MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Trade union managers
One of the real benefits of Unison was, right from day one, there
was a focus on management which probably didn't exist,
certainly in COHSE or NUPE and probably, to a limited degree
(although there were people like yourself who were in NALGO
who argued this) in NALGO. It felt to me that part of the new
culture we got was a willingness to see ourselves as managers
and for this to be a professional organisation and in the early
days that did obviously cause some tensions -- like, can we call
it the Senior Management Team? And all that stuff. So,
definitely a senior manager. (Interviewee B)
One manager explained why he felt that this may have come about:-
Because of the size of the organisation, the responsibilities
placed on management, the excellent initiatives the union is
undertaking in relation to IIP, all the issues relating to IIP, staff
development, organisational planning, the budget issue, all
those things that an organisation with a turnover of £110 million
should be doing and are now beginning to do and we are
beginning to understand that it requires very professional
management (Interviewee M)
The researcher himself was credited with a role:-
Certainly I was one of a number of which H was one and you
were one that straight away wanted to make sure that this was a
big organisation and that it had to be professionally managed
(Interviewee B)
One manager pointed to personal factors influencing the development
of her managerial role – the existence of a role model and a life
changing course she attended:-
One of the things that helped me to change my view of it was --
this is going to sound a bit sycophantic -- was when B started
managing me because she manages in a very coherent and
clear way and I had never really experienced that before. Never
really experienced being managed. So I think that was part of
my problem; I didn't feel like I had very good models and so
although it was slightly uncomfortable for me to be managed by
somebody else and somebody outside the function, ……first of
all I thought that was quite strange but in fact I found it really
helpful and it certainly helped to clarify things. (interviewee G)
And then, I think, the thing that made a real difference, actually,
was I did a course at Cranfield, you remember, a year or two
ago -- a couple of years, I suppose -- and that just completely
changed the way I thought about things, really (Interviewee G)
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