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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 and today, we're really, as I said, we're talking about diversity. And how do we get how do we foster it and promote it and have a diverse array of opinions and perspectives in our workplace, and how do we use that to get the best result? Okay, Gail and Kevin, actually, I want to, I want to speed forward and introduce Kevin real quick again.

0:57
Give the give the audience a little bit about my background.

1:02
Graduated from Bob Jones University in 1986

1:05
spent the first 10 years of my career in public accounting. The last seven of those 10. I was actually the external auditor for Florence County, South Carolina, and then in April of 96 went to the other side of the desk, became the finance director for a little over 23 years. In October of 19 I sarcastically say I went over to the dark side. I left county government, went to city government, and was there at the city of Florence for three and a half years as assistant city manager, and today is actually my three year anniversary coming back to the county as County Administrator. And then one other addition to the CV, as far as my education, I also received a Master of Public Affairs degree in 2014 from Indiana University. And just for those on the call, you know some people in the chat session. It's obvious where you're from, Florence, County, South Carolina. Just to give you a reference, we are the midway point on I 95

2:14
between New York City and Miami, and we're actually one of our interchanges on 995

2:21
is actually the biggest interchange on 995

2:24
between Washington, DC and Miami. So, and we're about, and for those of you that go to go to Myrtle Beach for vacation, we're about an hour, hour and 15 minutes west of Myrtle Beach.

2:36
Oh, and also know that y'all have the highest revenue grossing buckies in the world, right? I guess we've got a couple of people from the great state of Texas.

2:46
Yeah, one of our requirements is, if you visit Florence County, you must stop at buckies

2:52
right now. Yeah, they buy neck and neck with the buckies in Macon, Georgia for number one corporate and their average

3:01
visitation to their store is 750,000

3:04
people per month.

3:07
Wow, amazing. Wow, crazy. Thank you for sharing a little bit about your background. I know you've been serving local governments for a number of years, and I think it's important. You know, we like that, because we want folks like yourself on these workshops and kind of providing your perspective. And when everyone registered for this workshop, we asked you two questions, and these are the results of all of your answers. How can diversity strengthen your team's purpose and goals? And as you see the big the big blue box there, the slice of the pie that's blue, probably 40%

3:47
brings more perspectives into decision making, problem solving.

3:51
The about a third of you that the red at the bottom there said, I'm not sure yet. Maybe I'll get some clarity during the workshop. And so at least you were honest and said, You know, I'm not sure how diversity can strengthen my team's purpose and goals. About 20% said diversity, it reminds us to be open to different perspectives. Help us communicate to other audiences, and helps morale to see a wide range of team members. So I don't know. Gail, what are your What are your thoughts on that anything sort of stand out to you there?

4:26
Um, yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, it's, it does bring more perspectives to decision making,

4:36
solving, and, and,

4:39
and I, you know, the thing I think that's also really important is that the diversity is critical in communication and people understanding

4:50
their audiences, like this says, understanding, you know, the groups of people that they're talking to. You.

5:05
Allows for great. Yeah,

5:10
you're breaking up a little bit. Well, it says it here, the different perspective is okay now, yeah, I think you're back because

5:20
because

5:27
you're still breaking up. Gail,

5:31
you're still breaking

5:34
How about now

5:36
we'll see.

5:39
Sorry. That's okay. That's okay. We also asked the groups, how would you describe the diversity on your teams today? And I thought this was pretty interesting. The blue, which is about a third, says, Yeah, we're highly diverse. Got a lot of viewpoints and styles. That's good. The red, which is about a third said, Well, we're mostly similar in background and perspective. Okay, so a lot of homogenous, homogenous sort of thinking, perhaps,

6:11
and then the the gold or yellow says, Yeah, we have some differences, but, but we're not always integrated. We don't, we don't incorporate all these, this diversity into our decision making and that sort of thing. And then a small amount, four or 5% said, not sure. Hadn't really thought it about thought about it. So I just asked Kevin or Gail any any observation on this, this, this result as well.

6:40
Bill, I, you know, you and I talked,

6:45
I'm just curious,

6:48
you know, for those that answered in the red, and I don't know if they want to self identify or not,

6:54
to unpack that a little bit, because me being an older white guy, you know, I immediately go to, does that mean there's a bunch of old white guys sitting around the table at department head meetings?

