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Albania from Corfu

I'm missing dear Greece. We'll be there again in February. Sailing down the Adriatic from Venice, making landfall at dawn on the Acroceraunian Peninsular, past the snow capped peaks south of Kadare's town of Gjirokastër, through the Corfu Channel, over to Epirus south to Igoumenitsa from where we'll catch another ferry to the island, thence to Ano Korakiana.
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Item sent to Caroline Rance for our weekly Inlogov Newsletter:

I’m back from nine excellently received one day local government seminars for Mayors, Deputy Mayors and Chief Executives – seven in Australia with Professor John Martin of La Trobe University in Northern Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania (see photo) and two in New Zealand for the SOLGM (Society of Local Government Managers New Zealand) in Wellington and an in-house event for Rangitikei Council. This is Simon’s third teaching tour in Australia, his first in New Zealand – focusing on the theory and practice of negotiating the overlapping responsibilities of councillors and managers at the top of local government. John Martin has replicated, in Australia, Simon’s film research into the joint leadership of lead councillors and officers. (The photo shows John and Simon at a workshop in Tasmania in front of a filmed conversation of Mayor Felicity Ann Lewis and CEO Mark Searle of Marion Council, Australia).

E-mail from my colleague Andrew Coulson

Simon - welcome back to cold and snowy UK! We got these comments a few days ago. Many of them refer to your part of the paper - interesting! I should have passed then on straight away. I think you should reply to George! All the best - Andrew 

 Comments from Prof George Jones on our paper - New Options for Political Management in Local Government

pp. 13-15* Where can I read what Simon has written? (*pp.18-19 in the linked PDF file)

I find the three spaces confused. The figure is fine – I agree there are three types of leadership, but the text uses in the bottom para the word “technical” as if it is the same as “professional”. I dislike the way “administrative” is diminished into minor tasks, like record keeping. There are (i) political leadership, as with English directly-elected mayors/leaders; (ii) administrative leadership which involves coordinating in a generalist way the more specialised units below, as with chief executives/directors of finance; and (iii) these units are headed by specialised chief officers, with their specialised professional expertise. The last two comprise the appointed permanent officials, as distinct from the elected impermanent political leaders.

p.14*. para 1. In the USA the mayor/manager system makes a clear division between political and managerial, with the mayor being of the “weak mayor” variety, and the manager appointed by the council. But “strong mayors” usually need the support of an appointed chief administrative officer, appointed by the mayor. There seems to be a convergence of the two types in practice. (*p.18 in PDF file)

p.14. para.4. I miss from the chief executive’s role coordinating the other officers and their units, and advising the political leadership even about political aspects. Perhaps that is subsumed in the word “situation” NEVER WRITE A WEAK WORD LIKE “SITUATION”. Be specific about what you mean. 

p. 14. para 5. I agree about the moveability of boundaries – all of them. So I worry in para 6 about “a blend of political and administrative contributions” without mention of  “professional” too. I like the phrase “combined dynamics” (and ‘bridge’ and ‘exchange’, but if your threefold distinctions of figure 1 are to be maintained then you need to add the other (‘professional’) to your twofold blend. Another niggle: chief executives and treasurers giving “administrative leadership” are usually “professionals” in their own right, but they are more generalists than specialists. 

p. 15*. para 2. Here you recognise the three-fold distinctions I mentioned above at  (*p.19 in PDF file)

pp.13-15. You refer to them now as (i) “technical”; (ii) “managerial or administrative”, and (iii) “political or strategic”.  You should at the start of the chapter have given a clearer picture of the three leaderships, and their interactions.

My reply:

Dear George...To respond to some of your very helpful points, I’ve found it useful following Churchill’s maxim ( “The English never draw a line without blurring it”) to imagine a tense and dynamic interaction of managerial, professional and political activity in the making of government. The topographical approach and the idea of overlapping zones offer rich metaphors, e.g. centrifugal or centrifocal forces mediated by interpersonal negotiation among people spending more time in one space than the other. 

Good local government is made by people who are part manager, part politician, part professional. My simplified terms are at the tip of several icebergs of definition about differences between managerialism (changed in the paper to ‘administrative leadership’), professionalism (changed to 'technical leadership') and politics and the tension between them. I’m an anthropologist seeking to explain structurally determined conflict and a psychologist seeing how interpersonal skills and values can reduce or amplify those conflicts – with the proviso that conflict isn’t of itself bad, nor its opposite good. Some of what I’ve written can be found here.

I’ve tried to make this material more accessible by putting links to Google.docs files on a page of my blog Democracy Street. Not all servers permit access to Google.docs, so if you’d like to see any of these papers, email me at s.j.baddeley@bham.ac.uk and I’ll send one or more as an email attachment. 

I write, but my enthusiasm has revolved around making films of senior politicians and managers in conversation about their working relationships. I use this to explore political-management leadership on seminars for practitioners. Elaborate ethical procedures apply to the use of this material, but I’ve had permissions from those involved, or their estates, to stream some film on the Internet. Extracts with transcripts and comments can be seen by clicking on the links distributed through my paper on Political-Management Leadership - links the editor was unable to include in the text version of my chapter in the 2008 book - Leadership Learning.

Some of the clips referenced in the paper can also be seen with others plus comments and, in some cases, transcripts, here and here.

The difference between the text and the filmed conversation showing para-linguistic

I’ve ploughed an esoteric furrow in my time at inlogov – a freedom to roam for which I shall be eternally grateful to John Stewart and the culture he created there. This doesn’t mean I’ve not been a keen contributor to inlogov’s mission. A lot of my work has been in-house – here and in other countries.

John Martin & Simon Baddeley: using video in Australia (ph: Pamela Crawford)

Recent films are for reasons of their political sensitivity less available, which is why most of the films streamed via my blog on the Internet were made over two years ago, but I’m confident that the generic features of the political-management relationship have a permanence that ensures their value for both practitioners and on campus. 

This vital working relationship in government holds  fascination for me...As the technology improves, along with my understanding of methodology for accessing these conversations at the heart of democracy, I hope to be able to add to the interest and usefulness of this focus.

Your point about the CEO’s role ‘coordinating the other officers and their units’ applies also to the work of senior politicians' in the political sphere. You put your finger on the methodological challenge posed by the limitations of a camera lens (wiring more than three people for sound gets expensive and intrusively complicated). I've focused on the dyad, with occasional widening of focus in hung/balanced/NOC situations, e.g. Herts No Overall Control

You see the problem! The NOC situation here was filmed in our campus TV studio with a director deciding where to point two cameras. It makes better TV but less good research. As the method has developed I’ve excluded myself from the films, so that instead of being told about the relationships we've a chance to see the people involved having a working relationship.

Another weakness (which you’ve picked up) is that as I’ve come to understand the significance of the dynamic relationship between managers and professionals (core skills and values directly or indirectly involved in the delivery of government) as well as between managers and politicians (bringing a contrasting skills and values) I’ve focused on a dyad and not a triad. This is not necessarily a problem since it is the political-management relationship that operates ‘at the apex’. I use this diagram to open up my argument along with film from an research base collected over thirty years - a sample streamed here.

Political and professional spaces are straddled by political-management space - a hybrid zone where values created in political space encounter the legal, technical and financial parameters of government, and where professional values encounter the rationing of management working to an agenda forged in negotiation between politicians and managers. Managers connect with politicians while building alliances in professional space, and politicians while maintaining their political support, work with managers to monitor implementation. Between them, they create government. 

Political-management trailer from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

This and other diagrams are images for exploring the issue of how a political-management dyad relates to the larger society of government. Have you a few sentences that would help combine greater clarity with our paper’s necessary brevity? I’d be delighted to acknowledge your help if were allowed to include them in any revision. In the meantime thanks again for taking the time to make comments on the paper. Kindest regards, Simon

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Nice email from Scylla Parkyn, Hon.Sec. of the Victoria Jubilee Allotments Association about discussion at a meeting while we were out of the country:

Hello Simon...Just to let you know, the topic of beekeeping on the allotment was discussed at the last VJA meeting, and Anna , the person who is allergic bees (& who is also on the committee), said although she would prefer that bees were not right next to her plot, she has no objection to a hive being some elsewhere on site, provided that they are kept by a qualified apiarist, and that whoever keeps them goes through the proper channels, i.e. runs it by the other allotment members first. With best wishes, Scylla

Refining the learning

Mayor Felicity-Ann Lewis, Prof John Martin and CEO Mark Searle

We've summarised it - the essence of our one day seminars:

- Learning: Mapping, ‘responsible gossip’, reading/carrying, Chatham House rule

- Negotiating: Constructing trust, overlapping spaces, leadership at the apex

- Governing: Films, critical incidents, conversations across boundaries, political-management leadership, governance

Some things we can teach; but integrity is a choice. Some things we know, some we know we don't know, and when it comes to a specific, and newly captured, political-management conversation, we're working together to understand what we're seeing. This is where the seminars are best for being Socratic in style. We join in pondering "what's going on?"

Marion City Council's conversation has been fascinating - a nine year working relationship between Mayor Felicity-Ann Lewis and CEO Mark Searle. John and I have edited - from the longer film he and Annie made in September - an eleven minute sample of separate clips within their conversation and then - drawing on later parts of the same conversation - two five minute exchanges in which Felicity and Mark negotiate their response to specific incidents - "events, dear boy, events!"

Mud-mapping - where we work on rough maps - jotting names, issues and events has enriched appreciation of a council's political context. I like this way of surveying a political landscape.

