“Our future organization will hopefully have a dynamic role in creating the future. I see less bureaucratic tendencies, a smaller carbon footprint and efforts to encourage a huge civic footprint by encouraging meaningful citizenship.”

Tell us about the key characteristics of your community?
Alachua County is one of 67 counties in Florida and home to the University of Florida and Santa Fe College. The county seat is Gainesville and there are eight additional municipalities in the 932 square mile county. With a highly educated population of 248,000 and over 67,000 students it is demographically one of the youngest counties in Florida and has a diverse mix of people and cultures.
An educational, health and biotech center with a significant innovation focus, the area has a relatively stable and growing economy despite the recessionary downturn.  The county employs over 2200 employees. With a high level of poverty in our community and transient students a major focus we excel at is our use of community wide 10 year plans to deal with issues of hunger and homelessness.
How long have you lead the organization?
I have been employed by the County for over ten years and started in 1999.

Can you describe the culture of your organization?
Our management team has been committed to creating an innovative organization which accepts that change is the only constant and that teamwork and communication are essential for the success of both the organization and the prosperity and personal growth of our employees. Our leadership ethic is stated as “creating respect for people and place” and that is a sustainable ethic that guides use as humans into community.

Can you summarize what is the biggest challenge your organization faces today?
Doing the Necessary Evil within an Organization, basically how you creatively destroy what you have created.  Ultimately these times force us to deal with doing something you would prefer not to do and as leaders dealing with cognitive dissonance associated with these acts.

The national recession and actions by the State legislature to weaken local revenues and cap property taxes has resulted in consecutive years of retrenchment and reallocation of resources without a diminished level of expectations from citizens for services. In an organization which has fully embraced transformation management structures and processes the stresses of diminished resources strains many of the collaborative processes and employee empowerment values we have embraced.

How do maintain a positive atmosphere in tough times?
Foremost is the consistency of a values based management style and transparency in communications and actions about the condition of our organization and the road ahead. Where people can maintain trust in a system that shares information and shows a concern for employees during the worst of economic times there is hope. We speak frequently of recent years and budgeting as “riding the whitewater” where the goal is to keep as many in the boat as possible, keep paddling and aligned with the course between the rocks and rapids and keeping a life line to those we lose on the way. Another analogy is that of a gardener who must prune a plant he cares for to assure its survival and better its ability to produce fruit in the future.

From a strategic perspective stick to your core business and shed the add on’s.  Use this as an opportunity to introduce and continue to drive change, or to jettison previous strategies that no longer work.  Experiment with organizational design and tackle the most bothersome processes.

There is an increased opportunity in crisis – an increased ability to drive change.  We can search the horizon for opportunities and push innovation and the concept of continuous improvement while maintaining a focus on citizens and customers.

In terms of the people, in tough times they want stability, compassion, trust and hope.

• Trust – overcommunicate, be first, be clear, be consistent.  Show two-way trust.  Articulate the challenges being faced, the strategy for facing them, and the changes or reductions that are being made and why they are being made.

• People – acknowledge the emotional impact in making changes and the hardships people are facing.   Let them know what management is doing to protect their jobs.  Most important is to care for your managers, their job is doubly difficult now.  Let them know that they are valued and what they are doing is right.

• Stability – this is tricky, you need to provide sufficient stability that people do not stress out, but enough discomfort that people work on the changes that need to be made.  Maintain regular operations and traditions that are important to the DNA of the organization.  Continue to articulate the organization’s sense of purpose and relate decisions back to that purpose for the sense of continuity.

• Hope – Embrace a notion of realistic optimism.  Balance communication with the harsh realities of a positive and compelling view of the future.  Identify the tactical steps to get there and what their role is in it.

If you were to have a crystal ball, where do you think Alachua County is going over the course of the next ten years?  
As a community Alachua County is poised to have a great future. We have embraced sustainability and resiliency as much as any community and are recognized in a peer group of highly creative places with an innovation hub built upon  a major research university and medical service  based economy. Cultural and environmental amenities are valued and protected in our community, where planning is taken seriously.

I think as an organization we will make it through the rough water of the moment and have a depth of talent, that if we can hold on to them, these up and comers can lead a new economy and revitalized country. Our future organization will hopefully have a dynamic role in creating the future. I see less bureaucratic tendencies, a smaller carbon footprint and efforts to encourage a huge civic footprint by encouraging meaningful citizenship.

How has the Alliance for Innovation made a difference to your organization?
The Alliance for Innovation has been a fundamental method I have used to encourage an environment of transformation. Over 10% of our employees have attended TLG conferences and many others take advantage of webinars and materials to promote changes in mindsets and processes. The greatest advantage of the Alliance is the combination of a total organizational involvement opportunity to think and dream about what could be and how individuals in small groups can change their workplaces for the better. It is not about just management or performance; organizations are always about people and potential in our case a desire to serve and create community.