|
“I don’t know why, but I trust you” Verred Amitzi, M.Soc.Sc. |
||
Abstract Trust is a double-edged sword. It can open opportunities of mutual productive work and at the same time, can be a sophisticated trap, in which the partners of trust are captured. Trust is an example of a third range of psychic phenomena, beliefs or positions, that exist between thoughts and emotions, conscious work and unconscious basic assumptions. These can be conceptualized as thoughts heavily loaded with emotions, and a way to declare something about reality. In this paper, we examine trust between consultee and consultant as a position too often overlooked. To be useful as a working concept, trust has to be studied as it enfolds and develops into a specific situation, between particular actors, not as a personality trait or a characteristic of a whole culture. We choose to explore this through a detailed study of an ongoing consultation in a big Israeli public service, carrying critical functions for the economy. This organization is heavily unionized, with years long tradition of struggles and activism, exacerbated by the unstable policy towards the numerous unions’ influence. We show that trust/distrust, manipulation/candor issues pervade every single contact with the organization, and that they bring a tremendous load on the consultants in their endeavor with the organization, especially with its manager. Various patterns are examined: the role of ‘informers’ within the organization; the various tests that the consultants have to successfully pass; the heritage of a military culture within the civil organization; the weight put on everyday life because of the multi-generation character of this organization, etc. We conclude by pointing to the methodological and practical problems that arise from holding a reified, organicist, ‘systemic’ view of the organization. Phantasies, Thoughts, and In-between In professional work, especially when it is deeply rooted in thick theoretical ground and a large body of knowledge, it sometimes happens that we take some preliminary conditions for granted, and thus leave them un-examined. In this paper, we will examine trust between consultee and consultant as such an overlooked parameter. When commissioned by the Tavistock Clinic to work with groups, W. Bion, from his own experiences with those groups, as well as from his experience with other groups, especially during the two World Wars, pointed to two modalities of group functioning (Bion, 1961). One was reality-oriented, like an ego-function process – which he called the Work group. The other was a non-rational, phantasy-based way of functioning, where the group acted in one of three different modes. The first mode, as if it was fighting, or escaping (fight/flight). The second mode, as if the group was wholly dependent on one leader for nurturing it (dependency). The third mode, as if out of the group, and especially out of a couple in it, would arise or be born she/he who would bring salvation to the group (pairing). This phantasy-based, irrational mode of functioning, sweeps the behavior of the group. Following Bion, it is, in fact, a response to the anxiety aroused among the members by the group situation, its ambiguity, etc., as well as emerging from deeper parts of the psychological make-up of human beings. So that we can affirm, following Bion’s tremendous influence on the development of the psychoanalytic study of groups and organizations, that emotions are one of the backbones of any psychoanalytic study of groups, and hence, of organizations. In fact, following and elaborating on Bion’s distinction between Work group and Basic Assumption group, a great part of the psychoanalytically oriented literature on organizations, stresses the impact of emotions and phantasies, and mainly the way in which they deflect the rational view of the organization. But this is only one part of the spectrum. In a seminal article, G. Lawrence (Lawrence, 1997) saw fit to recall Bionians that Bion was really interested in the two views of the behavior in the group, two vertices. Not only that which Lawrence calls Oedipus, referring to the feelings, emotions and phantasies, but also another one, that of Thought, which he called Sphinx. In fact, much of Bion’s later interest, when he left the domain of groups and went to work, as a psychoanalyst, with psychotics, was much centered on the development of thoughts and thinking. From Bion’s conceptual breakthrough till now, psychoanalytical work in and around organizations have put forward a third way between thought and affect, between conscious work and unconscious basic assumption. One example could be what L. Hirschhorn calls “Primary Risk”, which points to another facet of the organizational life (Hirschhorn, 1999). Risk is not simply a thought; it is neither an emotion. It is rather a stand, a position, and a way to relate to the environment. We don’t need to get deep into the psychology of risk taking to acknowledge that it has strong emotional undertones, apparently based on previous personal history or socialization. It is also well entrenched in cognitive, rational processes. (Tversky and Kahnman, 1989). The Bion’s quote in the excerpt, about “will”, also points to that in-between land, neither thought, nor emotions. Trust We want here to elaborate on another example of that species of psychic phenomena, which are on the middle position between thoughts and feelings: mainly, beliefs. Beliefs are thoughts heavily loaded with emotions, feeling and affect. Beliefs are positions. They are not a pristine development of cognitive functions, nor a mere acknowledgement of reality. They are, rather, whatever their source, a quite personal and committed way to declare something about reality. It is as if we were saying “I am not going to test reality about this”. It is as if there is some reality there, but which is untestable, or beyond test. Trust is such a position, or belief, that we want to explore in this paper. In the last years, there is a recrudescence of interest in the concept of trust. Most of the writings are elaboration from a philosophical-historical and moral point of view (Fukuyama, 