Waiting at Launceston, Tasmania

We've seen this work well in Darwin. It worked well in Launceston, and, a day later, in Melbourne. I'm used to doing this with more kit - geographically accurate maps and photos of members - but where we've been working with a range of individuals, perhaps pairs or trios, from different councils, where assembling all that kit would be tricky at short notice, the sketchier approach works really well - adding to ways of understanding and communicating the characteristics of a political environment.

We'd like to see politicians as adept at mapping the managerial characteristics of the council to which they've been elected, as many public managers seem to be at mapping their political environment. So far there's only one place I've been able to see this happen - in Peterborough City Council last year during a political-management project with Charlie Adan, where officers shared their perceptions with members and members theirs with officers - a conversation which led to a novel exercise in refining those mutual perceptions of one another - adding in a bit of jargon for fun, like 'scope creep'.

* * * Meanwhile in dear Greece I've just seen this story by Malcolm Brabant reporting the discovery of remains in the sunken bow portion of HMS Volage, one of the ships that struck an Albanian laid mine during the Corfu Channel Incident in 1946 - something Frank Carrick told me about last year. In September Frank and I, guided by George Psailas, visited the graves, in the British Cemetery in Corfu, of those whose bodies were recovered immediately after the event.

This is the AP story dated 2 November 09. The most comprehensive account seems to come from James P. Delgado of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, posted to Wikipedia on 23 Oct 09:

In July 2007, the RPM Nautical Foundation, a U.S. and Malta-based not-for-profit organization, began a comprehensive, ongoing archaeological survey of the coast of Albania in cooperation with the Albanian Institute of Archaeology (AIA) and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA). The inaugural season, conducted from the R/V Hercules, involved a multibeam sonar survey with remotely operated vehicle (ROV) assessment of targets to the 120 m contour. The area surveyed was from the border with Greece, through the Corfu Channel (but not into Greek waters) and to the Bay of Saranda, 21 kilometer from the border. A total of 125 anomalies were encountered, and 67 were assessed with the ROV during the 2007 season. The majority of anomalies were found to be geological mud and mud/sand formations created as silt from the mouth of the Butrint River to the south is transported by current in a N-S direction. Fifteen shipwrecks were identified, fourteen of which were classified as “modern” and one of which was an ancient wreck of ca. 300-275 BCE. One of the fourteen other targets, briefly examined in 2007, was later (2009) determined to be the bow of HMS Volage.

During the 2009 field season the sonar target in this area was re-examined by James P. Delgado of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Jeffrey Royal of the RPM Nautical Foundation, ROV specialist Kim Wilson, and George Robb, Jr., President and founder of the RPM Nautical Foundation, who immediately assessed the potential of the 2007 “wreck” as the possible bow of Volage in response to Delgado’s question of whether the surveys of 2007-2009 had encountered any traces of the Corfu Channel Incident. After consultation with Dr. Adrian Anastasi as the AIA and Albanian government representative, it was decided to non-intrusively reassess the site on 28 June 2009. An hour-long ROV dive was made to the site on that afternoon.

The site is located in the area of the mining of HMS Volage. The seabed is a loose mud and silt. The sonar anomaly delineated by multibeam in 2007 and reconfirmed in 2009 is approximately 15 by 10 meters in area and has a height of 1.5 meters above the current level of the seabed. Active siltation and burial of the vessel remains at the site is visible. Some localized scouring and uncovering of cultural material is also possible. The majority of the remains visible were a section of a steel ship’s hull, with explosion damage consistent with an implosion, exposed steel frames, electrical wiring, and a series of diagnostic artefacts. While identification of the site would have been better aided by the recovery of one or more diagnostic artefacts, because of the possibility of the site being the bow of HMS Volage and hence a war grave, no disturbance was planned and nothing was disturbed or removed from the site. The British and Albanian governments were notified of the find and provided with video and still images of the site after the survey.

