If you ask people about the clothes they choose to buy or wear, they will talk about aesthetics (they look good, or make the wearer look good, or feel nice), practicalities (keeps me warm, handy pockets), status (makes me look rich), and personal identity (expresses my personality). What they don't say is that it expresses their group identity.

For example, IT tekkies would consider themselves a fiercely independent and individualistic bunch who reject the norms of business fashion and wear what they, individually, want.

What then are we to make of a fashion range of geek chic like Cafe Press? It seems that, like skaters, Goths and punks before them, their individualism is expressed by wearing the same clothes as their friends.



This photograph of a group of countryside rangers and volunteers is interesting because only half of them are wearing a uniform. The others have adopted the green shirt and jeans as a form of protective coloration. Note that the only person wearing 'normal' clothes, in this context, appears as an outsider, clearly other than the rest.

I was at a large informal meeting of local government employees recently where one could immediately identify the biodiversity officers, because they wore fleeces, and the sustainability officers, because they wore woolly jumpers. People with similar interests do end up wearing similar clothes. Partly this might be explained by shared tastes, but it is also partly because we choose to dress like people we identify with. This is the power of clothes to express group identity.


However, like all such expressions, there is a price to pay. Signalling to your colleagues that you are like them also signals to others that you are different.






Time Team want to look like archaeologists.

Cornelius Holtorf quotes Mick Aston
as saying "we’re complete scruffbags but I don’t care. I’m not remotely interested in appearances, life’s too short for that”. But if you were a businessperson, would you trust them with thousands of pounds to deliver a critical part of your development?


Step 3: Are you creating the image you want?

Step 2: Labels

So we have seen in Step 1 that archaeologists are a little unclear about who they are and what they do. It is not surprising to find that this confusion extends to what they are called.

In Kenneth Aitchinson and Rachel Edwards' Archaeology Labour Market Intelligence: Profiling the Profession 2002-03 (2003) (available from IFA The Profession page), there is the sobering statement:

Details relating to 2348 archaeologists and support staff working in jobs with 428 different post titles were received. This represents one post title for every 5.5 individuals and indicates that there is little consistency in the use of post titles across the UK. This is a slight improvement on the situation reported for 1997/98, when there was one post title for every 4.7 individuals. (p. 38; emphasis added)

This situation has the important corollary that many archaeologists carrying out similar roles are called different things; it is resonable to suppose that many called the same thing are in fact fulfilling different roles. It is therefore hardly surprising that non-archaeologists are baffled by the hierarchy of personnel they encounter: it defies understanding. Can it really be the case that (on average) there are only five people in the UK who share the same role?

There are further difficulties which have arisen from changes in usage that have occurred outside archaeology. In the mid 90s, when the shift from 'field officer' post titles to 'project' titles was largely complete, there was a general agreement on the level of responsibility they implied:

* a project officer was, in archaeology, somewhere between a supervisor and field officer, in charge of a small team for fieldwork projects such as evaluations, writing the report

* a project manager was an office-based senior officer with overall responsibility for the project, among others, and costing and tracking the work

This is the situation outlined by my 1995 paper "Project management in a changing world: redesigning the pyramid", in M A Cooper, A Firth, J Carman and D Wheatley (eds.), 1995 Managing Archaeology (Routledge, London: EuroTAG series), 208-215, selections from which can be found on Google Scholar.

This arrangement was probably fairly comparable to project officers in other fields at the time, and is (as far as anyone can tell) still the basic distinction used in archaeology.

But in the outside world, the meaning of these terms have shifted. Project Officer these days is seen most frequently in the public and voluntary sectors, defining an entry-level post with limited freedom of action and no supervisory role; typical requirements will be a degree in something unrelated and generic office skills. Project Officers, as the name suggests, are hired and fired with their project lifecycle. It will be seen that this is some distance from the expectation of an archaeological Project Officer.

A parallel shift has occurred with Project Manager. While the term has always straddled the line between overseeing and undertaking projects, under systems like Prince2, the role of Project Manager has become fixed as the senior person involved in undertaking the work, reporting to the line manager (in Prince2 parlance the Project Director) from day to day and to the Project Board for strategy. Such project managers are brought into the project after it has been planned, costed and procured. These days project management has develoepd its own identity as a skill and in practice most PMs have little knowledge of the substance of the project they are responsible for. This is perhaps a point for archaeologists to ponder: would projects benefit if the administrative tasks were separated from the archaeological?

The demotion of Project Manager has left a gap for the senior role, the perosn with responsibility for devising and overseeing several projects and their managers. A term becoming common for this is Programme Manager.