1995; Silver) or a sociological one (Luhmann, 19790, Seligman, 1997). As we deal with a psychoanalytic view of organization, our interest rests on an intermediate level, not only he micro, personal level, and not yet the societal, or global level. As we will see, the main shortcomings of the literature about trust, is that we have either a personal explanation of trust, or its default, across the board; or, that we have a whole society, or historical period, a generalized view of trust. So that we cannot explain how one particular person has trust in a particular other, in that particular organization, whereas he lacks this trust toward another person, in the same or in other settings. For example, it is claimed (Fukuyama, 1995) that the modern, western and open society, that which is creating wealth, is based on a community of more or less rational actors who believe that their actions are carried out in an atmosphere of trust. The argument is that trust enables people within communities to associate and work together in groups and organizations, and thus bring forth social and economic development and success. Fukuyama is primarily interested in the shift away from trust in contemporary American society, and its probable influence in America’s economic, social and cultural future. It is not clear, though, how we can link the historical and comparative perspective to everyday, and personal or psychological processes. Seligman (1997) brings us closer to the macro-micro dynamics of trust in everyday interactions. He analyzes the social-psychological approach, which views trust as a psychological state, characteristic of the individual, and based on early socialization, (Rotter, 1971). Trust is expressed in interpersonal relationships and puts the self in a position where he generally expects others to fulfill their obligations. Seligman also stresses the differences between confidence and trust. Following Luhmann (Luhmann, 1971) he defines confidence in people and institutions as the relative certainty we have in the outcome of some interaction or role expectation. Trust, on the other hand, is based on role negotiability, on what is not given or defined by norms. It is some sort of belief in the goodwill of the other, when we do not know what are his intentions, and when his behavior is not governed by clear or institutionalized rules. In this view, trust is built within the ‘open spaces’ of social life, “trust enters into social interaction in the interstices of system, or at system limit, when for one reason or another systematically defined role expectations are no longer viable. (…)Trust may then come to exist (…) in that metaphorical space between roles, that area where roles are open to negotiation and interpretation”. (Seligman, 1997, pp 25-27). So we do have here an attempt to conceptually link between personal, and interpersonal relations, and the social, even global, level.
A Psychoanalytic View of Trust? A well-developed psychoanalytic theory of trust does not yet seem to exist, although the main elements for it are quite ready for us to use. We might begin from Freud renown rendering of the ‘fort-da’ play that he witnessed when baby-sitting his grandson (Freud, 1920). He relates, quite at length, what he sees as the first game played by a little boy of one and a half year. The boy took small objects and used to throw them away, shouting aloud “o-o-o-o-“ - which was understood by his parents and Freud to represent the German word “fort” – i.e. “gone away”. This was confirmed when later on, playing with a string attached to a wooden toy, the baby threw the toy away, shouting his usual “fort”, and then pulled it back, exclaiming “da” – which means “there it is”. This “fort-da” game, according to Freud, was developed by the little boy as a way to master and handle more easily the disappearance and reappearance of his mother. But, it seems that what is developed here is confidence of the child in the reappearance of his mother, rather than trust. Melanie Klein helps us getting further. We might, carefully reading through the lines, link the development of trust to the capacity of Love and Reparation, and then Gratitude (M.Klein, 1937), within the lengthy and difficult path to escape the dreadful fear of death and circumvent envy. Through successive reparations, trust might be established. In one of her latest essays, Melanie Klein began her discussion of envy and gratitude (Klein, 1956) by stressing the inherent frustration of the breast:
Only a full and stable feeling of gratification can ensure the development of a strong, integrated and creative ego:
Although M. Klein explicitly used here the word “trust”, the main idea is to explain the positive attitude of the infant, and later on of the adult or the patient, toward the mother, the analyst, and the world in general, so that a full and creative life can be enjoyed. M. Klein clearly declares that the capacity for love “appear(s) to be innate” and that “both destructive impulses and the capacity for love are, to some extent, constitutional, varying individually in strength” (ibid. p 215, p212). So we have here a quite elaborate construction, which would explain, due to constitution and to the actual development of object relations, a more or less constant level of trust, and associated feelings of love and creativity. But, gratitude and love are not trust. And although M. Klein discusses at some length the suspicion inherently connected with envy, she is more concerned with the paranoid and schizoid defences, which hinder the mitigation of envy and jealousy, and with the resolution of the conflict between love and hatred through the depressive position. The psychoanalyst who has mostly developed the concept of trust is without doubt E. Erikson. In his developmental Psychology, and as part of his encompassing anthropological study of childhood, he developed eight stages (Erikson, 1958). Erikson was basically interested in what makes up a child’s identity, and got to link ‘ego qualities’, developing in stages, to social structures and institutions. The first of those stages he called “basic trust vs. basic mistrust”.
How is trust created?
