Modelos de desarrollo agrícola

The CEOs see their values as the driving force behind their work. While they accept that a CEO must possess a range of management skills, as would any manager in the private sector, they see a greater purpose, a calling, to the work they do. They see no distinction between personal values and how they behave at work. They recognise that they have a role in modelling behaviour and values for their staff, councillors and the community.

managers must simply do their best to make the company profitable. For me, this is the fundamental difference between the private sector and the public. Management skills and knowledge are vital tools for the private sector manager to improve efficiency and profitability, since these are the primary driving forces. A CEO’s own values are either not relevant to the running of the business or are used to further that main aim. Values are put to use by the business in the pursuit of profit and the continued existence of the enterprise. In local government, in contrast, CEOs believe strongly that their role is about the achievement of social values such as fairness, justice, protection of the vulnerable through democracy, advocacy and developing community well being. All of their activities are directed towards these aims. Management tools are not vital, as they are in the private sector, but are taken up or not as they are useful and if required by other levels of government or the public. Whether the ideals of local government are enacted in the day-to- day and whether the CEO truly lives up to this ethos of service is not tested in this chapter. However, it is taken up in more detail when the experiences of the Glenview CEO are described inchapter 11.

Just as values-based management has become the catch-cry of business in the past five years, so local government and the public sector generally have also adopted a values approach to defining the work of the enterprise. Not only are personal values seen by CEOs as intrinsic to the way they do their job, but most local government authorities have also developed value statements that accompany their mission statements as part of the corporate planning and annual reporting process. Many authorities have long lists of values for which they stand. Articulating values associated with the work of local government, gives the organisation an opportunity to distinguish itself from profit-making enterprises. It could be a way to show the moral superiority of a service organisation.

Table 9.1 Examples of local government value statements

The City of Hume – Statement of Values7

Democracy Community Leadership

Diversity Access and equity

Advocacy Communication Sustainability Community partnerships Environment Staff development Efficiency and effectiveness

Customer service

City of Boroondara Values8

Transparency and accountability Proactive and innovative leadership

Alignment and consistency of decision making with council policy and direction Listening and responding to our community and sharing information with our

community

Sustainable and solution focussed outcomes A high level of professionalism

A caring and enterprising approach which will develop and instil values based on honesty, respect and equity

The two value statements in table 9.1 are included to show that the temptation is to list everything, to use jargon phrases and to include concepts without thinking through what a value may actually entail. Listening and responding to the community, for example, would seem more like a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. The meaning behind the lists of values is sometimes lacking, as is a recognition that the values may sometimes be in

7 _{City of Hume Corporate Plan 2003-2006.} 9_{City of Boroondara Council Plan 2002-2005.}

conflict in everyday applications. In some cases the values espoused are hard to grasp and hard to measure.

CEOs are aware that having values statements written down can be a double-edged sword. While they want to promote the ethos of service among staff and gain the support of the local citizenry for the ideals of service, they are aware that the organisation is more easily called to task when values are not enacted. This is especially the case when the list in many local authorities runs sometimes to 10 or 15 values.

Value statements have several inherent problems. Firstly, we seem to have difficulty naming values. We try to list anything and everything. We do not distinguish well between values and behaviours and we show no understanding in our lists that values may at times be in conflict with each other. Moreover merely writing them down, of course, does not mean that they will happen in practice. The other potential problem with value statements is that they can be used coercively on staff. This is especially true when performance appraisal and, therefore pay and promotion, is based on an assessment of the individual’s enacting of the stated values.

Several local authorities in Victoria have ‘second level’ plans relating to organisational values. By this I mean they believe that unless values are embedded in behaviours of staff they do not mean anything. They adopt a set of acceptable behaviours for staff, so that they know they are enacting a value. In 2002, the City of Knox developed a process in which annual appraisal of staff requires demonstration of the values and behaviours. This code of conduct has been a model for other local authorities.

The City of Knox has five key values (teamwork, innovation, integrity, enjoying work and service excellence). Staff at all levels are measured against behaviours under each value. An extract from Knox’s plan, showing how each staff level will be assessed on the ‘value’ of teamwork, is below in table 9.2.

Table 9.2 Values at the City of Knox

Value Staff Co-ordinators Managers Executives

Teamwork Work together to achieve shared team goals

Encourage and involve staff in setting team goals

Instil processes to reinforce strong culture of teamwork Act as a consistent and united leadership team

In addition, all staff levels are measured annually on satisfactory behaviour regarding each of the stated values. An extract from the plan, reproduced in table 9.3, shows how behaviours are demonstrated under the value of teamwork.

