I had a Martin Buber I-Thou moment at this summer’s CCCMA Emerging Managers Summer Camp in Fort Collins when the welcome was delivered by Darin Atteberry, City Manager. His enthusiasm for the job, the place, and the people after 24 years is infectious. “I happen to be one of those guys who love the job, our workers and our industry,” he says.
It was clear that the feeling is mutual with his employees as he was praised by Kristen Silveira, who was Process Improvement Program Manager at the time she spearheaded the event (now in a similar role with Denver Public Library) and Sam Houghteling, now Program Director at CSU Straayer Center for Public Service Leadership. Houghteling said to the group that after years of working with Darin, “one of the things I admire most along with his vision is his trust in the people around him. It is a distributed leadership model with a high level of trust across the organization.”
Atteberry shared what he asks each of the 2,400 city employees when he gets the chance, which he admits is now less often than he would like. The questions invite self-reflection that focus attention on three areas of meaning. The asking of them is a powerful culture statement.
First, “the It.” What about your work gives you goosebumps and links you to something larger? He talks about the importance of a personal narrative, and how cultivating it is your key to authentic leadership. Along the way, he has heard some compelling stories, like the city cemetery worker whose dad died when he was a teenager, and how the respect shown to his family then motivates him in his job now; and from wastewater workers, and police and individuals in every department when they have a personal connection to the work that motivates them. It may be about a particular project that is a “career opportunity” that they got to do. If employees are not asked, they may not have even made the connection to why they do what they do. When they do connect, it puts them at another level of within the organization and the people they serve.
Second, “the We.” Darin asks two questions in quick succession; do you genuinely love the people you work with?” and “is that creepy?” Darin spent a bit of time backpedaling his earnestness on this which can feel a little weird in the “me too” era. It is not an idle question, it indicates whether people genuinely are connected to those around them. Though hard to measure it is a very high indicator of the health of the culture within an organization. Darin’s response to an employee who responded, “I only say I love you to a couple of people in my entire life,” is “get used to it. I’m all in. I would do anything for you.”
Third, “The I.” Darin asks each employee, “is this work allowing you to do something significant in your personal life.” Among the notable answers he shared, “this job gets me health care for my daughter who has cancer,” “this job allows me to be a climber,” and “I’m in an abusive relationship at home and work is the only place I feel safe.” As Darin puts it, you have to embrace employees as people, he notes, “any single day, right now, any of our 2,400 colleagues may be sitting down with their spouse saying I want a divorce, another is getting proposed to, another’s dog just got ran over.”
To tie it all together for the emerging managers he offered, “If the work genuinely gives you goosebumps, and you genuinely like those you work with and it is doing something for you personally, then, people’s core needs do not change. People want the same thing across generations. People want significance, validation.”
His final words of wisdom, “just stay curious. You come in with all this knowledge. Just recognize that the person in front of you may have different needs. Be present.”
By the way, I asked Houghteling before doing this write-up if Atteberry’s “The IT, the We and the I” talk was a known philosophy in Ft Collins or was just a reflection. His text reply, “it is an intentional approach. He has given that spiel to the entire staff at Fort Collins.”
Atteberry also talked about how these questions are lead-ins to developing a personal “leadership narrative.” For all the other things we seem to call “leadership training” these days, this may be one of the most important and underlooked–the power of understanding why you are here now, in relation to where you have been, who you are and where you are going. I find myself having this discussion in reviews with employees now where I am asking how what they have been doing and what they are planning to do reads on their resume. In other words, is your work today connected to a narrative you will be telling when you are looking for the next role? If not, it tells me the employee isn’t as connected as they could be. The “It, the We and the I” talk could be an exercise in a staff workshop setting for developing leaders where the pressure isn’t so much on a top manager to lead each discussion.
A caveat about this approach if you are a “drop-in” manager like me: you have to authentically care and devote the time to an answer if you ask a question. That said, you also need to be skilled at redirecting when answers get far off track and have an exit strategy that isn’t too abrupt. It may be better done in a scheduled situation than in an open-ended drop-in. The thing I have learned as a parent of teenagers (even more than as a manager) about asking questions is that you need to be prepared to listen and absorb the answers which inevitably lead to unexpected places, perhaps uncomfortable ones. The results can be transformative for individuals and for an organization with a culture of cultivating personal narratives.
