THERE’S managerial blood on the walls and frontline professionals’ viscera dripping on to a pile of spreadsheets: it’s budget-setting time. In a hospital this means that doctors are demanding expensive diagnostic machines while administrators say no, worried that new equipment will force their organisation further into debt and generate bad publicity.
At least, that’s the stereotype. But research reported in Rotman Magazine (Winter) finds the reality less clear-cut: “. . . the professional-manager dichotomy is a false one and the relationship . . . is both more complex and manageable,” say the authors. There are still differences: professionals, such as doctors, are socialised by their training and report to a professional body that “insists that its values and standards supersede those of employers”, while managers are accountable to the organisation. It is taken for granted that professionals make decisions based largely on medical and social justice concerns, while administrators’ thoughts are dominated by financial and managerial issues. However, the research finds that decisions have more to do with how issues are interpreted than with individuals’ roles.
The authors recommend several strategies for managers working with professionals: