5.6 Organisational Matters

This Chapter describes what I consider to be important aspects of organisations that support families in our Focus Group.

As with every other Chapter, loads of books have been (and undoubtedly will be) written about organisational matters.  But, once again, there are some aspects that I feel are of importance in ensuring that the synergy that comes from sharing power prevails.

In other words, that the long-term impacts – and I say long-term, deliberately – of our efforts are a result of genuine collaboration of both families affected by imprisonment, formally educated practitioners, and other partner organisations.

The Chapter is divided into ten Sub-Chapters.

5.6.1                ORGANISATIONAL MATTERS – INTRODUCTION

5.6.2                THE COMPASSIONATE ORGANISATION

5.6.3                THE SPIRITUAL ORGANISATION

5.6.4                RECRUITMENT

5.6.5                THE PROCESS OF CHANGE IN ORGANISATIONS

5.6.6               MODELLING

5.6.7                SECURITY

5.6.8                SIZE

5.6.9                THE PLAYFUL ORGANISATION

5.6.10              ORGANISATIONAL MATTERS – CONCLUSION

In supporting families in our Focus Group we could be engaged in very specific work, (such as play therapy for children affected by imprisonment, improving the employment prospects of men and women on release etc.), or more general work involving all the family.

The common element should be that our intention is to be attractive to people in families who have many if not all of the characteristics that describe the Focus Group and be relevant in their lives.

In Ireland we have a long history of organisations dedicated to betterment of people who are disadvantaged in some way.

The experience of being colonised, and subservient to a distant Government that cared little about the welfare of a substantial portion of our population, led to us developing our own way of caring for those who were very poor, uneducated and illiterate, or, sometimes in our history, actually starving.

This was not, of course, perfect.

Most of the caring – in the past 200 years anyway – was done under the watchful eye of the Catholic Church, the entity that we looked up to for guidance and leadership – which meant that the vast majority of the organisations that were set up for people who needed help were Catholic faith-based.

The down-side of this was that, because the Catholic Church became absolutely powerful, (and, as we know from history, absolute power corrupts absolutely) the message of Christianity became distorted.

In the era before it was universally acknowledged that vulnerable people including children had rights, the Church – in doing the work that the Government of the day wasn’t prepared to do in education, health and general alleviation of suffering – was totally dominant; being at best patronising, at worse, abusive.

Viewed through our 21^st century lens, it was disempowering, and above all controlling. 

And while many ordinary clergy were – within the context of that time – compassionate, empathic and of the people, the faithful in general were not involved in decision making within the established church itself. 

To give an example of the power of the church, in the mid-20^th Century, an organisation was set up by a forward-thinking priest, Canon John Hayes, known as Muintir na Tíre [1].  This organisation sought to empower people who lived in small towns and rural areas – encouraging them to build up local agricultural-based industries and halt rural decline.

It says a lot about control that Muintir (as it was colloquially known) – even though it had been founded by a priest – was viewed with a certain amount of suspicion by the Church establishment, which feared that it was going a bit too far in its empowerment of ordinary people.

In fact, as an aside, isn’t it amazing that organisations that are all-powerful can also be very insecure?

Whether it is the power of Catholic Church in Ireland as I knew it growing up, or the power of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, it is as if they sense, deep down, that they are promoting and upholding myth rather than something authentic. So they fear that if they are not in full control their absolute power might all come crashing down some day, as, in both cases, it did.

So generally speaking, the kind of organisation that we are promoting here, where, it is intended, people will be involved in decisions that will affect them, (and all the messiness that that brings) is relatively new.

Many organisations to assist the poor (and I remember some of them very well) had one leader, one very influential voice and a strong identity/brand which, while doing good work, did not really include the voices of those who they helped that much – if at all.

Many seemed to favour expansion and hegemony, and being the leading brand over an ethos of inclusiveness and involvement.

In recent years I have observed this to change somewhat – but I fear that the strong controlling top-down ethos has been replaced by a kind of corporate voice, against which it is very hard to argue!

Because of the above I include two aspects of being human within this Chapter on Organisational Matters i.e. compassion and spirituality.

Their presence, (or non-presence) in our organisations and their usefulness in family support work have always fascinated me.  They are an antidote to the corporate voice and I hope that the reason for their inclusion will become clear as they are read.

[1]. Muintir na Tíre loosely translates as The People of the Countryside.

Compassion is considered to be a uniquely human trait, so unique it sometimes has as its synonym the term humanity. 

