Forging a Brighter Future with Dr. Cynthia Croom and Metro Action Commission

Speaker 1 The social responsibility helps Dr. Innovation because we were a company where failure was never an option. Speaker 2 One of the most effective things we did was we just told the truth. I think most organizations avoided taking stands. No longer is that acceptable. Speaker 1 All organizational change is really human change, and this one's a big one. The culture has to fit. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Doctor Antonio Aftali. Welcome to the Chief Growth Officer Podcast. This podcast is for current and aspiring leaders who are disrupting the status quo and transforming the world. The CGO podcast is a production of Leadership for a Network World and supported by the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University. Have you ever wondered what it's like to step into an organization and lead a ground up transformation? Or perhaps you're leading a big change effort now and thinking how do I keep pushing forward? Today we'll get a behind the scenes look at what it takes to rebuild an organization services while also transforming the organization's outcomes. With us is Doctor Cynthia Croom, executive director of the Metro Action Commission in Nashville, TN. The Metropolitan Action Commission, or Mac, has a long history. The organization was founded in 1964 as part of the Community Action Program, a nationwide initiative stemming from the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. Mack helped thousands of families experiencing poverty each year. Yet over time, its results waned and its reputation suffered. They were really helping people in need, but they weren't moving the needle on creating sustainable pathways out of poverty. The organization needed a new North Star, new services and new energy. And that's when Cynthia Croom took over. Now Mac's mission is to break the cycle of poverty in our community. One child, one person, one family at a time. And they're doing it. But it didn't happen overnight. Cynthia and all the people in the organization had to reinvent their services and programs, collaborate in new ways, and most importantly, grow their capacity to sustain long term innovation and change. You'll find Cynthia enlightening in that her vision, resolve, and faith propelled her through the ups and downs of an organizational turn around and enabled her to build a truly breakthrough organization. The Kreski Foundation recognized this transformation by awarding Mack a coveted spot in the next Generation of Human Services initiative. After the podcast, I encourage you to read the associated case study, Achieving New Outcomes at the Metropolitan Action Commission. You can find it at our website. The case study documents step by step, how Cynthia led the transformation of Mac. I'm so inspired by Cynthia, and I think you will be as well. Let's dig in. Well, welcome, everyone. We're here with Doctor Cynthia Croom, executive director of the Metropolitan Action Commission in Nashville. Welcome, Cynthia. How are you? Speaker 2 I'm great, thank you for having me. I hope you are well also. Speaker 1 I, you know, I am, I am doing well as we kind of talked about before, you know, it's one of these days and weeks and months where you just want the river to be flowing the right way. Speaker 2 That's right. That's right. And I, I, I I welcome when those rivers are flowing in that way. Speaker 1 Yeah, it seems like nowadays, you know, we sometimes we have to swim right and we're swimming up the stream or side stream and and the current is raging against us. And you know, those times we just have to, you know, sit back and say, wow, hey, the the river is flowing the right way this time. And so we. Speaker 2 Can get. Speaker 1 Upstream better. So it's good. So good to see. I, you know, I, I've been really looking forward to this discussion with you because the work you've done at the Metropolitan Action Commission is just phenomenal. Looking at getting better outcomes from your organization, what that means for families and individuals and the community at large in Nashville, which has gone through so much change over the past two decades or so. So just really curious to pick your brain today about your leadership experience and, and really importantly, to help other leaders think about what they can do to drive transformation and change, what that means for people and the organization and then and how you sustain yourself during all these times and what keeps you, you know, going day in and day out. But maybe, you know, maybe you can talk to us about the, the beginning here. So what was it like to be called to lead the Metropolitan Action Commission or Mac as we'll call it, amidst all the change in Nashville? And you're coming from Chicago at that, I think at that time, right? And so they called you and said, can you come leave this organization and what was going through your mind? Speaker 2 Well, I'll just say to you, I'd actually left Chicago already because I was exhausted from the work that I had done there, which was very much work in the community, worthwhile work. But there was a lot that we did. There was a lot that we did that brought its own level of stress. And so I'd already moved to Tennessee and, and had what I thought was a very calm job as the chief of planning for the state of Tennessee. And quite frankly, after a short period of doing that, I was bored to tears because I was used to being involved in things, directly involved in things in community. I