The KUPMC Blog

From Terri Callahan, Director of Kansas Certified Public Manager ® Program

Dear Public Servants,
This is Public Service Recognition Week, and I want to thank you for your commitment to public service.

It is in the public service arena that we strive to make a difference and provide a better life for those we serve. We serve because service itself is at the heart of who we are, and we lead with hope and optimism because we believe in our mission and purpose regardless of the adversity that comes our way. We may never know the full impact of our service on lives and the communities we serve, but we continue to serve because we believe in public service. What would happen if the public did not have ___________ (fill in your career/position)?

There is a quote from Robert F. Kennedy (June 6, 1966) called Ripples of Hope. “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Thank you for your public service!
-Terri

Comments Delivered by Terri Callahan, Program Director, Kansas Certified Public Manager(R) Program
At Graduation, On November 16, 2012

Congratulations, Class of 2012! You deserve this celebration and recognition for the time commitment and hard work you have put forth over the past year.

The Kansas CPM program started in 1993. As graduates of the CPM class of 2012, you have the honor of closing out the decade by being the 19th CPM class. So it seems fitting that as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Kansas CPM program next year, we take time to reflect on the history of the CPM program and the last two decades.

I would like to share the story of a public manager from the State of Georgia named Ken Henning. No, you will not see Ken Henning’s name in the history books, but Ken had an idea, a vision. He did not let boundaries or obstacles stop him from moving forward with his vision. He knew how to inspire others to join on his journey.

I love this definition of a leader by John Quincy Adams, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

Ken Henning was this kind of leader. As a leader he saw a need and moved forward with enlisting others to join his vision. He wanted to see a national professional certification designation for public managers similar to a CPA designation with training and education that would foster and encourage the highest possible levels of competence and ethical practice by managers in all levels of government.

He is now jokingly called the “Father of CPM.” In 1976, The Governor of Georgia, George Busbee appointed the Georgia CPM Board and the Georgia CPM program was born. In 1979, the National Certified Public Manager Consortium was established to preserve the standards for the Certified Public Manager designation with six charter states.

I share this story, because it is a story of one public manager with a vision, a vision to make a difference, and he took action and persevered through many challenges to make CPM a reality. It is amazing to me that today the CPM concept has grown to 41 CPM programs with thousands of CPM graduates across the US.

As I listened to your Capstones, it struck me that all of you as public managers, like Ken Henning and other leaders, have a vision, a new idea, a new way of doing business, and a new approach to providing services. I enjoyed hearing each of your Capstone presentations, because they reflected the purpose, passion, and perseverance each of you bring to public service and the people we serve. Thank you!

I want to close with a quote and challenge to all public managers and CPM graduates from Ken Henning (from 2003):
“That the Certified Public Manager Organization, from its inception to the present, has not only survived but has grown for three decades, is a remarkable achievement. Substantial opportunities, but also some significant challenges, lie ahead of us. If all Certified Public Managers will approach the future with determination to play an increasingly important professional role in our society and internationally, the future will be marked by a 50th anniversary of the CPM concept.”

I would like to add a twist to Ken’s challenge: What more can we accomplish together if we as public managers take on the challenges of our future with determination and dedication?

Once again, please join me in congratulating the Class of 2012!

Comments Delivered By Barney Hubert, Superintendent, Kansas Neurological Institute (KNI)
On November 16, 2012

Congratulations on your success in completing the CPM program!

I was pleased to see such a diverse group of public servants in this year’s class:

• 13 from several different county governments
• 26 from several different city governments
• 24 from several different state agencies
• 2 from state universities
• 3 from federal agencies
• 2 from private industry

There is also a great deal of diversity in the types of work you do within your organizations!

As Charles mentioned in my introduction, I participated in the CPM program in 1999. At that time a much larger percentage of the group came from State agencies. It’s wonderful to see the increasing diversity in the composition of the class.

