A Communication Catastrophe
By Gene Aronowitz
While serving as Commissioner of Community Mental Health, I delivered a speech at a large professional mental health gathering in 1984. One aspect of the speech was a strategic communication blunder. I was discussing an idea with my colleagues, and anticipated a reasonable or at least a benign response, but I misread my audience and received a dramatic and antagonistic response instead.
New York State had been experiencing a crushing financial crisis, some of it due to increased costs and poor administrative practices within the state’s mental health system. I was asked to serve on the Governor’s Select Commission on the Future of the State-Local Mental Health System. The then Governor, Mario M. Cuomo, called for “a total overhaul of the system,” including a restructuring of mental health services and improved mechanisms of financing the system.
The County and State governments both planned for and oversaw mental health services in the counties. I considered this arrangement to be a costly redundancy. I wondered if the planning and oversight functions of County government mental health operations, including my own, should be carried out solely by the State government, thus potentially saving a considerable amount of money.
I was asked to report on Select Commission activities at a large gathering that included the membership of the Conference of Local Mental Hygiene Directors. I was a member of that group along with other politically appointed County mental health officials. In addition to describing some of the proposals being discussed in the Commission, I decided to let them know the details of the cost-saving idea I was considering. Since I was expressing an idea and asking for their opinions, I expected a civil discussion that would help me refine my thoughts. Their response was far from civil.
After the meeting ended, the Chairman of the Conference demanded that I accompany him and about fifty other members to a small room. I complied, but I was irritated by the way I was being treated, and to make matters worse, the room was hot and windowless. We were not about to have the civil discussion I had anticipated. The Chairman was irate and fired many invectives in my direction. About ten others joined in.
Those who spoke expressed resentment that the possible elimination of essential roles of County officials might come from one of their own. Some implied that I was a traitor, suggesting that they thought I had been appointed to the Select Commission to represent them and, by implication, to express their views. That was not the case; I represented only myself. I sat there silently, seething, but soon, my anger dissipated, and I began to view the most negative comments as essentially self-serving and not to be taken seriously.
One of the members came over to me after the meeting to say that he agreed with me, although he wouldn't say so publicly. I imagined that many of my silent colleagues felt the same. I subsequently learned that some of those who did not speak believed that State employees would have limited knowledge of the individual counties' needs and perhaps insufficient investment in addressing their issues. I thought they had a point. Over time, my relationships with colleagues have mellowed, and I am still in touch with many of them. Each month, I facilitate and host a Zoom gathering with those still willing and able to communicate in that way.
Anyway, my idea never went anywhere. I decided to drop the whole idea because the opposition of the Conference of Local Mental Hygiene Directors would have eroded the support needed to implement the Select Commission’s eventual recommendations. I shouldn’t have worried about that because our Final Report, even without their objections, was consigned to bookshelves, to be forever ignored.
A version of this memoir is included in the book 23 More Memoirs.