was not accustomed to working that distant from what was happening every day in community. So my start here, even though it's often thought that I came directly from Chicago, I had been here a little bit trying to rest is what I said I was doing when I started this job. And I want to be very clear that I tease the people who hired me, the then mayor of Nashville, that they all tricked me when I came here. They told me that things were straight and everything was fine and, and I just need to come in and, and right the ship and it wasn't going to take much. And the rest is they say it's history. But I will say that in the beginning it was very difficult that that's that's really how I would describe it. And I would say it was very difficult because the people in the organization did not realize how much trouble the organization was in. And that that made it even harder because you're having to try and convince people that the flood that you think is in the other county is actually right at your door and you really need to be doing something now. Speaker 1 So it was the opposite of calm. So you got bored with the calm and then, you know, this new opportunity came along and that was something that was, it was the opposite with probably energizing in a way as well, right? Speaker 2 It was absolutely energizing and and and exciting to get a chance to do something for something that I believed very strongly in, which was an opportunity based on my own background of having grown up in poverty, to really help people who wanted to themselves make changes in in their own life. So it was exciting just the thought of what the possibilities could be in doing this work. Speaker 1 So give us a sense of Metropolitan Action Commission, or Mac. What it what it was at that point in time when you were first called to take the role. What did it do? How many people did it serve? What was the budget like? And then what does it, what does it look like now? Or just kind of a your your quick answer to what's been accomplished over the the decades? Speaker 2 At that time the budget was about 14,000,000 it. We had made just over 200 or so team members. Largest group of people in the organization at the time was the Head Start team. It still is the largest group of folks in our early education division. It was an organization that was doing a lot and had been in the community for a very long. We received very little city support. Of its approximate $14 million budget, they received barely $500,000 in city support. Its employees were paid strictly through grants. They were not a part of any of the city's sort of structure in terms of funding for employee raises, things of that nature. It's buildings were they were in our we were in old school buildings, still in church basements for some of our Head Start programs. Our customers would come in for service with what I perceived at the time was very little dignity. If you walked into our building, they were literally sitting in chairs lining up and down the hall. So when you walked down the hall to go to your office, you were passing all of these people who were here for services. Oftentimes they were standing outside before our doors open, wrapped around the corner waiting for services to to us to get started. We were doing things like helping people with their lights, bills, their rent, you know, energy assistance, rental assistance. We did have AGD program that we were touting the success of that we later found well AGD and college prep program that we were touting the success of and later found that it wasn't accomplishing what we thought. Speaker 1 So when you walked in the first time and and maybe if you had asked employees on of Mac what the mission of the organization was, what do you think they would have said? Speaker 2 They couldn't have told me a mission of Metro Action Commission. They could have told me what their particular program was. So if they were in Head Start, they would have talked to me about Head Start or they would have talked to me about the division that did rent and mortgage. There would have been no clear vision for the organization or anything that was organization specific. It would have been strictly tied to their individual programs. Speaker 1 You developed a vision permission of breaking the cycle of poverty in our community, one child, one person, one family at a time. So to achieve that vision, did you have a clear sense of of what needed to change when you first walk through the doors of Mac? Or how did you develop the plan over time? Speaker 2 Well, I will tell you that that vision fortunately was developed not by me alone, but really at that point it was with our Board of Commissioners. We have a 16 member Board of Commissioners that's appointed by the mayor and our team members as well as the community. So when we were trying to figure out what should our vision be, that really was a collective process that we did within the organization to get to that vision. But I, I want to tell you specifically where part of where it came from within me, because I, I think I had mentioned before that I grew up in poverty. And in some, there were times when our family certainly interface with the Human Services sort of environment. I'd, I attended Head Start as well when I was a child. And so there were all these conversations about the war on poverty. We are Community Action Agency and that we had lost the war on poverty. The reason we were very specific in our mission is because we wanted to make sure people understood that if