I trust participation in the CPM program has been a great learning and networking experience for you. During the past week I asked a number of people who have graduated from the CPM program over the past 15 years to share their memories of the program. Many people mentioned the networking opportunities associated with the program, the chance to get a glimpse into the work of other governmental agencies, and specific instructors, class topics and classmates who made a positive and lasting impression on them. Others mentioned the hard work they did, their Capstone Projects and the fact that participation in the CPM program provided a start for them in their desire to work toward a Master’s of Public Administration degree. Still others talked about the fact that participation in the CPM program gave them an opportunity to share their love of the work they do with others, to gain a greater appreciation for the important purpose of their work as public servants, and to help others understand the importance of the mission of their organization.

In the 13 years since I graduated from the program it has been interesting for me watch the contributions a number of my classmates have made as they’ve continued their careers as public servants, or moved on to positions in the private sector. In years to come I’m sure you will see great things from many of your classmates too! I continue to use the core of my capstone project in my work today, and I hope many of you, and your employers, will see lasting value in the work you’ve put into your capstone projects into the next decade.

I was honored when Terri asked me to speak to you at this year’s graduation ceremony. I also found the request to be a bit daunting. Keynote speakers are supposed to inspire and motivate. As Charles mentioned when he introduced me, I’ve spent nearly my entire career in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities. I’ve never felt I was the smartest person in the room, or the most visionary person in my field, or the best clinician, or the most inspirational person. When I reflected on what I have to offer a group like this, I realized that some of the most important things I’ve learned during my career in the disabilities field have a great deal of application to the work of all public servants:

In the field I work in, a respected researcher named Connie Lyle O’Brien found that “the most important factor influencing peoples’ satisfaction with the services they receive is the relationship they have with the people who provide direct support to them”—the people they come into contact with on a daily basis. I’ve learned how true this is in the field of disabilities. In our work at KNI, this makes it important for those of us who are managers, instructors, professionals and support staff to keep in mind that our role is to equip our frontline workers—those who have sustained daily contact with our customers (for us, the people who live at KNI)—to have the skills, resources, and understanding of our mission they need to provide high-quality services to the people we support.

In reflecting on Connie’s research findings, I realize the principle included in this quote is true for all public servants. Whether we work in law enforcement, accounting, public works, economic development, or social services, it’s important that we understand the mission our agencies are working to fulfill and our role in providing high-quality services to the end users—the primary customers–of the services provided by our organizations. A key responsibility of all of us who provide leadership within our organizations or who supervise, mentor and provide direction to other staff members is to be sure we equip those who have direct contact with our customers with the resources they need to be responsive to our customers and to provide excellent service to them.

Years ago, a coworker I admired greatly convinced me that in absolutely the most basic terms, “QUALITY IS RESPONSIVENESS.” She sold me on the idea that the more we are attentive to our customers and strive to be responsive to them, the more they will appreciate us and value and support us and the services we provide. If they see us doing our best to be responsive, and know this is our goal, they will also be more willing to forgive us when we make mistakes.

Several years ago, I met a gentleman who talked about his experience preparing to teach a college class for students who were learning to support people with disabilities. Before the class began, this person met with a friend who has a disability and asked him, “What are the most important things I need to teach people who will go into this field?” His friend told him, “Teach them to respect me for who I am, as I am, and teach them to listen to me.”

Again, I think this lesson extends beyond the context of services for people with disabilities and has tremendous application for all of us who are public servants. Whoever we come into contact with in our work, we need to “Respect people for who they are, as they are. We need to listen to people.” Given the different fields in which we work, this will be different for each one of us, but the core lesson is critically important for all of us.

A final lesson I want to share comes from an educator and author named Haim Ginott who wrote extensively about the relationships between teachers and students and between parents and children. One of his most famous quotes is titled, “I Am the Decisive Element,” and I’ve adapted it slightly for this audience:

I AM THE DECISIVE ELEMENT

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
I possess a tremendous power to make the lives of others miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that determines whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, whether those around me will be humanized or de-humanized, whether a person’s life will be interesting or boring, comfortable or miserable, productive or pointless. I am the decisive element.

