5.6.8 Size

In a previous Chapter I discussed scaling up and the implications of doing so. Linked to scaling up is size which I believe is an important topic for us to consider.

Generally speaking, the larger an organisation the more likely it is that disconnect will be a feature of it. What I mean by disconnect is simply that the day-to-day concerns of the workers on the ground are not as taken as seriously as the concerns of management.

In my experience, when an organisation grows, it has a higher profile, and the higher a profile an organisation has, the more it has to be managed, (and often defended), and as a consequence image becomes important.

And if it involves very delicate work, high profile will almost always mean that there is a far higher risk of quality being sacrificed for quantity, image, efficiency etc. That does not mean that we should shy away from growing.  It does, however, mean that we should be very vigilant in respect of the needs of the Focus Group as we grow. 

Growing so that things will change for the better uses energy. And our energy is better expended on important outcomes for the Focus Group, than on image and other unnecessary things.

Also, the bigger the organisation the more likely it is that the centre of decision making will be distanced from what the needs are at ground level.

The reason for this is that there are different priorities at different levels of management.  For example, a management priority to save money will almost always be misunderstood by workers on the shop floor.  More subtle ones exist also – i.e. education, rank and status, what used to be called white collar and blue collar etc.

Naturally enough, community work does not escape this disconnect.

What about an organisation that sets itself up to alleviate the suffering of others?

We stated in a previous post that in the private sector, the customer is king.  If a private company that depends on people buying its products disconnects from its customers they will stop buying.  This is why there is constant market research and why whenever we buy anything nowadays we are asked for our opinions on the product bought or the service offered. 

If customers stop buying our product (that is, stop buying into what we offer) then it is a statement about how little confidence that they have in us to alleviate their suffering.  If we disconnect from our own staff there is a higher chance that we will disconnect from people who seek assistance too.

It’s unrealistic to think that there will never be any disconnect, but in respect of the human experience we need to do everything in our power to ensure that it is minimised, and that we connect deeply with people.

This is different to business, where connection is used primarily to keep staff happy and customers interested in a product.

There is really no alleviation of suffering involved.

There are also subtle differences between our kind of organisation and a Hospital Accident and Emergency Department, or Fire Service.  In such places, I believe that management needs to connect with staff, so that the staff can (appropriately) disconnect from death and injury that is part and parcel of their day-to-day life-saving work.

The difference between the physical A+E and what I call emotional A+E is that in emotional healing the practitioner needs to be more part of the process than in physical healing.

In general, I believe that large size can get in the way of connection both between management/leadership and staff, and staff and people for whom the service is intended (in our case the Focus Group) thereby – in the long term – wasting money.

I will expand on this theme further in the next post.

If we look at things logically we will conclude that financial savings can be brought about by rationalising services and joining-up organisations that seem to do similar work.  We may also conclude that large size would allow standardisation of training, fundraising, policies, and many other necessary aspects of organisations. Bigger is better as the saying goes……

All good!

I believe, however, that largeness has a negative effect on vital elements like creativity and the sense of adventure that we have identified as important in our organisation so that our work with very vulnerable families will be effective.

Part of the reason for this is, I believe, the need for self-perpetuating elements to exist to service the organisation.  This is usually known as bureaucracy, described elsewhere. While it is necessary for some power to reside in the office element of the organisation, (i.e. accountancy, administration, human resources etc.) this power should be appropriate to the needs of the operational elements. Sometimes bureaucracies can have too much power – and the bureaucratic tail can wag the operational dog.

The smaller an organisation is, the more likely it is that it will retain a firm grasp of the essentials.  This has certainly has been my experience not only in this area of work but other areas also.

Let us compare, just as an exercise, a large engineering project with protecting children in families affected by imprisonment. Both might be deemed to be difficult but possible. Factors that might be common to both would be a good work ethic, competent HR, financial propriety, and high accountability.

