Inside Story: On Becoming a Manager

David Golding

David Golding There comes a moment in Mark Antony's famous scene (from Shakespeare's
Humberside College of Julius Caesar III ii) when he begins to fear the effect of his appeals upon the
Higher Education
Hull, U.K. citizens in the Forum. It is as though a sudden chill strikes through him. He may
be going just too far. He points out, therefore, that, in fact, he is merely telling
people what they already know, but he does this so skilfully, that nothing of the
cutting edge of his appeal is lost.

'I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts;

I am no orator, as Brutus is.
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man.
That love my friend; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth.
Action, not utterance, nor the power of speech.
To stir men's blood; I only speak right on.
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor poor dumb mouths.
And bid them speak for me.' (Ill ii 216-226)

The imperative of Mark Antony's appeal is achieved by an artful sustaining of

ambiguity. Knowledge is in tension with control. Perhaps there is a tension of
this kind in all human organization. Knowledge may be essentially contestable,
yet human interaction must develop shared meanings and assumptions.
However, because of the enormous complexity of even the simplest transaction
(in terms of the perspectives, aspirations, expectations, feelings, language,
gestures, etc.) the development of shared meanings and assumptions is at best a
partial process. There can be many alternative meanings and assumptions, and
the whole process is open to manipulation.
This is the fine line that Mark Antony treads. He tries to harness an alternative
perspective, by appealing to the citizens' better judgment ('I tell you that which
you yourselves do know;. . .'). He suggests by allusion, that such a foul act
cannot be a right way to conduct a society ('Show you sweet Caesar's wounds,
. . .'). Yet he also recognizes that this view threatens other perspectives,
notably that of Caesar's assassins, and he feels it necessary to underplay the
power of his appeal ('I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts;'). The
appeal is merely a tribute then. Yet what a tribute! The ambiguity, skilfully
Organization Studies managed, allows the appeal to be made.
1986, 7/2: 193-198 The tension between alternative perspectives and more generally accepted
© 1986 EGOS
0170-8406/86 tenets is an important feature of social processes, never more apparent than
0007-0011 $1.00 when a new member is being introduced into an organization. My experience
194 David Golding

of this suggests that members face similar problems of knowledge and control
to those encountered by Mark Antony.
In the late 1970s, I joined the British division of a large multinational company
as a Personnel Manager, a job I held for about a year and a half. This division
comprises a medium size manufacturing concern situated in the North of
England and since all names and positions have been changed to protect
identities, it will be referred to as Wenslow Manufacturing Company.
Any feelings of excitement or even awe that one has when first joining a
multi-national — the sense of being part of a worldwide family, or even a
worldwide 'machine' — soon disappear as one realizes that there is no sign of
romance. The connecting rods of the machine are absent also. People do not
dream about their counterparts in Tahiti or South America, or even in
Birmingham. They go about their jobs in much the same way as does everyone
else in every other organization.
Perhaps then the first feature of entry concerns the bringing down to earth of
the new member. The absolute mundaneity of everyday transactions is strongly
reinforced by the apathetic stances individuals take towards other divisions,
which are treated as irrelevant, distracting, and boring. In a way that is
reassuring to a newcomer — 'I shall be able to cope after all', But what does
coping entail? How does a new member learn what standards are applied to
coping? When does coping become not coping? And when does it become
identified as super coping — leading to promotion? How are such boundaries
communicated, and indeed established? Curiously, it may be the people who
are considered to be, or who feel themselves to be, marginal — in the sense of
being different in their acceptance of, and commitment to, what is required to
cope — who are keyfiguresin this. The stories that such people told, together
with the clusters of symbols surrounding such stories, certainlyfiguredstrongly
in the way in which I found my way around Wenslow Manufacturing Co.
One of the first marginal characters I met was Jack Fisher, the Administration
Manager, although in his case his marginality derived more from his
heightened sense of awareness of meanings and situations than from others'
perceptions of him as marginal, since he was regarded as a very effective
manager. That led me to see a good deal of meaning in his stories.
On a visit to Jack Fisher's office, early in my entry period, to discuss
recruitment in his department, he began by asking me how I was settling in, and
without waiting for a reply he launched into a monologue about how awful he
thought the place was. Initially I was surprised, given his reputation as one of
the better managers, that he should do this so early in our association, but I
must have nodded in all the right places, because he then reinforced his
negative narrative with a demonstration of how every evening when leaving his
office he would lock the top left-hand drawer (the confidential drawer) in his
desk, but before doing so would carefully place a perfectlyfiatfileon the top of
the other contents in the drawer. He would then lay a pencil laterally on top of
the file about eight inches back into the drawer, and very slowly close the
drawer so as not to disturb the pencil. When questioned why he did this, he
Inside Story — On Becoming a Manager 195