we were able to affect change in the life of one child, of one family, one person at a time, that that was a way of affecting the war on poverty. Because if you could end the cycle of poverty in one family, then you really had changed the trajectory of that family. And so we wanted to be clear that while we have a collective number that we were looking at, we were also looking at what impact an individual's life being changed or family or child's life being changed could actually have on the trajectory of that family and that family's future. Speaker 1 So you, you maybe had more of a belief in that vision based on how you grew up. And you know, like you, like you, I shared that history, right? My, my mom and our family, we really, we navigated the system, so to say, when we were kids to, to provide some stability for the family to help us eventually thrive. And so I have, I've always into my work with, with that force behind me, right, of understanding that this can work well and it can break cycles if we, we enable it to and we, we create the right services and programs and, and mission and culture around that. So did that really help you to inject some energy, I guess, into the organization for what could be accomplished? Speaker 2 Well, I know it was was a great catalyst for that, and I know it was a great catalyst for it because I could see the work that we were doing was important, but it it, I couldn't see anything changing in people's lives. I couldn't see people were coming back year after year for services. Families were going through our Head Start program and the children might have been getting a great experience, but I can't tell you that we knew that anything was really changing with the families themselves. We weren't tracking it. We didn't know if, you know, they were getting jobs or what kind of jobs that they were getting. We had a an adult education program where we graduated a lot of students each year going through the adult education program. And we were touting this college prep program and that we were paying for people's books when they went into college. And it was really a review of 10 years of that data that led us to see that of all the people that had come through our program that we were celebrating, that we were putting in our program booklets at every graduation ceremony saying X number of people came through this number went to college, that when we finished over 10 years, we could account for 10 people actually graduating from college. And so we knew that while we were saying things, we had no ability to really demonstrate that people were being successful, that people's lives were changing, and that their economic situation was improving. And so all of those factors served as a catalyst for being able to say that we have to do things differently because we should not be celebrating something that's really not true, and we should have a different strategy for how we can help families really move out of poverty. Speaker 1 The first word, a really technical word here, Cynthia, that comes to my mind is Ouch. All right, So thinking about, you know, you coming in as an outsider and doing this review, and I imagine a lot of these employees felt like they were doing great work, which they were, right, man, they were. They were doing the day in, day out hard work of of helping people that were really tough situations. And so they probably felt like they were doing really good work. And then you kind of start to peel the layers of the onion in a bit and you say, wait a second, you know, the outcomes we think we're we're getting or that we want to get, we're actually not getting there. And so how did that land with with the employees as you were talking with them about that? Was that something, you know, again, I heard Ouch. Like I feel like I would have been, wow, this is, you're telling me what I've been doing for the past decade has not worked and that hurts. Speaker 2 Well, I think it was an Ouch for them, but it was also an Ouch for me because it was one of the things that I was also celebrating as, as one of the things that was successful that the organization for was doing. I knew that we had real problems in our early education side of of the house. I knew that we were in trouble financially prior to that. That's why I was brought in because the organization had pretty substantial deficit. So all of that is really what led to the removal of the previous executive director and me being brought into the organization. And, and I will tell you, yes, I was an outsider. Not only was I an outsider to the organization, but I was still very much viewed as an outsider to the city because when I first came in, I worked for the state of Tennessee and no one could connect me to to anyone in the city or even having having grown up here. And so because this was a community organization that was really, really thrived on those kind of community relationships, all of my work and community had been done in Chicago. So not only was I an outsider, but I was an outsider who was coming in making changes to something that in people's mind was working just fine. And when I say people, for many of the employees here that they were fine, everything was fine. They just needed to get rid of the previous director and life was going to go back to being wonderful. And so I was coming in saying we can be better, we can do more, we can have a, there can be a very different picture of us. So there was how the, the the employees felt about themselves. They wanted to be left alone. This