Council Decisions.
The Primary Approach.
In past years, the basis on which most council decisions have been decided, is a system created by the Mayor, this primary system is very simple and goes like this.
The first working day after you have won a seat at the council table, the Mayor will phone with an invitation to his office, and the conversation will run like this.
“Congratulations on being elected to office, your going to be an asset to Council, the law is that ‘you’ councillors cannot instruct the staff (which is correct) and ‘I can’ (which is an over simplification) so anything you want doing in your division, Road work or any problem see me and it will be done ASAP. On the other hand, you vote with me at the Council table, if not, then nothing happens for you at all, and you won’t get re-elected at the next election.”
Only the courageous councillors tell him to ‘get stuffed.’ This system of intimidation also gives the majority group a false sense of being in the power team and a false feeling that they are serving their community. Hopefully this system will shortly be replaced. This article is about the less direct but just as powerful pressures on Councillors, whilst decision making.

Non - Conforming Council Decisions.

I would encourage all ‘good people’ to stand for elections as Councillors at Local Government elections. Most will want to bring about change and make a ‘difference’, some small change, others larger changes but the main motivator is to instigate change. The following is definitely not designed as a put off, but to relate information of benefit for all who contemplate working in the Local Government Area or anyone who thinks about this topic.
To explain first how I became aware of the subject. At an early age I was fortunate to have world renown experts teach me Organisational Leadership, with a view that I would appreciate the techniques and impose those skills on others. I struggled with the morals and decided my future was not to look after Pavlov dogs, but I remembered what they taught me and kept my text books. When confronted with the same techniques, not in a Military setting but in Local Government indoctrination programme, it is then possible to recognise and evaluate your surroundings.
After election the Councillor will be asked to go to a Councillor indoctrinal course which serves two purposes, one to program the Councillor to believe that, since the election he is now a very important part of Local Government, from now on his allegiance is to the Council and not to the people who elected him. The other purpose is purely, so he can be berated at any future time for not knowing anything, that he or she might ask questions about, from the output of the sewage plant, to the definition of ‘Points of Order’. As he will be sneered at from the side of the mouth and told, “You did do, the indoctrinal course, Didn’t You??”

For the Greater Good.

The individual who normally is well intentioned and believes in a high moral code has enormous pressure applied to them once they are in the anonymous enclave of the Council. The Council group overcomes all individual ethics for the cause catch cry of the ‘Greater Good’.
Councillors are institutionalised to feel that whatever decision they make, some will not be happy, so why bother caring. No decision they will make will remove them from office, permanency and the ability to pass the blame to legislation or the state, removes all perceived responsibility.

Councils, Diffuse Responsibility.

The individual feels submerged in the group and loses their feelings of accountability for the consequences of their own actions. A kind of de individuation may occur among all public servants where individuals abdicate personal responsibility in the name of following orders or some higher principle.
Not only may the individual feel anonymous and therefore not accountable, but will not question, at the decision time the morality of his own or Councils actions. Unfortunately the major moral standard used is, not what is right, but “what everybody else seems to be doing”.
If it is possible to qualify that a policy is commonly acceptable somewhere else in the world, in any similar context, it can be accepted here and now. Truth, equity, charity, fairness, are elements that Council cannot afford to consider. Only acceptability counts.

Group In- Decision.
Similar principles have been used to explain the “unresponsive bystander” phenomenon in which witnesses stand and watch victims being robbed or beaten to death and later justify their behavior on the grounds that they “didn’t want to become involved.”

Individual Decision.
In similar situations, individuals by themselves are much more likely to go to the aid of a “victim” even someone who cannot even swim themselves, without a thought, goes to the aid of some unknown person who is drowning. Individuals in groups, observing the same circumstances, more than likely will ask one of the others, if he has a mobile phone, or do nothing, waiting for others in the group to do it for them.
Quote by Dante Alighieri
“the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality”.

Techniques To Inducing Conformity In Council Groups.