Erikson ‘s position seems adequate, but on closer look it is somehow circular or tautological: mothers create trust through a sense of trustworthiness in the style of the culture’s trust. Moreover, despite Erikson’s wish to link psychological and social/anthropological variables, we have here a social fact explained through a personal psychological development. But it is not at all clear how we can transfer to any organizational setting, and to a particular client-consultant relationship, the ontogenic development of trust in the child and his mother. Trust and the Consulting
Relationship We have seen that it is not enough to suppose or predict, across the board, the existence of a “trustful” personality. We should strive to understand the minutiae of trust building within a specific relationship: how does this consultee come to trust this specific consultant, here and now. Whether intersubjectivity thinking is relevant or not to organizational work in general (Benjamin, 1995, Erlich, 1998), it seems not to be especially of use here. As it points to the mutual building of two subjects, it strives to blur back the distinction, so critical in classical Freudian, Kleinian and Lacanian views, between subject and object, child and mother/father, and between the two sides of an authority relationship. The trust dilemma is not one of symmetrical, or almost symmetrical relationships. On the contrary, it points to a basically a-symmetrical position between two parties: one who has to give trust, the other who is the recipient. It seems that the Kleinian tradition, as used by organizational consultants, is more apt to deal with the delicate interplay between two people, and the way trust may build-up. We might use the concept of projective identification (Klein, 1946) – where the consultant, being in the receiving end of this projection, can come to grips with the thoughts and emotions, which predominate within the consultee. But we should also point to the other way round: how the consultee re-introjects some basic feelings, among them, the “trustworthiness” of the consultant. The containing function so much stressed by Bion (Bion, 1961), the equivalent of the mother’s “reverie” in the consultant, the relative absence of desires and memories, those might be the mechanisms by which, in a particular situation, trust is established toward a specific consultant. What are the conditions of its maintenance; when is it endangered? This question is especially interesting and critically important when dealing with suspicious, paranoid-like organizations, when any intervention can be thought to be part of a manipulation intended to benefit someone at the costs of someone else. It is proposed, here, to look at trust not merely as a trait or personality characteristic of the consultee, nor just as a consequence of a type of environment, but as evolving from the relationships between consultee and consultant. For example, through the way the consultants present themselves to the consultee. The way they enable mistrust and suspicion to be projected onto them, deposed within the consultants, and thus “contained’’, and not immediately expelled. It is suggested here that the consultee consciously and unconsciously “probes” the consultants, and, in fact, reacts to delicate and sophisticated cues sent by the consultants, regarding the extent to which they have a personal, or ‘political’ or organizational agenda, or a peculiar position regarding any controversial matters. To be too strong, or too weak, in too pronounced a manner, may be as detrimental to the relationship with the consultee and the organization. Trust, ultimately, is build through the rich and infinitesimal exchange of projections and objects in the encounter. A Paranoid Environment Some interest in trust relationship, lately, arises about the increasingly frequent relations between companies, and the attempt to explain how co-operative relations can take the place of hierarchical arrangements (Ring and Van de Ven, 1992). Trust is deemed to be problematic only when organizations, that are not mutually controlled, want or need to build a stable relationship, enabling them to balance risk and opportunities. We will not strictly define a paranoid environment: our use of the term here is mainly metaphorical (see also the methodological section of this paper). Part of what people mean by “paranoid environment” is suspicion, danger, over-sensitiveness, quite strong feelings of persecution, etc. But, another part of it is the presence of what Fried and Agassi (1976) found as the distinctive characteristic of paranoia vera. Paranoia is mainly a thought-deficiency, and it means to be stuck or fixated in an abstract system, an explanatory system about reality, without there being any possibility to take as an alternative a public, institutionalized, explanatory system. The paranoiac is logical; he might have a good perception; and he has a pretty good integrative image of the world. So that the problem with a paranoid environment is that people are always, or most of the time, on their guard, seemingly for good reasons. They know that others will try and harm them, etc. And, once they feel, or think they understand, or, even worse, ‘know’ that they are in this kind of system, the more logical, perspicacious and keen they are, the more they will find reinforcement to their view.
A Case Study[2] Characteristics of
the organization To complicate matters a little bit further: management is split between local management (we worked with the local part, named X in this paper) and the central, nation-wide National Authority, which assumes over-all powers, if not responsibility, over the various local premises. X is the oldest organization of its kind in the country, and the original reasons for creating it had been both economical and social. It was meant to supply work to the citizens in the new country as much as to contribute to the economy of the state. The many unions and their strength are part of the heredity of the organization’ origin. The original workers in the past, and also the majority today, who are engaged in the primary task of the organization, are men. So this is a male-oriented organization, in spite of the fact, that through the years more and more women had joined X, in administrative and office work, as well as in professional jobs. Since it is both a male oriented organization and a civil one, there are a lot of ex-army workers and managers in the organization, and hence, it is caring a lot of attributes that are coming from the Israeli army culture. The contact and the
first steps Verred was called to “save” the potential client from himself, as a personal request from his manager, who was interested in helping “his” man in the system. The trust Verred was given was due entirely to her “connections” and she was sent and had started the work after one very open and revealing telephone call from Salomon and a five minutes meeting with him in an elevator. (Was she trusted so quickly because she belonged to the “proper camp”, whatever it may be?). The same pattern repeated itself with David, through a phone call in which old historical connections and common belonging to people and activities, had been found, and had opened the door for a face-to-face meeting. Verred does not recall having any conscious strategy that determined her actions, but she kept moving very slowly and carefully, not accepting requests of heavy interventions during a few months. She offered David the freedom to separate or to stop the personal meetings at any moment, emphasizing the view that nothing could be done unless he wanted it and joined it. She also recommended him to pay his own consultation should he choose to use it, not letting the Authority General Manager pay for him. David followed these recommendations. (Was the trust created then, through the feelings of control the client had over the consultation process? Had it come from his sense of free options? Had the consultant unconsciously sensed the fragility of trust?) Verred's intuitive, half-unconscious act – to free
herself from being paid by the National Authority - had weekend her
from a political point of view, but gained her the beginning of the
trust. Analyzing backwards, Verred might have sensed the anxiety level and the suspicion of David (i.e. his mistrust); she had identified with his emotions (i.e. introjected his anxiety) and position, and hence intuitively, had transferred the control to him. By this, she had given him the freedom of his own will, thus lowered his suspicion and has planted the first seeds of trust. A couple of months after the beginning, he once said, puzzled: “I do not understand why but I let you do what ever you like and I have no worries about it; I trust you…” All this process had been unconscious, or half unconscious, and of course held within it a degree of gambling. Here, maybe an experience mixed with unconscious communication within a specific context had taken place, in which it was sensed that any pressure or the slightest demand of any sort would put an end to the fragile start of connection. When Verred began meeting different managers and unionists from the organization, she came across different levels of reservation/openness in their attitude towards her. Gradually many became more and more open. She had even received some private phone calls from different people from the organization, and also from people from the National Authority, sharing with her thoughts, requests, complaints, compliments and advice. The belief in change was very low, and the main effect of the consultation was in improving the atmosphere and lowering the level of tension of David, which had been very noticeable, and echoed in the whole system. When Andre joined as one more consultant, Verred arranged a meeting with David, in order to make mutual presentations. In the “small-talk” examination that ensued, Andre mentioned a former client of his who might be known to David from an organization where both had worked, though not necessarily at the same time. It turned out that they were close friends. Greetings were sent through David. On the next meeting, the greetings were reciprocated. It is probable that some acceptance test was operated through this common acquaintance. Later on, Andre was accepted with an almost immediate cooperation by the whole team, which enabled him to play a very important role in a Team Development workshop with the Top Management of the local organization. Considering the suspicion the team members had felt for each other, and especially toward David, they had been quite open and frank in this workshop where they reflected on their mutual work as a team. Had the consultants been trusted because they managed to remain a “neutral” factor in the mind of the consultees, namely, not been “anybody’s” specific people? Or, had the consultants taken the risk of ‘giving’ themselves to their consultees, and thus were prepared to be vulnerable, naive, believing, caring, mistrusted but trusting? ‘Mussers’ Verred has got her own ‘Musser’ from the first telephone call she has made to make an appointment. Hers` was Nellie, David’s` Head secretary. She has created heart to heart communication with Verred, informing her immediately, that she has a direct connection with David’s` boss, Salomon. At the beginning, there was a lot of mistrust between Nellie and David, and Verred was considered by then – without her knowing it – as the ‘Musser’ of Solomon, the General Manager of the National Authority. This was why she had gained the immediate trust of Nellie, who was the only one (apart from Solomon and David) who knew that Verred had been sent by Solomon, to “save/help” David. This phenomenon of the `Mussers` is typical of a paranoid environment. Nothing is considered or accepted solely on its face value, everybody has got a secret and hidden role, and the complexity of the ‘thin net-like web lines’ is quite enormous. Verred’s reaction was, both containing the seduction, and pairing through the work at the same time. She was both listening but declaring a general attitude in which the common shared goal of all of the different role holders, was to create a less tensed environment and a more functional and cooperative team of management. Again, the cautiousness through which Verred has reacted to Nellie had sent a message of not colluding on one side, but not offending - by not judging - on the other side. (Was Verred protecting her role through her holding on to the primary task, which was: Developing the management team under the leadership of their Manager, David, and improving their working relationships?) At the annual evaluation time, the local HR Manager, Michael, (who is one of the vice-managers of David), had been recommended by David for a bonus, but did not get it, because the General Manager of the National Authority, Solomon, David’s` boss, did not approve. Apparently, he did not approve, because Michael, the local (X) HR Manager, refused to be a Musser for Solomon, but was rather too loyal to his direct boss David. At least, that was David’s interpretation. The refusal of the bonus had been sent ‘by mistake” to the local organization X, through an open fax message, which immediately was spread all over the organization. The local HR Manager is sure that David has been the cause for the refusal. David has not corrected him because of “loyalty” to his hierarchical boss Solomon… (?) Some time later, David suggested to Michael to apply for explanation directly to Solomon. Michael is completely confused now, because he does not only know to whom to believe, he cannot believe in anyone at all – full stop. Eventually, David realized he should join his HR manager in such a meeting with Solomon. David knows that his other vice-manager, the production manager, Sole, is an old Musser. He finds it completely natural to work in `trust` and cooperation with this vice-manager, without ever exposing this awareness.