All of you in the jobs you do, as well as in your personal lives, have tremendous influence over the lives of others. As you take the lessons you’ve learned in the CPM program and apply them in your work and personal lives, I hope you will look for opportunities to humor, humanize and heal those you serve, those you work alongside, those you interact with in your personal lives and those you love. I urge you to honor and support those within your organizations—those you supervise, those you work alongside, and those you serve. I urge you to accept others for who they are, as they are. I urge you to listen to those around you and to learn from them.

Thank you for giving me the honor of speaking to you today, congratulations, and best of luck in all your future endeavors!

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Speaker’s Bio: Barney Hubert began work for the State of Kansas in 1976 after earning a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies at the University of Kansas. After spending a year as a Correctional Officer he accepted his first position supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Over the past 34 years Barney has held a variety of positions in the disability field, starting with direct service positions and progressing into a variety of leadership roles.

He completed a Master’s degree in the School of Education at the University of Kansas in 1988 and is a 1999 graduate of the Kansas Certified Public Manager program. He has been Superintendent of the Kansas Neurological Institute, one of the two state-operated facilities in Kansas that provide support to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, for six years.

For the past 18 years he has also been an occasional Quality Enhancement Specialist for The Council on Quality and Leadership in Supports for People with Disabilities, an international quality enhancement and accrediting organization based in Towson, Maryland. Barney serves as a volunteer guardian through the Kansas Guardianship Program and is a long-time member of the board of directors for The Arc of Douglas County, an advocacy organization for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

An email was sent out on December 9, 2011 to Fire Department staff by Carol Gonzales, the City Manager of City of Shawnee, with wonderful news about John Mattox, one of our Certified Public Manager graduates:

As you know when Chief Hudson retired I appointed Chief Mattox as interim chief and allowed myself time to think about the appointment of the next chief. Department head positions play a critical role in leading departments, this organization, and, they provide leadership in the community. Selecting the right people to fill those positions is one of the most, if not the most, important decisions that I make in my position as City Manager.

During the past few months, I have worked closely with Chief Mattox and have seen clearly his commitment to the fire profession, the department and the City. As I have gotten to know him better, I have come to greatly appreciate his common sense approach, direct communication style and positive outlook. He is a person of great compassion and integrity, and has already demonstrated the willingness to make the hard decisions that are necessary for strong leadership. I believe he is innovative and will set high standards and expectations, encourage forward thinking, and be open to ideas and suggestions from all staff.

For those reasons, and because John’s extensive experience in the fire service, the roles he has played regionally and nationally in professional associations, and his formal and continuing education have prepared him well, I am appointing him as the Fire Chief for the City of Shawnee, effective today. The fire service is a changing industry, and I believe John Mattox is the best person to lead our outstanding department into the future.

I am proud to serve as the City Manager of a City with such an excellent fire department. I thank you for your support of Chief Mattox, and I thank you for your outstanding public service.

Carol
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We couldn’t have said it better ourselves and congratulate John on this wonderful promotion and opportunity! This is a very deserving honor for him – his leadership, dedication, and commitment to public service shine through in so many ways. We know that great things will happen under his leadership. – The Public Management Staff
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Click here to read the announcement that was on the City of Shawnee’s website.

Comments Delivered By Craig Weinaug, Douglas County Administrator
On November 18, 2011

As we approach another election cycle, I feel a mixture of excitement and dread as our attention is drawn again toward discussion of public issues. It certainly seems to me that at the state and national levels, some candidates base their entire campaigns on a baseless claim. They tell voters that government is responsible for virtually everything bad going on in the world today. Candidates for elected offices at every level compete to be perceived as the candidate who would eliminate the biggest chunks of this thing we call government.

Even in TV sitcoms and in almost all popular culture, any character part of a mayor, state legislator, or any other public job is almost always portrayed as incompetent, lazy, and/or just plain comically stupid.

