PART I: Opening
Chapter 5. The view from the Middle: Better safe than sorry
Whereas top managers tend to approach innovation as tools or techniques to protect from external liability and assure internal discipline and control, the concerns and practices of middle managers tend to be governed by slightly different dynamics.
The middle layer of the hierarchy is most frequently perceived as the so-called
‘Rockwool layer’, as referred to earlier by the National Commissioner, what some rank and files call ‘the middle manager wall’ (mellemleder muren), or ‘concrete ceiling’ (betonloftet); these designations reflect the fact that middle managers more or less intentionally isolate top management from what is happening and emerging from lower levels of the organization while also functioning as a buffer for top-down initiatives.
This section explores the concerns and privileges that reveal the dynamics at play as middle managers engage with innovation and creative initiatives in different ways.
I especially focus on the concerns of middle managers to effectuate new strategic concepts and initiatives and to promote their personal careers, which are important
in this context because they shape how middle managers view and deal with innovation and creativity; also, these issues are echoed down the ranks, thereby influencing what is initiated and shared and what is not, as we will later see in the second empirical part of the thesis.
As the intermediate layer between the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ of the organization, hierarchy grants middle managers the power to select between ideas that are suggested from their staff; also, because of the ways that the hierarchy urges them to prioritize time, resources and align with what is being announced top-down, middle managers find themselves left with little room to support and facilitate
‘bottom-up’ innovation.
“Play it safe and keep your trolls inside their box”
Middle managers are constantly balancing a range of concerns from their superiors and subordinates while also managing daily tasks. Particularly in the aftermath of the 2007 reform, a flood of new initiatives and regulations have been produced by political and centralized departments in the National police, including the performance and educational demands mentioned earlier, new concepts and technologies of management, demands for more qualified documentation, restructuring of departments and work procedures, etc.
Much time and effort is spent on figuring out how to ‘digest’ new top-down concepts and regulations, which often consist of generic ideals created in settings other than the police, such as ‘Leadership Pipeline’ and performance measurement systems.
As a result of the turbulent and sometimes hard-to-apply top-down initiatives, some middle managers do not associate innovation with something positive. To
them, innovation is at best a euphemism, a ‘dressing up’ of a steady rain of top-down initiatives landing on their shoulders and making life more difficult for them and their staff rather than easier or better.
When asked to demonstrate what innovation means to them, middle managers would point to methods and techniques for translating and effectuating top-down demands and expectations to “massage new stuff from the top into the heads of our staff”, as one middle manager from a police district expresses it.
Examples of what middle managers regard as innovation also include ‘bottom-up’
creative maneuvers that translate operational concerns and needs into other organizational domains. In this relation, middle managers sometimes lobby for permission to run projects or pilot projects to develop and test ideas and solutions at the local level which they know will otherwise get killed by administrators and lawyers who do not face the same tasks or needs for innovation of certain police practices as they do.
But whereas top managers’ primary concerns tend to center around overall strategic and political means of legitimating their initiatives, middle managers do not necessarily have access to what top managers know. As we just learned from looking at the perspectives and privileges of top managers, ‘knowledge is power’
as middle managers often say, and strategic information is often jealously guarded until managers find the best time and setting to share their knowledge strategically.
Much could be written on the politics of knowledge in the police setting. Of particular relevance to innovation is that middle managers often have to ‘listen to the water pipes’ (lytte på vandrørene), i.e. sniff out information through their
personal ‘informal network’ (see also chapter 8), and ‘turn on the radar’ (tænde for radaren) in order to sense whether the timing is right for a new suggestion.
I will now present the paranoia of the middle manager and how it works as a disciplinary art of governing police in the face of innovation.
At the middle strata of the hierarchy, paranoia and uncertainty discipline middle managers by individualizing concerns about their personal careers. Most middle managers are afraid to ‘step on the toes of the wrong person’ (træde den forkerte over tæerne) and thereby risk being ‘put out in the cold’ (sat ud i kulden) or ‘left out of the row of numbers’ (sat udenfor nummer), expressions that refer to the more or less subtle promotion procedures in the police.
