MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

‘Legitimate’ managerial actions - stakeholders
It is very similar. The housing association had its committee and
obviously you have got councillors in local government. There is
no greater deferral to lay members here (Interviewee J)
But this probably does not describe adequately the complexity of the
relationships:-
There should be a healthy balance in the organisation between
the lay structure, which is accountable terms of its election --
these are the senior people elected by the members and so on -
- and the full timers who are the employees and see themselves
as the professionals. And on the one hand the lay people can
never be as professional as the full timers because we're here
100% of the time, and we get paid for that and the full timers
actually need the lay people to just make sure that what they're
doing is still on the straight and narrow and we have not lost
sight of the members outside the hallowed ground that we can
occupy if we are not careful. But what has happened in this
organisation because of the splits amongst the full timers is that
the lay structure has assumed, I would say as a full timer, a
disproportionate power. Decisions that I think the management,
the full timers, should be taking are taken by the lay structure.
And I think that is inevitable when you have got splits. And
equally I suspect that goes the other way, if you have got
political splits on your lay structure and your full timers are
cohesive, then I suspect the scales tip the other way. We are
tipped on the lay side at the moment (Interviewee B)
This view is echoed at a more senior level:-
I am frustrated by the fact that it’s very competitive amongst the
senior officers and because the contours of the land that we
have to battle on are set by an Executive who look for different
signs of virility that we actually end up operating in the contours
they set and not what the contours are for the organisation. I
think that I feel very concerned that the organisation is heavily
into blame. Looking at things ‘why has this gone wrong’ not as
learning experiences but as someone to be summoned. Full
timers are looked on to have all the answers. Part of the
childishness of some of the lay officials, the Executive, is that
they say they want to take control but when things get bloody
tough they don’t know what the answers are. It is expected,
partly as a virility sign, that the full-timer will sort it out. For a full
timer to admit that I don’t know the answer is unheard of. So I
feel frustrated that people are not able to express uncertainty,
not being able to say ‘I don’t have the answer’ - any answer as
long as there’s an answer - so sharing vulnerability is not
something that is in our lexicon at all. (Interviewee H)
And this lay member approach is supported, albeit in rather more
benign terms:-
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