Government is rarely presented in public debates or in popular culture as a positive force.

I once had a conversation with a young lady who was working toward her M.P.A. degree. She had interviewed the governor of the state where she went to undergraduate school. When he found out that she was pursuing a career in public service, he could not understand why a topflight student would seek a career in the public sector as her first choice when she could make so much more money in the private sector.

I am here to make an important point that seems to have been lost in public discourse: Government is the means that we have to collectively pay for and provide those services that we collectively need.

Government is not a boogeyman. Government is roads and bridges. Government is schools and libraries. Government is the military keeping us safe around the world, and government is public servants keeping our water and air safe at home.

The vast majority of government workers are public servants who have chosen a career in public service because they want to make better life for all of us.

Government includes our teachers who spend every day of their professional lives giving our children the opportunity to be all that they can be, regardless of the level of success of their parents.

It includes occupational rehab specialists that work with our neighbors with disabilities so they can live with dignity and be productive citizens regardless of the disabilities that they may have.

It includes law enforcement officers and fire fighters that are prepared on a moment’s notice to risk their lives so the rest of us can be safe.

It includes road engineers that devote an entire career in the continuing effort to make our roads as safe as possible and minimize the loss of life.

It includes public health officials who work to protect us all from the outbreak of diseases that would regularly threaten our communities, if it were not for their perseverance.

It includes the social workers at SRS who work to ensure that there is a safety net for the children of our citizens who have lost their jobs.

It includes the psychologists at our community mental health centers who work to meet the critical needs of our neighbors with mental health disorders. In many cases, the services of our mental health centers make the difference between a productive life and a life spent in and out of jail or worse.

It includes building inspectors who try to assure that our businesses and homes are safe and secure for us to live and work in. Government includes the emergency communication specialists that can quickly direct virtually any type of emergency personnel to meet a citizen’s need, and when needed, they can even give instructions to someone on the scene to clear the air path of a suffocating citizen.

It includes the garbage collector who picks up your trash and safely disposes of it in a sanitary landfill, and the public works employee that makes sure that when you flush your toilet that your human waste flows away from your house safely and does not flow back into our lakes and rivers until that sewage is clean and harmless.

It includes court officials who spend their entire careers balancing our constitutional safeguards against the need to incarcerate those who are a threat to our safety.

Government includes economic development specialists who work hard to make sure that our state retains and attracts jobs for all of us, including our children.

It includes the army enlistee who risks her life on the other side of the globe to keep us safe.

Government includes every member of this graduating class.

We are engaged in a great debate in this country and in this state about how much government we can “afford,” and it is an important debate. There are no easy answers.

There are always going to be people who want to distort the debate by characterizing what we do as somehow inferior or unnecessary or inefficient. Don’t let those charges go unanswered. Do your job well, do it with pride, and stand up for yourself and your colleagues.

We strive to find the balance between the services that we provide as public servants, the investments our communities need to make for the future, and the taxes it takes to support that vision without passing the bill on to the next generation.

And at every level of government, in every department or division or agency there are dedicated and determined public employees who are working every day to help our elected officials to strike the best and most appropriate balance.

Government is what we do. It is the work that you have dedicated your careers to and by earning this degree I know you are committed to doing it well.

Public service is a high calling. It is essential to who we are as Kansans and as Americans. Let’s perform that service with pride.

One perennial need in public sector organizations is training that helps staff transition from a role of technical expertise—water quality inspector or budget analyst, for example—to a role requiring managerial and supervisory skills. Our Certified Public Manager® (CPM) program is designed to address skill gaps for new and experienced managers to help make sure they have the tools to perform at the best of their game and contribute to staff engagement.

CPM is a nationally-accredited management program and certification in which participants develop and strengthen their management skills through a competency-based curriculum.