For example, in response to the 2007 police reform, a police manager from one of the police districts wrote an opinion piece for a newspaper stating that the police reform made it possible for more qualified managers to access managerial positions in the police. When his superiors heard about the article they ordered him to withdraw it, but it was too late as it was already in print. He was transferred to a position at the other end of the country and it took him years to work himself back into a career track.
Thus, the paranoia of the middle manager is not purely fabricated; many practices are actually being carried out to discipline and manage police staff and encourage them to keep their critical opinions and creative ideas to themselves or at least not present them to the public without clearing it along the line of command.
Internal critics and whistleblowers can be silenced through direct or indirect threats to their career and reputation and by cultural emphasis on loyalty to ‘the system’, i.e. political and personal concerns of ‘looking good to the outside’ (se
godt ud udefra), which some managers value more than actually handling tasks through open debate.
The paranoia manifests itself down the ranks in that middle managers do not want to get in trouble if they or their staff becomes unpopular in the eyes of an internal or external audience. In an interview, a middle manager very tellingly passed on the advice to “play it safe and keep your trolls inside their box” (du skal spille de sikre kort og holde dine jokere nede i æsken).
This manager is referring to the way he sometimes experiences the need to silence some of his subordinates, for example at meetings with other internal and external partners, since most cops are perceived of by managers as very ‘action oriented’
(handlingsorienteret); this means that they often act according to their own perception and analysis of situations rather than what looks good further up the system, to collaborators or in the local media. In cross-sector meetings about crime-prone youth, for example, public authorities are forbidden from sharing sensitive personal information about the young people they work with such as their social security numbers. Some police officers may forget this restriction when giving their power-point presentations, and this upsets the other authority representatives. In chapter 8 we also get an idea about the sorts of trolls that need to be kept in their box as I discuss the ways that certain appeals of the job of policeman may invite bullies and crusaders to cross the line beyond what their audience considers to be proper behavior.
According to street cops, those middle managers who have never worked ‘on the street’ or who have been administrators for some time are operating ‘from the wrong side of the desk’, meaning that they are at a remove from the detailed dynamics involved with everyday operational and investigative police work. This
means that they often become anxious and insecure when confronted with difficult and ‘dirty’ police tasks, which sometimes involve confrontations with the ‘dark side of society’ (samfundets mørke side), as a police officer put it, such as when police fight drugs, prostitution and organized crime.
Together with knowledge, the ‘anxiety level’ of ‘control freak’ managers is said to rise according to the number of stars on their shoulders. A dog patrol officer described his easy-to-trigger manager as ‘anxiety biting’ (angstbider), a term that is also used about dogs that are unpredictable and dangerous because they might suddenly snap and bite you if they get scared. Other terms that subordinates use to warn each other about anxious middle managers are ‘house mouse’ (husmus),
‘spoilsport’ (lyseslukker) and someone who is ‘wearing belt and braces’ (går med livrem og seler).
On the other hand, managers who have ‘been in the trenches’ (har været med i skyttegraven) know what police work is like and are generally viewed as supporting the sometimes spontaneous and creative means of policing (see also chapter 7). When these middle managers stand up for an initiative that has been suggested by their team members and push for an agenda of legitimization, they are sometimes viewed as ‘street boys’ (gadedrenge) by other managers, who do not share the same concerns or needs for action. However, those managers who are familiar with and respect ‘the rules of the game’ (spillets regler) across different organizational domains are generally well thought of as being able to facilitate ideas and communicate suggestions up and down the chain of command.
While there are few such managers who have mastered different arenas, those who have are often surrounded by a herd of creative and informal followers who use the manager as a ‘protector’ (this English expression is in fact being used by
police officers) for their creative agendas. I will elaborate this dynamic further in part two of the empirical analysis.
The paranoia of the middle managers about being under managerial surveillance and exposed to subtle disciplinary methods mirrors how they perceive expectations regarding their own management style.
This was illustrated at a seminar for a group of managers in a police district where I was invited to give a talk about innovation. By the end of my talk a high-ranking middle manager raised his hand and said:
“Maybe we should demonstrate a greater amount of trust in our employees.