'Negotiating the overlap' ~ political-management leadership

Cr Shane Bourke, Mayor of Wyndham City Council, Victoria, and recently retired CEO Ian Robins – transcript of an extract from a conversation filmed by Annie Guthrie and John Martin on 4 September 2009 Cr Shane Bourke: He was a - quite an interesting minister, and he said “Always remember, Shane, there’s a little bit of Darebin in all of us.” CEO Ian Roberts: Hm SB: You know. So. Things like that. So, that was like, as far as I was concerned he was trying to give a message, like, you know - IR: Ah SB: - this is what councillors should do. IR: Yeah. Although it was a message about – erm - I guess, there’s always a temptation to follow self-interest a bit, and remember that you’re really here for the community’s interest. SB: That’s exactly right. IR: That’s what it’s really about. SB: We are always lucky here because the culture had always been here like that and it still is today. You know it’s followed through. IR: Mm. Yeah. So in terms of the practicalities of the relationship, from your point of view, what would you say were the key issues? SB: I just did what I was told. Whatever you told me to do I just did it. IR: I don’t think so. SB: I just did it. I think with the relationship – on a serious note – I think what it was about was about trust and I can say to you, all those times, and you know I was Mayor three times under you, that I trusted you implicitly. IR: I was CEO under you, but – sorry - not Mayor SB: No no IR: – the Mayor was on top - SB: Whichever way. Yeah. To me it was a partnership. I never looked at - this person was on top or this person was under. I think it was about – it was about a partnership – a clear partnership of you as CEO, me as Mayor, councillors and your executive, but you knew what you had to do and I knew what I had to do. R: Yeah, I think there was a fair degree of clarity about the roles – SB: Yeah IR: -and I had no interest in politics - SB: Nope IR: - and you had no interest in management fundamentally – SB: Exactly IR: - and that was, sort of, useful, although ironically – erm - as CEO you’ve got to be politically aware and I – SB: That’s right IR: - whether it’s advocacy and those sorts of issues. SB: Yeah IR: I think that was important. The other thing which I think was very important at the time, was – er - the city had a clear vision of the future – SB: Hm IR: - er - with the long term community plan. I think that was very valuable and that provided a very strong basis for communication - SB: Hm IR: - and then I think the – er – of course there was a couple of major advocacy campaigns with the freeway – SB: Hm IR: - and the toxic dump and - and those issues, and they were very uniting in many ways –

SB: They were. But the toxic dump - IR: They were polarising too – SB: Well they could of, but I suppose because from day one of that elected council of '97 you know and when we’re talking about relationships and things, I think because we were galvanised as an organisation even – even – with the community – but within the organisation, elected members and also - er - the administration, so everybody was galvanised and everybody was working for it, and you can remember through that period of time the One Nation Party was an issue – IR: Yeah SB: - coming - coming to Wyndham and instead of us being too hysterical about it because it was pretty hurly-burly there, we set a citizenship ceremony up on a particular night and all the people that could have been a concern went to that – IR: Yeah SB: So we took the oxygen away from what that was about. IR: Yeah. That also was an underlying – erm – philosophy of council which I found very – er - refreshing at the time. The council said that if it impacts on the Wyndham community we’ll do something about it. If it doesn’t we’ll stay out of it, and – er – that meant like the East Timor thing was around and some councils were getting involved in that. As far as Wyndham was concerned it didn’t impact on the Wyndham community. It’s a federal matter. Leave it to the federal government. SB: Yeah that’s right. IR: Stay out of it. One Nation – federal matter until – erm - it was in Wyndham then you dealt with it as you saw fit. Then stayed out of it. And that was, I guess, a very strong message – er - for the senior staff and the staff generally of what council was really about.

(See other political-management conversations from UK)

(A circular that outlines the workshops John Martin and I are running in Australia this month)

John Wolseley 'There is no desert but was once a name' 1997

Northern Territory course on 'Negotiating the Overlap'

Working with local government people - members and managers - from the Northern Territory at Darwin City Council yesterday. Still not a politician-manager pair from the same council among our delegates but, all the same, two elected members to enrich discussion. We started, after introductions, by showing a few icebreaker clips of Mayor Col Dunkley and his hapless General Manager Greg Dominelli from Grassroots - the TV comedy (clip) superbly crafted by Geoffrey Atherden who, as he teases local government, recognises its problems, even allowing the occasional bout of wit and public integrity, in contrast to Yes Minister - brilliantly hilarious though it is. Then I talk about our intentions for the day invoking Chatham House Rule:

To further develop appreciation of techniques, processes and procedures that can be used by those leading in a political environment and an understanding of how the roles of political and managerial leaders are changing, and how this applies in your council

I ran through the ideas and research that supports them, especially Mouritzen and Svara's and their focus on the emergence of 'overlapping relations' between politicians and administrators. I speak, following Max Weber, of the default tension between democracy and bureaucracy, of 'danger zones', of the 'fuzzy area where politics and management necessarily mingle to address the 'wicked' problems of modern local government, and the challenge of creating bridges between the political and the managerial without breaching codes that recognise the need for division of labour in the work of government and negotiation between individuals in political-management space.

A break for refreshments and we show four video clips - two from John's Australian research. We offer interpretation leading into discussion, comparison and analysis. (I'm hoping that we'll be able to stream the Australian clips on this blog.)

Looking at the political-management conversations takes us to lunch and continued chat. After this we introduce a model of political nous - political skills for managers and members - from the paper Kim James and I wrote in the 1980s. Then the group works on critical incidents testing themselves and the Owl Fox Donkey Sheep model. After this comes an opportunity to reflect, without our earlier interpretation, on a filmed conversation between the Shire President and CEO of Toodyay (made May 2009).

"We're moving from known knowns, through known unknowns to something else. A political-management relationship, notwithstanding its universal features, is unique to the individuals and their setting. This is raw data. What are we seeing here? Observe, conjecture, discuss and comment. You tell us. Remember that 60% at least of interpersonal communication is non-verbal and the way words are said, rather than what's said. Remember too that when you comment on other people, you're also commenting on yourself."

This is about encouraging observation, independent thought and judgement. Once people get the idea there's intelligent and sensitive discussion. I say I wish the people in the film could join us to supplement shared learning about negotiating the overlap - as on some courses in UK they do. Finally, after a swift tea break, we encourage reading skills using 'responsible gossip' to map the political environments of two of the participating councils.

John and I were delighted at the creativity and competence applied to this process, given minimal time for rehearsal; especially the willingness to adopt, at least in the classroom, the practice of 'responsible gossip' for maintaining shared understanding of one another's political environments. I'd argue this can be done with formal maps and photos of elected members (reverse for member's mapping of managers) but John introduced me to doing it by 'mudmapping' (def: a map drawn on the ground with a stick, or any other roughly drawn map, in this case butcher's paper and felt-tip)

... not quite like that but this image I've stolen looked good, especially as I've not been that close to the ground of this mighty continent. ** ** We're both aware that people attending our seminars are from separate councils - what's sometimes called 'stranger groups' - though many know each other. The most focused way to deliver this kind of training and development is as an organisational intervention, working in-house with one council, designing a bespoke event that draws on, for instance:

- an interview on film with a lead politician and manager - ideally CEO and Leader (Mayor or President in Australia) - but also a choice of other working relations between a politician and a manager. This is to create training material - a film case study of leadership at the apex - but also to learn more about how, in that organisation, the relationship works between two specific individuals (being invited to do this is usually the open sesame for effective work, as avoiding it signals a difficulty that suggests alternative leverage, so long as someone wants to proceed)

- the collection of locally relevant critical incidents. This entails being told stories of dilemmas that arise, and redrafting them to contain the challenge without insensitively divulging specific personalities or identifiable events

- an overview of current codes of conduct in that council as they relate to member-officer relations

- the assembly of mapping kit for exploring the local political environment including passport sized portraits of councillors, a map of the council’s area showing electoral divisions, post-it noted for jotting issues arising in particular areas, a guide to the roles of councillors e.g. Mayor, deputy, committee chairs, and other CV notes about them in the public domain, and, vitally, one or more facilitators from the CEO down able to engage in responsible gossip about the issues and personalities inhabiting the council’s political environment.

** ** ** John's use of the term mud-map took me to a process described by Pamela Croft in a 2008 paper by Bronwyn Fredericks:

The process maps out the connections to place revealing sets of relationships including the physical, physiological, social, spiritual and metaphysical. It also maps the botanical, colonial and the Indigenous layers of memories within the landscape sites. The tracks of animals and peoples, connections and relationships to spaces and places, symbols, patterns and colours are all recorded. It is all connected and we are connected. p.5 in Fredericks, Bronwyn L. (2008) Understanding and living respectfully within Indigenous places. World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium Journal, 4(2008). p.5

* * * We strolled later to the seafront for a delicious meal overlooking the azure blue sea of a place hardly 600 kilometres from the Equator. Among the jetty supports swam small sharks, crabs, a ray, and barramundi. A notice asked guests not to feed the fish or the crocs. The heat had a tropic solidity I preferred to the air-conditioned interior of the busy restaurant.

On the walk back to our hotel John greeted a figure in the dusk walking the same way as us, in a brown study running a sheave of paper against the fence. "Peter?" called John. "Oh hi John. Hi." We crossed over to greet. I was introduced to Prof Peter Shergold, learning later I'd shaken hands with possibly the most senior adviser to Australia's previous government, author of the previous PM's emissions trading report, now at the University of New South Wales.

Relationships that make government

Political-management trailer from Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.

How can I make it easier to watch the films I've made of conversations between politicians and administrators? It's getting easier - with greater bandwidth and better codecs (see my notes on this here - scroll down). Does my permission to put this material in the public domain apply to the internet and what choices should I allow on YouTube - to comment, to embed, to syndicate? My friend Nick Booth says openness should be the default. There are further films here - see 'No Overall Control'

Faces to places: officers practice political mapping

The people who've made these videos have trusted me not to have them used other than for teaching and learning. If, in my attempts to increase opportunities for learning about the working relationships of politicians and managers I put that trust at risk, a swift rethink must follow.

These clips are from an archive begun in the 1970s - when VHS tapes were the recording medium. The extracts below don't match the accompanying scripts perfectly. The transcriptions are nested in the films. There's some background reading here, and at my contact URL.
 1. My interview, over 20 years ago, with David Blunkett in which he describes "a growing grey area" and denies:

"any clear-cut idea that there are two separate groups, the politicians who get on with formulation and direction of policy and officers who are aloof from this, who have nothing to do with the political arena and actually get on with implementation...both officers and members know that isn’t true and that officers are inherently involved in the formulation of policy because of the nature of information giving…"

3. The late Sir Richard Knowles, Leader in 1994 of Birmingham City Council and Roger Taylor, Chief Executive, speak to me about their working relationship. Roger Taylor:

"... it’s so important to have this very very regular and intimate and informal contact. You can’t pick that up if you just have a series of formal meetings about particular issues. So it’s very very important for me - with all the political parties on the city council - to have a very very comprehensive understanding of what’s happening within them, where their policies are taking them, particularly with the controlling group, what ever party that is, that understanding their policies, the nuances, the shifts, the way in which the shifts in power are influencing the development of that policy is very important and that’s what I pick up from being able to have this easy relationship with Dick all the time."