is a, you know, that I have stable employment. I don't need you coming in here changing things. Just you just take care of those people over there because they're really the problem. And as as long as you do that, you'll be fine with all of us. It was a challenge just trying to help people understand that we were in trouble. But even if I stabilize things, we were probably about two years from being shut down. Speaker 1 How did you help people, particularly employees, but also maybe some of the stakeholders in the community understand what was at stake? You know, I'm going to broader way. Many leaders have a hard time getting a long established organization to do really bold innovation and change and try and, you know, get to new forms of outcomes. That requires so much work, major transformative work. How did you prepare people for that work to get them to see, OK, wait a second. We have a long ways to go and and we're going to have to be along this journey for a while. Speaker 2 I would just use the word communication. And what I learned very quickly, and it probably wasn't as quickly as I should have learned it is that you cannot communicate simply through the your direct reports or your managers or your leaders or your supervisors. That can't be the only way that you communicate, because when people feel that their jobs are potentially threatened, there's not necessarily an impetus from their perspective to make sure that everybody else knows the direction of the organization. So communication for me meant my direct communication with people in the organization. So I visited every location. I met with all the team members in the agency so that it was they could hear what I was saying. Because what I learned is that what I said in meetings to leaders was oftentimes either misunderstood, interpreted wrong so that when it got to the rest of the team members, it didn't sound the same as as what was originally communicated. So I could not do this from my desk is the best way that I could could say that to you. I had to get out. I had to make sure that I was seeing people face to face and that I was actually talking to people. I established an open door policy. My e-mail was wide open, meaning that my e-mail came directly to me. There was no one who was seeing my e-mail and then passing things on if it wasn't from certain people. So that people I knew, they could communicate with me directly. And so that allowed me to really hear in a different kind of way what the perceptions were and what was happening in the in the 8 locations that we had. Speaker 1 It was probably them listening to you and hearing your vision. What were you learning from the employees at that time as well? Did they open up about challenges and opportunities and things they could do differently? Speaker 2 You know, I heard it from both sides. You know, the, the piece that I heard, of course, from the folks who had been there for a shorter period of time was that people who had been here longer, that there was a culture of you, you, you sort of stay in your place. And if you haven't earned the right to speak, you don't. And earning the right to speak was oftentimes based on seniority. And so there was this sort of unspoken rule. And, well, that's not even true. It was a spoken rule that if you haven't been here for a long time, you need to keep quiet. And we're the ones who do the talking. We're the ones who do the communicating. And so if I had just listened to the folks who were, then I don't mean just just just positional leaders in the organization, but people who were leaders in the organization because of influence. If I had just listened to. But them, I would have thought that everybody in the organization hated me. They hated the direction we were trying to go in. They weren't interested in what we were trying to do. And so a large part of that was being able to establish a culture that said that every voice does matter. And that I was not going to just listen to. And I'll just be frank and say I wasn't going to just listen to the union leaders or people who were because I, you know, I had about 50% of the team was unionized, that I was going to listen to everybody. And for in doing so, it really told me that I had more people who wanted to see real organizational change than what was evident based on what was being put right in front of me. Speaker 1 How did you break the old culture, so to say, and then start creating the new culture? Were the things you did to give people the, you know, the psychological safety, so to say, or the environment in which they could come forward and and talk when historically people told them to be quiet? How did you how did you go about that? Speaker 2 Again, I think just the importance of being visible and then trying to develop a leadership team that was what was interested in adopting early on and those who weren't. And it would be dishonest and disingenuous for me to not say to you, the messaging was very clear and very strong you that the expectation was that if you were leading in the organization, you were going to align with where the organization was going. That if you were not going to align with where the organization was going, that we would assist you in finding an environment that would be that was more suited to what your specific goals were. There was no pretenses. There was no kind of giving people the sense of, of comfort that you're going to be able to run dual systems or multiple systems. That's going to be counter to what we're doing. I think that