It encompasses human kindness and concern for our fellow human, and also other animals and plants that we share our living space with.  Gaia Theory encourages us to tread lightly on our only home, Planet Earth, and be compassionate in all our dealings with her.

In the context of supporting families compassion encourages us to prioritise matters that may not be thought of as being important, or may be glossed over in other contexts.

I believe that it goes far beyond feeling sorry for someone.

It is a proactive endeavour that reaches to the core of the other.  It, in particular, involves reaching out to someone who is hurting, rather than blaming them for the circumstances whence their hurt arose.

I heard a saying once that proposes that there is no compassion without truth, and there is no truth without compassion [1].

This is a helpful guide when thinking about compassion, but can also be promoted as an absolute truth in itself.  For example, a giant corporation could argue that the truth is that if they behave compassionately and don’t sack people, or downsize, they will lose profits, be swallowed up by their rivals, and then everyone will lose their jobs.

So I don’t really believe that the compassion we wish for should be limited by being bound by a statement like that quoted above, useful as it is.

Rather, it is determined by adult, mature, reflection on complex issues that demand a sympathetic yet effective response with safety and promotion of vulnerable humans as its ultimate goal.  For example the saying: there but for the grace of God go I [2] might be remembered by the compassionate worker when working with people who are misusing drugs, involved in violence, people in prison etc.

However, one saying that I have come across in my reading (I am not sure where – I think, once again, that it has a Buddhist origin and I’d be indebted to anyone who can throw any light on it) comes from a belief about heaven that is an alternative to the one with which most Christians are familiar.

That is, that no one goes to heaven until we are all ready to go there!

This is a real challenge for the compassionate worker, in that it differs from the traditional Christian belief that the good people (us, obviously) go to heaven and the bad people (them) go to hell if they don’t repent for their sins – a far more logical position if one thinks of it. However, logic might not have that much to offer when considering compassion, as compassion is beyond logic.

This thinking on heaven actually reminds me of the theories developed by Paulo Friere who also believed in the power of compassion to change people, albeit in a more secular way, i.e. that nobody should be materially rich until we are all materially rich. 

And John Lennon may have been exposed to this kind of thinking during his education by the Maharishi in India and referenced it in his song Imagine when he wrote ‘imagine all the people, sharing all the world’.

[1]. I think that this might have its origin in Buddhism but I am not sure.

[2]. Definitely from the Christian tradition with which I am obviously more familiar – though probably has equivalents in other traditions!

Anything that is universal in human culture is likely to be contributing to parts of us that are vital for our existence.

I wouldn’t be an expert on Charles Darwin or his writings so I’m not sure if he examined this – but I believe that compassion must have a role in the evolution of our species. 

Perhaps its role is simply survival – and is a totally selfish trait in that respect.  For example we noted in the Chapter on Anthropology that reciprocity among hunter-gathering peoples has a survival role – and I suppose the same holds true for modern day reciprocity in business dealings.

And it can be argued that if we don’t reach out to people in pain then they will make trouble for us.  Some wise people (such as saints, philosophers, religious leaders, gurus, etc.) copped on to this – perhaps unconsciously – and framed it into their life’s work and teaching.

If indeed compassion assists in the successful evolution of our species [1] I believe that its role is more spiritual than material.  (I will return to this in the next Sub-Chapter when I discuss spirituality).  There is something about it that lifts us above the ordinary, gives us a good feeling, and appeals to a part of us that we find very hard to describe and define.

And, like creativity, if we are in distress and we experience compassion we are attracted to it.  We may realise that a part of us, perhaps, no-one has ever taken seriously will be heard.

We will feel safe to explore parts of ourselves that we are ashamed of or embarrassed about, or afraid of, or angry about – in the knowledge that the ear that listens will be compassionate.

Without compassion, relationship would not have evolved to the point where it is a necessary part of our psyche, and without relationship we wouldn’t have evolved and developed to be the kind of human family we recognise today.

Now given the amount of wars, violence, underhand dealings and troubles that there are in the world at any one time this is sometimes hard to believe – but I have read that one of the reasons that other humanoid species did not thrive was because they couldn’t get along with each other. And homosapiens – our crowd – did!

And to get along with each other we need compassion.

[1]. It is sometimes hard to imagine that we are evolving – but of course we are.

We have focused on the family quite a lot; in particular the central role it has in protecting children and enhancing their well-being.

The family is probably the principal repository and source of compassion in society.  (For example, in a previous post I highlighted the role that the family has, through upward causation, in determining what happens in society in general, or indeed at a global level).

Mark Twain commented ‘home is a place that, when you go there, they have to let you in’, or something like that.

