Journal Reflections for Modual 4.3 - Cultural Competency and Equity

[Editors note:  The following is a journal entry addressing the CPM course taught by Dariush Khaleghi for module 4.3]

1 Do you have any biases, conscious or unconscious? How do they impact your attitude, behavior, and life in general? How about at work and in your role as a public service manager?

Logically, since everyone has different life experiences that shape how they respond to people, and since biases would seem to be relative to how others see the world, everyone including myself must have biases. How they impact my attitude, behavior, and life in general would be difficult to say and probably vary greatly between particular instances.

I suspect my self evaluation of this subject would be biased enough to be nearly worthless.


2 Why are diversity, inclusion, and equity important in the workplace? What is the purpose of Equal Employment Opportunity and the Affirmative Action?

Our American government has based on the premise that all people are created equal, and therefore should be granted the respect that a human life intrinsically warrants. Hence interacting with people independent of their differences is a primary principle of our society.

The purpose of those particular laws appear to be specific attempts to correct specific unjust practices that occurred in the past within our society.


3 What is the relationship between motivation, leadership, and managing diversity effectively? What are the consequences of not proactively managing diversity?

As leaders it is important to strive towards the ideal. In the area of diversity, that means treating each individual with respect and dignity.

4 Define cultural competency and its impact in service delivery? What are some of the barriers to achieving it? And, how can they be removed?

Cultural competency is gaining an understanding of the traits, commonalities, and background of other groups of people. By being able to understand the context within which others are acting, it is much easier to empathize with them, understand the motivations behind their actions, interact with them in inoffensive ways, and appreciate their uniqueness.

The largest barriers to cultural competency would tend to be the unconscious presumption that others are like ourselves in ways that they may not be.

The best way to overcome that would be to seek more to understand than to be understood. Asking the questions of “Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent individual do something like that?” would be a good start.


5 How should you as a leader demonstrate your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion?

Ideally, I would like to treat each person with respect and dignity.

Secondly, I believe management should be giving others the opportunity to succeed. That opportunity should be given because they are a human being and should not be withheld due to whatever specific traits they may possess.

Journal Reflections for Modual 4.2 - Public Perception and the Rold of Media

[Editors note:  The following is a journal entry addressing the CPM course taught by Adam Miller for module 4.2]

Reflect on recent news media coverage of your organization or another public agency:

Recently, the Muckleshoot Tribe purchased the Emerald Downs horseracing track.

The story can be found in the local print media here, here, and here

Journal Reflections for Modual 4.1 - Policy, Perspectives and Sustainability/Organizational Culture

[Editors note:  The following is a journal entry addressing the CPM course taught by Wendy Holden and John Swannack for module 3.4.]
Reflections from Module 4.1

Looking over my notes, the amount to be remembered from this class was significantly less compared to the other classes.

However, four separate incidents struck me about how much information I have gained in knowledge and application over the past year.

Journal Reflections for Modual 3.4 - Leading Change and Understanding Organizational Culture

[Editors note:  The following is a journal entry addressing specific questions provided by the CPM course instructor Wendy Holden and John Swannack for module 3.4.]
Given the readings, the three parts of the case Express Transit, and the class work for and discussion in the course "Organizational Culture and Leading Change:

What would you do next if you were Martin Jiles? Describe his next steps, particularly in light of the culture of Express transit and its experience/record in managing and leading important changes.

Key component #1. Say thank you. Acknowledge and appreciate the work that the committee did. I found the report was well written and diplomatic. It also did well at exposing a number of the underlying problem that were in the articles, but may not have been apparent to all the players at the time.

Journal Reflections for Modual 3.3 - Process Improvement and Project Management

[Editors note:  The following is a journal entry addressing specific questions provided by the CPM course instructor Dr. Wendy Fraser for module 3.3.]

1.Briefly describe what you learned from the activities, instruments and discussions.  What stands out for you?

I found the readings for this class very good, particularly the Maleyeff article “Improving Service Delivery in Government with Lean Six Sigma”. That article made a couple of points that will correlate directly to my project.

Most performance data are designed to evaluate effectiveness by focusing on metrics that represent how well and how efficiently services are provided. While these “outcome” data can be valuable in highlighting areas of concern, their role is often less valuable during improvement projects that require “process” data. (Maleyeff, p. 11)

And

Management commitment to a Lean Six Sigma process improvement program must go beyond slogans, banners, or motivational speeches. The leadership team should exude a constancy of purpose, along with discipline and patience hat allows the program to take root. The management team must be made responsible and accountable for both managing the organization and improving its effectiveness. The creation of an infrastructure that sustains requires attention be given to the following four actions… Develop a sound, consistent, and robust methodology. Build trust by removing fear. Initiate long term cultural change. And Communicate the vision to all stakeholders. (p. 18)

The concepts of instilling a culture of continuous improvement, having senior management lead and demonstrate foundational commitment to that culture, and the basic introduction to the tools used for assessing continuous improvement were adequately described in the reading.