one of the most effective things we did was we just told the truth. And I the way that I can say to you when I say we told the truth, we just in it with the entire agency team, we laid it out for them. And what we laid out is in approximately 2 to three years, we will not exist. And here's why we won't exist. Here are the types of meetings that being that are being held in the city that's talking about combining our organization with a different organization. These are the types of things that are on the table. And we can either sit back and allow these things to be done to us or we can recognize that we can make changes ourselves to keep what we know is at least in the conversation from happening. I mean, we showed them the money in the organization. This is what a budget looks like. This is how much of our budget goes to pay you. This is why raises are done in this way. So I mean, literally having to lay out things in the level of detail that I think often is not done, it started to develop some trust between us, me and folks in the organization who had previously listened to other people about, you know, the motive behind what's going on. Or, well, she's really doing this because she doesn't like long term people or she's really doing this because she has another agenda that details specific information about where things were. But also trying to make sure people understood that there was a great opportunity for us to change things in such a way that it would make us a premier organization. Speaker 1 That's really fascinating. So this, you know, first of all, the kind of leadership by walking around by talking to everyone and being very honest with them led to that greater degree of trust as you're talking about and probably trust in in the vision that you were creating with them, right? That there is these amazing outcomes we can get to if we all work together. We're all rolling in the same direction on this. So I'll be open and honest with you guys. You should be with me as well as executive director. And then you instilled in them the sense of of vision, it sounds like, and, and where things could go. And that public galvanized you and them to to make the change necessary, right? Speaker 2 I know that it did, but I also know that as they started to see things happen, so as they started to see changes happen within the organization, as when they when they could see that we weren't just going to ask a lot of them, that we were also going to demand some things and that we were willing to fight for some things that we believe were important for them on the City side. So we knew that we were working in a in a system that was accustomed to us not having a voice, that we would just sort of sit silently if things were said or done that we did not believe were in the best interest of the success of the organization and the people we were attempting to serve. And so they also saw me take a lot of heat. They saw the willingness to go to budget hearings and say publicly how what I believe was important to support them as employees of the government. So it wasn't just what was done within the agency. I think it was some of what they saw happening in terms of how we were engaging with people outside of the agency as well that I think led to their sort of sense of trust. And then and just my desire was that there would be a sense of dignity about the work that we were doing. And that that sense of dignity would start with being able to say to people what whereas before you might have been comfortable making these types of decisions regarding us, you might still make the decision, but we won't be. We won't be quiet while you're making it. Speaker 1 That's interesting, this concept of dignity, because I know in in the case study we've developed with you with highlighting all the progress and, and that you had mentioned the role of dignity in for your clients, your customers and people you're you're working with. And, and making sure that that was a big piece of of what the the services wrapped around them brought. But what I'm hearing you also say is that the employees had to feel a larger sense of dignity in their work as well on their identity. It's really get them to lean in into the transformation of the changes. Is that right? Speaker 2 That's right. I mean, when you think of some of the things that were being said about us in the community. So first of all, part of what the impetus for me coming in was this huge write up in the community about we left a child unattended in the community. It did happen. There were things that we were that were being done that should not have happened. And so, so it was almost like a joke to some people in the community when you mentioned the organization's name because of some of the the things that people were doing. You know, we had people who were using our vehicles to sell hot dogs out of them in the local parks that and they were, you know, putting the money in their pockets. Our Head Start buses were on loan to the to the Sheriff's Department. And so if you drove down the street, you would see a Head Start bus US pulled over on the side of the Interstate and you would see prisoners getting on and off of our buses who were, you know, cleaning up the streets. And so it was sort of like this, you know, all the people who go there, they just end up in jail. I mean, the, the, the things that people were saying were things that I know we're very hurtful to the team members here. So they were here working, trying to do the best that they could, but