What are Permissions?
The ‘permissions’ idea is both simple and powerful. Quite apart from formally stated policies and practices, organisations send very powerful messages to employees about what is and what is not acceptable behaviour. The sources of these ‘permissions’ are organisation structure design decisions, process design decisions and the behaviour of top managers. To illustrate: The top manager who went overboard on Equal Opportunities, to the point where every manager and supervisor attended a 2 day EO course. Then the boss’s staff officer moved on, and the boss immediately appointed a replacement without interview, advertising or any possibility of other employees expressing an interest in the vacancy. 3,700 employees instantly got the message that EO might be for other people, but not for the boss, confirmed when all the other top managers emulated the boss’s behaviour. EO died an instant death.
