Roskilde Festivals ledelse og organisering – Sp?ndinger mellem beskrevne og levede v?rdier

Dette er femte artikel af den r?kke af artikler, hvor jeg beskriver min forskning hos Roskilde Festival, fokuseret omkring min analyse, som prim?rt omhandler sp?ndinger og paradokser i organisering og ledelse.

Hvis du vil l?se en beskrivelse af min PhD, hvilket er f?rste artikel i serien, s? f?lg linket her: [link]

Hvis du vil l?se introduktionen til paradoxes of performing, hvilket de beskrevne sp?ndinger i denne artikel er en del af, s? f?lg linket her: [link]

Nedenst?ende er p? engelsk, da det er klippet ud af min PhD-analyse med blot et minimum af bearbejdning (prim?rt er det blevet forkortet), da disse artikler gerne skal kunne l?gges op p? LinkedIn uden en stor m?ngde arbejde. Citaterne er dog p? dansk, da de endnu ikke er blevet oversat til engelsk - s? et stort herligt miskmask er det! :)

Tensions between officially espoused values and implicit or informal values

As seen in the previous article?[link], the managers experience tensions between a plurality of official values (often espoused as part of strategic ambitions), as well as between official strategy and their lived organisational reality. Tensions also arise when officially espoused values and strategy are juxtaposed with informal or implicit values. The group of middle managers repeatedly return to the tension between economy on one hand and a plurality of values on the other hand:

Ja, og n?r vi tager til det her kick-off hvert ?r p? festvalen ”hvad er det vi vil?”. Der bliver ikke sagt penge. Jo, der bliver sagt at give et overskud til velg?renhed osv., osv., men der bliver snakket om at skabe plads og mangfoldighed og oplevelser og derudaf, ikke. Og s? er det bare supersv?rt at st? et sted, hvor at det ikke er dét, du bliver m?lt p?, men […] de vil gerne have penge. Og det kan jeg godt forst?, s? det er ikke fordi, at vi ikke skal lave penge. Det er bare et sv?rt sted at st? i festivalen. S? det var s?dan problematisk […] at give videre til vores frivillige, hvor vi siger, at vi s?tter nogle klare rammer for dem, ”I skal lave s? og s? mange penge”; de bliver virkeligt skarpt holdt op mod nogle budgetter. Men deres motivation er jo ogs? at lave en fed festival. S? hvordan balancerer man de to ting?

Frivillig leder, mellemlederniveau

It is understood that the overall strategic goal of the festival organisation is to hand out the economic surplus of the festival in order to fulfil the purpose of the organisation, but in their experience, it is not economic value which is in focus at official meetings. The focus is here on several other values, but these values are not prioritised when it comes to their experienced reality – there is a disconnect between espoused values and values in action (Cha & Edmondson, 2006; Howell et al., 2012). They find that what is espoused and what is expected are two different things, and a lot of what is expected from you as a volunteer manager is not said out loud, and can only be learned by being socialised into the organisation:

Jeg tror s?dan, at helt igennem vores snak her, s? blev det det her ”oplevelse vs. ?konomi”, hvis vi bare skal kalde det det, eller s?dan? Det er ligesom, at det blev tydeligt for mig, at der er forskel p?, hvad man ligesom, itales?tter, og hvad man s? forventer. Fordi det er noget andet, der bliver forventet… og der bliver sikkert ogs? forventet oplevelse, mangfoldighed og alle de her ting her, men […] det jeg oplever, det er, at der er noget, som bliver italesat og noget andet, der bliver forventet.

Frivillig leder, mellemlederniveau

There is an understanding that what is said might not be what is meant and that things that are not given official weight can be more important than the officially espoused values and the accompanying strategic ambitions. This understanding may result in official values being under-prioritised or neglected by the middle managers if they do not encounter managers higher up the chain of command, that enforce them or inspire towards aligning with them (Howell et al., 2012; Malba?íc et al., 2018). The divisional managers from the Urban Planning & Production-division recount an experience, where a head of another division comments on the new strategic plan, which the Executive Directors and the Board has just put the finishing touches on, in a way that they experience as a total disregard of the plan as a whole:

Leder 1: […] tidligere p? ugen havde de jo haft bestyrelsesm?de og sat hj?rneflag p? strategien.

Leder 2: [The Head of another division]’s kommentar var, at ”det er ikke sv?rere end at vi kan arbejde os uden om det” (griner).

Leder 1: Det er jo ogs? Roskilde (griner).

Leder 2: Det er ogs? Roskilde (griner).

Frivillig leder, Divisionsledelsen, Byplan og Produktions-divisionen?

