How public institutions can be more nourishing places to work

This article is written by Ajoy Datta, research associate at On Think Tanks, a global platform for the study and support of think tanks

An earlier version of this was first published on On Think Tanks.

The content of this article draws on my experience working with (and in) a range of organisations including think tanks or policy research institutes, public institutions, international NGOs, consulting firms and project delivery units, in a variety of contexts including the UK, Zambia, Ghana, South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam.

"Work is love made visible" — Kahlil Gibran

Many public servants will find their work hugely satisfying even, or perhaps especially, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Equally, public institutions can be hugely fulfilling places to work, as individuals get to grow their skills, be curious, gain recognition and be part of a close-knit team.

However, public institutions can also be traumatic places to work, where people get hurt, distressed and unhappy. This is all the more so with public institutions under increasing pressure to adopt private sector practises and concerns, such as efficiency, effectiveness and excellence.

• Want to write for us? Take a look at Apolitical’s guide for contributors

In negative or traumatic organisational environments, people’s mental health suffers, groups fail to function and work does not get done.

But there are ways of making public institutions more developmental and nurturing places to work, as I will explore here.

The dark forces

In public institutions (and organisations more broadly), unhealthy patterns of relating and communication can be projected onto staff — felt disproportionately more by people from racial and ethnic minorities, women in predominantly male working environments, more junior staff, and so on. This is what Martin Bowles, an academic at the University of Birmingham, has dubbed the organisation shadow as, and examples include:

• Excessive top-down decision-making with senior managers “putting staff in their place”
• A lack of dialogue among staff
• Individuals being marginalised, harassed or scapegoated
• Individuals, especially those with power, pursuing personal agendas
• Individuals and teams working in silos
• Lack of trust between staff (perhaps due to envy or rivalry)
• Excessive levels of competition
• Excessive levels of aggression (expressed either passively and/or actively)
• Blurred accountability lines
• A lack of tolerance for new ideas and approaches

Even the most well-oiled public institution is run by humans, and when humans are involved things tend to get messy. Left unchecked, that might mean that the primary task of developing and shaping policy gets hijacked by primitive emotions, especially of the more powerful.

Very little of this is made explicit

From the outside, most public institutions appear well-polished: people are polite in meetings and they continue to produce glossy policy papers and strategies.

Formal spaces where employees come together tend to be highly structured with little room or capacity to talk about issues that may be troubling them. Those in power usually deny there are issues. Those without power fear the consequences of being frank.

Even the most well-oiled public institution is run by humans, and when humans are involved things tend to get messy

When difficult issues are brought up, it is done so informally and in private. For example, via messaging apps like WhatsApp, or in corridors, at the water cooler or in a bar after work. These are the “hidden transcripts” of our working lives.

Resorting to management speak

Organisations spend a lot of time and money routinely worrying about their external context and how to respond to it. They develop visions, missions, goals, strategies and business plans that cascade down to individual objectives, performance appraisals and competency frameworks. They also spend a lot of money on branding and image, anxious about how they will be perceived by others.

But organisations tend not to look inwards. In the rare instances that they do, they do not step back to reflect on what is happening and what is important. Instead they prioritise action, even if it might be the wrong thing to do.

Their focus lurches from the whole organisation to individuals. Priority is given to scientific management techniques (borrowed uncritically from the private sector), over methods that address more relational aspects. For instance, senior managers might:

• Announce an organisational restructure. But restructures often lead to more stress and upheaval as experienced by those working for the UK’s National Health Service.
• Hire an HR consultant to undertake an employee engagement survey (often annually). At an aggregate level, they tend to say the same thing every year, with senior management reluctant to genuinely listen and do something meaningful.
• Organise an “away day” or staff retreat to discuss plans and strategies. However, these usually have the effect of reproducing existing dynamics, albeit in a different setting.
• Ask staff to undertake Myers Briggs personality tests, to help them work better with each other. But this is not rooted in robust evidence and rarely digs deeper to consider power dynamics — who works with whom and on what terms?
• Suggest that stressed staff (and sometimes pay for them to) do yoga, mindfulness or call an employee helpline. But this psychologises and individualises problems that may actually be relational or more systemic.

These activities often have little effect in the long run. Individuals who are experiencing trauma tend to respond better to interventions that enable them to explore their feelings and emotions — through better communication practises. Describing one’s feelings (rather than acting on them) can provide a guide for what is going on for staff, can facilitate connection, and even resolve conflict. Sadly, this is often seen as unprofessional and inappropriate.

Towards a more nurturing working environment

While managers need to exert some authority and a degree of control to run a public institution, they also need to provide care and support. The relationship dynamics within organisations play a big part in how they achieve (or not) their strategies and goals.

If managers are genuinely ambitious, they need to create the space for staff to talk about the nature of their relationships, the quality of communication and how they understand each other. They need to bring those “hidden transcripts” or informal conversations into formal organisational life, partly through better communication practices.

A few ways to do this include:

• Meetings in which senior managers speak to staff in a [less formal and more improvisational way](http://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/transformational-change-in-the-higher-education-sector-an-inquiry-into-leadership-practice(7a16a1c6-1cbb-45fd-9e85-9602aef2cb0f%29.html). For instance, the director of a think tank I worked at held “coffee mornings” on a weekly basis, allowing staff to walk in and raise any concern they had.
• Less formal “away days” or “retreats” with far fewer items on the agenda.
• Informal group discussions. Christopher Rance, a group analyst, describes meeting with a group of 10-12 staff for a daily hour-long meeting in a large company as part of an IT project and restructuring process. Conversations were wide-ranging, including family issues, career plans and, as time wore on, how participants were getting on with each other. The dialogue was valued for the companionship that participants experienced as well as for its technical and commercial effectiveness.

In addition to these conversations, individuals can look inward to understand their own patterns of relating. In our relationships with colleagues, early attachment patterns with parents or early care-givers can play out. We can find ourselves replicating family dynamics and relational patterns — as families are usually the first group we are a part of. This dynamic is known as transference. So, individuals need to take responsibility for their own actions and not merely point the finger at colleagues or senior managers.

This requires not just better communication but also some degree of self-knowledge.

Some dynamics will endure and may be unresolvable. But bringing them to the surface can at least make them more comfortable

Of course, understanding and talking about what is going on between staff will not necessarily change relationships. Some dynamics will endure and may be unresolvable. But bringing them to the surface can at least make them more comfortable.

And in some cases, staff may identify positive impacts. For example, competition or rivalry, if harnessed appropriately, could improve the quality of work.

If change does happen, it is likely to happen incrementally over time.

Creating a safe space for frank conversation

Creating spaces for relational dynamics to be discussed and surfaced needs to be managed carefully. Public servants will need to agree on confidentiality and invest the time required to build up trust.

A skilled facilitator might need to be brought in to guide discussions — someone who can draw attention to relationship dynamics, hold the difficult feelings of the group and potentially mediate between individuals where there is conflict. And for all this to happen, managers with enough authority will need to find courage, stop being defensive, admit there are issues that need addressing, and find some budget to carve out space in the life of the institution to be more reflective.

In doing so, they will find that the institution can provide a more nourishing, caring environment in which staff can do the work they love. — Ajoy Datta

(Picture Credit: Death to the Stock Photo)