Discussion Topic #5 - The Lead Poisoning "C Case"

Within the CPM course class on Managing Performance and Data Based Decision-Making, we were presented with a case study regarding lead poisoning in New York City near the end of the 60's. The case presented some concepts in effective government management, dealing with complex independent systems with competing interests.

After contemplating the scenario for a little while, I had a couple of extra thoughts that might serve for discussion. Unfortunately my readers without access to the class discussion or the original case study may be left in the dark.

As I write this, I do not have a copy of the Case Study in front of me. So my numbers may not be precise, but I don't think it will significantly affect the content.

Journal Reflections for Modual 3.2 - Managing Performance and Data Based Decision Making

[Editors note:  The following is a journal entry addressing specific questions provided by the CPM course instructor Larisa Benson for module 3.2.]

Write your own reflections on what you learned that had the most impact on your development as a leader. What insight have you gained, and what difference will that make in how you lead in the future?

Here is my list of particular things I would like to remember from CPM Class 3.2.

Letting people want to learn about the system will make them want to improve the system.


Inspiring a culture of learning inquisitively should be the focus. Pushing people through a Taylor time motion study that dehumanizes them is not likely to yield as positive a response.


The instructor presented the formula of value as Value = Quantity x Quality/Cost or written V=Q²/C. To me this would be much more accurately written as V=nQ/$. Since Quality may not be constant for each unit produced and C may include more cost than simply money a further refinement might be:

There is value in being able to express (creatively and compellingly) the values and objectives of your organizations through maps and data.

Other advantages of a mapping exercise include:

1. Identifying the Right people
2. Find Right timing
3. Map before you jump
4. Map from other people perspectives
5. Identify pressure and support points

Miller’s Systems of Work Table:

Factory	Widget	Customer	Outcomes
What we do	What we make	For Whom	Why

(Note that this is not the same as the logic map.)

One of the key components of mapping is being able to identify our “Customers”. This identification serves as a tool to see the path forward in being able to better meet a customer’s needs. In identifying the customer what we are really looking for is the “Users” as the object or customer for our widget.

Assumptions about outcomes and customers can be very deceiving. Resolving these through systematic identification can be a key benefit from the mapping process.

Stakeholders may have hang-ups on using the word “customers”, so alternatives such as “users” or “consumers” may be more appropriate. Most of those hang ups tend to stem from the accepted mantra of “the customer always being right”.


Often in public governance, the electorate fills a role most similar to the shareholder with the legislative body being the board of directors.


There are places in the work chain for both “Brokers” and “Producer”. With Brokers, it is important to identify the value they actually add to the process.


The voice of the customer tends to fall into one of the 5 broad categories: Ease of use, Timeliness, Accuracy, Cost, Choice (Customization).


In assessing the operational effectiveness of a system, feedback and refinement is a crucial component. To incorporate feedback we need to be asking the following questions:

• Are there processes to look for and receive feedback?
• Is feedback being received?
• What do you do with the feedback once it is received? (Do we use it for relationship building. Are we viewing it from a purely Transactional or Inquiry viewpoint.)
• Deconstructing the feedback to make improvements can be very difficult and subjective.

Customer Surveys tend to have very marginal value. Some of the key concerns with surveys are the following:

• What do you plan to do with the data?
• Results are of limited value since the responses may be ambiguous or subject to interpretation.
• Customer responses can confuse, provide misleading information.
• The results may not even provide the correct information.
• If you do not share or react to the information gathered in customer surveys, it always results in a decrease in trust.

Given these impediments to customer surveys, focused customer interviews may be a much better source of meaningful feedback.

The Results Map worksheet questions are a good resource for developing a better system map. They are included in the section below.

Limiting outcomes to a tangible scope is important. When the outcome is “all creation will dwell in peace” you have extended your system to abstraction and likely past the point of usefulness. The outcome needs to be something that people can connect to their motivations.


Striking visuals (collapsed building photo) can be key in effective communicating.


Herzog: Motivation cannot be given. Managers can only connect work to internal motivations.


Synergy can be defined as “focused energy”.

To build team synergy, first you must create the opportunity to accomplish something significant.


Book list relevant to this subject: Creating Public Value by Mike Moore, We Don’t make Widgets by Ken Miller, The First 90 Days in Government by Peter Daly