The Reality Test by Robert Rowland Smith

Author:Robert Rowland Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2013-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

26

DOES YOUR ORGANISATION FACE UPWARDS, INWARDS OR OUTWARDS?

By some way my most unusual consulting assignment was with the Catholic Church of England and Wales. It came about not because I’m a Catholic (I’m not) but, as is so often the case, through word of mouth. I was asked to carry out a review of the Catholic Communications Service, a small office responsible for press releases, website materials, publications, and relationships with the media. Why the review? Because at that time, in the early 2000s, when barely a day seemed to go by without fresh allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, the Church’s reputation was at an all-time low. Looking at how it handled its public response was therefore seen as a matter of urgency.

Much of what I discovered during the course of the review remains too confidential to disclose, but what I think I can convey in clear conscience is what in any case is in the public domain. Apart from an annual conference of bishops, meaningful dialogue within the Church seemed a rare event. Not surprising, perhaps, if you consider that dialogue is a horizontal activity that takes place among peers, whereas by definition the Catholic Church is a vertical organisation constitutionally based, like a physical church, on looking up. Up towards God, that is. This vertical axis would always trump any horizontal dialogue; what ultimately mattered was a given bishop’s relationship to the divine, not to his peers. Indeed, although the Catholic Church of England and Wales has a leading figure in the Archbishop of Westminster, and the global Roman Church in the Pope, it is understood that neither is a boss in any organisational sense. No one reports to them. They are just figureheads, because in the grand scheme of things there’s only one authority to be respected, and He stands a considerable way above it all.

You don’t have to be a church, incidentally, to be upwards-facing. I would describe the Civil Service in similar terms. Despite many attempts at reform, aimed to get it focusing more on the ‘customer’, i.e. the public, the reality is that civil servants take their marching orders from ministers, and this always forces the external gaze towards the customer upwards towards Westminster. But yes, of course, the Catholic Church is an upwards-facing organisation, naturally. The consequence, however, of looking up was that it didn’t look down at what was going on under its nose.

What could be a greater contrast with the Catholic Church than a media company that produces prime-time TV programmes? Although my consulting assignment with this company lasted a mere three months, it was long enough for me to bracket it among the outwards-facing. Consider its core business: making TV programmes. You soon realise when you hang around TV executives that what really exercises them is the audience ratings. This company got all its energy, all its revenue ultimately, from its shows being looked at; and it looked at how it was looked at. It is in the business of seeking affirmation, of looking outwards.

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