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Improving Decision-Making in Local Government. Perla, Director of Organizational Development and HR for Brownsville, Texas, joins the LeaderGov Podcast to share how local governments can improve decision-making. From fostering collaboration to learning from mistakes, Perla provides real-world insights for better leadership. Whether you're in local government or interested in leadership strategies, this episode is packed with actionable tips. Learn more at https://www.leadergov.com/blog 

00:00 - Welcome and Introductions
01:22 - Why decision-making starts with collaboration.
03:10 - Hiring Right: Lessons Learned
06:30 - Participatory Leadership
09:00 - Building Trust and Feedback
12:45 - Communicating the 'Why'
16:20 - Cultural Assessments in Brownsville
19:50 - Key Takeaways
23:10 - Final Thoughts
26:00 - Closing Remarks

Transcript

0:00
Bill, welcome to the LeaderGov podcast, America's premier source for local government leadership and teamwork training. And now your host, Bill Stark, we're

0:09
excited to have our guest with us today, Perla Cepeda. She is the Director of organizational development and human resources for the city of Brownsville, Texas. Perla is a special person and a special friend of LeaderGov. So we're super excited to have her today. She's been she's got about 10 years of HR and organizational development experience, and she has her tenure at BROWNS. Was really I like this. The word is transformation, and I've seen Perla transform things at the city of Brownsville and beach, but transformative leader, this balance of organizational and community goals, I think, is something that uniquely Perla is good at. What do we need internally for our organization, but what is the community? What is our what our stakeholder needs? She has a master's in organizational development and a certified public manager, CPM, as well as certified coach. And her focus is on building a really healthy culture where employees are trusted, valued and empowered. Three really great words Prior to her work at Brownsville, Perla served in the private sector in the HR and development space, and so it is great to have you with us today. Pearl, welcome.

1:26
Thank you very much. And welcome everyone. I was like taking my notes from the different cities and places join us today. It's a wonderful because I believe everyone in whatever the place we are, we also have the challenges of making decisions with the team, so it's nice to be here. Thank you for the invite, and hopefully this can help you and inspire you a little bit and how we can do better decisions with the team and for the team.

1:56
Yeah, just one more. Thank you to you. I know that you are actually at an off site retreat today, and there were some scheduling issues, and so you were double booked, yet you carved out some time to be with us today in the middle of a really busy schedule. So thank you, Perla, for doing that. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to start off, Perla by asking you a tough question here. Going to put you on the spot. We always hear about good decisions, right? We did this decision perfectly in our city or our police department, but I want you to tell us a decision maybe that was not a good decision on your part. What? What does it look like when the wheels fall off the truck? What does that look like? Do you have an experience in the past where you've just made a lousy decision or not done it the way you really thought you should?

2:48
So of course, we have those decisions right? And when we have just to tell this story with the team here connected, but we start this conversation, I remember seeing the questions, right? And they was like, Okay, what's the worst decision that you made related to your team? And then I was literally reflecting, I just want to be truthful on that. And I even wrote down all the few thoughts. And then I thought, actualize my team, right? Let me ask them directly. I trust them. I know their honors meet with me. So sure enough, they tell me one of the points that really match on my list, and one of the things that I struggle in the past, and not only one, but maybe two or three, is hiring someone who was in the right fit for the department. So I believe that is something that really impact the whole team. And I believe at the end the organization, and again, I have to admit that it happens, sometimes more than once. I feel sometimes an HR, especially in my role, I'm very customer oriented, like I want to respond to them. I want to be always there to support my employees, to support the department directors. So when you have that mindset, and you have this open position bacon in your department, and you have the pressure of you don't want to overwhelm your staff as well. I think I have this urgency to fill the position and then, of course, maintaining the service levels that we provide to our departments, but I be made rush the hiring decisions that didn't really serve the team with the long run or short expectations, really, when you ask this question, I was very heartbreaking, like, how those decision when you don't have the input of your team because you are responding to a need from your organization, but when they are telling you this is a. Red flags, and you neglected that decision that affects the tremendously, the the momentum that a team can have and the response that you offer to the departments and overall, the community that we serve, that reminds me, like, how important is to slow down, to involve the team. Make a decisions together, and sometimes we don't have, you know, that luxury to do it in long term, but it's like always try to keep them involved, or otherwise it's gone to impact overall the well being of the department and all the individuals you don't want that you want to continue having that energy and the dynamic with the team.