In a Local Government situation the Mayor might not always be the leader, he thinks he is, senior members of staff are well versed in the techniques of “Yes Minister” or “Keep Them Busy”. Councillors will always have mail boxes like dustbins and agendas for meeting thicker than the Sydney telephone directory, but if they need to know anything they had better word the question exactly right and even then, the answer might relate to something slightly different. Of course agendas will itemise the purchase of a packet of nails but omit to mention a ratepayers plea to save his family car or home. The optimum consideration for the choice of information to put before Councillors is keeping conformity, this is itself a leadership technique. The public servant joke about elected representatives, “Who do They think, runs this place anyway?”, is sadly very close to the truth. The last person to get any consideration is the resident, things get done for the Shire Council but almost by rote, not by personal choice, the personal power plays of department heads or the concerted plot to oppose ‘Central Purchasing’ are far more important then the residents storm water flooding.

Exerted Techniques and Pressures, To Achieve Council Conformity Has Many Forms.

The most blatant is the primary intimidation as described at the begining of this article. To summaize briefly, just after the election the Mayor congratulates you for winning your seat at the Council table and offers assistance to the new Councillor, “Well anything, you think you need getting done in your division, any problems, bring them to me first and I will make sure they get attended to, but when a vote on any topic is required I need to know that I have your vote, on my team.” The reality and implication of this statement is, “If you don’t Vote with me, nothing will ever happen for you around here”.
The more lawful, are role definitions that set limits to permissible behaviour, such as Local Law on Meetings and Standing Orders and this also induces conformity. Councilors are subjected to a continual barrage of factual information and propaganda in an effort to convince them of the validity of Council goals and values, to induce their cooperation and support.

Committee Meetings.

Committee Meetings of six or so, are designed to resist non-conformity as the smaller meeting group can discipline and control one dissident more easily than a larger group. Larger meetings give rise to more than one Councillor in opposition. In larger groups, codes of conduct, and standing orders apply which to some smaller or tiny degree protect the non-conforming Councillor from group pressure, but in the face-to-face committee meeting, sanctions are usually more informal, yet even more powerful and influential in controlling the decisions of the single Councillor, due to the closer human interaction.

The Expert Consultant, “In Lies We Trust”.

Larger meeting equals less unanimous opinions, as it is more humanly difficult to be different to your fellow committee members. Many techniques in controlling small committee meetings can be found in books on “brainwashing” as much subtle pressure is brought to bear on changing Councillors thought patterns. One of the very elementary techniques is the introduction of the expert, and the total destruction of the Councillors self confidence in his own judgement. The qualified engineer or lawyers decision, disguised as “opinion”, is sort prior to the meeting by the senior staff or Mayor, the mere Councillor, who is told a thousand times that good ratepayers money is spent on these experts, their expert opinions mean everything and the Councillors, the non-professional opinion is worth nothing.

Expert Opinion, Only As Directed. Or Consultant is Never Consulted Again.

Of course the expert opinion is pre bought and paid for, the Councillors have to make their mind up in less than a minute, (no chance to research the issue) but the Councillors can be held responsible for the effects of that pre bought decision for years to come. Manufacturing conformity is the factory of power and the tool of despotism, it is the everyday tool of Local Government.

“People will always condemn that which is different, even though the unfamiliar actions may, in the long run, be much more beneficial to everyone.”

Usually, manufacturing conformity rest heavily upon the manipulation of rewards and punishments. The recognition and approval of other Councillors at the Council table, leads to advancement to a higher position in the group, and chances for awards and honours such as committee chairman, are common incentives for inducing conformed decisions, whereas Councillors who create difficulties for the meeting group by their differing opinions will suffer social disapproval, defamation to the media, non inclusion in the planning of the meeting, which is usually the prior meeting they have, to organise the votes for the following formal meeting.
Most people will give almost anything, even their lives if necessary, to retain the approval and comforting feelings of belonging to the group. It is this overwhelming need for group approval and response that makes the miss-named democratic meeting the most powerful controlling agency known to man.

Contrived Conformity is Un Productive.
We have acknowledged that contrived conformity is a special problem because of its potential to create tyranny, both for the individual and the group. Pressures toward conformity produces a subjection which is stifling and unproductive, and which violates individual rights and freedoms.