Tests Solomon, had phoned Verred very shortly after her start of consultation, complimenting her for the ‘huge impact’ and ‘significant change’ she had acquired with David. Verred immediate response was to both thank for and deny these claims, emphasizing that real change cannot occur in such a short time. The different consultees amongst the managers, on the other hand, used to ‘leak’ bits of information to the consultants (mostly concerning their criticism of David), testing if and how it will reach David. Finding that the information had not reached its target, or that no harm has been done to them as a result, they have confided more and more in the consultants and became less cautious. The consultants interpret these events as subtle tests, put to the consultants, within the context of a so called a paranoid context of this organization. The purpose of these tests, was twofold: on one hand, to check the consultants’ `side taking`, and transfer messages and follow their path; on the other hand, to recruit the consultants to a certain `side’. The need for control
and the drive toward the work The interesting point is that he finds it natural and lives with it without complaining, as if taking it on himself as his cross. Moreover, his attitude is very adaptive to the culture of the organization, and proved to be right, because in spite of many attacks on him, he is getting stronger on one side, and promoting the work on the other side. Most of the time he is very friendly and respectful towards the consultants. He listens carefully, and it is easy to consult with him. He knows how to listen, he takes advises, he can sustain rejection and attacks, he can cooperate, and he never lets go of his own judgment. His bond to his work role, his ability to stick to the task, gave birth to many envious enemies and opponents, but gains him a solidity that is hard to break. He produces results, and his suspicion seems to be `realistic`, because it is not blurring too much his reality perception. His main weakness as a manager has been his inability to lead his management along the same road; i.e. let them grow and get stronger. The National Authority has hired a PR agency that has leaked information to an influential local newspaper. Whenever David has asked for PR assistance he did not get it. The leaking against him had been initiated and fed by his own bosses, because he had not been under their control. He was left on his own against the unions, between them and the clients and his own subordinates on one hand, while his bosses remained `clean` when he was smeared, but when eventually he won, they came back `supporting` him. There was a big article about him in the near-by town, in which, amongst other attributes, he has been described, as `non-friendly`, `journalists’ persecutor`, and `certificates seeker`. Behind these words, were his attempts to recruit new people to the organization on the basis of their professional quality and not their personal connections. He did not use the papers on his own, out of loyalty to his bosses. He could not been blackmailed by the unions, so their National Organization in the local town, had used a journalist, incognito, for the article to the papers. David could not attend the full day of the latest workshop. At first he wanted to postpone it. He did not understand at all the meaning of not been able to trust his subordinates’ team at work, without him supervising and controlling it. He changed his mind immediately after we had interpreted that to him. He managed to leave and let them work on, but he eventually phoned the consultants in the same evening to ‘make sure’ everything went well. His own people testimony was not good enough. As we see, through these examples and more, this holding of control has been both adaptive and destructive at the same time.