Step 2: Review your current post titles.
Do they describe what the role is?
Do they give others the correct expectation of their seniority and experience?

Step 1: identity

The relationship between an archaeologist and their trowel is powerful. As Matt Lemke's collection of testimonies (in Trowels , in Assemblage 2 (1997), shows, the trowel is not a tool, it is almost an extension of the digger's self. I found myself as outraged by the person who kept several trowels as I would have been by a bigamist. Having-a-trowel is assumed to be identical to being-an-archaeologist.




Or see Chapter 4 of Matt Edgeworth's Act of Discovery: an ethnography of archaeological practice (pdf e-book), where (on p. 94), he says:

"A well-worn trowel is taken to symbolize the experience and skill of the digger ... Clearly it is not just a functional implement ... but also an object of significance in itself".

But what do you call an archaeologist who doesn't use a trowel? Here I think, is the explanation for the historic antipathy between diggers and people like geophysics, finds and environmental specialists, may appear on site but don't quite belong. That is perhaps a minor issue of politics; more important is the effect it has on the diggers as they progress through their careers.

It is common to meet senior managers who feel, and even say, that they belong on site, digging things up, and would do so if they could get all this management stuff out of the way. This is a recipe for disaster: any sane analysis of the skills and training that someone need as should be based on what their role is, not what they wished it was.

As a starting point, you could consider the following questions:

Do you excavate?
Do you record?
Do you analyse?
Do you interpret?
Do you administer?
Do you monitor?
Do you manage?
Do you enable?


You could then, if you wish, have a rather sterile debate about which activities were still 'real' archaeology, and which were not. More importantly, those who have drifted to the latter end of the list, in search of status, security, and power, must recognise that they are no longer directly involved in investigating the archaeological resource. Until they face up to this, a process which may well involve some mourning, they will fail at their new role, since they will place no value on managerial tasks, will be uninterested in fulfilling them efficiently, and will instead embroil themselves in interfering with the archaeological conduct of excavations at the slightest opportunity.

If, after careful thought, you realise that you are still at heart a digger, but your job title says manager, you will probably be happier and more effective if you change jobs. If you decide you want to be a manager, your should equip yourself for that role as best as you can.

Step 1: What is your current role?

Step 5: Communication

Communicating with non-archaeologists is something that archaeologists are not, in fact, very good at. Talking archaeology at them, fine. But that isn't the same thing.

• Don’t expect them to share your viewpoint
• Don’t expect them to know your terminology
• Do tell them how it affects them
• Do give them bad news clearly

WHAT THE ARCHAEOLOGIST SAYS

WHAT THE DEVELOPER HEARS




Some golden rules
• Consider your audience: what matter to them?
• Provide a clear message: don't tell them 'we don't really know'
• Avoid wishful thinking: don't say you might be finished next week if you won't
• Don’t get bogged down in detail: they don't care about feature 1099
• Check they understand: ask them; listen to the answers
• Don’t be misled by politeness: they may be humouring you


Step 5: How well do you communicate?

Step 4: Invest in training

A short argument for training:

• New roles need new skills
• Learning by trial and error involves trials and errors
• Invest in training
• Prioritise training needs

You might think this hardly worth saying, but there are many reasons why people are hostile to the idea that they might benefit from training.

There are a lot of tools out there, ranging in cost from expensive to free, that could have immediate results in efficiency: see for example Prince2, Microsoft Project, Getting Things Done, iGoogle.


Invest in tools not systems

It's easy to be tempted by the prestigious, complex, formal training opportunities; deciding which to pursue requires thought.

• How much more would you achieve if you spent 50% less time dealing with emails?
So look at Getting Things Done

• How often will you use the knowledge gained from a Palaeolithic rock art conference in Australia?
So unless you are a full-time specialist in rock art, don't go.

• Is your organisation ready to adopt Prince2 throughout?
If not, don't get Prince2 accredited.

Step 4a: Do you know everything already? If not, get some training.

Step 4b: Start with the tasks you spend the most time doing, or the ones you do worst

Isn't good management just common sense?

In general, of course it is.
But as Voltaire says "le sens commun est fort rare" (Common sense is very rare) (Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764).


And in any case, there are some things which are counter-intuitive:

* if you have two tasks to do, start with the hard one
* if you are negotiating with two people, and one is argiung and the other is silent, it is the silent one that needs convincing
* do the most important thing not the most urgent


The arguments usually comes from those who would call themselves good managers, having learned the hard way. It's almost as if they think that telling people how to do it is cheating in some way.

The foundation of successful projects is management science, not rocket science.