5:39
Yeah, and I think too thank you for sharing that and being authentic about that. Going too fast. And I think also maybe some of this is personality driven. I'm an eye on the disc. I know that you're either a D or an i, and we tend to move fast right, and we think we have this gut instinct of what the right decision is, and so we just charge forward. And so yeah, the encouragement for everybody today listening to this podcast on the workshop is, if you're a fast mover, you might need to slow down in just a little bit.

6:09
I completely agree. Yeah. Send to them. Yeah.

6:14
Tell me how you engage. So let's switch to the positive for a minute. Tell me how you engage your employees in decision making. And we know not every decision we can get a committee and go through all this. What we're going to talk about today, some decisions we gotta make in five minutes and we gotta go. But in general, when we have time to get feedback and input from our team, tell me how you go about doing that. How do you engage your team?

6:40
So I think something that I learned over the time is when you need to take the team and the decision, I don't think it's only about asking for input. It's more than that. It's okay. What about create a right environment for them to feel that, hey, this is my opportunity to contribute, how you can create this mindset for collaboration with your team members. So something that works for me and the team that I have right now that I'm very proud to have, I always start with the why, regardless the projects is small or big, I always start with the why. So I explained to them, okay, this is the purpose of this initiative, or this program, or this idea. This is the goal, this is the impact. I always try to see the big picture with. So then I ask for input. Know, the easy questions, it's more okay, what do you think about it, how you can contribute, what you think is the risk to do it, or what is the outcomes, how you see it in the future? I think that's very important. And then you want to create for them a safe space to tell you the truth, right? Know what you want to hear, but the truth encourage honest feedback. Of course, I value when the people do feedback with respect. I think that's important. I always said, Be kind but firm. So you know, for those that maybe don't read, yeah, the book for radical candor, this is a great tool to have those conversations and create these environments when the people can tell you their inputs in a safe environment. Of course, continue using collaboration. Use tools that helps them. You even create committees that helps with that outcomes and decision, that keeps the people engaged. I don't know. You can have brainstorming with the team. You can have opportunities to everyone can vote. And what is the pros? What is the cons get everyone involved. I think that is very important. I think also it's important that you share the input, because sometimes they give you ideas that maybe are not possible, and you need to tell them, Look, this idea was not possible because maybe you have a limited resources or budget restrictions, I don't know, but it's important that they also heard that, hey, I listened your idea. But unfortunately, at this time, it's not able to do it, but maybe for this project, but you want to create that so you can continue to empower them. And the most important thing that sometimes we forget when we have a decision making and the team collaborates to celebrate. I think let the team lead. They can do wonderful things when you are there to support them and always celebrate the wins together. I think that is it's very important.

9:33
Yeah, well, you said a lot there. I just want to recap a couple of things. The first thing

9:38
so to start with the why, always start with the why it's important to they understand so they can contribute. Yeah, you need to ask them, what is the input? What is the questions that can connect with that? Why I think it's important that, also you create this safe space for them so they can provide you a feedback on it. Right? Yeah, create collaboration, provide tools for them. It's important that you explain why not taking some ideas, close the loop with them, and finally, that you celebrate the wins with them, like you can celebrate the achievements with them. Yeah,

10:17
the one that I like, the overarching one is create an open culture for input and feedback. And we call it psychological safety, right? Some people call it a safe space. And we kind of giggle and say, everybody needs their safe space to build trust. You do need a safe environment. That's just the law of the land. And so I really appreciate the fact that you put that kind of first on your list. I wanted to ask you about Brownsville in particular. You all have a methodology, I would say a philosophy on employee participation, but it's also a leadership philosophy, right? We want leaders that embrace what you call participatory leadership. This bleeds over into decisions. Of course, it bleeds into everything, right? But could you tell us what participatory leadership is, and maybe how a city or a county could what are those principles that you all live by there in Brownsville? So