While even in well-functioning families compassion has a tendency to be somewhat conditional, it is hard to imagine a family without it.  Allied to this, a characteristic of a family, even a well-functioning one, is that, sometimes, behaviours that would not be acceptable in the world outside are tolerated.

I believe that the unique emotional undercurrents that prevail in families – i.e. the cultural make-up of the family – and that are not really observed in the world outside both give rise to this tolerance and are the result of it.

How to harness the power of these undercurrents, and, in supporting families that have the characteristics of the Focus Group, how to ensure that they tend towards nurture and not destruction requires skill, leadership ability, and very good judgment that comes from both experience and commitment to open and honest communication.

In the good enough family it is the parents that do this.

I have devoted a full Chapter to cultural matching when we are supporting families and individuals in distress. But it is relevant in family life too – because one of the most challenging aspects of joint parenting is the matching of the cultures of the two families that the parents come from.

When that matching is good enough, it is likely that children’s well-being – not some harmful element of the culture of one of the families of origin – will be the most important influencer of decisions that are made.  Members of the compassionate family (or extended family) will reach out to the one in pain – not ignore, criticise or disparage him.

This happens all the time in families because we are a compassionate species and it bubbles up no matter what.

And, in might also open us up to new direction in our thinking, i.e. that we might consider having some characteristics of a good enough family in our organisations.

Compassion is a trait that may be observed more in families (and communities, or clubs or gatherings where cultures, rules and practices are informal and non-written) than in professional organisations, where it may be viewed with a certain suspicion.

This is probably due to lack of trust.

I propose that this lack of trust is a residue of many centuries if not millennia of them and us thinking when it comes to either managing a workforce, or helping people who are often called the less fortunate [1] in society. 

In our them and us world, when considering organisations and employment, compassion may be viewed as being soft on workers (and by extension, people who come looking for help).

Perhaps there is a grain of truth in this – and if you have been around for a while you will recognise the worker that takes advantage of what they perceive to be compassion in agencies and then use the agency in a self-serving manner. Naturally this can have a detrimental effect on morale, efficiency, work practice etc. (This post describing narcissism might be helpful in understanding how this might happen)

In managing such organisations, the no compassion without truth statement is helpful, and I would propose that this is where good selection of staff and thereafter, supervision comes in.  (A method of staff selection that would reduce the chances of employing people who take advantage of the organisation is proposed in the Sub-Chapter on Recruitment below).

I would say that at the end of the day the result of compassion coupled with truth is actually an encouragement for people, whether we are practitioners or people seeking help – and, of course, practitioners can need help too – to take responsibility for our actions.

There are many aspects of organisations that might inhibit proactive compassion (for example, fear, rigidity, reactive behaviour etc.), but I believe that the principal inhibitor is the way that we default to a logical position during times when we feel uncertain, uncomfortable or threatened.

This is so prevalent in organisations that it is almost the norm and I have often experienced it.

Consideration is rarely given to the process of how the default-to-logic happens because it is so ingrained that we are not really aware of it.  Rarely, when conflict arises in a workplace, does ‘who is hurting here’ trump ‘we must resolve this quickly and logically’.

Now there is nothing wrong with logic, but from the compassion point of view, I believe that great opportunities are missed if it is always the position from which we view the world of the ever-changing human, whether she is at home or at work.

Also, the default-to-logic (and thereafter the reluctance to be compassionate, i.e. perceived to be soft) often arises, I believe anyway, from the dominance of Pillars thinking (or, particularly the values of the corporate world – i.e. who is to blame) in community work and the workplace in general.

The corporate world – which influences the Pillars anyway – is, by and large, a bit light on compassion – so being soft would indeed be anathema to the corporation where profit always trumps human concerns.

In the light of this, our community workplace needs to be constantly vigilant to ensure that alternative voices are heard to counter the corporate ones.

One way of doing this is to maintain clear focus on reality, and as we said already, this is a primarily a leadership responsibility, but while the leader can and hopefully will set the atmosphere, I believe that expressing the alternative voice is the responsibility of every worker.

I mentioned above that compassion involves reaching out, and reaching out to workers might not be common in many organisations, generally.

But in the sort of organisation that we aspire to, reaching out to staff members is, I believe, essential. 

[1]. Even a cursory knowledge of the history of labour relations is enough to recognise them and us in management – staff relations which prevails to the present day.  I also believe that the tradition of helping others contains a significant component of them and us thinking – none more so than the history of helping those who we describe as mentally ill or socially deviant etc.