7:08
Yeah, hopefully that's not the case, but yeah, I'd be, I'd be interested. Well, yeah, and Gail and I were talking as well. And you know, today is not just about race, although that's an important

7:21
part of diversity, race, of course, ethnicity, personality differences,

7:28
tenure differences, newly tenured employees, employees who've been there 30 years. And when we get around the table to make those decisions, we need to be sure we've got Gen Z in the room, right? You know, millennials, not just the baby boomers. Yeah, Bill, you make a good, good point.

7:46
I've been in the process of developing, and it's a once a month Lunch and Learn for about 18 of our managers supervisors, so the layer right under department heads, and we're doing eight monthly lunch and learns on eight different topics, and some of that was based on email feedback we got from them. And one of our topics a couple of months ago is managing diversity, and based on their email feedback, exactly to your point, our issue of Florence County was not, you know, race, gender or age. Our issue is personality. Kind of introvert versus extrovert? Yeah, no, that's huge, yeah, yeah,

8:30
yeah. So many things can get in the way of the variety of perspectives that we want. We all know instinctively that a variety of perspectives around decisions and goals and process, we know instinctively that that makes for a better decision. But are we as leaders? It's incumbent upon us as leaders to be a to be open to that and willing to expand our thinking and not be prejudiced by I'm comfortable with my friends who are all millennials, or I'm comfortable with this group, not with that group. It's incumbent upon us as leaders. This is kind of the hard part of this workshop today. We have to be honest with ourselves and basically say, Are we being as assertive as we can to bring in unique perspectives and different perspectives into the workplace, and that's really what we're all about today, is that,

9:27
that whole topic? So, yeah, so Kevin, we just had some questions. You know, we're gonna, we're gonna go till about the bottom of the hour. We've got some questions that we wanted to kind of ask you, and have you share some thoughts. And then the folks listening, the folks on the Zoom are welcome to ask questions. Please. Do you

9:48
know we don't we want you to participate as well, but we're going to put you in breakout groups at the bottom of the hour, and allow you to to chat in groups of five or six for about 20 minutes, so you'll have a chance to really unpack some of these ideas with your peers.

10:00
Is at the bottom of the hour. So, Kevin, I guess I just would start with, you know, we've already kind of talked about a little bit, but why? Why is diversity important? You know, from your perspective, how have you, have you seen it benefit

10:15
your decisions and your county there? Well, I guess, Bill, it's kind of two separate questions. Let me address the first one, first in Why is diversity important? And like you and I talked about yesterday,

10:32
not to be offensive to anybody on the call at all, but I've never been a strong proponent of affirmative action, dei, what have you. However,

10:44
even more strongly on the other side of the ledger, I am a extremely strong proponent of

10:51
does your local government team, whether it's department heads, managers, supervisors, whatever, does it reflect the community you serve? You know, now we're talking, you know, more racially, but I appreciate Bill's comments. As far as you know, it's also age, gender, whatever the illustration I go back to, you know, if you're talking strictly race, which is that's not the sole topic of today, obviously,

11:21
is pre George Floyd in Ferguson, Missouri, the Michael Brown issue, when you had a white police officer, you know, shoot a fleeing African American suspect.

11:34
You know, from what I understand, and if anybody's from the area, please correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand, Ferguson, Missouri, demographically, is 75% minority, but their police force was 75% white, so there was already this going on, and that is since just threw and lit a match to it. So I think it's incumbent upon us. And you know, I almost turned it around in the form of a question. You know, if I had to sit down with each member on the in the audience today, does your local government team reflect the community you serve now, obviously, obviously, it can't be a one to one, but it should be fairly close to one to one. And you know, as you have opportunity to, you

12:23
know, fill vacancies in your team. I think you need to be aware of, if you have an issue in that area,

12:32
you know, the benefits that we derive.

12:36
Yeah, we've and Dale talked about it. It's the diversity of thought around the table.

12:43
You know, if you have people of the same age, race, gender, you know, background, whatever you know, your meetings become an echo chamber, and you don't have the diversity of thought, and you don't have anybody at the table saying, You know what? I never thought about it that way. I've never walked a mile in your moccasin so, you know, I don't, you know, I don't. I'm glad you're at the table, because I don't have that perspective.

13:19
I don't know. I think it's in, you know, Jim Collins Good to Great book,

13:26
and it may be someplace else. I've used the quote many times. If I'm the smartest person in the room, I'm in the wrong room.