there was this buzz about, you know, just some of the things that were had were happening and that had happened in in the city. It was also widely known that this was the place that you came to for help. So while on one hand it was understood that this was the organization that would help you, it was there was always sort of this tongue in cheek about. But their integrity is questionable. Their people, just things that were I found very insulting, quite frankly. Speaker 1 I know it's fascinating because it's almost like you had established this new vision, but also have people in the organization saying we can achieve this and we can prove to the community that we can achieve this as well. We are becoming a new organization, a new set of people with new new outcomes and and really new value to the community that, you know, it sounds like maybe even some members of the community or the broader government stakeholders were some ways maybe even rooting against Metropolitan Action Commission at times. Speaker 2 It, it certainly felt like that at times. There was certainly some very difficult conversations that we had. And I, I, I want to be fair to them and suggest that maybe I'll just say maybe some of the historical things that had happened here LED them to believe that we could not achieve at this level. So out of fairness to them, I will, I will at least grant that perhaps that's where that came from. I do think it was a a wider stigma that often times when you are working in community that people assume that the people who are working in those types of environments are unskilled themselves. They don't know how things should be done. But I can tell you that the impact of it for us was being in a situation in the beginning. We don't deal with that now where we were constantly having to defend where we were and explain over and over again the why things were done in the way that that they are. Here. I will tell you we are have probably the largest amount of federal dollars coming through our organization than any other department of the government. As a result of that, it was not widely understood why we operated in the way we did, given that we were so highly regulated. And so that often times 'cause people to think that, well, you know, that some of the the structures we were explaining that were necessary to our success on the regulative side of things, it didn't make sense to to people who were receiving only local dollars because you have a different level of flexibility. Speaker 1 So one of the things I'm so curious about with you and, and, and as you transform this organization is, you know, especially being on the front lines, you have to be responding to crisis every day for families that were coming in and saying, you know, we can't make a rent or we, you know, the car's gone and we need, I can't get to work or my, my child needs to get to school or, you know, whatever it may be. And on the in the same side, you have to be rebuilding all these structures or systems or processes, you know, changing the management structure to get to where you want to go in the future. And in in for some organizations in the world, they can almost kind of put a pause a little bit on the current stuff they're doing and then they can invest more in the future. In your case, you had to do everything at once. So how did how did you balance this? You know, keeping the doors open for families and individuals and making sure you help them day in, day out, but also have this other side where you're trying to completely revamp the organization. Speaker 2 I can tell you in no uncertain terms my team would say that it was never balanced. What they would say is that we were doing both and all with a great deal of difficulty because you don't get to say, well, hey, we can't help you right now because we're trying to figure out how to build a different type of organization. So I'll just tell you that one of the things that really helped us was recognizing the need to pilot, that when we wanted to try new initiatives, we didn't just try and shift everything at one time. We used a system of being able to pilot the work. Some of the the work that we were doing, we would start with smaller numbers so that we could still do the emergency service related activities that we were doing, but then say, OK, we're going to take, we have early adopters over here and I'll give this example. The gentleman that headed our community services division was responsible for funding that comes from the federal side, but that passes through the state that has incredible flexibility in it. And he caught the vision of where we were trying to go. And so when we sat down and we said we need to pilot being able to get parents in a short term training. This is after having heard from them with the lack of successful with what we had tried to do over 10 years with the college prep program, the fact that he was an early adopter and was able to say talk to us when we said, hey, we need to use some of your dollars differently. He was excited about the opportunity. And so while he's also though responsible for part of the unit that does the emergency services piece. And so we had the the process of having to go to the state of Tennessee and advocate a different use of the funds that we had and to say we need to use them the way the federal government allows us to use them, not based on the parameters that as the state you have put around them. And so that advocacy on the state side released us then to be able to use those dollars in a