Since much of the website promotes taking our emotions seriously (and reflecting on them) it is proper to mention here that compassion in its purest sense often involves extending ourselves emotionally, and so can use up a bit of energy. (In the previous post I described how we can default to logic when under pressure).

One of the reasons for this is that we use a lot less emotional energy if we get all logical.

And I know that this is a bit of a cliché, but in the area in which we are choosing to work, it can be hard to be compassionate all the time.

Many people who end up in prison for violent crimes are very hurt, and the outward manifestation of their hurt is what is visited upon their victims.  Because of the nature of our work, it will be necessary from time to time to draw some kind of a boundary in respect of behaviour.

This could arise if we have to report people who commit to attending a programme due to some sort of court order and then they don’t.  Or it could be reporting parents who are neglecting their children.  Or we may have to ask someone to leave because they are under the influence of drugs.

In my experience, however, showing compassion to a very hurt person usually results in them being less likely to either attack us, or – worse – go away and never come back again, if they are angry because we draw a boundary.

Showing compassion always implies a willingness to be in relationship.  It is very much a prefrontal cortex [1] response and, (once again referencing the neural mirroring that is always ongoing in human encounters) its use will optimise generation of a prefrontal response in the other, hurt, anxious person whose anger (and fear – remember the drowning man gasping for air) may be rising.

(And this analogy is not a bad one. Because if I am rescuing someone and I don’t take care of myself the drowning man might pull me under).

While the website is located generally in a community work context, I believe that the above holds true for all of us practitioners who are regularly faced with such challenges in our work.

Recognition that relationship can be built on compassion means that our rational mind (the mind that thinks in the context of relationship and/or empathy) as well as our logical mind (the mind that thinks totally logically, almost robotically) will be accessed. Note the difference between the two.

In this, can a person (whether a very distressed person seeking help, or a very distressed employee) trust our organisation to be compassionate when it is under pressure?

This, I believe, is the big test.

Because, if we have compassion written into our vision or mission statement and we are not compassionate when under pressure it involves a breach of trust.

Within the Focus Group this has particular resonance.

If we end up in prison we may have suffered as children, and almost always our suffering involved substantial breaches of trust.  (In fact, I think that it’s safe to say that all significant harm done to children by adults involves a breach of trust).  We then grow to adulthood with significant trust issues.  That is why it is so important for us to trust an organisation to do what it says it will do.

And an atmosphere of trust encourages people who have never known trust to take a risk.

[1] This is the part of the brain that causes us to behave like mature adults

Previously, I mentioned inhibitors of compassion such as fear, rigidity, default to logic etc.

I did not include compassion fatigue (which most of you will have heard of) in this list – I had mentioned it briefly already.

This is linked to burn-out, and if we are burnt out we will run the risk of paying lip-service to compassion.

This is a particular danger which can be avoided by good supervision (both team and individual), high morale, attentive listening by those in leadership positions, and an atmosphere of freedom where staff can express fear, tiredness, anger etc. in a healthy way and be encouraged to take responsibility for such emotions.

So what does this commitment to compassion mean, in a practical sense?

The thing about compassion in a proactive sense is that it can push the envelope [1] when it comes to rules or policies, and in those areas it can be challenging.

It involves the much-vaunted non-judgmental approach, but yet involves judgment, or at least, assessment of some sort.

Compassion encourages us to be forgiving and empathic when people do not come up to our expectations, and indeed serves to educate us in the pace at which we need to move to build and sustain relationships.

[1]. We came across this expression before!

I have heard so many different descriptions of spirituality, and I have so many different opinions on it myself, that I find it impossible to define.

I’ll be attempting to describe what spirituality means to me, personally, later – but that is not a definition as such, because I believe that it is a very subjective, personal experience.

The majority of people would probably claim that spirituality is a good thing to have an appreciation of – and that lack of it means that we are somewhat deprived.  Perhaps the opposite of spirituality is cynicism, nihilism, rampant materialism, banality, even boredom or, indeed predictability.

I don’t really know…….

What I do know, and what most people agree on, is that we perceive spirituality as something that moves us from the humdrum and/or mundane life that we sometimes find ourselves in.  In that sense, it is unlikely that we can be proactively spiritual all the time.  If we were, it would probably be too much for us – emotionally.

I don’t know that much about atheism but I wouldn’t be drawn to it because I don’t think that it leaves much room for mystery [1].  For example, I don’t know why we are moved by a song sung in a particular way but not the same song sung in another way.  Or why we are moved by a gripping film, or falling in love with someone, even falling in love with an idea, the wonder of childbirth, or the sense of excitement that we feel when we are creating something.  I could go on and on.