A Proven Example

In the classic experiment by Asch (1952, 1955), groups of seven to nine college students were asked to say which of three lines on a card (right) matched the length of a standard line on a second card (left). One of the three lines they could choose from was actually the same length as the standard line; the other differed from the standard by anywhere from three quarters of an inch to an inch and three quarters. It had been determined in advance that these differences were clearly distinguishable.
In each group all but one of the “subjects” were actually stooges, previously instructed to make a unanimous wrong choice on most of the trials after the first two. The actual subject was always in such a position that he would not announce his own judgment until after most or all of the others had announced their judgement. So, after hearing the false judgment given by the planted majority, the minority subject had to choose between denying the evidence of his senses and contradicting the judgment of the group.
Under such pressure, minority subjects accepted the majority’s wrong selections in 36.8 % of the trials. Some individuals, however, were able to stand up to such pressure better than others: about 25% of the 123 honest subjects clung consistently to their minority judgments, while a few subjects yielded to the majority decision on almost every trial.
When the test subjects were interviewed after the experiment, it was found that some had yielded out of fear of “seeming or being different,” even though they continued to believe in the correctness of their own judgments. Others assumed that, although their own perceptions clearly seemed correct, the majority could not be wrong. In a few cases perception itself had apparently been distorted: the subject was apparently unaware of having yielded to group pressure.
Even subjects who consistently maintained their independent accurate judgments tended to be considerably disturbed by their disagreement with the majority and reported that they had been seriously tempted to go along with the group in order to avoid seeming inferior or absurd. In fact, in a later study utilizing the same experimental setup, Bogdonoff et al. (1961) found that students who “called them as they saw them” suffered more anxiety, as evidenced by physiological changes. One subject who consistently disagreed with the group was dripping with perspiration by the end of the session even though his judgments were right in each instance.

Meeting Composition.
“It is not who votes that count it is who counts the votes that counts” Joseph Stalin.
A Chairman who constantly prompts the majority, directing, moulding and accepting resolutions is composing conformity from the meeting. Even the intimidation when counting the voting hands is all part of the composition process. The facial frowning, the castigation of the reluctant show of hands, is like the sheep dog rounding up the flock.
The Council’s success in achieving past goals, the individual’s identification with the Council are all weights placed on the individual to conform to the direction of the conductor of the silent tune of tyranny. All that and many more variables have been shown to be related to conformity programming. Conformity tends to be higher in adherent groups. Experiments by Costanzo, Reitan, and Shaw (1968) found that persons who perceive their own competence relative to the task to be high, conform less than those with low perceived competence, regardless of their perception of the majority’s competence. However, an individual conforms more when the perceived competence of the majority is high, than when it is low, regardless of their own level of competence.

Due to Councils ‘Responsibility Shift’ High-risk Decisions Are Made Easy.
Councils, in comparison with individuals, make much higher risk decisions. Groups meeting participation results in individuals making higher-risk decisions than they do without group contact. The phenomena we will call ‘responsibility shift’ insures that it is the Council making the decision not the individual person, this phenomena allows the Council group in the meeting to pay $1.5 million for a new bar at the Civic Center. It is not their personal funds, Councillors appear to feel that the responsibility for failure in a high-risk or unpopular decision will not be attributed to any single member. The “risky-shift” phenomenon, has been identified for many years and repeated on a daily basis in Local Governments through-out the western world. The reality is removed, if the individual was spending his own private $1.5 million he would want far more individual control in the outcome. In third world countries, regular revolutionary movements create much more worry and pressure on the individual group members, as death and bullets are fatal, mistakes, with which the mis-spending of public money can end with outcomes of ‘back to the wall’ and the offer of a blindfold. This system is not perfect either, as taken to its full degree it tends to force conservatism with public funds to such a level, nothing ever happens and communities die out and disappear for the lack of endeavour.

High Risk Decisions.

Decisions which bear on the fate of thousands of people by Local Government groups either
at the Council table or in the many staff meetings will always be higher risk decisions than any individual decision maker would normally make. History taught ancient civilisations that when decisions of great magnitude such as national security, responsibility was placed in ‘one man’, even into modern times the President of the USA or the General appointed by the ‘Monarch’ makes the momentous decisions, for example to use nuclear bombs on Japan or to invade Europe.

Who is the Leader?