Figure 9.3 Measuring values at Knox9

Unsatisfactory Achieving Outstanding

Does not co-operate with others, blames others

Contributes to the team, deals with issues within the team

Puts the interests of the team before their own It is easy to imagine this regime causing considerable stress as staff members attempt to live up to the ideal behaviours and worry about how each will be measured and assessed. Each effectively requires a subjective and possibly arbitrary assessment by a superior. Yet this system is in place at Knox and applauded elsewhere.

As with the instance of the adoption of performance measures for senior management, some local authorities try to put values into practice, while some simply list the values and leave it at that. A few (two among my CEOs) do not think the exercise is worthwhile at all. My experience at Glenview, which I outline in the next chapter, suggests that staff see how senior managers behave as having more meaning than any statement of values. The incongruence of leader behaviour and stated values causes a ‘snicker factor’ (Clemmer 2005) in staff. A sly snicker behind the hand, the raised eyebrows and rolled eyes allow staff to express, in a hidden way, a sense of solidarity with each other and a sense of power. The snicker factor uses humour as a strategy to acknowledge, among themselves, that staff know

9_{Taken from Knox City Council – Values and Behaviours used with permission (Employee Relations, City of}

what is really going on when managers do not act in accordance with the values of the organisation. It would seem that the best test of whether an organisation lives its values is in the behaviour, day-to-day, of its leadership. This means that CEOs must embody and act according to the values of the organisation at all times. Clearly this is a high mountain to climb. By writing statements of value for the whole organisation, some responsibility for enacting values is, presumably, shared. Like a parent, however, the CEO is the role model of correct behaviour and expectations fall heavily upon her.

CEOs are not naive in their understanding that how they see their own behaviour at work may not be the way they are seen and understood by staff and other key players. While psychological terms such as ‘projection’ were not used in our interviews, CEOs show their awareness of the complexity of leading with integrity by describing the difference between espoused and enacted leadership as a ‘vexed question’ and a ‘constant battle’. They acknowledge that they must ‘walk the talk’ and commented on the loneliness of appearing to go back on their word when a compromise decision needs to be made. They strive to be good and selfless in their work and grieve when their view of themselves is not understood or is impaired by the behaviour of others.

Part of acknowledging the messiness of life is understanding that having a set of values does not protect one from the consequences of making a decision. Adhering to a value does not guarantee a correct decision will be made in a given instance. If a CEO seeks always to make the right choice, basing decisions on a value set, and fears a wrong choice could make her appear selfish or arrogant, then the CEO is open to capture by those very fears. A good leader needs an inner voice that helps to deal with the contradictions of decision-making power. A healthy CEO accepts that decisions are mixed and messy. Idealising values makes a CEO more open to manipulation. A CEO caught up in wanting always to do the right thing, may find herself open to attack from a persecutory super-ego. Others may manipulate this desire of the CEO to do good and appeal to her inflated desire to appear altruistic and honest at all times. A CEO in the grip of a persecutory super ego, needing good behaviour and good decisions at all times, is more open to being brought undone because of the need to deny any possibility of poor choices. This behaviour can also lead to the denial of values- based behaviour altogether, where it is easier, in the end, to believe the public sector is just as much about the bottom line as is the private sector.

Values are a central aspect of the task of the public sector organisation, but they need to liveable and achievable, and in their adoption, there needs to be an understanding that conflict and compromise form a part of life. A public sector organisation does not exist for the purpose of proselytising particular values – that may be the role of a church, perhaps – but values in the public sector are embedded in the task of the organisation. The public sector need not copy the private sector in writing ‘shopping lists’ of values, which are both hard to live up to and often contradictory in their application. This may well be done in the private sector to convince customers that there are values in the enterprise when such values are not immediately apparent (for example cigarette manufacturers).

Value statements are written in local government for varied reasons, some of which may have negative impacts on an organisation: they may be demoralising as they are too hard to live up to. They may be devoid of meaning as the idea is simply copied from the private sector model of a good corporate citizen. They may be used punitively – adopted to share the responsibility and, therefore, the blame when compromises are inevitably made. They may serve the purpose of denying the dark or unacknowledged parts of an organisation and may also be in place as a means of coercion – to control staff and ensure they are loyal by linking values to promotion. They may be the outward manifestation of a CEO’s unhealthy desire to be seen as always upholding the right course of action. Alternatively, they may be the result of a backlash against the intrusion of business practices into the public sector – an attempt to display moral superiority.

While local government organisations do well to debate and explore the ethos of service, generating lists of values will foreclose this process, not facilitate it. Staff are usually well aware of the purpose of the organisation and look to their leaders for guidance on how to implement the ethos of service. The CEO carries the values of the organisation in her day- to-day actions and must be aware of this aspect of her authority. A good CEO sees values as expressing the aspirations of the organization, not as strict rules to dominate behaviour and create feelings of guilt and failure. The primary task of local government is to provide democracy and service to its community.