Interpersonal relations

In management in particular and in social sciences in general, interpersonal relations is a useful research area, dating back to the late eighteenth century and involving a pantheon of top-drawer researchers and astute practitioners. Commanding high visibility and respectability, incidence and spread, interpersonal relations in public sector workplaces deserves some probing in Bangladesh.
Historical antecedents -- colonial/vestigial forces, imperially-transplanted central superior services, elitism and esprit de corps in the centralised services, training curricula, socialization patterns, selection, recruitment and training practices, status distinction, exclusivism and seniority provision -- have had, and continue to have, profound and far-reaching influence for long. Many factors and forces contribute to the extant interpersonal relations, as it is in evidence in the country's widespread and sprawling public sectors. The tradition of paternalism, patronage, superior-subordinate relationships, respect for authority, deference to superiors, seniority rule, extensive hierarchy, centralisation, concentration, high approval need, fault-finding culture, blemish game-playing, extensive paperwork/documentation fetish, traditional filework and filing procedures and so on continually as well as varyingly bear on interpersonal relations.
The nature and direction of workplace interpersonal relations mirrors, to a greater or lesser extent, the larger society's social stratification, status distinction, ascriptive ties, particularistic values, and parochial focus. Neither remarkable nor surprising, the public sector community is a subsystem within the larger and more heterogeneous social formation, both blending into, reinforcing and reciprocating each other.
Putting in somewhat mildly, interpersonal relations at work has been and continues to be vertical. This has a great deal of implications. Middle management and support-level employees are seemingly deferential to top management, while grumbling, bickering and cursing behind their back. This, of course, does not preclude occasional slanging or shouting matches, vocal onslaughts, shoving, pushing, fist fights, and assaults. Such "formalisation" of staff relations and dynamics does not serve much useful purpose, except preserve the traditional social order and organisational hierarchy.
Research evidence, especially of the crosscultural management genre, shows that excessive vertical staff relations inhibits openness and free, frank and fearless exchange of views and perceptions, does not allow for genuine and authentic interpersonal and inter group communication, staff members tend to remain stiff, defensive, passive and reactive, duplicity and hypocrisy are not unknown, transactions tend to remain ulterior and crossed, and stress, tension and distrust seep through international relations. Nor does verticalisation allow for much horizontal and diagonal interaction and communication, thus diminishing programme and project management in a noticeable way.
Relations can be, and, far too often, are bad, unpleasant, ugly and outright hostile. Organizational life for some employees can be sour, tense and essentially, unproductive. When relations go bad -- and there are several signs of relational deterioration -- the affected personnel may avoid cooperation, shun interaction and communication, stay at home if it is feasible, and indulge in malingering and absenteeism. All these and other dynamics can come to pass if and when personnel can get away with such propensities without having to face questions or pay costs.
Further research on programme evaluation and project management copiously suggests that in these challenging days and times of interactive world dynamics, bureaucratised vertical communication and traditionalised interpersonal relations fail to spur work and work readiness, relieve wasteful tension, correct lapses and errors, save times and costs, reduce conflict, confrontation and polarisation, mitigate dispute, settle disagreement, reduce differences and stress commonalities, create and sustain collegiality, understanding and partnering, promote coexistence, collegiality and sharing, and enhance problem-solving capacity.
One of the most pathological aspects of stressed and strained workplace interpersonal relations is the distrust, mistrust and misgiving that, at times, characterise minister- personnel relations. The relation can be distant, bitter and acrimonious, fuelled by deep-seated partisanship, divisive ideology, competing loyalty and personality squabbles. Sullenness deepens a blemish and defeatist culture of gossip, rumour, innuendo, equivocation and deviousness takes root, and an insidious cat and mouse game unfolds.
Related to this fracture at the top of the public sector organisations is the clear weakness of task-oriented team-building. Since work teams and effective groups cannot be effectively sustained with all the weaknesses around, or maintained ceremonially but remain basically ineffective and wobbly, this results in substantial capacity and synergy loss, resource loss, dislocation, and disarticulation. Not surprisingly, such loss may not only dampen morale and heighten creative angst, capable personnel are unlikely to reach or realise their analytical and managerial potential. If and when such loss occurs, it has multivariate and unintended consequences.
Conflicted interpersonal relations at work, in the final analysis, may, and often does, exacerbate performance, productivity, and output generation and delivery. We may not always be alert to the baneful short-term or long-term effects of personnel not getting along with each other, the group dynamics not working at all or well, employees tend to get and remain picky and fractious, relaxed or nonchalant attitude toward work, performance and productivity may linger, and organisational underperformance persists. One may be casual toward bad relations and its consequences. That is where sloppiness creeps in, resulting, among other things, in a counterproductive us-them divide. We should not forget that relations are not only relations, but also the bedrock of focused organisation-building and success-enhancing work culture.

The writer was Professor of Public Sector Management, University of the West Indies. Email: [email protected]