MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Cognitive rules and culture
a hard time over it for the first few months because I couldn't
believe that we weren't in this together and could trust each
other. I think in the main it was down to a few key individuals
who were driving things from within the old BIFU and to many ex
BIFU members it was also a breath of fresh air, that they had got
a different culture coming in as well. So whilst it was a huge
problem to overcome, once you had broken through the barrier it
became a lot easier. (Interviewee H)
Another manager had also adapted well:-
Even the distinction between lay people and full time officers --
there was not that divide in old NWSA. At the monthly
management committee meetings, the full time officers and the
lay people that comprised the management committee got
together, we all sat around the table together and there was no
distinction. We were all in it together. But now there is a
distinction between lay people and the officials and I do believe
that it is right to say that they have a far greater say in the
running of the organisation, clearly. If we are talking about the
NEC, the President who is very involved. I don't generally
attend NEC meetings but we have got the Royal Bank group
national company committee, the NCC, and there the chair, the
vice chair, the lay people, -- demanding is not the right word but
they are responsible for the running of the Royal Bank group in a
far greater way than lay people had been in old NWSA. Is that a
bad thing? I don't think it is (Interviewee M)
These managers were all formerly in the NWSA. Those coming from
old UNiFI had, however, very similar perceptions:-
I don't think there has been any doubt that the old Unifi was a
union which had historically been led from the front by the senior
officials. That is not to say that there was not lay member
involvement. The lay members’ attitude when I first went to Unifi
-- it was then called BGSU -- was that we hire these
professionals to do a job and unless there are some very
convincing reason otherwise, we let them get on with it. The job
of the lay officials was to monitor progress and ask questions
and give a steer where they thought that that was required. And
although that sort of relationship eroded over the 16 years or so
that I worked there -- quite properly so in my view, in fact I
encouraged it because I felt that it was potentially
unhealthy…………..nonetheless even at the point that which we
merged, I don't think there is much doubt that the culture in the
old Unifi were still one in which the full time officers had a
substantial influence on decision-making, partly because we
were elected. We were elected as well so we had a democratic
mandate the same as the lay members. (Interviewee F)
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