11:13
let me explain you, first, like the big picture, why we have this one city philosophy, and we believe in people, we believe in purpose, we believe in projects. And when We said about one city is not only about the city collaborating between departments and don't work in as a silos, but it's more like general in Bronzeville, what others schools, district, we have different institutions. We want to collaborate together as a team that's one city, and then we have, of course, the opportunity to serve other neighbors, other cities, close by or not close by. And it's like different skill. So we believe in people first, and that's we believe every employee, no matter the title, regardless the title, they are leaders in the organization. Leadership is how we show up every day. What is the decisions that we make? What is the responsibility that we take with those decisions? And it's whether you're answering a call from a citizen asking for a service, or is if you are leading a project for creating a beautiful parks in the community, or helping a resident to know about an update for a street. I think every action that we collaborate is a chance to lead in the organization. It's a chance to serve the community better, and of course, we want to make the difference. So the participatory leadership that we embrace is really a true collaboration. So we believe in collaboration. We believe in the people, so we trust them and we share ownership and how guide to do their work and do it better and provide development opportunities for them. Participatory leadership is a work culture that the leaders listen and involve the teams. We make them participate in the decision making. Everyone needs to feel safe to contribute. They need to feel that they the decision. It's part of their purpose in life as well. We connect with that. The decisions that we do, we made decisions with people, but not just for the people. Is with them, and that's why we saw the results that are sustainable. Otherwise, it's just because it's a popular decision, but nobody feel connected with that. So let me give you an example. Last year, speaking about engagement and speaking about participatory leadership. Last year, we create a culture assessment, and this is just to know, how's the culture well being with employees. And I was doing my research for organizations that are or size around 200 employees, it's more or less 60% of participation generally. And we have from September to December, 86% of participation over in the survey. And I'm telling you that if this is employees, directors, assistant directors, middle management, frontline employees,

14:21
86% of participation. That's a high number. Wow.

14:25
And that's the work of our directors being engaged the city manager, Miss Helen Ramirez, be engaged with the team again, because we leave the purpose about one city philosophy, people first, and we improve at 10% of the well being overall. At the end with reviewing all these assessments, we have an action plan for every department. We create a task for team that we want to they participate in. Tell us how they can contribute individually, improving their departments so we can improve the organization and get. What improving the service that we have for the community. So really, that is the proof. I believe that when you have the people engaged and empowered, and they can't participate, and they have a voice to her, we can succeed. That's what we said together as a one city, yeah,

15:18
yeah. I like so. So the idea of participatory leadership is for the employee, and it's for the leader, of course, and it supersedes just participating in decisions. It's participating in many functions of the life of the city. We're going to do it together instead of being told what to do.

15:36
We believe in committees. We just have a successful Women's Leadership Conference for the city females in the city of Brownsville. This is a vision of our city manager. She saw it there, and she told me, Hey, we need to do it in the middle of a year ago, in middle of a conference. She's we need to do this in the city of Brownsville. So guess what? We did it, and we have a collaboration of every representative for the city and different departments, females that tell us the ideas they create, the agenda, they create, the panels, everything. And it was like a beautiful saw them in action in the meetings, leading by themselves, with the same vision and with a purpose, let the team lead and trust them and be there as a leader, as a resource for them. Yeah,

16:29
and so I really like this. You've laid out this overarching idea of a culture that's participatory culture, and that culture, of course, is very beneficial when you get around to making decisions, because people are participating, right? They're open, willing to participate. But let's zero in as we close out, Perla tell me from what is the leader's role in getting team input and what is the employee's role? A lot of times we don't talk about what's the participant's role, what's the team member's role? Can they sit back in the back and just take a snooze during this meeting? Or are you requiring things of your team? So what's the leader's role in getting input from the team on decisions, and what's the employee's role? How do we push from both ends, if you will?

17:16
I think for the leadership I mentioned at the beginning, like number one, we need to welcome the talk that's important, but it's like also creating the environment for the employees right to set the tone, set the expectations, and help them guide them to the process. I think they have a very meaningful input. They just need to have this environment where they can feel that they are heard, that they are value with their opinions. I think that's important for the leaders we have. Like I heard someone said at the beginning, multi generations in the organizations. And what I find out, it's beautiful having multi generations. It's the collaboration that sometimes the lack of understanding between it's important to talk about it. It's important to have one on ones with the team and talk about, okay, what is your needs? What do you see yourself be collaborating with the team? I think that is, is the job of the leaders, just to have those conversations and have an understanding for the employees. I think the Tim decisions only work when the whole team is really contributing to that. So please, team members, if you are team members, speak out. We want to hear you. Share your ideas. Provide honest and again, we always can provide respectful feedback. Take ownership. Stay active. Stay engaged. Committed to that. Be bold with your ideas. I think that's how the organizations can really grow stronger together and the team members.

18:54
Perla, I've got a question for you here where, of course, this is a live workshop, it's also a podcast, but we do have a question I wanted to ask you, and that comes from Lily. Have you ever had a moment where there were too many people with too many different opinions in one project? And if so, how do you narrow that down? How do you as a leader, take charge?

