MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Conclusions
I am always working for consensus, if you can get consensus.
To be blunt, that wasn't D's style. It was much more than the
force of personality style. My view on that is that that kind of
style has just past its sell by date. It doesn't work any more in
the world that we live. People now are much more grown-up,
much more intelligent. And I'm not saying that from time to time
you don't need a bit of that but generally speaking you have got
to try and take people with you. That's what I try to do in terms
of managing those tensions (Interviewee B)
So there is a very mixed picture of management style in CWU, as well
as insufficient data to see whether there is a link between the principles
of managers and trade unionists and the way they approach the
management of their people. Of course, there is less access to
management training for CWU managers than managers in some other
unions so it may be that these issues have just not been aired. As
discussed above, however, the CWU now has a strategic objective to
the effect
that the CWU will have a well trained and well motivated staff
who understand the union’s aims and their role in contributing to
them (CWU Strategic Plan 2002)
and this will require many of these issues to be addressed. Once again,
further research is required to see if they are and whether managers
then perceive any links between their core principles and the way they
approach their managerial tasks.
5.16. CONCLUSIONS
Trade Union Managers
The situation in the CWU is affected here, as in one or two other areas,
by the change in senior management during the research. The way in
which trade union management seems to have been undertaken in the
past is that those who did not want to manage passed that
responsibility to specialists such as personnel officers. There is
evidence that this was the case in the CWU relatively recently. There
certainly seems to have been little institutional support for the practising
of management, even though all but one individual managers accepted
their managerial roles and sought to manage. The election of a new
General Secretary and Senior Deputy changed the situation because
this regime not only provided institutional support for management, but
also prescribed certain compulsory elements of managerial activity,
such as strategic planning processes. This was done despite the fact
that it was recognised that not all those who would have to engage in
these processes necessarily bought into the idea of management.
One particular factor in the CWU deserves note here which is the
extent of election of those who might, in other unions, be appointed
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