Releasing Passion and Creativity Setting employees up for success is a crucial element to make the shift to more solutions that are balanced; making sure they feel they can still meet their strong internal commitment to do a good job, but do not feel as if they need to make sacrifices to be greener. Finding balance is everyone’s job. In fact, it is the job. It cannot be an extra activity or the job of somebody else. All employees at all levels must have freedom to advance innovative ideas. Letting Go of the Reigns. I knew we had a department full of motivated, creative people. So what was preventing innovative solutions from coming forward? What I found is that I was part of the problem. Employees have an infinite number of great ideas that have the potential to create breakthroughs to new thinking. If every one of these ideas had to go to the director for approval, progress would be an agonizingly slow and compromising process, focused more on bringing forward safe, noncontroversial ideas. Worse yet, if every employee waited for change to come from me, our organization would be stuck in paralysis, churning along doing things the way they have always been done. Therefore, I placed complete faith in employee judgment and creativity by getting out of the way so that they could lead. I did this by delegating almost all of my decision authority. I could then transition into a support role to remove barriers for employees. However, this is hard. It is moving forward and viewing success a little differently. Instead of viewing my role as being relevant, as being the person in charge with the good ideas, I had to view my role as being one of significance—being comfortable in the background as a cheerleader for the vision, and being a resource to get things unstuck. I needed a way to be accountable, and expect accountability in others, because the City Manager was holding me accountable. Our approach was to
have a set of commitments that demonstrate what accountability looks like. We involved all employees in developing Our Commitments and we reinforce these principles ruthlessly/daily. Purpose-centered Leadership. To work for Olympia Public Works, everyone must be able to say “yes” to the following questions: •
•
•
•
Purpose-centered. Is what I am about to do a balanced solution? Is it consistent with our mission of being extraordinary? Will I do it in a way that honors our values of innovation, respect and effectiveness? If the answer is “yes” to all five of these things, GO FOR IT! Keep Our Promises. Can I fulfill my “yes” commitment? If the answer is “no,” ask for help. Learn and Grow. If things do not go as planned (which will often happen if regularly going into uncharted territory), what new knowledge did I gain and how am I putting it to use? Support. Did we provide support to each other when things went bad? Spending our valuable energy looking for blame only keeps us
stuck. Sometimes, managers must provide shelter from criticism. •
Smell the Roses. Did we recognize the small successes along the way and enjoy them? If we do not do this, work will not be fun anymore.
Under this form of accountability, employees are empowered to succeed for the department on their terms rather than being told what to do. This created synergy and meaning. Employees were now in charge.
Make it Easy SAM: A Simple Tool to Find Balance in Everything What we needed was a simple tool that could be used by anyone, for any situation to help guide balanced choices. We asked for help from a public works class at Evergreen State College. Six students took on a class project to develop a sustainable decision-making tool for us. They created a powerful three-dimensional tool called the Sustainable Action Map (or SAM, shown above). We use SAM to guide balanced decisions. SAM helped the City to move forward with a zero waste plan, a sustainable labor agreement with AFSCME, and a white board purchase. May 2009
APWA Reporter
35