What an interesting contrast in tone and tenor.
I’m talking about Sandra Summers, the Executive-Director of BACLA — Brockville and Area Community Living Association — and a media release that she put out this month as an update to her community on the current labour dispute between her agency and her workers represented by OPSEU Local 441.
Now, before I get all gushy here, let me preface my remarks by stating that Ms. Summers is an Executive-Director herself, meaning she’s management, which means she likely swims using the same practiced strokes her peers in the industry employ. So that said, nobody is saying here that she’s willing to roll over and accede to every request or demand tossed her way by the union.
But Lord-liftin’, her tone is decidedly different than the one on offer right here in Renfrew Town. And maybe those with legitimate suspicions might call bullshit, and maybe there’s an element of that in play, but if that’s the case, this bull-shit, in both degree and in smell, is much preferable to what we’ve been served up here in our own community.
There is no finger-pointing that I can discern, and the tone is much more positive, almost as if when she talks to her community “family” she’s including her own employees under that same umbrella.
Rather than telling her audience how concerned and thoughtful she is, her statement actually has the potential for people to actually believe her, because it does appear to come off the page genuinely. In short, she comes across as concerned and thoughtful. Also, she’s smart enough of a leader, and strong-enough as a leader to even make the attempt to come across as concerned and thoughtful. So if nothing else, I’d like to congratulate her on at least making the effort.
It’s almost as if she actually understands that she has to work with these people when all of this eventually gets settled, and it will, as soon as we’re done shaming the government into doing what they should have been doing all this time.
So whether it’s BS or not in the end, I still have to applaud her on her effort at inclusion, whereas here in Renfrew, the tactics and language appear to be much more confrontational and obstructionist.
Our local Board of Directors should take special note of this.
This Executive-Director, the one in Brockville, obviously feels comfortable enough to speak to her people this way, not as if they’re opponents or even enemies, but rather as people stuck in the same situation she herself remains trapped in: trying to find a just and honest solution in the face of a government that wants to run and hide behind the curtains.
Does showing this level of respect bring anyone any closer to an agreement? Sadly no, it doesn’t, as the gaps in the system are wide to bridge, made intentionally so by a government intent on creating a crisis in the sector of developmental care. A crisis they perpetrated through their intentional starvation of funding. As in choke off the funds, force managers to make things work as best they can with dangerously limited resources, then blame the union for making unreasonable demands. It’s a playbook that’s being followed by Executive-Directors and CEO’s right across the province.
But all that said, being nice can’t possibly hurt, right?
Some people will say a knife wound still hurts even if the guy with the knife is smiling while he sticks it in you, and yes, that’s more than true. But at least Sandra appears to be making the effort to diffuse the situation, rather than escalate it, and that to me is a sign of some decent management, although her peers might not like her so much the last couple of days.
Many of those other Executive-Directors seem to be taking the Joseph Stalin approach to negotiation, painting themselves as strong leaders willing to stand up to all the nonsense the union brings to the table. You get the sense they’d be content to relegate much of their unionized workforce to gulags in Siberia, except that’s far away, so a posting to the Dacre/Shamrock office will have to do
In my experience, strong people are strong people. And you can tell on your own without having to be told. As well, and also from my own experience, it’s only weak people who have to tell others how strong they are.
It may be nothing, and if it is something, it might amount to nothing much.
But to me, it’s a definite something. And if I’m being fooled by an Executive-Director teaching a master class in Machiavellian politics, then at least I’m being fooled by somebody who at least has the political sophistication to make the kind of effort necessary for such tom-foolery to be successful.
Maybe I’m naive, and I’ll definitely confess to being hopeful and an optimist — despite the cynicism collected through professional associations all through the years — but this outreach by this Executive-Director I see as helpful.
Or at the very least, not harmful.
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