different kind of way. And we were piloting our first two Gen. initiative at the same time that we were still providing emergency services and dealing to with a crisis situations that were going on with our customers. Speaker 1 I'm so glad you brought up the two Gen. models, the two generation and that it seems like that was really the engine, so to say, of, of the major transformation within Mac that enables you to really get to that vision of breaking the cycle of poverty. Because we you could work on a parent and a child at the same time to get those more holistic outcomes. And so how did, how did that seed itself and then grow within the organization to really get to the outcomes that you've achieved? Speaker 2 We had the opportunity to do some work with Kresge and I want to say this to you very clearly and and not because I'm trying to pat you on the back or whatever the case may be, but but you deserve it because it, I'll just explain to you how it was beneficial to us. We knew that two Gen. was a direction that we could go in, but I, I have to tell you, I was struggling with a common language that I could use to explain to the entire organization why 2 Gen. you know, why are we doing things this way? And it had been very frustrating for me because I, our people are trained constantly on this is the direction we're going in. Here's the, these, these are the books that we're using. So we are a learning organization in that sense. So we're constantly reading books. We're constantly to the point that the team doesn't like for me to travel because they don't know what I'm coming back with. So we do a lot of book reading and a lot of things that help to help guide our work. Where I was struggling with was that I knew that we had done, we had been successful in breaking down organizational silos. So we had moved past those days of you were known by the program you work in within the organization. We had a strong mission, a strong vision, and our team was increasingly getting on board the direction that we were going in. But in order to really solidify where we were, there was no common language. We were starting to teach about two Gen. and talk about all of that. It was at Kresge that it really it solidified the Human Services value curve for me. The first time I heard about it was the state of Tennessee when Doctor Hatter was the commissioner there. I heard about it, but at the time it didn't resonate with me in the same way. So we went to a meeting at Kresge and I came back from that meeting and I knew that this was the tool that was going to help us explain to people what we were trying to do as an organization and why 2 Gen. as a strategy was fit within the overall premise of the Human Services value curve. It allowed us to respond to our people who were, who were terrified that we were doing too much in this creative direction and that we were going to somehow jeopardize our grants because they were worried about the regulative side of things. Are we following what that what the grantor says we need to do? And so it allowed us to to speak to everyone and say all of what we're trying to do is encompassed in our process. And this is the tool that allows you to see what we're trying to do, but that from an organization perspective, we held it up as the language that we would teach the entire organization to understand the direction we were going in and why. Speaker 1 So in some ways the the human service value curve enabled you to help people make sense of where they were going to give them a clearer sense of what the future could be and and how the pieces fit together. Sure, they you know, what are all these new innovations these things are working on what is 2 Gen. But it you take all those pieces and put them together and it gives a good sense of where the future is going. Speaker 2 Well, the great thing about it is it, it takes a million things and it puts it in four categories. You know, I bet that sounds crazy, but it, it really allows people to kind of see that you don't ignore the regulatory if you have to do it, that's really your that's, that's a part of where you've how your funding comes, right? It continues to come because you do that piece well, but it doesn't really lead to necessarily the kind of outcomes for families that's possible. And So what it allows you to do is to really see and help people see that, hey, you can satisfy this piece of it. But man, that's nothing compared to what you can actually accomplish when you think of what you can do if you're just within the organization. It helped us even explain why we couldn't be siloed, that we had to be collaborative within our own structure. So before you even start to look at how you interface with structures outside of the organization, it helped us to give them a clear picture of This is why you can't just sit in one division of the agency just focusing on what you're doing and not realizing that when that child comes in through the Head Start program, you can be doing a great, great job with the child that what happens, what's happening with the parent or what's happening with the family. And then there are resources that are certainly within our organization that we he can bring to bear for the entire family. But what about those resources that in the that are in the community that we cannot, we don't actually administer, but that could help this family with one more part of the step that that gets them toward greater outcomes. And then as you know, just even facing that there are systems within the