MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

‘Legitimate’ managerial actions - stakeholders
have to explain to senior lay activists why actually people don't
want a huge diatribe on the particular campaign that they are
most interested in. And it is about how you pitch those things.
We have done quite a lot of work over the past year, and I think
they are getting more used to it, but I think it is quite a typical
tension, really, as a manager, how much you do that.
(Interviewee G)
Another manager found relationships with the lay structure particularly
difficult:-
You might know what the General Secretary wanted but to be
able to deliver it was difficult because these people were actively
briefing against him. With some lay members it was almost a
badge of honour to defeat the General Secretary. You can't
manage an organisation like that. (Interviewee A)
Some practical examples of managing the relationships in a region are
described:-
Here we have got a Finance Secretary which very much carries
on the sort of old NALGO Regional (District) Treasurer tradition
and a very strong sense that the money that is the lay activity
money is like "our money" and it is for us to decide what to do
with it and a lay elected Finance Secretary who signs cheques
and when I came here, you know, we had very few financial
controls in that area which I think is wrong, you know. I think that
members' money should be properly controlled and scrutinised.
With J on this we have been successful in clawing a lot of that
back, not all of it and I think I was in a position to be able to do
that because I've got my East Midlands experience. We didn't
have a lay treasurer in the East Midlands, we had a Finance
Committee with a Chair and I was Secretary to it and it was a
good example of partnership working where it was lay decisions
but it was in partnership with staff. So I think that is a specific
example which gives a flavour. And I think the other thing that, a
more general point, is this whole concept of partnership working
I don't think really took root in this region. I think there is a lot of
them and us in terms of members and staff. I think in the East
Midlands we had gone a lot further in terms of partnership
working and genuinely recognising, you know, that lay members
have a role, staff have a role too and we are still, kind of, work in
progress here. (Interviewee O)
And another manager has a personal view of the management of
partnership, personal not only to her but also in terms of her approach
to managing stakeholder relationships:-
I think I do have a very personal approach which some people
may feel is a dangerous one to have but I think it's crucial that
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