Maybe we could give away some control?”
“Okay, and isn’t it interesting how the title ‘inspector’ actually reflects the idea that managers in the police inspect and control their subordinates? If we were to rethink the name of this title in a way that would signal more trust down the ranks, what could that be?” I ask.
The room is quiet for some time, until the same manager once again raises his hand and answers:
“Vice police inspector!”
The others crack up and one of the managers jokes: “Oh, it’s really uphill for us, you see?”
Of course, the title ‘Vice police inspector’ is already in use (in English the title would correspond to Deputy Chief). But what the vignette tells us is how the manager cannot think of a way to escape or move beyond the sphere of bureaucracy and control to which he is subjected himself. Apparently there are
some things that cannot be changed, at least not from the perspective of these managers. Or it might have been a way for them to remind me that I was touching upon a subject that is sensitive to them, since ranks come with well-established privileges that are being sustained and protected by the managers.
The notion to ‘play it safe and keep one’s trolls inside their box’ is thus hierarchically produced and sustained through different disciplinary mechanisms of power in the police.
‘Waiting for Godot’
Many hopeful suggestions for developing, purchasing or organizing new things seem to get stuck when passed on by subordinates to middle managers.
In one department, I came across an ironic expression of the characteristic inertia involved with middle-layer processing of suggestions, namely that the middle managers are ‘waiting for Godot’ (venter på Godot). This refers to the title of the tragicomic play written by Samuel Beckett and premiered in 1953. The play stages two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who throughout the play wait for a person named Godot who never appears. It is a story about apathetic hope and how to pass time in situations where there is actually no hope.
In an interview a middle manager explains how well he understands the resignation among subordinates when decisions or feedback regarding their suggestions drags on:
“My men and colleagues keep sharing new stuff with me that they want to develop or buy; I send it back and forth, up and sideways. At some point you get the same
suspicion as your men: does anything happen at all? But as a manager you have to have faith in the system and you can’t just let things be the way they are.”
While suggestions from their staff await a response from middle managers or others further up the line of command for approval, middle managers have to try to figure out where to address the suggestion inside the National police and how to coordinate it with ongoing initiatives, analysis or strategies elsewhere in the organization. Legal questions, union concerns, timing, unclear responsibilities, resource allocation, and power games are among the classical issues that eventually shelve ideas and drag out decisions.
Rather than being actively qualified or coordinated with existing solutions, new ideas are often simply frozen because of the limited maneuvering room of middle managers within an organization where a manager moving up the ranks has to constantly ‘watch your back’ (dække din ryg).
Middle managers’ requests to innovate on behalf of their staff might easily end up as ‘political bait’ (politisk føde) for union representatives or competitive career-oriented managers known among the rank and file as ‘star warriors’
(stjernekrigere), who won’t pass up any chance to win more stars for their shoulders, i.e. to move up the ranks at their competitors’ expense.
This is explained in the following quote from a police middle manager as she advises me about how to sneak an idea past middle management: “some of them [the middle managers] just want to shoot down everything that moves and differs because it demonstrates their power, so you must never expose your throat to someone you don’t trust.”
The advice to ‘never expose your throat’ refers to an ever looming paranoia among police that a potential competitor or somebody ‘who has got something on you’ will strike at the slightest opportunity to taunt your moves.
One safe way for middle managers to engage with innovation that is rarely contested by those higher up in the ranks is by means of mere rhetoric, or what police officers and other employees describe as ‘pseudo-projects’. By only mimicking strategic intent and calling some of their initiatives ‘innovation’, regardless whether these initiatives are actually new or really make a difference, some middle managers get away with persuading others that they are using new politically correct methods, technology, and other innovations. They make their way up the career ladder without having to prove that their rhetoric is actually being implemented, since professionally conducted evaluations of the practical impact of such initiatives tend to be considered unnecessary.
Even promises to evaluate interventions and new means of policing often end up evaporating or stuck at the desk of national police employees who are constantly being told by their department management to be really careful about making critical remarks, since they also have to watch their backs and nurse relations throughout the organization.