2. Theresa Stewart, when Leader of Birmingham City Council and Michael Lyons, the city's Chief Executive in 1995, discussing politicians who manage a process, and managers who give shape to policy:

Michael: …it’s very difficult to actually map out where the boundaries lie and that is particularly the case when you talk about the relationship between chief executive and leader, and I’m quite clear that the process for making decisions on behalf of the council lies with the elected members and the leader manages that process. I‘m equally clear that officers who are worth their salt do try to help the controlling group of the day - to give shape to their policy aspirations and to deliver…so there is a dialogue not only at an early stage but continuing…at all stages in the policy process. I do think there is some challenge there as well, which - Theresa: Very important. M: - is a bit of a tension in the relationship. Perhaps in a minute we might come on to talk about the party politics of this because I do see that as being a delicate matter, but actually an area in which we have some fairly clear idea of where officers stop and members - and that’s wholly the territory of members, but again it’s not easy to define the boundaries. T: …Sometimes I talk to the chief executive about management - a bit apologetically sometimes…It isn’t straightforward...It isn’t that I have this pile of policies that are at my side of the table and he’s at his side, either receiving them or saying ‘Well, we’ll take this this way or that way’. Because it is an exchange…

3. A ward councillor, Andy Salmon and a neighbourhood co-ordinator, Julie McKinnon, from Salford City Council talking about each other's jobs and how they work together. Political-management leadership is not confined to the apex. It occurs, in this conversation, at street level in an area blighted by economic degeneration - ill-health, unemployment, dearth of skills and poverty of aspiration. A gang has stoned a bus. The bus company, to protect staff, has withdrawn service - compounding local problems.

Andy Salmon (councillor, Langworthy Ward, Salford): I saw a clear need to do something about this, so my first thought was to ring you…other councillors contacted their…fellow councillors on the GMPTA (Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority) to say that’s something that needs dealing with in that environment…but…to my mind it was a local issue. Julie McKinnon (Neighbourhood co-ordinator): Yes A: It has wider repercussions clearly, but in terms of the actual sorting out of Churchill Road, that is a local issue. You’re the local - J: Yeah A: - Neighbourhood co-ordinator so therefore let’s see if we can do something about this and although I was talking in the political realm as well, talking about Labour group, and we, as ward councillors, had been involved in collecting a petition…

Political action came with Andy deciding the issue was ‘local’. Normal procedure is to report to the GMPTA. To handle the matter differently requires Andy to ensure he has cleared the way with his political party, especially fellow ward politicians. He approaches his manager to ‘see if we can do something’. The council’s support for devolution encourages Julie to exercise discretion, but her job description says nothing about buses nor is there a budget for addressing an event like this.

J: Yeah. Well…I think that was the Wednesday you phoned me, and they’d withdrawn the buses on Monday…I was just really really unclear as to what I could do. So when you phoned and said the cameras could be a solution to this problem - A: Hm J: - and I think that, you know, if you could get a meeting together with some of the key players and could you follow it up - erm - I could see where you were going and think, yeah, that - that is the way that this problem - A: Yeah J: - will be resolved -

Julie's confessed ignorance of buses is not a problem once a politician for whom – and with whom - she works has given her a steer.

A: Yeah J: - and I just - I just did that. I just phoned - phoned people up - A: Mm J: - and said that it was your suggestion and having you there gave it legitimacy. ‘Councillor Salmon has said’ A: Right J: ‘Councillor Salmon’ is not me, as a – as an officer trying to set the agenda. It’s - A: No J: ‘Councillor Salmon has said - and this is - erm - is it - can you do this, can you do that, will you come to a meeting?’ A: Yes J: - and it was all ‘yes’ ‘yes’ ‘yes’, so – A: Hm J: - and I think that would have been a lot more difficult, if - if it hadn’t - A: Yeah J: - had that, that backing.

