THE POLITICS OF BUREAUCRATIC SYSTEMS

Mickey Skidmore, AMHSW, ACSW

As a 40 year practitioner of Social Work, I have long been aware of my struggles and short-comings in navigating large bureaucratic organisational systems. As I’ve gotten older, I may have endured or even had some marginal success in my improved strategies of coping and managing the challenges inherent in such organisations, but time and again, I found myself at the same place over and over. 

Time and again, when I hit that wall, after cutting through all the junk, I am still left with two primary options: identifying reasonably healthy strategies that might enable me to “survive” (i.e. tolerate) within such systems; or voting with my feet and choose to walk away. Such a choice — between personal and professional integrity and the ability to earn a living is for many an unfair (“golden handcuffs”) choice that leave many feeling trapped.

I have reflected on this a great deal over the years. I find it quite ironic that as a Social Worker, I am trained to assess and understand systemic dysfunction; and (presumably) have a skill-set to affect change from within the system. Yet, rather than moving the needle in any meaningful way in many of my previous opportunities, despite this training and ability, I still found myself hitting the wall. I was recently discussing this with a colleague, who suggested that this may not be a professional short-coming as I have labelled it. He assured me that this happens to many of us along the way.

This past year, I think I have begun to stumble upon a nuanced understanding about this. At least perhaps it may be a partial explanation. But I’m not sure why over the course of 40 years this did not come to my awareness sooner. The type of organisational systems I am referring too might be like county governments in the USA or something along the lines of NSW Health as examples. It occurred to me that I have been engaging these systems with certain assumptions  — namely that that they were large healthcare systems. However, my lightbulb realisation is that these are not healthcare systems at all. Rather they are inherently political systems masquerading to the public as healthcare networks.

What is the importance of this distinction you might ask? The assumptions underlying my experience, knowledge and training from my Social Work education would depend on a certain (logical) framework of principles and approaches lending themselves to healthcare issues. The reason I believe I have not had more success in these domains is that applying these principles of logic to a political system would not work because they do not apply to political frameworks. Politics operates on its own set of logic that depends on which way the political winds shift, or the whims of which party happens to be in power in any given election cycle — or frankly, corruption. Despite a recognition that the roll of power is crucial to the outcomes within bureaucratic systems, I am not well prepared in the specifics or nuances of political logic that governs such systems. Thus, it has been inevitable that I have hit the wall — time and again.

Perhaps another way to make sense of this is to recognise that in preparing students for Social Work practice we may not be as adept in our recognition of the role that politics plays within the systems within an individual’s eco-map. In my 40 years of practice I have come to accept that politics is part and plays a part of each and every aspect of human living and all of their institutions (i.e. governments; religions; organisations; families; and community development). Perhaps Social Work education needs to bolster their understanding and knowledge base regarding the role, the logic and the underlying dynamics of politics and its influence on (organisational) systems. 

In other words, it would seem to serve the Social Work profession well if it better acknowledged and embraced the reality that politics is part of the human experience. As we acknowledge the premise in conflict theory that “conflict is inevitable”; and as the first premise of Buddhism accepts that “life is suffering”; the Social Work profession would be wise to affirm the notion that politics is an unavoidable dynamic in all aspects of the human condition.

Like many of us, I am a fan of the work of Brene Brown. I know she has worked with the leadership of many large bureaucratic organisations in many parts of the world. I wonder if she would confirm any of these speculations or what other feedback she might offer about these preliminary observations and theories. Perhaps she would simply confirm my original premise, that this is simply an ironic blind-spot or short-coming in my professional practice, that despite 40 years still requires considerably more effort on my part to addressing this in a more successful manner.

Despite considerable reflection on this over many years, I still find my internal rumblings of professional integrity runs quite deep. Perhaps due to my age, the cognitive pathways in my brain are more fixed and less malleable. Despite finding myself hitting the wall again and again, and paying a price for choosing integrity over corruption or injustice, and speaking truth to power, I find myself feeling a sense of solidarity with the values of professional journalism, which as I understand to primarily be:

-Shining a light to bear witness to (social) injustice.

-Holding power to account.

-Recognising that in most cases we are all better when different perspectives from all sides of an argument or position are included and considered.

I recently said to a colleague that “it shouldn’t be so hard to be true to yourself.” And even though it can be difficult at times, I still find it difficult to walk away from these values and choose an easier  or simpler path. Perhaps this is the unspoken challenge for many professional Social Workers.