(This started in the Car Parking debate, then I thought of moving to the FOI thread, and then the SW Townhall discussion, but it seems most reasonable to have a generic thread targeting the concept of the townhalls and the feelings about the national meetings as they occur. Tomorrow is the day of the first one, after all!)
You’re agreeing with us on this one. This is exactly the point that has been made by many already, but this isn’t the part that is within our control to change.
You’ve made a number of references to this, but the situation is far more complex and nuanced than this. Where I’m about to make sweeping generalisations there is an underlying understanding that there will have been exceptions or it not being a total norm.
Senior leadership, both on the paid and in some cases the uniformed side, act very much from a controlling parent state and never even exhibit anything resembling nurturing (which could have its place in our situation) or willingness to engage as adults.
I don’t believe that every reaction from a CFAV then falls squarely into child and feel that the majority probably don’t; there will be those on both sides of adapted (where some of the more bone FOI requests come from and then also those that blindly accept).
A good amount of if not the majority of CFAV attempt or at least initially attempted to react in an adult fashion - wanting to understand, gain more information, look for logical pathways to answers or resolutions, and have an open and fair discussion. Many will have attempted to use the CoC or other available mechanisms (such as VOP) to ask reasonable questions or make requests for further information. When those reasonable attempts are not welcomed, more rebels have been bred.
If you route-cause the issue and look at the power dynamic, the onus isn’t on CFAV to improve the comms from leadership to mitigate the negative fallout. That’s not how leadership works - our organisation’s leaders haven’t shifted (towards grater obscurity) in response to the actions of CFAV (challenges and FOI), but the other way around.
Again looking at the power dynamic we can even look slightly away from traditional leadership based transactional analysis and consider something like the Betari Box Model (albeit in slightly skewed setting from its usual usage) and consider this as a conflict resolution:
If you start the cycle from the receipt of policy or information, from a position of no to little power or influence, CFAV in adult states have attempted to understand things rationally and have behaved in a reasonable way to do so, but been rebuffed by controlling parents.
The power to change this cycle lies with those in leadership. Their attitude towards CFAV and communication needs to change, as does the accompanying leadership style employed. It feels very much like your view is targeting CFAV as being the catalyst for the ego state shift, but we have knowledge of the history where our influence on this has been zero while trying to act reasonably.
Hopefully the townhalls will be at least part of the mindset changes required on both sides. It represents the biggest change in attitude and action I’ve seen from senior leadership and if they are allowed to develop well enough, will put the onus on CFAV to also change.
As an action, these townhalls are generally being accepted as a good thing by open minds, but we’re yet to see the full evidence of whether there is a genuine attitude change behind these more open behaviours from the big bar codes. I think for some at least, the required attitude change may be yet to come, and they’ve jumped into the behaviour part of the cycle. If CFAV continue to react positively, maybe these attitudes will soften more broadly and we’ll see even better changes to behaviour.
BUT, that is of course caveated with these new actions being meaningful. Right now the goal is simply to stem the flow of FOI requests, so there is going to be a little bit of chicken and egg with meaningful, open comms vs a shift from stop FOIs to doing it because it’s right.
This could mean that initially the townhalls will be more tentative, and perhaps not everything that CFAV are looking for or the full paradigm shift required, but if both sides allow the time and accept a reasonable fault margin during this initial phase, we’ll get those adult-adult conversations.
CFAV need to accept it won’t be perfect and we won’t get everything, those hosting need to accept that it will take time and effort to win people - and that there will always be a few rebellious children regardless.
There is a lot of history and frustration here that needs to be broken through so this isn’t an instant fix for either side, but if our leaders throw in the towel too soon or don’t relax into the process to realise the potential of sincere and open communication and discussion, it is far more doomed to fail than if a minority of CFAV stay rowdy.
With that said, who’s looking forward to tonight?
), but will only add that my sense is that, for the majority, lack of acceptance of change is through lack of understanding more than simple rebellion. A communications failure, as you say, but the seemingly embedded (historical) attitude/view of those in leadership positions is that all challenges and questions are rebellious and those asking should be taking everything at face value with a kind “because I said so” demeanour.
