Participatory management in child care agencies – advantages and a problem

Hy Resnick

Advantages

It’s now well known that there are many advantages for an agency when managers make thoughtful use of a participative model to manage their agency. (See previous article) This model has definite implications for staff, management, and the agency as a whole.

Advantages For Staff: They:

feel respected as professionals who are committed to the “work” of caring for distraught or disturbed young people
are asked to use their expertise to inform agency policy and program development
experience a sense of increasing partnership with management as part of the team of professional helpers
are learning new skills such as communication and group participation skills as well as public speaking, writing and presentation skills.
are having more face to face contact with top and middle level management in collegial and non-adversarial situations
experience a sense of empowerment with implications for more effective interactions with each other, management and clients

For Management: They

have more opportunity to observe, understand and appreciate the culture of the work force
can make use of worker’s information to make better decisions
may experience improved trusting relationships with staff

For the agency: It

can improve agency morale
may lead to improved quality of service to the young people in care
has positive implications for the reputation of the agency in the professional helping community

Although the above benefits of a participative approach are clear to management in many countries, there are some problems in this form of management one of which will be discussed below. Some social scientists are calling this approach pseudo-participation and define it as a “manipulation of the participatory process by managers who unknowingly (and sometimes knowingly) deceive staff into thinking they are being asked to participate in a decision when they really are not”. I’ve identified four techniques of this method (I’m sure there are more): 1. Pre-meeting decisions, 2. Innocuous decisions, 3. Limited information and 4. Limited time.

1. Pre-meeting decisions
In this technique a decision has already been made by management about an important issue but for a variety of reasons, management wants to make the decision look like it has been made with staff’s participation and support. Management calls a meeting of staff but “seeds” the meeting with selected and programmed staff who are instructed to introduce or support the desired decision in the course of the meeting. Management will recognize these supporters and ignore staff with opposing views. Discussion is usually cut off or deflected until management’s desired decision prevails. Management has the decision they want which had been made to look like there was staff support for it. Staff walk away confused at best and bitter at worst.

2. Innocuous decisions
In this scenario staff is allowed full participation and decision making power but only on issues which are unimportant i.e. issues that involve minimal resources such as holiday party plans, conference arrangements, furniture in meeting rooms and the like.

3. Limited information
Here again staff are invited to an important decision making meeting but their access to relevant information is limited. When arguments are made by management supporting a particular decision staff who oppose this decision are less able to mount opposing points of view because they don’t have access to data which could support their position. Staff find themselves yielding however reluctantly to management’s data-based point of view.

4. Limited time
This form of pseudo-participation is a variant of #3 above. In this situation staff members do have the time to collect all the relevant data to support their perspective on the issue being discussed and decided on at this meeting. They also do not have sufficient time to organize their thinking to make a credible presentation of their point of view at the meeting. Since management convenes meetings and not staff , they can claim that an emergency meeting has to be called to decide on a particular issue which leaves staff without sufficient time to prepare.

No doubt other techniques of pseudo-participation exist but what they all have in common is the cynical abuse of the participatory process and the consequent demoralization of staff. Distrust begins (or continues) to build with implications for morale problems. Management is well advised to avoid this short term advantage of this “method” and seek transparent and honest engagements with staff even when it means confrontational meetings. In the long run, staff respects management who deal with them honestly.