Leadership is a highly complex phenomenon and is strongly influenced by other aspects of the committee. It is a rather widespread but an inexperienced view that a high level of group effectiveness will automatically follow from the provision of “good” leadership. A committee will not perform efficiently just by the introduction of that good leader, the leaders performance will be governed to a large degree by the strength and potential of the committee members and the time available for the leadership to function. Leadership is an important characteristic of committee structure. Councils may be led by an individual or by a committee or other subgroup. Sometimes it is quite difficult to determine who is the group “leader” because the one designated by formal role may seem less influential than other members of the group. Sometimes two leaders will emerge-a task specialist who directs the group toward its primary goals, and a social specialist who helps maintain the functional harmony of the group itself (Bales, 1958). Quote:-
“When my sister was in high school she was a member of the top elite social group. And I was a little envious, maybe, but I felt they were all hypocrites and that my sister was a hypocrite. Many years later I found out that my sister didn’t particularly like the social whirl, that she didn’t really like those people that much, that she was just conforming. She happened to be able to conform in that fashion, and she didn’t have the personal security at all, it would have been much too painful to her, to be able to be an individual, so she just had to go along with the crowd.”

Why Do People Or Councillors Conform?

Both in the laboratory and in natural settings, researchers and others have been intrigued with the relative ease with which people can be induced to behave similarly to others. A rather dramatic example is provided in the conformity studies by ‘Asch’, described as above.

Conforming behaviours have been found to result from several classes of causes.
1. Personality factors. Although many have attempted to link conformity to characteristics of the individual, on the whole this approach has proven of little value. There is a tendency for more intelligent persons to be less conforming than less intelligent persons (Nakamura, 1958), but correlations between intelligence and conformity are only moderately strong. Females tend to conform to majority opinion more than males (Costanzo & Shaw, 1966; Reitan & Shaw, 1964). Personality traits have been found to be generally unpredictive of conformity behaviours.

2. Stimulus factors. The nature of the situation is probably the most potent determinant of whether or not conformity occurs. In general, it has been shown that more ambiguous tasks produce greater conformity than tasks with unambiguous stimuli. It seems likely that when the individual has little objective evidence about reality or what is expected, he must rely upon others to provide cues or validate his opinions.

3. Situational factors. This includes all aspects of the group context such as size of the group, unanimity of the majority, group structure, and the like. Research evidence generally supports the idea that conformity increases with the increasing size of the majority, up to a certain point. Some studies have shown that a majority of three produced maximum conformity (Asch, 1951), while others have found increases in conformity beyond that size (Gerard, Wilhelmy, & Conolley, 1968). However, there appears to be a point beyond which increasing the size of the group majority does not make a difference in the amount of conformity behaviour. As we all are aware, a committee member is more likely to conform to group judgments within the committee when other group members are in unanimous agreement than when they are not. As soon as the committee is fractionalised a Councillor will begin to think for him or herself which group they will join. The Councillor will begin to view the options of the different outcomes and relate them to his own moral code or his re-election chances, or internal and external allegiances.

Non Conforming Councillors Can Be Popular!

Not all nonconforming behaviour meets with committee or Council sanctions. Sometimes nothing happens to the nonconformist-for example, if the norm he breaks is of little importance, or if he is considered an important member of the Council such as the Chairman. In some cases group leaders are allowed more latitude in behaviour than are other members of a group (McDavid & Harari, 1968). The immediate situation of the group is also important. If the group is not under threat and is generally performing effectively, it is likely to permit more latitude on the part of its members than if it is struggling to establish itself or survive. If the Council or Committee is under the media or voter eye for lack of performance the Non Conforming Councillor will be given no mercy, and no matter how good his idea’s are, he will be stomped on, punishment is most often the only reward the courageous receive.

The Group’s Need for Nonconformists.

In discussing the Council as a system, we have stated that the Council group has needs of their own that may differ from the needs of individual members, or residents. Paradoxically, one of these needs is for some members who have integrity and enough commitment to values and morals beyond the Councils welfare, to challenge the Council group when it makes mistakes. To place the residents welfare as a priority. If the Council was not under external threat for lack of performance, this behaviour from one of twelve Councillors would be easily tolerated, but as in the present case it will be almost an execution procedure. The argument to the public will always be that the Council’s welfare has to come first, as without it’s existence the community could not exist without it. Council employees and Council orientated Councillors believe that it is a “Cannot have a Chicken without the Egg,” logic. The thinking residents, would not accept this, and would know that even though there may be some beginning inconveniencies that in the same way that contractors now collect the Wheelie Bins, private sewage and water suppliers would quickly fill the demand. Service companies will quickly compete for any work, the only advantage Council has is for bulk charging of these services. For that service the residents pay dearly. Of course there are worse alternatives such as State and Federal Government intervention, they would be much more dictatorial and extravagant with residents resources.

Non Conformity Needed, To Adapt For Changing Circumstances.

