Lance Thurston Interview

INTERVIEW BY LISA SANSOM
PHOTOS BY STEPHEN WILD

Your Workplace magazine recently met with Lance Thurston, Commissioner, Department of Community Development Services with the City of Kingston. As a “healthy manager” Lance had been struggling with the problem: How do I continue to motivate employees and keep a positive climate and atmosphere of celebration for doing good things here, when the headlines the next morning are all about the horrible stuff that’s perceived to be going on?

Lance and his staff have implemented an innovative program titled “See It, Say It, Share It”. The idea originated from a Working Group that was comprised of staff representatives, and was designed to counter the negative press that municipal employees are often faced with, sometimes on a daily basis. The concept is simple. As their information binder states: “There is so much going on and so much for us to be proud of in terms of our programs, services, initiatives, partnerships, customer service and personal accomplishments… It is hoped that this process will create an opportunity for all staff/volunteers to actively participate in acknowledging and sharing good news across our respective departments.” Tracy Newton, Executive Assistant to the Commissioner, also sat in on the interview and shared her perspective on the program’s success.

Yw: How did this “See It, Say It, Share It” initiative get started?

Lance: We do our daily work from a principle of trying to deal with people as human beings treated with respect and engaging people who are affected in the decision making, be it staff, members of the community, council, etc. It’s not so much what we do but how we do it. So we went through an extensive strategic-planning process some years ago, involving a large cross-section of our department to develop our goals and values. Staff was also looking for more communications directly from the top: not corporate speak from the commissioner, but direct speak. Open and free communication. People were tired of being perceived as bureaucratic and holding up the process when we know it’s not true. This also involved recognizing that when you walk out this door, you are a person in this community and you have important roles in senior positions, running budgets and so on, and when you walk back into City Hall you don’t lose that. You bring it with you–it enhances your experience here. So everything builds on that. The essential idea was to celebrate our successes and make us feel good about ourselves. Then we could keep good people, educate ourselves, educate the council, let our bosses know what we’re doing… share it. It was a grass-roots initiative, and it fit beautifully with where we are trying to grow as a corporation and it fit so beautifully with our values. It embodies everything.

Tracy: One of the fundamentals I think that Lance brought with him to the position was the whole value of people. Because of that, we acknowledge that there is good news out there, and there’s good news already being shared. It’s been our third month, and I think it has done extremely well and I can only see it growing.