13:33
So, you know, we need smarter people, and I'm not just talking about intelligence, but smarter people with perspective, and so you get the diversity of thought that Gail referred to,

13:46
so that you get different perspectives, and it helps you create better decision making.

13:52
Yeah, I'm curious, Gail, in your in your experience, I know you've worked with a lot of local governments, a lot on the West Coast, and what would be your observation around this whole idea of, I would say, the leader's responsibility to ensure that all voices are heard. You know, how does the leader do that? And, and, I guess secondarily, Gail, I'd love just to hear like, if someone is not qualified for a job a promotion. What? What role does the manager have in equipping people, particularly those who haven't had opportunities, you know, to to be equipped, to coach them, to mentor them, to help them get to that place where they can

14:37
be promoted and rise to new levels. What are your experiences as you look at teams in that way? Yeah, well, I know when I work with teams in especially in the on the West Coast, and especially well in Seattle Washington, I

14:52
think I'm going to be unstable here. There's having internet issues, evidently, um.

15:00
Hmm,

15:02
I have

15:06
I work with teams to talk about just what was talking about. Let's look at

15:14
who needs, whose voice Do we not have at the table, and who do we need to add to the table so that we have a more holistic conversation and have better questions about what we're dealing with, because you can't sit in a vacuum think you're going to be

15:35
able to actually

15:40
create something or solve problems? Yeah, the same people talking, the same people are. It's homogenous. You just need that diversity to ask those questions, to bring in the conversation.

15:53
And so in dealing with the leaders, making sure that they are

15:59
thinking about, what's our goal here, what are we trying to achieve? And then who needs to be at the table to make sure that we achieve them, and so working with them on a regular basis to really look at

16:16
what's our goal, and that's the key. I think a key thing with leaders is being clear about what is your goal, and given your goal, then how are we going to get there? That's that's really addressing the issues I've worked with. I'm primarily in King County, Kevin in in Seattle, Washington,

16:37
but I've also worked with the city of Seattle and the Port of Seattle and Sound Transit. So in the governmental realm, what we find, what I find, is that you have mid management, pretty diverse leadership above mid management pretty white. And so have had to really and have been brought in to

17:04
have been brought in to coach mid management, but then have not been asked to coach the leadership. And so now what I do is, and if I'm if I'm brought in to coach mid management and change them, then I also say, well, then I also have to coach the the leadership as well, because, because the language, the perspectives, all of those are critical

17:32
at both levels. And it can't just be

17:35
at that mid management level, but that's where you see that's where I see a lot of diversity. I see a lot of activity there, but not at that leadership level. So I have to be very clear with the leadership, it's critical to get input from that, that level of individuals around how things change. Yeah, thank you. You beeped out at the end, but we got the main thing, thank you. Gail, yeah, Kevin, I'd love to hear, hear your kind of perspective on that, and also, Kevin, this idea of, why do leaders sometimes avoid stirring diverse thoughts and opinions, like, sometimes we don't want to go there. You know, we don't want to purposefully invite opposing ideas, right? I mean, posting ideas make make the thing better. What? Why do we why are we fearful about this? Sometimes you think, Well,

18:30
I think the biggest word you just hinted at, Bill is conflict.

18:35
No, nobody likes conflict. I think I've heard, I heard, I don't know it's on a movie or TV show, whatnot, the only people that really enjoy conflict, or psychopaths.

18:45
So, you know, nobody likes conflict.

18:49
And, you know, you talked about opposing views. Well, you know, I'm the CEO of Florence County. I'm the I'm the one in in charge. You know, if somebody has an opposing view to mind, it's like,

19:05
you know, sometimes I've got to admit they may have a better idea than me,

19:12
and that's, you know, I don't want to hear that now playing back against what Gail just said, and I'm glad for that perspective where she's seeing a lot of local government organizations where mid management is diverse and senior management is not. I think it's for those senior managers on the call. I think it's incumbent upon us to give

19:36
the middle managers that may be more diverse whatever tools they need in their toolbox to give them the opportunity to advance in the organization.

19:47
One of my five personal goals this year is to develop people, and I was telling Bill yesterday when I came back to Florence County, I quickly realized I had 17 direct reports, and that doesn't work.

