In case you missed the Management Division town hall, here is a summary of what was discussed:

Michell opened the town hall by presenting more information on the Management Division strategic plan for 2016-20. He explained that in the Board Strategic Plan for 2012-15, certain responsibilities were given to our division. However, this didn’t engage everyone who needed to be engaged, but was rather more of a to-do list that needed to get done. This time, we were able to influence the Board strategic plan more by having a MGT officer lead the workforce and physical infrastructure workgroups.

We also decided that we needed our own strategic plan in the Management Division and are working in parallel with the Board strategic plan to be better aligned. There was a desire to have more people involved in the development of the division strategic plan. A strategic planning group, made up mostly of managers from all branches, representing different functions and perspectives, was charged to not think just about their own functions, but the Management Division as a whole in order to unite the division.

In the 2014 Boardwide employee engagement survey, less than half of employees and only two-thirds of officers agreed with the statement, “It is safe to speak up and constructively challenge things around here.” The Organizational Development & Learning section worked with divisions to hold focus groups with employees from across the Board to find out what is behind this data. Employees cited some common barriers to safely speaking, such as fear of retaliation, and leaders’ behavior, such as favoritism and dismissiveness. Michell has engaged managers and officers in ongoing discussions on how to improve “safe to speak” in our division. Seven action plans are being implemented, which include things like coaching for managers and enrolling all people managers in training on having effective conversations. In addition, we all can make it a safer place by not tolerating bullies, making sure that 3Cs conversations take place, and embracing our RISE values (covered below).

After covering the “safe to speak” topic, Michell then proceeded to share our new division-wide mission. Previously, our mission was a listing of all of the functional areas and what they do. Our new mission is intended to reflect our overall purpose and be easier to remember:

          Deliver the best service experience through our people, programs, operations, and technical           knowledge.

 

Michell likened this to our division operating as a conductor of an orchestra. He illustrated that your perspective of how the orchestra sounds can be influenced by where you are sitting among the musicians. When you are among the oboes or french horns, everything can sound like that instrument.  However, by being the conductor, you can see and hear the sound come together as one unified orchestra. Our role in the Management Division is to be more like the conductor, helping to bring all the different functional perspectives, as well as the input from stakeholders into one unified whole. 

Next, Tara Pelitere, associate director & CTO, shared that a vision is supposed to be aspirational and it was time for a new one. So what is our new division vision?

           Be a center of excellence enabling the Board's success

This short, but powerful vision further encourages us to operate as one team. Tara explained that a center of excellence can be defined as a team that provides leadership, best practices, research, support, and training– managing them in a way that brings the best outcome to our customers. .

Finally, Theresa Trimble, assistant director, presented our new division values. The team took all of the previous values used by sections around the division and boiled them into four values we will all share with an easy to remember acronym.

  • R—Respect
  • I—Integrity
  • S—Service
  • E—Excellence

She stressed that these values should describe how we provide service to our external and internal customers. And equally important, they describe how we should treat each other.

Michell closed our time together by sharing the 2016-20 goals and objectives and sharing how each of us fit in to this plan.

More than 120 meeting participants responded to the feedback survey (see results). More than 93% of them agreed or strongly agreed that they understand and have enthusiasm for the new mission, vision, and values; and that they have confidence that we will achieve our goals. 100% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the new mission, vision, and values are right for our division. The survey also collected comments and questions. Be on the lookout for a blog post from Michell with answers to the most common questions. To read questions and answers gathered from the survey, be on the lookout for Michell’s upcoming blog post.