The Generations,
the Camps and Loyalty There are three or even four generations, amongst the workers, who had been working in the organization. As a result, for a substantial amount of workers, there is a family history within the organization and a deep feeling of ownership, a strong sense of ‘this organization is my home’. Any organizational change is experienced as a family change, and the division to `them and us` is very strong between different groups of workers: old and new, “outsiders” and “insiders” “politically planted” and others. Any change in the environment is experienced also as a double survival threat. This phenomenon is deeply entrenched in the culture of the organization, towards any of those who are not ‘in my camp’. And since the camps are non-formal camps, one would be inclined to be more loyal to one’s own camp – union members, or committee members of union - than to one’s subordinates, boss or colleagues at work. The camps are very much connected to seniority and historical family connections. A person who has been 10 years in the organization could be considered as a ‘newcomer’, and therefore as an outsider, not one of the family. His ‘loyalty’ then could be suspicious. By loyalty the meaning would be – to his unions, to the local affairs of the local workers. The committee member of the union, is the legitimate owner of power in the eyes of the organization, and even when he acts in an unfair fashion to some workers, they would not run to complain to the high managers, because they are a different camp, they are the enemies. The forum of the top management of the local X organization, is very split and full of impotent feelings. They truly believe that they are between thee devil and deep sea. They cannot openly join the workers and the local unions, or go to the National trade union, but they do identify with the workers and with the local unions, as many of them have themselves been union leaders in the past. They are compartmentalized from affairs and information by their local manager and by their relevant referents in the National Authority of the organization. This departmentalization is again a power game, coming out of mistrust, but its roots are within the structure of the organization. The myth some of the managers hold is, that the power is always outside, with the others: - either the unions or the government or people in the National Authority. So what is left for them to do is to bend their head, go underground and wait. There is a switch between the basic assumption of dependency and the basic assumption of fight/flight; you are a tool in a Chess game, even not a player. Under such atmosphere, the consultants who might be met suspiciously at first, are quickly been transformed into saviors – hence the trust. When a case study was analyzed and David had rudely fallen down on the manager in charge, the remainder of the team did not do better. They have joined in the ‘ slaughter’. The only one who dared standing up and saying something that was not popular was Michael, the local HR Manager. Michael is both, a ‘newcomer,’ only two years in the organization, and the one who has not got the bonus and does not belong to any camp. So he ‘had nothing to loose’ because his position and status were weak any-how. Paradoxically, that enables him in work to be ‘bad’, i.e. efficient. Metaphors and the
tradition of military culture “A day after Hiroshima”; “Head chopping”; “Bloodletting”; “Maze”. “Abandoning the wounded in the battle field” “Alleihom” (An Arabic word, meaning an unholy crusade); “ I have been fried”; “I was put in the fire”. All these metaphors are connected with aspects of danger, wars and disaster, and they are very much representing a paranoid environment. These were aroused mainly following the discussion of some prospects of organizational and structural change, led by the National Authority. The local management team felt out of touch with those proposed changes, considered them as threatening the future and well being of the local organization, and felt that they have no power to influence them. On another day of workshop with the top management forum of organization X, we have analyzed case studies from the day-to-day life of X. In one case, which has been raised by one of the managers, he presented his distress from not been able to enact his authority in front of the union leaders in his ward. David was not looking at it from a wide point of view of the context, in which the unions’ leaders always challenge the authority of their formal managers. Instead, David has led a field trial, or more accurately a ‘lynch’, against one of his subordinates. He accused him of not following the ‘sacred’ Israeli combat leader ‘s first command, i.e. I am in the lead, (first in the fire line), and you, the rest, follow me. He did this without noticing he had deserted another “wounded soldier”, a team fellow mate, in the field. The metaphors above are ‘fighting’, ‘war’, and ‘killing’, metaphors of blood. The camps imagery, the enemies, are all coming from a context of danger, survival threat, etc. One reason might be the army past of a lot of managers who have had in the past an army career (or at least experience) and have chosen as a second career public organizations or governmental ones. Another reason might be the fact that it is also an organization of men mostly (the women are mainly doing secretarial jobs). The third reason might be the political attributes and connections of the organization. The local organization
and the National Authority Through the years this Head office, National Authority had considerably blown up and developed, and had become a big bureaucratic section in the organization. It is claimed that it has no real legitimate right to exist, that it is a kind of a parasite part of the organization, which is only sucking money, collecting political power and is a non-productive sub-system. Has this perception or reality created the paranoia and suspicion, or rather the paranoia and suspicion have created this myth? David, under the terms of the cultural perception of the organization, has been acting as a lonely warrior, individually, collecting and building his own little camp of loyalists, on one hand, and on the other hand getting power from his ability to produce work. He behaves as if he is alone in the field and that there are enemies from within and enemies from outside. Maybe this is why he does not build his own managers as a united and cohesive team. He has inherited them, he has not chosen them, he has to work with them and as they are. So he has to act politically, because