The divisional managers laugh at this and say, “this too, is Roskilde”, using humour to laugh at the absurdity of the statement. Encountering paradoxical tensions and reacting to them as being absurd, was a response I met often during my time in the organisation, especially if the situation spanned different levels of management or different units of the organisation, for example when crossing divisional lines. I interpreted this as the perspective and meaning, shared by one group, coming into conflict with another, but where both perspectives must be understood to be true, even though they were perceived as contradictory, thereby invoking notions of absurdity. In the quote above the absurdity is exacerbated by the head of division working as a boundary spanner, being able to perceive the perspective of both the level of management above him and the level of management below him, and in a humorous way letting the managers below him know that the lofty aspirations of the board may not have any bearing on them – while the divisional managers at the same time find this to be absurd, coming from someone above their level, which they see as having to be more true to official strategies, but instead disregarding them so blatantly. This is not an example of a distinct espoused value not being enacted as stated, but a general understanding of official strategy (being closely linked to organisational values) as not having much merit, and therefore being disregarded by the head of division, in a blatant display of hypocrisy. The divisional managers laughing at this, is an acceptance of the absurdity – and paradoxicality – of the situation, a response I encountered quite a few times. In this way humour often worked as a step towards acting on paradoxical tensions, as accepting the situation as paradoxical can be an important first step towards acting on the paradox (Jarzabkowski & Lê, 2017; Smith & Lewis, 2011).

The volunteer divisional managers have not themselves been involved in working with the strategy, as the heads of divisions (and executive directors and board) have. The volunteer divisional managers express that they think the organisation to an accelerating degree moves its focus away from the operational aspects of executing the festival towards a plurality of more value-based areas of commitment, which are harder for them to relate to:

[…] hvis det bare var [head of their divison] der havde beslutningsretten, s? ville det v?re meget nemmere at kunne forholde sig til [...] Hvor er det, at vi er p? vej hen p? hvilken m?de og til hvad? Og der bliver det bare super uklart, og det dér store brede penselstr?g af lange taler og kommisorier og strategier og overordnede m?ls?tninger og alt s?dan noget, super sv?rt at forholde sig til, n?r man bare gerne vil lave festival. Og er er det jo, vi har altid haft det dogme om, at vi lavede festivalen p? trods af [the secretariat], ikke. Alts? vi har altid lavet p? trods af, hvad der sker p? [the secretariat], og det er jo s? tiltagende sandt desv?rre.

Frivillig leder, Divisionsledelsen, Byplan og Produktions-divisionen

It is clear they agree with the Head of the other division when he talks about the new strategy as something to “work around”, but they find it sad that this is the case. The espoused values of the organisation and the strategic initiatives it launches to promote these values are not in congruence with these managers views or what they perceive to be important to carry out their task of executing the festival event. It should also be said that the mentioned head of division often says things in jest and might have said it with a wink to the divisional manager, to reassure him, that a new strategy would not interfere with his more operational focus. Nevertheless, it sets a precedence from the top, of disregarding the strategic direction, and focusing on “working around it”, to focus on what is deemed important – the operations of the festival event. A notion that is in jarring opposition to the overall ambitions of the organisation of being much more than merely a musical festival, and a clear example of experienced tensions between the officially espoused value-based strategy and the operational reality of executing the festival event.

These foundational tensions, arising out of the schism between the sometimes-lofty aspirations of the value-based festival organisation and the more practical task of executing the festival event itself, are interwoven with another pair of central tensions – tensions between volunteerism and professionalism. These tensions are explored in the next article.

Hvis du vil l?se videre i analysen, s? omhandler n?ste del ’tensions between professionalism and volunteerism’ og der er et link her: [link f?lger]

Hvis du vil l?se en indledning til ’paradoxes of performing’, hvor disse sp?ndinger h?rer under, s? se her: [link]

Hvis du vil l?se en beskrivelse af min PhD, hvoraf denne analysebid er en del af s? se her: [link]

#Forskning #RoskildeFestival #Ledelse #Organisering #Organisationsudvikling #Frivillighed #Festival #Paradokser #Sp?ndinger #V?rdier #Tensions #Paradoxes #Volunteerism #Organisational #Management #Governance #Research #Performing #Performance #Values #Espoused #Enacted

Referencer

Cha, S. E., & Edmondson, A. C. (2006). When values backfire: Leadership, attribution, and disenchantment in a values-driven organization. Leadership Quarterly, 17(1), 57–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2005.10.006

Howell, A., Kirk-Brown, A., & Cooper, B. K. (2012). Does congruence between espoused and enacted organizational values predict affective commitment in Australian organizations? International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23(4), 731–747. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2011.561251

Jarzabkowski, P. A., & Lê, J. K. (2017). We Have To Do This and That? You Must be Joking: Constructing and Responding to Paradox Through Humor. Organization Studies, 38(3–4), 433–462. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616640846

Malba?íc, I., Mas-Machuca, M., & Marimon, F. (2018). Through the Decreased Values Gap to Increased Organizational Effectiveness: The Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment. Journal of Human Values, 24(2), 101–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/0971685818754553

Roskilde Festival's website – www.roskilde-festival.dk

Smith, W. K., & Lewis, M. W. (2011). Toward a Theory of Paradox: a Dynamic Equilibrium Model of Organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 381–403. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2011.59330958

Volunteers Guidebook, Roskilde Festival (2018) – https://people-vol.roskilde-festival.dk/media/575680/rf_2018_volunteers_guidebook_english.pdf