Hard Work! Where Do Administrative Policies Come From?

In the Getting to Green blog, the anonymous administrator continues his observations from the work to shift an entire campus toward greater sustainability:

So where do little administrative policies come from? Well, I wish they sprung full-grown from the head of Zeus (or should that be Wotan?). They don’t. Even the simplest policy Greenback publishes is the result of a disheartening amount of effort. Getting to the appropriate key decision-maker; convincing that individual that a policy mandating, prohibiting, or encouraging a specific form of behavior would benefit the university; identifying the various stakeholders on campus who will implement (or neuter) the policy when it’s been published; getting a consensus among them as to what the gist of the policy should be; finding a wording which is strong enough but not too strong; which captures the thinking of the ultimate decision-maker(s) without offending those one or two levels down the administrative hierarchy; getting everyone onside and the decision actually made — all of that takes far more work than I ever would have guessed.