he is tied up by hundreds of rules and historical agreements, which are the rules of the unions, the government, the National Head authority etc. Paradoxically he is both trusted and mistrusted, because of his loyalty to the work. He is mistrusted when this loyalty to the production, seems to be on the account of some personal or group interests of one sort or another. He is trusted, because he does not give in easily or at all to pressures of one interest group over the other regarding the work. The built-in conflict is also coming from a closer root. This local organization historically was established not just for the benefit of the country’s economy, but also as a way to ensure workplaces for the Jews who emigrated to Palestine and Israel. That is why there are so many political interests and bureaucracy within the organization and an everlasting conflict between the economical, the political and the social aspects. Another factor is the perception of the Head Authority as confused, out of direction, lost, not leading – hence – cannot be trusted as a parent or leadership factor. The myth is that the power lies between the Head Authority, the government, and the unions. Hence, the managers, within the local organization, X, feel they are empty of power or strength, and largely dependent on the different interests of the political groups. Therefore, different members in this management team are colluding either with non-formal partners in the National Authority, or with some local unionists. Trust as servitude Once the idea popped up to write this paper on this assignment, the main dimensions of trust and paranoia came to pervade quite a number of sessions and meetings, if not all of them. Openly, in the briefings between Verred and Andre, and, covertly, in the meetings with the consultees. “Without memory and desire” turns out to become even more difficult than usual. Nellie, David‘ secretary, asked, gently and with a great smile, to arrange herself any meeting in the organization. So that all meetings hours are not only recorded by us as consultants, for obvious billing reasons, but in fact, double-checked, and partly beforehand. It is not clear, but seems quite obvious, that it had been done on David ‘s behalf. Some of our consultees, if not most of them, before the first workshop days, assured us that they would not speak there, because David is resentful, and will some day use whatever they say against him. Also, they told us, whenever we will say anything to David, he will try to track down who said it. This put us consultants in the awkward position to be doubly cautious in saying anything to David: we became afraid that any report, whatever vague and general, would give him enough information to go back to the source. The newspaper article incident that we reported earlier showed us that this analyzing skill is also characteristic of other people: for example, during a whole meting, Raphael analyzed for Andre the whole range of possibilities as to who was the instigator of this article. He mentioned John Le Carre‘ Smiley as an example of the dynamics at work in the organization. The consultants noticed that they rarely dared do anything or meet anyone, or give advice or direction, without quickly informing David, or even without checking with him beforehand. They interpret it as their effort to lower his paranoia, `not to loose his trust`, to keep him controlling, or feeling at least that he controls them by knowing all their acts. They had never told him what his subordinates said in their meetings, and neither he asked to know (unless it was some one from the National Authority), but all the same, all the way long, they feel compelled to be very cautious. In fact, sometimes the feeling, or the thought, is, that David really controls the consultants through his always-present and never-mentioned threat of loosing his trust in them. David meets especially with Verred alone, and Verred and Andre weigh carefully the need to have triple meetings, and some planning is done before the meetings take place. Verred had a dream about David. In the dream he is very kind, idealized in her eyes. His main virtue is kindness, which is never connected to him by anyone during awakening time. She is aware in the dream of feeling a lot of respect and admiration to him and a fear of loosing his ‘faith’ (trust) in her. During the dream or immediately after, she was urging herself to sober up and to stop idealizing him. To see him with his limitations. It is understood that between both consultants there are no secrets. Nevertheless, it happened that both Verred and Andre, in different occasions, had some prangs regarding what the other consultant would do with the situation at hand. Mostly, the issues were linked with ‘suspected’ over-identification with David or one of the managers. In the meetings between David, Verred and Andre, there is a delicate balance of eye contacts, smiles, irony and small misunderstandings, or fuzzy descriptions, on both sides. David teases his consultants: “You won’t like this, but…”, or, “I know you believe it is not so good, but…”. It is as if David plays with the fire, putting the delicate balance and relatedness of the manager and the consultants on the table, but in such a subtle way that it lays there, untouchable. The trust issue, in fact, puts us into his hands, because we are hostages to his recognition of our loyalty, not merely of our competence, or true contribution to the development of the organization. One of the mechanisms David uses most frequently is denial: when presented with some evidence about some of his behavior patterns, he very skillfully finds plausible examples of the contrary. Every time we tried to work on mistrust, we were countered with opposite ‘evidence’. So, in the mutual meetings, we did not really succeed to present him our real views about trust and mistrust. It comes to the point that keeping trust alive has almost become an aim by itself, which insidiously weakens the consultants and their work. The bright side of consultation Nevertheless, within a fragile frame of ‘protection’, we do have a constructive influence. We give a model of one of the ways to ‘confront David and stay alive’, when we confront patterns of destructive behavior and communication in his management style, in the presence of his management team. We tackle and work with them all, individually and as a team, on unconscious processes and their implications at work. Through us they manage, little by little, to find their voice and to pursue their opinions. It is a slow journey but it is moving ahead.
