MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

‘Legitimate’ managerial actions - stakeholders
caricature of how the IRSF was so it’s typical Burns to see
yourself as others see us. I saw in CPSA what we actually were
in the IRSF. So there were a lot of tensions there, contradictions
about how you run professionally in a political organisation. We
haven’t decided how we should run and I feel constantly
suffering, pulled into a siding on a political basis. I see decisions
that should be made professionally, practically, properly
managerially based decisions that we’re not taking because it
doesn’t square with what the political thing is to do. It’s very
frustrating because you feel your morals are diluted. You don’t
feel true to yourself….I find it very difficult to manage this. The
tensions are that you make bad calls, you make bad decisions,
you do things for the wrong reasons or you find a way around it,
or you try and work with the groupings and rub up with them and
offer them something in return for them giving you something to
deliver a vote through a committee or whatever. You start to lose
sight of what the right thing is to do and you start to make the
political decision before you make the professional decision.
That’s what I find. As part of it I fear that if you’re not part of the
majority, or if you stand out against something that is wrong,
you’ll be marginalised so that there are huge herd type instincts
as well. Trying to find out which is the leading zebra in this
bloody herd you can’t find it and it seems to create a life of its
own without anyone thinking then rationally about what the right
thing is to do and all decisions being taken from a perspective
that is very unclear (Interviewee H)
One functional manager expresses the view that:-
I suppose largely I am sheltered from that in that my position
and I don’t choose to change. It is not seen as a political
position. I don’t feel that in the decisions I make or on the
committees I serve that I have to wear a political hat.
(Interviewee L)
whilst admitting that he was not able to take an optimum decision on
disposal of one regional office in a town where there were two
because:-
it was a political decision that two should be retained at least for
a while (interviewee L)
The General Secretary at the time of that particular decision confirms
the truth of that observation:-
I think it goes back to the original discussion we were having
about politics and personal ambition interfering with the decision
making process. It’s a perfectly good example of how unions
used to not manage their processes, why we were poor at it,
why people still consider that we’re carthorses or luddites. It’s a
perfect example of that but luckily it’s the only example.
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