Our great technological advances and recent knowledge gained about our brain through neuroscience might explain the how of all the above but, even if we dig deep, the why is still a mystery.

I think that there is a danger that we might assume that the higher up Maslow’s triangle we are, the more spiritual we will be.

What I mean is that we might think that if people don’t have food or shelter (or their other basic needs met) they won’t have much time for spirituality.  Yet, I meet people who are homeless and whose basic needs are not met who come across to me as very spiritual.

Or we might think that people who suffer trauma in their childhood, whose spirit is knocked out of them, and who dissociate to cope with same (who might, for example, be hopeless, chronically addicted or criminals) struggle to have a sense of the spiritual.

Yet, like the people who lack basic needs, I meet people who are addicted and who regularly end up in prison who, I sense, are intensely spiritual.

On the other hand I have met people who appear to have done very well in life, who are successful and appear happy, who do not seem to have many worries and troubles, who, one would surmise, are way up Maslow’s triangle and for whom spirituality appears [2] to be of little or no importance.  In fact, in their life they appear to have parked spirituality and/or accommodated it – it seems in my very judgmental opinion anyway – expressing it in a kind of bland, lacklustre way.

All the above paragraphs are concerned with spirituality in the individual. This Sub-Chapter will discuss spirituality as it pertains to an organisation – that is, a collection of individuals with similar goals, aspirations, values and practices.

[1]. Perhaps some atheist might correct me here – I’d be open to correction.

[2]. I’m not sure whether it does or not – it just appears not to!

In the previous post I said that I struggle to define spirituality.

Perhaps if we consider words that are related to spirituality we may get a clue to what it is, or what it means to us in our day-to-day life.

To be inspired, for example, is to be moved (and moved implies emotionality) to do something that we might not have thought was within our capability.

To aspire is to aim to do something that is often different or new. And I’m pretty sure that the word for a structure on top of a church, a spire, which directs our prayers up to heaven, has some connection to the word spiritual.

A team can have a good team spirit which enables it to be greater than the sum of its parts – as we mentioned elsewhere.

I was told in the army that esprit de corps was very important to win a battle or a war.

If we see a child who is energetic, resilient etc. we often say that she has spirit.

And – I can’t resist it – spirits are also drinks that give us a right good kick!  (Well, they do me anyway). To give a further clue, it is interesting that spirits are manufactured by distilling (or, in the case of their close relatives paraffin, benzene etc. refining) from cruder products. This means that we think of spirits as having purity. (I’ll come back to the significance of the connection between spirituality and purity in the next post).

Valerie Sinanson – psychotherapist who is very knowledgeable in the area of trauma and dissociation – links trauma and spirit elegantly in respect of what happens in child sexual abuse. As she puts it, (and I hope that I paraphrase Valerie properly) children’s spirits are broken so that they turn to spirits and then their very inclusion of spirits to build up their spirit causes them to lose out in life.

There is a spirit world where many people believe those who have died (and those who are yet to be born) reside.

Remember the book I mentioned elsewhere entitled Spirit Level [1]?  It suggests that inequality leads to all sorts of undesirable things in society, and (obviously) equality has the opposite effect – i.e. enables a lot of positive things!

The title, I assumed, referred to the tool that I’d use to ensure that I’m hanging a picture right.  However, I thought that it was (perhaps inadvertently) revealing, in that it implied that inequality lowers the level of spirit in society and if we want to keep the morale of society high (because morale is closely associated with spirit) we will have to make an effort to be more equal.

Finally, (and just to tee us up for the next post) long before I knew what conceived was – and the rest of the facts of life as they were called back in the day – I was informed that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. In those days, he (we presumed that he was male) was known as the Holy Ghost, but Ghost changed to Spirit over the last few decades – probably to reflect more faithfully what is said in the Gospel. In the Christian faith, the Holy Spirit makes things happen, and isn’t just a kind of add-on to the Father and the Son in the Trinity.

After all the above, perhaps another way get to a handle on spirituality is to ask what kind of behaviours show the world that I’m spiritual?

I myself associate spirituality with creation, growth, joy and relationship – in all their different manifestations.  And I also associate it with independent thought, responsibility and energy.

That doesn’t mean that I am defining it – I’ll leave that to people more learned than I – but if I am to find meaning in spirituality those words will go some way towards fitting the bill for me.

And, as will be expanded on in some of the following posts, spirituality also encompasses the universal root foundations described in previous Chapters.

[1]. I referenced this most interesting book when describing the Focus Group earlier in the blog.