However in the engineering project it’s not essential to have a big emphasis on, say, cultural matching.  If contractors use foreign expertise and personnel it may be helpful for them to match their culture to the culture of the foreign staff.

However, no matter how much cultural matching is attended to project will not be successfully undertaken without large and diverse engineering, scientific, financial, organisational, and management resources.

Largeness is a requirement and the venture will not succeed without it.

However, in protection of children in vulnerable families and communities, I would argue that vast financial, organisational, and management resources is actually a huge disadvantage.

Small size enables the grounded-ness that is needed for cultural matching, assists democracy and healthy debate, lessens the danger of becoming concerned with image, increases the chance that staff at all levels have a voice, allows users of the service to become familiar with different staff members, facilitates adaptability and flexibility, enables the mirroring of the warmth, informality and intimacy that is so necessary in the work itself, and, above all, optimises connection.

But I also believe that a balance needs to be attained.

If our organisation is too small there are a number of risk factors that need to be mentioned.  These include:

1. Lack of Diversity: Not having enough diversity within our team to ensure that the outward looking and creative attitude that is so necessary prevails.

2. Power:  The possibility that one very powerful person has too much influence.

3. Identity Problems: Lack of identity, (i.e. the possibility that we may be subsumed by an ethos and practice norms of larger organisations that may be doing similar but different work).

4. Impropriety:  The covering up of wrongdoing and sloppiness.  (Without the monitoring that is part and parcel of large organisations, financial, or other impropriety may go unchallenged).

I mentioned when discussing discipline that it is necessary to have a high level of integrity if we wish to follow the creative path.  It is the same with small size – the risk factors 1 to 4 above are minimised substantially by having integrity.    

Finally, when I think of largeness in child protection, I think of the War on Drugs which was mentioned here, when I discussed hard and easy problems for humanity, and also here (no. 5 in the Table).

In both posts I described it as a hugely expensive mega-myth that has, as its ultimate aim, the protection of children and vulnerable people in communities. But – is it really working?

So if largeness is a problem and smallness is a problem what is the appropriate size [1]?  That is, the size where all the elements we want will be optimised.

I intuit that the best guess is an organisation where everyone knows each other and where the leadership group [2] can meet and get to know all staff regularly.  In this respect it is also important that the leadership group are open to listening to the staff that they meet as a result of the small size.  I would say that in or around 20-24 would be relatively good guess.

What about the size of the problem?

It is logical to conclude that the size of the problem to be solved will determine the size of the organisation to solve it.  For example, it will require a much bigger organisation to build a motorway than build a boreen [3].  (Though the creative people necessary to support large engineering projects will often be placed in small autonomous organisations within the larger corporation).

But, as I explained in the previous post, human problems present quite different challenges than engineering problems.  Because – unlike large engineering problems, in supporting families in the Focus Group – cultural matching is a vital aspect.

The sense of intimacy that is needed to model, respond quickly, empathise, discover creative solutions, promote an ethos of generosity, and generate a real and genuine sense of belonging so that a distressed person will feel that her pain can be eased would be far more difficult in an organisation with hundreds of employees.

Large organisations waste lots of money that could be used in far more focused and meaningful ways for people in distress.

On paper, rationalisation works.  I do not believe that it works, however, in practice, and there are many examples to choose from if we look around us.

In determining how large an organisation should be to solve a very complex social/human problem I would propose that once an organisation gets to be larger than 20-24 or so people it would be more effective to actually establish a sister organisation with the same ethos etc. and divide up the problem than simply keep expanding the original organisation.

Please refer to the Chapter on Training where I discussed scaling up. This is an interesting area to discuss and I invite comments from anyone interested!

[1]. For an interesting discussion on the subject of largeness in organisations, I refer readers to Kirkpatrick Sale’s very interesting book ‘Human Scale’

[2]. The term leadership group is used to describe those in any agency who have positions of decision-making in the areas of ethos, management, finance, programmes, etc.  

[3]. A boreen is a term used for a small road or path in Ireland.