Although some measure of conformity appears essential for coordinating Local Government effort, as a family conforms to cook the same meal for Christmas dinner, and the same way volunteers assist in running a non profit barbeque. A measure of nonconformity is essential for maintenance of the Council’s adaptability. If a Council is to adapt effectively to changing conditions, it must be capable of making needed changes within its own structure and functioning. This means that someone in the Council must recognize the new conditions, propose new approaches, and make other Councillors aware of the need for change. Without the non conforming Councillor, this never happens.

Is Individualism NonConformity?

Nonconformity is essential to society. Because without that individualism there’s no art, no literature, nothing of value in society. All of that comes from nonconformity-all things of any interest are created by nonconformity. You cannot have a symphony or a poem or a building created by a commission or a committee.
Nonconformity means that a person has the courage to be themselves. If a person has that courage to be themselves, they are happy. Not continuously, but certainly far more than other people. This gives them the strength to withstand the group pressure and implement change.

The Never Ending Battle of Human Progress.

Slavish loyalty to the Council at the price of individual integrity is usually characteristic of insecure people who are overly dependent on the Council. Exploitative individuals may play the loyalty game, but they are not really loyal. And both over dependent members and the exploitative are likely to desert the Council when it no longer meets their needs. Fanatically loyal members, too, can be more of a liability than an asset to a Council if they are unable or unwilling to recognize weaknesses in the Council that need correcting.
Council’s that have no room for individuals with integrity, individuals who think for themselves and are loyal to what they value, will in time suffer from the loss of contributions that may be vital to the life of the Council. This point has been well elaborated by ‘Buckley’ in his concept of necessary deviation:
“A requisite of sociocultural systems is the development and maintenance of a significant level of nonpathological deviance manifest as a pool of alternative ideas and behaviours with respect to the traditional, institutionalized ideologies and role behaviours. Rigidification of any given institutional structure must eventually lead to disruption or dissolution of the society by way of internal upheaval or ineffectiveness against external change”.

Non Conforming Individualist Have Led Human Progress.

In spite of pressures toward conformity, every large group has its share of people who do not conform. Some few of these deviants such as criminals are emotionally immature or have learned distorted values that make them unable or unwilling to conform to the norms of society, though they may be conforming to the norms of their own deviant subgroup and be reaping the usual rewards of conformity from that. Most nonconformists in man’s history have been men and women of maturity and vision-individuals like Columbus, Galileo, Roger Bacon, Thomas Jefferson, Enoch Powell and Joan of Arc. Nonconformists like these perform lasting services to their society by initiating necessary or desirable changes in group norms, even at the cost of great personal sacrifice. Albert Einstein once said:
“I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart, in the face of all ties, I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude-a feeling which increases with the years”.

Perspectives Change When We Look Back In Time.

Unfortunately, it is often very difficult for a community to evaluate its nonconformists accurately at the time they live. Even when there is an honest attempt to weigh historical and scientific evidence in judging new ideas, our perspective is always limited and the decision of contemporaries may be different from that of later generations. Thus it will be interesting to see how today’s nonconformists are assessed 20 or 50 years from now. Sometimes history shows that nonconforming behaviour has been divisive and detrimental to the communities; in other instances, nonconformists who were roundly condemned in their time, like Jesus Christ, were the prophets and founders of new ideas and movements and the instigators of needed social change.

Keeping A Balance In Decision Making.

The problem for any Council or community is how to maintain a necessary measure of conformity, while also maintaining the degree of deviance essential for flexibility and adaptability of the Council. In the long run, individual and Council interests appear to be best served when conformity pressures are limited to those areas where unanimity is essential only for coordinated group functioning and effectiveness. Ideally, a Council or committee can concern itself with setting up ways of fostering necessary divergence and identifying it when it occurs as a positive step in problem solving and combatting that favourite resort of the public servant the famous “Nuernberg Principle” the catch cry of all bureaucracy “Im only just doing my job.” At Nuernberg after World War Two the Allies hanged the German public servants who claimed, “They were just following orders,” yet that has been the constant excuse for all bureaucratic crime against communities and individuals ever since. It is sanctioned and unfortunately benignly accepted, humanities only defence for the future of the world is the Nonconforming individual. Community decisions in every human endeavour have to have creativity, without the Nonconforming individual there is no new idea’s, there is no change and there is no hope.