Is it possible that the way to gain trust in a paranoid organization is by really having faith, trust, belief in the object at work, or ‘be in love’ with the work through the object to whom you consult. We seem to be walking on a thin line, on a narrow edge. On one hand we are feeding the consultees’ need for security, by acting transparently, by being confidential, by reassuring again and again. On the other hand we are taking risks, almost gambling, by refusing to be saviors, by confronting destructive acts and by fighting the seductions and our need to be loved. As if walking in a room full of spider’s web, we are trying to move without too much fear of tearing the ‘wrong’ threads and keeping the ‘right’ ones. Instead of Conclusion: A Methodological Note Instead of conclusion, a Methodological aside and its practical application. It is methodologically unwise and practically detrimental to hold a reified, organicist view of the organization. It is a common practice, especially but not only among psychoanalytically informed consultants, to shortcut their description of organizations, and to imbue them with organic qualities. The very notion of social unconscious, and for that, unconscious in an organization, transcending specific and discrete people, time and situations, brings to the fore an organic entity – the Unconscious of the Organization. It is thus easy to fall prey to what Whitehead called, in a very different context, the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”. It is tempting to view society, and organizations, as entities, which have aims, emotions, conscious and unconscious of themselves. But it means you hold some very definite metaphysical assumptions, not always fully examined (see the interesting analysis in Agassi, 1975; also Schönberg, 1998). It might be that such is the case also with the rapidly developing trend of social dreaming (Lawrence, 1998). An opposite argument is presented here. The organization is not a psychological entity: at the most, people are. Practically speaking, it might be very detrimental
to the work, and specifically to the building of trust, to consider
the organization as a whole, or as made of one piece. Because trust
is built, maintained or endangered, not with the organization, but rather
with specific people. On the whole, there might be a ‘systemic’ quality
about trust: but, we cannot decide on this. It is not a theoretical
question, but rather, a matter of fact and experience. For example,
we can’t decide yet if trust is a ‘zero-sum game’ (viz. that trust in,
or from, one person, means automatically less trust in, or on behalf
of, other people, especially the managers), or if it can be extended
all across the board in that organization. Likewise, we do not know
how to delimit this ‘system’. Should the National Authority be accounted
for as part of this system, or as part of the environment? Those are
not idle, merely theoretical or semantic questions. The answer should
lead us to practical decisions: do we try to escape, or better, do we
flee from the National Authority, or do we need to try and build bridges
towards it? To paraphrase Kurt Lewin, a good theory should help us be
practical. So we might reformulate the question: how do you build trustful
relationships with some people in such an organization where suspicion,
as a whole, is quite dominant, meaning by that, that statistically a
great number of interactions are governed by mistrust, suspicion and
disbelief. And how do you do that, so that the amount of mistrust, over
time, gets smaller. References Benjamin, J., (1995), “Recognition and destruction: An outline of intersubjectivity”, in Like Subjects, Love Objects, New Haven, Yale University Press Bion, W., (1961), Experiences in Groups, London Erikson, E., (1958), Childhood and Society, New York, Norton Erlich, Sh., (1998), “The Search for the Subject and the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations”, Paper presented to the 1998 Symposium, The International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations Fong M. L. and B.G. Cox, (1983), “Trust as an Underlying Dynamic in the Counseling Process: How Clients Test Trust”, The Personnel and Guidance Journal, November, pp163-166 Freud, S., (1920) Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Trans. J. Starchey, London, Hogarth Press, 1955 Fried, Y. and J. Agassi, (1976), Paranoia: a Study in Diagnosis, Dordrecht, D.Reidel Fukuyama, F., (1995), Trust, New York, The Free Press Gambetta, D. (ed.), 1988, Trust. Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, Basil Blackwell, Oxford Hirschhorn, L. (1999), “The Primary Risk”, Human Relations, Vol. 52, 1, pp.5-23 Hosmer, L. T., 1995, "Trust: The Connecting Link between Organizational Theory and Philosophical Ethics", Academy of Management Review, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 379-403 Klein, M., (1937), “Love, Guilt and Reparation”, in R. Money-Kyrle (ed.), Love, Guilt and Reparation and other Works 1921-1945, New York, The Free Press, 1975 Klein, M., (1956), “A study of Envy and Gratitude”, in J. Mitchell (ed.), The selected Melanie Klein, New York, The Free Press Lawrence, W.G. (1997), ”Centering of the Sphinx for the psycho-analytic study of organizations” Paper presented at the 1997 Symposium of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations, Philadelphia, 1997 Lawrence, W.G, ed. (1998) Social Dreaming @ Work. London: Karnac Books Luhmann, N. (1979), Trust and Power, New York, Wiley Mintzberg, A., (1982), Power in and around Organizations, New York, Prentice Hall Ring, P. S. & Van de Ven, A. H., 1992, "Structuring Cooperative Relationships Between Organizations", Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 13, pp. 483-498 Rotter, J.B., (1971), “Generalized Expectancies for Interpersonal Trust”, American Psychologist, 26:pp443-452 Schönberg, A. (1998), “Two Basic Assumptions in the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations”, Paper presented at the 1998 Symposium of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations, Jerusalem Seligman, A.B., (1997), The Problem of Trust, Princeton, Princeton University Press Stein, R. (1991), Psychoanalytic Theories of Affect, New York, Praeger Tversky, A. and D. Kahneman, (1989), Risk and Rationality, Stanford University Press Weick, K. E., (1979), The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd ed., Addison-Wesley Publ. Co, Reading Zucker, L. G., 1986, "Production of Trust", Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 8, pp. 53-111 Notes [1] This paper evolved from a shorter paper presented by Andre Schonberg in the October 1999 meeting of a Role Analysis Program for HR practitioners, lead by both authors in Go-On, Man Organization and Training Ltd. I.C.S. –Innovation and Change in Society, Israel - is the first organization to have set up a Tavistock-tradition Conference in Israel, in 1986, and a Dream Matrix Conference in 1987. [2] For obvious reasons, we changed some details and all names that could help identify the client’ organization.
|
||
 |
||