19:13
Yeah, so the example of a woman's Leadership Conference, imagine having this beautiful woman's very creative right for an event, but I think, as a team number one, again, explain the why. This is not my agenda. This is not your agenda. This is the main goal for everyone. This is the event for the females of the city of Brownsville. So what they did, and they did really good. They put it in boat like we know what is the goal? This is the options. Who decide option A, who decide option B, and they were very respectful with the results, even for something very simple. That was the shirts that they wear for the event that we wear for the event they put it in. Vote, and then you can put it on teams, even. And everyone was voting, and everyone respect that. Nobody said, Oh, I would love to know they contribute. I think again, it's like, how you provide this environment for them. Please tell the why, so they can understand what is the main goal, and then how everyone contribute and respect the decision that is made? Because the other thing is, you need to leave the room and feel like, AI contribute regardless the outcome of my opinion, I contribute in a steel firm with this group. That's

20:35
good. Yeah, I think about two things real quick here, Perla. One is, you mentioned Democratic leadership, which is, let's take a vote. Let's just all decide who, whoever gets the most. That's one way to do it. And it's sometimes the leader has to say, You know what? I've heard your input. This has been great. Thank you. I'm going to have to make a decision on this next week. You've given me some great input. Thank you. And then the leader has to go off and make a decision. So sometimes we have to, obviously, at some point, someone, either the team or the leader, has to make the ultimate and final decision. I did want to ask you Pearl this last question before we let you go. How should employees respond when decisions are forced upon them that maybe they don't like, like, Where'd this come from? I didn't have a say in this. In other words, what are some ways employees, team members, can respond respectfully, or whatever, when they don't have a voice in the decision?

21:31
So that's a really good question, because that happens. But I'm going to tell you this is what I learned in my experience. Like sometimes decisions are made at a very high levels in the organization. I learned a lot with COVID, like we don't have time to do participatory leadership, creating a policy for something specific or because we were thinking and how we protect our employees, and we are making those decisions quickly because we want to protect them. So sometimes we don't understand it. Maybe can be an urgent circumstance. It can be something out of our control. Well, it's not ideal, right? But this is a reality. This has happened in any organization, so when it happens, I will recommend the team to decide how to respond to that, so you can make a big difference in how you decide to move forward with the decision. Yeah, that can lead to frustrations. I get it. Maybe this encouragement, disengagement, sometimes, gossip, sometimes, oh, speculations. But I would recommend you to stay open and curious again. Maybe nobody explained you the why, but seek to understand the why. Seek to understand the why with a different mindset, not like I'm a I'm resistant to this decision. No, like you are part of this organization, I'm pretty sure that if you are part of this organization, is because you love your job. So seek the wife, ask the questions, stay engaged, regardless the decision, how you can help to shape the outcome of this decision? What can be your contribution to make this decision be successful? I think also, again, we back to give respectful feedback, take the time, but I think it's important that when you provide feedback, also focus on solutions. You are not in agreement, but what other things you are in agreement with? Yeah,

23:38
can help. Yeah, that's good. I like this idea. Perla, a decision has been made for us forced down our throat. We don't like it. And I like this idea. You immediately went to participatory leadership. You said, Let's get together and talk about how we're going to respond to this decision so we didn't have a say in it. Yeah. How are we as a team going to come together and react and deal with what's been given to us. We may not like it, but as a team, participatory environment, how are we going to make up our mind to support this decision and move forward? So I love that again. It goes full circle back to Let's Talk as a team. Let's get the team input and do it in a participatory way. Absolutely final, final thought as we close out your part here today. Pro so

24:25
just to close that on this question, even if you were in part of the decision, you can still be powerful and part of the implementation or part of the outcome. This is the value of you and our organization. I hope that everyone has this safe environment where you can participate and you have your own opinion about things or even ideas and implement it. But if you're not ask also those questions like, How can I participate? How can I contribute? So I'm pretty. Sure that if you have this positive attitude with people, they're going to allow you and they're going to listen to you. That's very important. And just thank you. Thank you for allowing me to be this time with you. I really appreciate it. Thank you for the comments, and I hope everyone find a little bit something today that you can apply, that you can talk about it. Please share whatever you think. It's something that you learn, share with others, and maybe those also are going to share with others as well, and we can have a better organizations in the world at the end of the day.

25:34
Yeah. Thank you so much Perla for being here. We appreciate your support over the years, and thank you for being our guest today. Absolutely great day and a good rest of your retreat.

25:44
Thank you. Thank you everyone. Have a wonderful rest of the day.

25:49
Thank you for listening to the LeaderGov podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe and for more information on leader gov's workshops and programs for state and local governments, visit www.leadergov.com