By Carol Montavon Bealor, J.D.,
Director, Cass County Friend of the Court
In 2013, I left behind my law practice to serve as the attorney referee
for the Cass County Friend of the Court (FOC). As you can imagine, I was a
little nervous to be joining a new team, taking on a quasi-judicial position
making important decisions for families and children. I didn’t know that the director
of the Cass County FOC would be going on administrative leave on the first day I
was on the job as the attorney referee and that I would be appointed as the new
director two short months later.
To say I was unprepared for the sheer volume and complexity of
information an effective FOC director needs to know would be an understatement.
I could never have tackled the many tasks I now face without the support of my
boss, who I am proud to call my mentor and my friend, 43rd Circuit Court Chief
Judge Susan L. Dobrich.
But the most important support I’ve had has been from my team. I have a
team that is dedicated, hardworking, and a joy to work with. We have a diverse
set of individuals who come together every day to do our best for the community
we serve.
One of the things that became apparent shortly after I became FOC director
in 2013 was the need to build our FOC team and to change the office culture
that existed at the time I joined the office. My arrival was met with mixed
feelings—understandably so. As an outsider, the staff didn’t know if they could
trust me and count on me to be the leader the office needed.
It takes time to build trust and to develop common purpose among staff
in order to facilitate positive change. You can’t expect it to happen
overnight. Instead, you have to build a proper foundation for the big changes.
When I arrived, our office was very divided between financial,
enforcement, and legal team members, each headed up by a different supervisor.
This created an “us” and “them” mentality in our office. So my supervisors and
I brainstormed and came up with the idea of creating what we call our “management
team.” Instead of working as a supervisor or director, we would work together
as a team to make decisions impacting the office. We realized that we had to
present a united front to our team in order to establish credibility with them
and convince them that we wanted to create a great place to work where all team
members are held accountable in a uniform way.
Our employees initially didn’t know what to think about this new management
team. They watched closely to see how we were going to work together as the supervisors
and director. Did we mean the things we said about uniform treatment and a
positive work atmosphere? Only time would tell.
With the advent of our OnBase imaging system project, we were able to
hire a deputy FOC director who also became part of our management team. We held
some strategic planning sessions about the things we wanted to accomplish in
our office. Eventually our management team grew again to include our attorney referee
as a management team member, ex officio
(since she does not oversee personnel issues such as discipline, performance
reviews, etc.).
During our 2017 management team strategic planning session, we started
talking about actively creating a more positive office culture. Our enforcement
supervisor sits on the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System (MERS) board and
told us how MERS officers had intentionally spent time creating “rules of
engagement” to foster a positive office culture within the MERS organization.
We liked this idea very much and were excited to think about what we could do
to make our office a more positive place to work.
After various brainstorming sessions about how we would roll out a “Positive
Office Culture” project, we came up with four words that were important and
significant to us relative to creating a positive office culture. We then
brainstormed what those words actually meant to us as a management team. We
took the four words to our staff and asked them to work in groups and come up
with four additional words.
The work done by our staff was phenomenal! More importantly, individual
team members felt invested in moving the office towards a more positive culture
after working on this project. Our team bought into the idea that all of us
working collectively together could change our office in significant ways. And
our team took what started out as a staff meeting “homework assignment” and made
the project their own.
Once we identified our eight words and drafted definitions of their
significance, we held another strategic planning session for our whole office
during a summer picnic at my home to fine-tune the words and definitions.
We then agreed we could live with those words and working definitions,
and created laminated posters to hang in the back hallway of our office space.
The finished project took my breath away. Seeing the words that our whole team
spent time choosing and defining, now memorialized on brightly colored posters,
simply makes me feel good. And I think it makes our staff feel good, too.
The next step in our Positive Office Culture project is a “Praise
Project” through which employees can nominate colleagues whose attitudes and
actions embody our Positive Office Culture. We will recognize staff members who
are nominated at our monthly staff meetings.
I am so incredibly proud of the work we have done so far, but we are
not done yet. In fact, we are just getting started. I wanted to share what our
office has accomplished so far because I think it is a good reminder of the change
that is possible from teams working together on a common cause. With the time
and permission to think about how to make things better, your team might
surprise you with their creative ideas.
I can honestly say that when you walk into our office in 2018, you get
a different vibe than you did in 2013. You can feel the positivity and joy that
we genuinely have working with one another. Some days, you can also feel the
frustrations, which is natural when you serve both parties in a case. However,
in our office, those frustrations are handled collectively now, and that makes
all the difference.
Check out our words and our office culture signs below.