To those further down the ranks, these processes often lack transparency and do not offer much hope or appeal for posting ideas through the line of command.
Middle managers who are known to advocate for their staff’s needs and suggestions for innovative solutions, are regarded by subordinates as particularly
‘brave’ or are assigned other positive identification markers. But it is important to note here that many middle managers put greater effort into fighting for
suggestions and concerns at meeting where their staff does not participate, so they do not always know about the struggles that have taken place.
However, given the intensity of competition among those who are eager to move up the ranks, innovation might also work as a positive career move, despite its potential adverse consequences if you fail. As we will now see, middle managers have the privilege of choice between those ideas that will potentially make them and their superiors look good and those that will not.
The power to select
Due to the pyramidal hierarchy, middle managers become gatekeepers for knowledge and ideas running up and down the chain of command. They are granted the task - and privilege - of selecting and translating demands, expectations and wishes for new initiatives emerging from superiors and subordinates.
Not even a strategic intent to invite ideas from all levels of the organization can compensate for the fact that innovation has thus become a hierarchically embedded matter in the police. The middle strata work to ensure that everything proceeds according to the plans, expectations and responsibilities of top management.
Therefore, how middle managers select among their staff’s creative inventions is a responsibility that comes with the duty to spare top managers from what they would consider to be bad ideas and no-go solutions. The powers arising from this privilege of choice are worth considering when it comes to understanding innovation and creativity in the police.
Those who post their suggestions to their managers know only that their suggestions are being processed by legal experts through ‘paragraph riding’ (i.e.
purely legal processing in Danish known as paragrafrytteri) as police officers call it, by managers responsible for the budget or some centralized department either in the national police or a police district. Often the process is nontransparent and those who originally came up with the suggestion become anonymous. As a middle manager explains: “It is as though, once you submit your suggestion, it is swallowed by a black hole, and you will never be able to find out whether it is stranded or is actually getting processed somewhere”.
However, union representatives, are sometimes very active in their efforts to influence the approval or disapproval of new creative suggestions. This is an area of union politics - and a uniquely influential role for a union at least in comparison to other professional areas – by which it can demonstrate its power and legitimacy to its members. It should be noted, however, that younger police officers I talked to especially consider such demonstrations of union influence as barriers to development and modern task performance.
So sometimes the discussions arising around the proposal of new initiatives move beyond professional judgment and into the sphere of power demonstrations and personal motives. As a middle manager, you may owe a person some goodwill; or the opposite might be the case. As one middle manager once told me after telling me that he just got a formally proposed suggestion from a person he didn’t personally approve of: “I pulled the old, well-known trick on him. I responded to him politely saying: “oh, this is a great idea! I will have someone in my department look at that!” [simulating enthusiasm] And then I leave it hanging there to dry”.
Thus the arguments and processes governing middle managers’ selection among ideas and new initiatives depend on the mood, approach, professional background, competencies etc. of the individual manager. Although top down innovation processes do sometimes include frontline police officers and others who are believed to know about the matter being developed, the bottom-up selection processes usually do not involve any formalized or qualifying assessment committee processes before being handed over to the decision processes by top managers.
The lack of resources (i.e. time, competences relevant for understanding, facilitating and translating suggestions from staff) is compensated for by the personal hunches and interests of middle managers.
Also, the non-transparency of the formal ‘infra-structure’ of innovation in the Danish police makes it hard for member of the rank and file and for middle managers to formally find the relevant people that can help qualify their suggestion and the decision making process. After years of major reform-minded changes in the police districts and the national police, this non-transparency and uncertainty about whom to contact, seems be improving, and responsibilities are constantly in the process of being negotiated and clarified.
Another mechanism through which bottom-up suggestions are being chosen at the middle-layer of the hierarchy is the filtration that happens as middle managers try and adapt suggestions to the standard documentation procedures, language codes and guessing about what top management might have on its mind.
In an interview, a project middle manager who has worked close to top management in the national police for many years, reflects on how she managed to