4. A conversation between Lin Homer, CEO of Suffolk County Council and Chris Mole, Leader of the Council about where policy is made. Imagine ‘policy’ as something prepared and eaten in a restaurant. Decisions by a guest presented with a menu are constrained by decisions in the kitchen about its content. Choice may be widened if there is prior discussion between chef and guest about what might be on the menu. Choice-making becomes sophisticated if the guest learns how the kitchen works and the chef learns more about customers’ taste. Guest’s palate and chef’s cuisine may - through conversation, tasting and observation - ratchet up the quality of decisions on what’s cooked and what’s eaten, making it impossible to tell where decisions are made about what gets served. This negotiation between a politician and a manager reflects their mutual understanding of the tensions involved, including several circumspect ‘erms’ and ‘ahs’:

Chris Mole: We (A ‘group’ of leading members) get together roughly fortnightly…to hear from you where you think the major issues are coming up…we listen to you more than bringing things to you...we tend not to walk into those meetings with a kind of list of things... Lin Homer: That’s perhaps something we should think about…there’s the other side to that which we are working on, but it doesn’t feel to me that we’ve cracked yet, is the issue of how I do get messages from group, particularly if group are going to be concerned about whose agenda we’re rolling forward. There’s been less of a culture in Suffolk than I’m used to of messages going between senior officers and senior members - erm - and so to some degree - C: Are you sure that’s the case? Education’s got a fairly well established M4 process [innovation where lead members work with lead managers of each service] where the senior four members meet with the EMT [education management team] to look at what the management team are taking forward on behalf of the members, and to varying degrees, then, the other thematic areas – L: I still think it’s mostly about officers telling members what they’re up to, as opposed to acting as an opportunity for the group to give priority about the stuff it’s talking about…and I think there’s something within the group about - erm - the democracy of the decision-making within group which means that pre-briefing is seen to - to partly undermine the freedom of the group to reach a decision -

Lin draws attention to one of the trickiest features of what should be a joint process. ‘Pre-briefing’ is a way of sketching out a detailed menu – a management device to signal the main issues in a way that will allow variations on the more detailed agenda that follows. She suggests that even this, though welcomed by some politicians, is perceived by others as pre-empting their contribution to policy.

C: Hm L: - but where post-briefing is then sometimes already too late for us to be as fast as you want us to be in the uptake.

If Lin and her colleagues leave agenda-preparation to politicians who then send out their list as ‘post-briefing’, unpredicted requests will arise to which managers cannot respond in time to meet politicians’ expectations. The purpose of a menu, even a rough one, is to bring predictability to pace of decision-making.

C: I think this is where - L: That’s a bit of a frustration. C: - where the politicians struggle is to have enough of a view of the forward agenda to know what to take into group at the right time in order to get views rather than being - reacted to the things once they’re on a formal agenda...

There is a question about how many politicians, other than Chris, are participating in political-management conversation.

L: …The thumbnail sketch it would leave me with is that - erm - I end up feeling that we can kind of draw up a forward agenda for group based on the officer view of what we think is emerging to share with group but if we do that, we get a little bit of the ‘well who’s agenda is it anyway?’ and ‘who told you to order it like that?’ C: Yeah L: But if we don’t put an agenda in we’re not getting the…dialogue with group that would turn that around and say ‘the agenda from our perspective is the following, now as a management team bloody well deliver that!’ so it’s kind of damned if you and damned if you don’t, and if you go all the way back to the appointment, one of the key criticisms from members of this organisation…is we move too slowly. C: Yeah L: But I think some of the reason we move slowly is that very dichotomy of how you get the clear agreement on what the important things are to move forward.

[The same CEO in conversation with the leader of the opposition - click, scroll down] 5. Woking Borough Council's CEO, Ray Morgan, talking with Sue Smith, Leader of the Council in 2007, about a ‘trading zone’ between members and officers.

Ray Morgan: …what I would call the dinosaur regime - officers in this box and members in that box. The reality is - Sue Smith: It doesn’t actually work like that. R: - the leadership is in this trading zone. I won’t call it grey zone. I call it ‘trading zone’ because that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re trading off what’s possible administratively. S: Yes R: What’s desired polit - S: - ically R: - and how are we going to get a balance where we’re both going to survive? S: That’s right. And sell - R: Sorry to describe it that way. S: - selling it back down the line both ways as well.

8. This clip from a film I made in 1995, captured almost as well as I can imagine the brokerage role of an officer working to a minority administration and the wise circumspection of the council's leader, Brian Clements. Their pauses and emphases exemplify the value of even fuzzy film in conveying what text cannot. Though all these relationships are unique to the individuals in them and the context in which they strive to work together there were quotes in this clip that spoke to universal characteristics of these relationships. I note the way Brian, well aware of the CEO's role in these circumstances, says how Jim will "look to me for...a view" or how Jim says of his and his officer colleagues' brokerage roles in getting a political steer, is that "the job of a good management team is to tease that out", and so "we put something in between us and talk round it" referring to the importance of "sharing information and giving warnings"; but it was these remarks, especially, I carried away with me from this conversation:

"I am answerable for the organisation but if you want to make an organisation work well it has to trust you as well as be trusted by you and Brian has to carry the trust of ... political colleagues." "The relationship between policy and administration is as nebulous in a way as the distinction between officer and member at that level. Whilst the definitions and the roles are very clear - Brian is a politician and I am an officer - we inhabit each other’s worlds. Brian helps me to make the administrative systems work better - to be more accountable - and I can help the political wheels to go more smoothly."

