MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Cognitive rules and culture
For the first time we are trying to describe the job (of Senior
National Officers) and we are describing it as 20% hands on
negotiation, perhaps being involved with the Chief Executives,
the Permanent Secretaries of the bargaining areas to get a
framework that sets a climate for our front line negotiators. We
described it as 20% on management which would be called
personnel management issues, counselling, coaching,
mentoring - and the other 60% on what we described, to try and
finesse the view that they are not managers, organisational
responsibilities, which is sitting down on a one to one with the
negotiators and working out job plans, which is management but
is called something else for the purposes of agreeing (the ex
CPSA General Secretary) into it. But it’s the first time we’ve
actually done that and described the jobs in those terms. It’s not
described in the rule book as you know. And we’re trying to back
that up with creating a culture of this, hence the Eastbourne
venture with Cranfield and training with the Industrial Society
who we’ve been doing work with on what’s the difference
between leadership and management and how you go about
identifying training needs. So we are putting in a lot of building
blocks to reinforce it by training. (Interviewee H)
There was a suggestion that managers perceived culture as moving in
opposite directions, depending on where they came from:-
The ex CPSA managers don't feel like they have authority to do
things but they have come from a culture where if you did not
have authority to do it, you couldn't do it. Whereas I think in PTC
we got to the point where if nobody told us we can't, we will.
(Interviewee G)
Individual experiences of managers are also significant in impacting on
the cognitive processes of PCS managers. Managers who came from
negotiating roles have particular experiences:-
Certainly the level of the senior national officers here, below the
senior full time officers, I think they understand, post merger,
that managing staff is a very important part of their duties. I think
that's quite a culture change, because, certainly prior to the
merger, talking about CPSA which was obviously what I knew
best, I think there was a culture, which went back many, many
years, that the job of officials was to negotiate - the sexy stuff -
biffing the management and extracting wonderful deals, all this
kind of stuff. And managing staff and resources, if it came into
the picture at all was an afterthought. They didn't really see it as
a major part of their duties (Interviewee A)
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