The Kansas CPM program is offered on a calendar-year schedule and uses a blended learning approach of classroom hours, online learning, and outside assignments. Along the way, participants complete a capstone project focused on an opportunity for cost savings, revenue generation, process improvement or innovation in their workplace. Over 1,200 people have completed the Kansas program since 1993.

Agamani Sen, Chief Design Engineer for Douglas County, Kans. Public Works (left), participated in CPM in 2010. Her capstone explored how to increase the number of internal design-build projects in Public Works by applying staff expertise in culvert design and installation to some of the County’s smaller bridge projects; she determined that for every bridge that is able to be completed as an internal design-build instead of by consultants and contractors, there is the potential for approximately $150,000 in savings.

Put another way, the savings from any single bridge replacement completed in-house will pay for either one additional small bridge project or two to three culvert projects. In this era of shrinking revenues, this is a profound benefit to the County.

CPM program director Terri Callahan notes that for agencies to continue finding the resources to send staff to the program in such challenging economic times, “we have to make sure the program offers real benefits to sponsoring departments whether in the form of cost savings, process improvement or innovation via the capstone or in the enhanced skills that make for more effective managers.”

For Agamani Sen and Douglas County Public Works, the benefits were real on both sides. Her capstone was a project that Agamani long suspected could generate savings for the County, and participating in CPM allowed her to carve out the time to research the details and create a plan for implementation. Meanwhile, she found the class content to be extremely useful, with topics such as emotional intelligence and project management offering valuable perspectives on different styles of management and allowing her to gain insight about her own approach.

Beyond this, she says that “meeting people from so many organizations, to get outside of my own world, was inspirational.”

“What is inspiring to me,” says Craig Weinaug (KU MPA 1976), Douglas County Administrator, “is the dedication participating staff show to staying on top of their responsibilities while making the time to get all they can out of the program.”

Craig further notes that “Agamani’s project provides very tangible evidence as to why continuing investment in the education of public employees not only benefits the individual, but also the organization. This investment becomes even more critical when revenues are shrinking, and we have to be as smart as possible in how we spend the remaining tax dollars. We send employees to the CPM program every year, and we have always been very satisfied with the results.”

The Public Management Center is now accepting registrations for the 2012 CPM program which will begin in January with locations in the Kansas City area, Topeka, and Hays.

For more information about the program, visit www.kupmc.org or contact Terri Callahan at tcallahan@ku.edu or (785) 296-2353.

Most of us are familiar with the Peter Principle, the observation that people get promoted to the level of their incompetence—that is, that their skills lead to promotion but they can easily end up in situations their skills aren’t a match for.

We don’t necessarily look very hard into the reasons this happens, however, and lessons in how to avoid it.

From our vantage point at the Public Management Center, we meet a lot of people who have sharp technical skills—they’re great IT programmers, terrific highway engineers, savvy accountants—whose organizations want to leverage those skills by moving them into management roles.

But if the organization lacks a sufficient budget for or focus on managerial training – which is often the case in the public sector given the tight budgets and shrinking staffs – these technical experts may not get the appropriate education or mentoring to set them up for long term success and continual improvement in their new role.

They may attend a two-day or week-long management course to outline the legal and HR issues related to their new role, and hopefully they’ll get exposed to some important management concepts.

How one might implement these concepts, though, or how to deal with issues such as employee motivation, intra-departmental conflict, or process improvement can be beyond the scope of these trainings.

Our Kansas Certified Public Manager course offers a way to fill that gap. The year long program bring public sector managers together two days per month to develop the managerial competencies necessary to effective staff supervision and project oversight.

If you see yourself as a technical expert but feel that you want to enhance your skills in supervision and management, our Certified Public Manager program may be for you. Learn more at www.kupmc.org/programs/cpm. We’re now enrolling for 2011.

If you’re a staff member at the University of Kansas, be sure to check out the recent article in The Oread announcing our reduced rate for KU staff to participate in the Certified Public Manager program!

It would not be a surprise to anyone I know that, when I completed Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment, my top 5 talent areas did not include any that could be understood as detail-oriented.