replied that it was his detection system, since anyone opening the drawer would
cause the pencil to roll off the file backwards, and by unlocking and opening his
drawer carefully every morning, he could determine whether or not anyone
had been in the drawer during the night. When asked again why he should want
to do this, he replied, 'How long have you worked here. . . .?'
Asked if the pencil was often found at the back of the drawer he nodded his
head and said that now he had learnt to use the system, by purposely leaving in
the drawer items which he wished to communicate. For instance, he had
recently produced some figures that indicated that his Department was doing
pretty well in financial terms, and had realized that the best way to
communicate this fact was to leave the figures in the drawer. That gave 'them'
the message that he was on the ball,'. . . without shouting about it'. 'You have
to be a psychologist' . . . 'let them know that you regard control systems as
routine'. . . 'not worthy of bringing their attention to the fact that you're doing
it!'
It is interesting to note that Jack Fisher accounted for these potentially divisive
activities (the invading of his supposedly private space, by someone unlocking
and searching his drawer at night) by emphasizing the importance of his
detection system. This enabled him to work-the-system to communicate to
'them' and turn a spying system (what could they possibly be looking for?) into
a broadcasting system (I'll tell them what I want them to know). In emphasizing
my apparent naivety ('How long have you worked here. . .?') in pursuing the
question of why he needed to construct such an elaborate detection system.
Jack Fisher clearly underlined what he considered a normahty in such
potentially strange behaviour in what is supposed to be a rational exchange
based arena. He told me that which I myself should know!
In a further conversation a few days later he told me even more. On this
occasion, I met him on the corridor leading to the Managing Director's office,
and stopped to ask him why he was going to see the Managing Director. I did
this more as a conversation topic, than from any special interest, but when he
said that he had been summoned to explain why we were having difficulties in
recruiting staff to his Department, I became more interested.
I asked him what reasons he would give to the Managing Director, and he said,
'Oh. . . pay, I suppose. . .'. I started to suggest that it was not really as simple
as that, and that he ought to emphasize the various factors that contributed to
any recruitment difficulty, when he burst out laughing and said, 'you must be
joking . . . you don't give those kinds of explanations to him . . . in fact you
don't go in there to talk. You go to listen.' He then drew my attention to his tie
and said, 'This is how I talk to him'. The tie had a rather attractive motif
somewhat reminiscent of an association or professional body such as an
engineering institution. He allowed me to puzzle for a moment and then turned
his tie round at right angles. The motif was transformed into a styhsh Old
English scroll which read clearly, 'Piss Off!'
A great deal of the orchestration of my assimilation into Wenslow
Manufacturing Co. seemed in fact to centre around people's reactions to the
196 David Golding

Managing Director. This was underlined more directly, at the first meeting I
attended at which the Managing Director was present. The meeting was
convened as a progress review about a subject which was under my control,
and since I would probably be the first to speak I was busy looking over my
files, when the Managing Director entered. The meeting was, in fact, being
held in the 'Round-Table Room' (that well-known symbol of hierarchies of
control) and there were four other directors and three other managers present.
Being engrossed in myfiles,I did not actually detect the precise moment of the
Managing Director's entry, but I became aware that something was amiss, and
on looking up saw that everyone in the room had stood up because the
Managing Director had arrived. I made an embarrassed gesture of standing up,
by which time everyone else had sat down. The Managing Director gave me a
vague wave of his arms, perhaps even as embarrassed as myself — or perhaps
annoyed that no-one had initiated me.
This points to a ritual of acknowledging supremacy in the hierarchy, a
ceremony of bowing to the chief, which contains a great deal for the would-be
member of the tribe. In fact, as opportunity arose I referred back to this
incident in conversations with other people who had been present, and whether
or not their reaction was apparently accepting ('Well I think it's rather a nice
gesture of respect... it shows that we respect his position and responsibility')
or apparently rejecting ('Yeh, well, I try to remain standing up . . . looking out
of the window or something . . . until he's arrived, and then I don't have to
comply'), the effect of underlining the supremacy is the same. It was not
considered practical to openly be seen to contravene the rule of rising to the
entry of the Chief.
Other examples of the symbols of chieftainship that I rapidly discovered
included the rule of uni-directional access ('Never visit the MD unless invited').
On one occasion on my way to see him, having been given a message that he
wished to speak to me, I was intercepted by his secretary. I was told that he had
been trying to contact me on the telephone, and therefore I must get in touch
with him by telephone, and must not visit him in-the-flesh unless he specifically
requested me to do so. Furthermore, if at any time I should be ordered into his
presence, I was told that I must not sit down unless actually requested to do so,
and under no circumstances must I enter improperly dressed — i.e. without a
jacket. Ties, of course, are absolutely essential throughout Wenslowland, with
the rare exception of abnormally hot weather, when they can be removed
subject to 'rule suspension permission'.
This again seemed to me to point to the importance of symbols surrounding the
Managing Director and his role, that reinforced the stories I was told. The way
in which the Managing Director contacted anyone by telephone was also rich in
symbolism. The equipment had been connected so that whenever he rang
anyone on the internal telephone, instead of the normal 'Brrrr . . . Brrrr'
double tone, which occurred when anyone else rang, he transmitted a single
continuous tone, 'Brrrrrrrrrr'. It was therefore signalled that this was no
ordinary call. Of course there were complications, since this automatic
Inside Story — On Becoming a Manager 197