20:00
So I created a deputy administrator structure with three deputy administrators, and it just so happens, yeah, one's a white guy like me, but one's a white female, one's a black male, and we've got a fair amount of diversity department head level, which I'm very thankful for, but and but in recognition, I mentioned you know, us doing the monthly Lunch and Learns for the managers and supervisors. If you look at the 18 people around the table at our semi monthly department head meetings based on our age and number of years in the state retirement system, half of us could be gone in the next five years, and we need to coach up those middle managers so we retain the culture we're trying to build in the organization.

20:45
And that that coaching that Gail, I like the word coaching that Gail used,

20:52
needs to be done regardless of the person on the other side of the table, you know, regardless of whatever different diversity they bring. You know how they may be different from you in a lot of different respects that shouldn't matter. Can they do the job?

21:12
Kevin, I'd love, love to have your thoughts on this sort of final question. It's getting toward the bottom of the hour, because we want to do these breakout groups in just a moment. But

21:21
this, you know, when we come into a meeting, when we're planning a new community event, or we're reorganizing a department, or putting in some new software, whatever the thing is, you know, we, as we've said before, having diverse perspectives and opinions and viewpoints makes things better, but it is a little dicey. Okay, it's a little it can get kind of dicey in the meetings, because we're actually encouraging opposing views, and that that word conflict, Kevin, that that we talked about. And so I just you know, for the leaders out there that are listening, we really want, you know, part of our encouragement today is that you is that you invite opposing perspectives, diverse opinions. And I would just love to hear Kevin, you know, kind of from your perspective. How have you done that yourself? Or how have you seen other leaders do that, where they invite others in or ensure that all groups are heard from. You know, I was with a city the other day, and they were launching a new service to their citizens and probably 20% Hispanic, and they didn't have any flyers in Spanish. It's like, that doesn't make sense to me, right? You know, that's that's weird. So this is not just about race, although it is certainly part of it. It's like, how do we give our citizens the best product by considering these different perspectives? Just in closing, I'd love to hear you kind of share on that. Well, I think I've got thoughts in two directions. Bill one, and Gail has spoken to it. I think it's incumbent upon senior leadership to make sure that those around the table are diverse, age, gender, race, whatever,

23:13
and and like I said earlier, represent the community you serve. To your point, were there any Hispanic individuals even at the table to ask that question, Hey, where's the flyers? In Spanish? But, but to the second step, and Gail also spoke to this, having the people around the table is not enough,

23:34
you know, you can take a picture and say, look at all the people around the table. Well, it's great you had them at the table. Were they allowed to give input. You know, did you as a leader? Because, you know, when I look around our department head table, we've got some extroverts. Well, those are the ones are going to talk all the time. We definitely have some introverts. Are you? Are you ensuring that you're introverts? Are you pulling some feedback from them so everybody has their a chance to speak? Now, to your point, the other the other thought, I have bill in the other direction, and not another direction. Just the second thought, we talked about that word conflict, and not to promote anybody's book, but hopefully most, if not all, the leaders on the call have heard of the name Pat Lencioni,

24:21
you know, table group and whatnot, written about 15 different books, all of them are pretty easy reads, but his seminal book is five dysfunctions of a team, and the first, the first of the five, deals with trust or an absence of trust. And he talks about a vulnerability based trust, where the leader goes first and says, Hey, I need help in this area and everybody. And then once you have that trust built in the organization, then the next step is having the conflict, because you've got an absence of trust. The next dysfunction is an avoidance of conflict. Well, if you have the trust, you can have the conflict. And.

25:00
Conflict becomes around the issue, and not a personality based conflict, where I'm attacking Gail because I don't like Gail. Now Gail and I are having a disagreement because we see an issue differently. But that's fine. You can have the conflict, and then the third one is committing. Once everybody disagrees and has a chance to be heard, then you can all center around everybody. The majority agrees this is where we're going. So, you know, conflict shouldn't be an issue. Yeah, one of the things I just want to say, I one of, one of the things that I train around is conflict, but

25:37
conflict as an opportunity

25:41
and not

25:43
as a problem, because conflict as an opportunity.

25:50
I other ways of thinking and innovation and so on, so forth. So you come to the table not as conflict as a problem, but conflict, conflict as an under opportunity to understand each other better and to resolve the challenges and issues.

26:06
That's a great phrase. Conflict is opportunity.

26:10
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, you.