I am a terrific idea generator. If you need a strategic thinker to help map out a good course of action, I may be your gal.

But if you need a messy stack organized or a spreadsheet created to track the minutiae, you’ll likely get better assistance from your dog than from me.

Yesterday, for example, I arrived to teach CPM without a pen in my bag, and managed to misplace not one but two that I borrowed from participants during the day. My brain just doesn’t track the details well.

Lucky for me, I also have a reasonably low tolerance for clutter. Since I can’t organize very well, I try to get rid of things so that I don’t have to make decisions about where to file or store them.

This is especially fortunate in moments like last week Tuesday, when we moved the KUPMC and Public Administration offices from one floor of the KU Edwards Campus to another. I didn’t have too many files or piles to try to keep track of as we loaded in one office and unloaded in the other. And those I do have are made up more of reference materials than things I use on a daily basis.

As such, most are still sitting in their boxes while I ponder (in a vague, back-of-the-mind way) whether I’ll put them in the equivalent locations to where they were in my other office or identify new spots. Or whether, as is looking increasingly likely, I’ll determine that most of the items are so seldom needed that the mental clutter of having them in my space exacts a higher cost than it would to look them up again online or elsewhere when I next need to refer to them.

Because while I don’t have so many piles, I still have some. And they tend to line the edges of my desk because I can’t quite decide how to file them. But since packing these up to move to the new office, my desk has been a lovely, wide-open space. I look at it and imagine the amazement the pioneers felt as they emerged to the west of the tree-covered plains of the east and gaped at immense spaces of the prairies.

Okay, maybe it’s not quite the same.

But I do very much appreciate the way the clear desk has had something of a calming effect on my mind this week, and it reminded me how much our physical surroundings affect us. As I’ve been typing this I’ve realized that I need to move my printer further away from my computer to create more openness in the area of my workspace that I most use to hopefully further leverage this feeling of calm to support my work. This two-minute task will be utterly worth the trouble.

To some extent our workspaces are fixed–we have real walls or not, windows or not, and we often inherit furniture that is not quite matched to our functions, let alone taste.

But don’t overlook the little things you can fix to make a big difference in decreasing your annoyance factor or improving your ergonomics in subtle but important ways: scoot your phone over so that you can stop nearly tipping over your coffee mug with the cord every morning. Move your trashcan or recycle bin so that it’s located within reach of where you generate most of your trash or so that it’s finally out of range of your knees. Ask your facilities folks to raise your overhead cabinets further up the metal rails that hold them so that you can stop having to be careful about bumping your head. Order a new mouse that will actually track whenever you use it, not just when it wants to.

Fix something little in your space so that you no longer have to expend the energy it takes to be annoyed. Then tell us what you changed in the comments below so that the rest of us can maybe borrow from your ideas.

In a post last week we talked about the serious side of our Certified Public Manager program, the very tangible way participants connect their experience in the course to their workplaces through their capstone projects.

But CPM participants spend a lot of time together. A lot. Two to three days a month for a year. So while we’re all about the important learning and tangible benefits that flow from the time spent in CPM, we encourage a lot of fun, too. Because it’s in the fun that relationships develop, and the relationships matter as much as the content.

We hope folks will remember and draw on some of the tools from the Emotional Intelligence sessions, for example, to see them through the challenging issues they’ll face as managers. But if they can pull up someone in their contact list who they can turn to in those moments, someone they met through CPM, we consider that to be an equal success.

We’re pretty sure that Yolanda, Larry and Emily–from the General Services Administration, the City of Overland Park, and the City of Olathe, respectively–wouldn’t have foreseen this particular outing (to celebrate Larry’s birthday) as part of the CPM experience when they signed up. It’s amazing what can happen in a few short months.

Are there any fun workplace traditions that have fallen by the wayside in this very challenging year? Perhaps now would be a great time to resurrect one of them to put a bit of spark back into things.