continuous tone could be simulated by the telephonists on the external

telephone switchboard which was operated manually, and so they had been
told to manually try to reproduce the normal double tone of an automatic
system so as not to cause confusion!
What then is the new member to make of all this? Do the stories and
surrounding clusters of symbols 'tell' the new member anything? In the sense
that stories and symbols do not exist in isolation, then clearly clusters of
symbols give rise to patterns which mean something. It may be fruitful to try to
approach such meaning by conceiving a process of evocation rather than of
signification. In this way, stories and symbols may be regarded as having the
capacity to evoke rather than necessarily transmitting an exact message.
That perspective certainly aligns more closely with the idea of sustaining
ambiguity as artfully practised by Mark Antony in the passage at the outset of
this paper. As far as Wenslow Manufacturing Co. is concerned, Jack Fisher was
no Mark Antony, but he did appear to be a considerable source of alternative
perspectives. Perhaps it was the humour in his stories which contributed to
sustaining the ambiguity which, for him, held off the retribution that always lies
in wait for those who can be identified with alternative perspectives. The
following story underlined the tight control.
Jack Fisher related an occasion when he had apparently been suffering for
some time with a painful foot, which he attributed to a severe bruising received
whilst working in his garden. One particular morning on arrival at work the
pain troubled him so much that he decided to visit his doctor right away. He
detailed his secretary as to where and how he could be contacted, and since he
was due to attend a meeting later in the day at which the Managing Director
would be present, he decided to play-it-safe, and also inform the Managing
Director's secretary of his whereabouts, in case he was delayed. His doctor
was, in fact, so concerned about the foot that he sent him directly to hospital for
an x-ray. This revealed a fracture in the foot, and so a plaster-of-paris operation
was planned immediately. By this time, it was well into the afternoon, and so at
the first opportunity Jack Fisher asked for a message to be sent to his wife
informing her of his whereabouts. She set off immediately to visit him. On
arrival, in a considerable state of anxiety, she produced a telegram which had
been delivered at their home at lunchtime. The telegram was from the
Managing Director, ordering Fisher to return immediately to explain his
unauthorized absence — assuming that he wished to continue in employment!
A further example of the threat from the reins of control was related by one of
Fisher's assistants. This person had also been off sick, but in this case for some
time (approximately 3 months), and had been into hospital for an extremely
serious 'internal plumbing' operation. Just prior to returning to work, the
annual review of salaries had been carried out, and since this was during 'phase
two' of the 1974-79 Labour Government's 'pay policy', everyone on the
company had received the same amount — except, that is, for Fisher's
assistant, who despite Fisher's vehement protests, had been excluded from a
salary increase on the grounds that he was not contributing anything to the
198 David Goiding

operations of the company. When I later checked-out this story with Jack
Fisher, he not only confirmed it, but added that on return to work, on
discovering what had happened, his assistant had angrily taken off his
twenty-five-year-award watch and thrown it at Fisher. After more protesta-
tions by Fisher, his assistant was finally given the increase in salary, but on the
grounds that now he had returned to work, he was again contributing to the
company's operations.
One begins to capture something of Fisher's security obsession, but events of
this nature were not exclusive to his sphere of operations, witness the director
who was informed on a Friday evening that if he had anything he wished to
remove from his office which belonged to him personally, then he had better do
it right away. He would find that the lock on his door had been changed when
he arrived on the following Monday morning since he was being replaced. He
escaped the normal boot-out-the-door treatment, reputedly because he was
chairman of the local branch of his professional institution for that year, and
the company wished to avoid any publicity that might ensue from firing such a
person. Because he was not actually being 'put on the streets', he was not
considered to be entitled to a reasonable degree of notice.
The threat is thus real. It may not be quite so drastic as Mark Antony's
situation, but it is real enough to compel ambiguity in any potential appeal to
alternative perspectives. Jack Fisher uses humour, some use secrecy, others
use charisma, and still others just shut up and go home.
There is a shaping process at work in the very experience of entering a
multi-national company. Just as Mark Antony had to carefully sustain
sufficient ambiguity so as not to precipitate a silencing of his appeal, so the Jack
Fisher's of organizational life must also take care. It is in the necessity to take
care that the shaping is articulated. Some perspectives may acquire a kind of
symbolic hfe of their own, and thus dominate potential alternatives. Some
individuals likewise acquire an ability to enforce preferred perspectives and
therefore treat alternative perspectives as threats. That ability to enforce
preferred perspectives is not static, just as the preferred perspectives
themselves are not fixed. They are nevertheless a part of the phenomenology of
organizations, and there is therefore a sense in which 'everyone knows'. In
other words, they cannot be signified, but they are evoked.