7. A film of an exercise in learning to read a political environment followed by group discussions involving councillors and officers about case studies - critical incidents. and a similar exercise in another council:

8. An attempt to explain the idea of ‘reading’ and the importance of ‘responsible gossip’ 9. Some thinking about ways politics, management and professionalism converge to make good government: Neither of these last two is clear enough, so I must re-jig them for clarity. It's all shaky, but it's a start. I’m learning more as I go along. [More here] [A letter to Kim James about the difference between teaching and learning - scroll down from a reverie about the sea and Greece]

I say nothing while filming. A list of suggested questions is sent with the invitation to participate. The camera is connected to throat mikes. Films are for teaching and research, used only with the permission of those taking part.

* * * Back to the future - November 2009: ... and here, to my delight, is a clip we've been allowed to use, from one of the conversations filmed in Australia on 4 September 09 for seminars on Political-management Leadership: Negotiating the Overlap - run in seven Australian cities with my co-tutor and host Professor John Martin of LaTrobe University. Filmed, on 4 September 09, by Annie Guthrie, it shows a conversation between Ian Robins, previous CEO of Wyndham City Council, and Mayor Shane Bourke about their working relationship.

Shane Bourke: He was a - quite a interesting minister, and he said "Always remember, Shane, there's a little bit of Darebin in all of us."
Ian Roberts: Hm
SB: You know. So. Things like that. So, that was like, as far as I was concerned he was trying to give a message, like, you know -

IR: Ah

SB: - this is what councillors should do.

IR: Yeah. Although it was a message about - erm - I guess, there's always a temptation to follow self-interest a bit, and remember that you're really here for the community's interest.

SB: That's exactly right

IR: That's what it's really about

SB: We are always lucky here because the culture had always been here like that and it still is today. You know it's followed through.

IR: Mm. Yeah. So in terms of the practicalities of the relationship, from your point of view, what would you say were the key issues?

SB: I just did what I was told. Whatever you told me to do I just did it.

IR: I don't think so.

SB: I just did it. I think with the relationship - on a serious note - I think what it was about was about trust and I can say to you, all those times, and you know I was Mayor three times under you, that I trusted you implicitly.

IR: I was CEO under you, but sorry - not Mayor

SB: No no

IR: The Mayor was on top -

SB: Whichever way. Yeah. To me it was a partnership. I never looked at - this person was on top or this person was under. I think it was about - it was about a partnership a clear partnership of you as CEO, me as Mayor, councillors and your executive, but you knew what you had to do and I knew what I had to do.

R: Yeah, I think there was a fair degree of clarity about the roles

SB: Yeah

IR: - and I had no interest in politics -

SB: Nope

IR: - and you had no interest in management fundamentally

SB: Exactly

IR: - and that was, sort of, useful, although ironically - erm - as CEO you've got to be politically aware and I -

SB: That's right

IR: - whether its advocacy and those sorts of issues.

SB: Yeah

IR: I think that was important. The other thing which I think was very important at the time, was - er - the city had a clear vision of the future

SB: Hm

IR: - er - with the long term community plan. I think that was very valuable and that provided a very strong basis for communication -

SB: Hm

IR: - and then I think the - er - of course there was a couple of major advocacy campaigns with the freeway

SB: Hm

IR: - and the toxic dump and - and those issues, and they were very uniting in many ways

SB: They were. But the toxic dump -

IR: They were polarising too

SB: Well they could of, but I suppose because from day one of that elected council of '97 you know and when were talking about relationships and things, I think because we were galvanised as an organisation even - even with the community but within the organisation, elected members and also - er - the administration, so everybody was galvanised and everybody was working for it, and you can remember through that period of time the One Nation Party was an issue

IR: Yeah

SB: - coming coming to Wyndham and instead of us being too hysterical about it because it was pretty hurly-burly there, we set a citizenship ceremony up on a particular night and all the people that could have been a concern went to that

IR: Yeah

SB: So we took the oxygen away from what that was about.

IR: Yeah. That also was an underlying - erm - philosophy of council which I found very - er - refreshing at the time. The council said that if it impacts on the Wyndham community we'll do something about it. If it doesn't well stay out of it, and - er - that meant like the East Timor thing was around and some councils were getting involved in that. As far as Wyndham was concerned it didn't impact on the Wyndham community. It's a federal matter. Leave it to the federal government.

SB: Yeah that's right.

IR: Stay out of it. One Nation federal matter until - erm - it was in Wyndham then you dealt with it as you saw fit. Then stayed out of it. And that was, I guess, a very strong message - er - for the senior staff and the staff generally of what council was really about.

Wyndham City Council filmed by John Martin, edited by Simon Baddeley on Vimeo.