In her former role as Improvement Specialist Ottawa County, Michigan, administration, Shannon McGoran unleashed many different departments with Innovators’ Compass. Their reflections include that Compassing “helps staff move beyond the status quo and get unstuck in their work by changing the way they look at problems, challenges and goals” and ultimately “providing better service delivery to our constituents.”
Thank you to Shannon and the teams for sharing their experiences here!
Parks & Recreation took on dog rule enforcement in the parks and open spaces, and saw the power of the #1 instruction Explore these questions with and for all the people involved. “Our big aha was we needed perspective from park users—both dog lovers & those who prefer not to be near dogs, and maybe include the dog wardens—we’re meeting with them to continue the discussion.”
Facilities Maintenance explored what to include in their newsletter. Abby Ritter observed that many employees of Ottawa County don’t know the responsibilities or contributions” of her department. “This creative tool benefited my thinking process by giving me additional perspectives of what others would find interesting and worthwhile.”
Juvenile Detention worked on how to best serve their clients in the day treatment program. They generated many observations, principles, ideas and experiments to get them started making the improvement. Participants said it was “Very easy to communicate issues” so they “felt heard,” as well as it “saved time and stress” in solving problems and “the court should use this more often.” Their own team used it again to “increase youth attendance and involvement in court programming.”
The Clerks’ Office explored “how we can better restructure certain divisions in our office to decrease overall stress and imbalance” as well as “how might we Improve training” in light of current overwork and turnover in the meantime? They shared that “Sometimes when looking at a problem, leadership may get bogged down because there are impacting factors that are outside of our control (funding, administrative holds, laws and policies, etc). However, I feel that once you hone in on…the people it affects - the principals and what matters most you can find small steps…and expand from there.” For example, their team identified a small, concrete first experiment to more clearly communicate what’s involved in a training.
A Friend of the Court supervisor worked to “alleviate juggling multiple tasks” amidst competing priorities and disjoined processes that limited her and other staff’s focus. She identified “my key responsibilities and tasks that could be delegated to subordinates, thereby freeing up time for forward-thinking to shape culture & process.”
Finally a cross-departmental group of directors (no picture) explored how to recognize their staff. Their observations and principles inspired many different kinds of ideas—tangible delights like cookouts, SWAG, parking privileges, and chances for off-days or community-service days, plus less tangible ones like staff spotlights and letters signed by elected officials—and above all, to gain employee input on their Compass as their next step!