MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Merger management
had time to do that when we brought people together.
(Interviewee N)
The one thing, though, that I think we didn't really discuss at the
level that I was engaged was the management process of the
new union. Now I am certain that there wasn't sufficient
dialogue around that at national level because had there been
we would have been more engaged or at least aware of it.
(Interviewee M)
Although another manager had a slightly different perspective on one
aspect of management process:-
Well there was a lot of discussion around structure, as usual, as
Unison always seemed to be obsessed with structure so there
was an awful lot of discussion about structure and levels
(Interviewee G)
Another structural reflection related to the idea of regional management
teams:-
That made it very difficult to manage when you create a
management team from people from each of those three
cultures. Even the very sense of management team is different,
Mike, because if you recall I never operated a management
team in NALGO. I, if you like, was a manager and other people
had different jobs to do. The term "management team" was
something that was really quite new. And we were told to have
a management team. What was that and what was that about?
And I am not sure that we were terribly well fitted to do that in
the early stage (Interviewee K)
Managers from the Health Group reflected that their experience was
different from others:-
It was a collective and it was very, very important in those first
couple of years that that was conveyed to the staff. You know,
saying to the staff at this was a genuine partnership, this wasn't
a takeover, that we were trying to build something in health that
was a new union not, you know, the practices and culture of one
other partner unions would not dominate. (Interviewee H)
The coming together of the Health Group was fun, it was great, it
was extraordinary and in a sense every single one of us felt that
we were Unison, that we represented everything that was good
about Unison and we felt that we were at the cutting edge and
leading Unison -- but we lost our way. (Interviewee D)
There are scars on my back, actually, because I think that the
Health Group did it too well too quickly and as a consequence a
311