community that don't allow families to be successful, how you come together with others to tackle those systems that allow you to address them so that the barriers that people are experiencing don't have to be there because you have a system that creates the barriers themselves. Speaker 1 The people in the organization were not only able to look within the organization and getting better collaboration, but also view themselves as systems change agents. In a way, they could see themselves as part of the larger ecosystem as well. And what Mac needed to do in order to effect change across the entire ecosystem or, you know, the city and the region. Speaker 2 Absolutely. I mean, and, and it's paid off for us, right. You know, you ask where our budget was in the beginning, it was at about 14,000,000. And while it will not remain as high as it is right now, it's at 117,000,000 right now. And that's in part because when the city needed an agency that it believed could get the work done of administering the emergency rental assistance funds. An organization that you know years prior they would not have turned to this is the organization they turn to to the point that you made earlier because we have the ability to deal with the emergency situations that's happening, but continue the the sort of forward trajectory of helping people to be successful. It's also why really they attributed to our two Gen. work is the reason why the city decided that it would shutter the the the doors of its workforce entity and move those functions into our organization as well, because our focus was on more than just the jobs piece itself. But how does how do we really help this be effective when it comes to what it can do in the life of the entire family? Speaker 1 How did the role of data and analytics help your teams and you? You mentioned that that Mac had become a learning organization. And so I imagine part of that learning even within the Human Services value curve sense was the ability to look at data and analyze it. And the outcomes that were the organization was getting in and look to see what the broader, what type of generative outcomes we could get and how we would measure those did. Was that helpful to you data and analytics to get to where you are now? Speaker 2 Well, to use the word that it was helpful isn't is a gross understatement. I don't know if if there's some other words that we could possibly use. When we started this process, we had no data team, right? We had no one. Eventually we got to two people who could do data analytics for us and we contracted out to one of our local universities to really do our statistical analysis. When we started really heavily into our two Gen. work looking at the statistical significance of what we were doing. So we were looking at numbers, but we weren't looking at the statistical significance of those numbers, you know, because some things if you well, you understand this, if you look at it a certain way, it looks like you're doing great, but really you, you're not doing as well as you think. So that was huge for us. But once again, going back to Kresge and our experience with with Kresge when we were selected as a Next Gen. organization, the reason one of the things that we indicated that we really needed was the seed to be able to expand our data team. Our data team is now a team of five with a people who are now specifically trained in data, data analytics, predictive analysis that are doing an exceptional job without which we would not be able to do the work that we're doing now. And even some of the work that we're planning for as Nashville continues to change and become a place that is really struggling with affordability, the information that they're able to analyze. And I'll just say this, we still operate a number of different systems where we collect data because we have funders who require us to utilize their systems. But you cannot have an organization that's focused on using the human service value curve as it's really business model is, is what we how we describe the way we use it, but have systems that can't talk to each other. And so having the the strength of a data team that can pull data from every system, bring it together and it allow us to really see how we're doing across programmatically and to plan within the organization for services and making sure that our outreach and that we can see a picture of our city in a different kind of way. It's huge. And I if it's OK, I'd like to give you a specific example. We're having serious issues in our city with housing affordability and yet we administer services that serve in some cases between 20 and 30,000 people in our city with individuals with low income. So the data team was able to pull city data. So the data on, and I'll just use this in terms of when we talked about recruiting for our Head Start program as an example, our data team was able to take the data from the school system regarding where their preschool locations are and then they mapped them against where our Head Start locations are. We talked to the school system and learned that they were starting to serve 3 year olds, which previously they had not done, which impacts directly our enrollment. They were able to take that information and then map it against all of the people in the community who qualified under a certain income level that we had already served, meaning they were already in our system and using heat maps, show us exactly where those people live and where the ones who had children in the household from birth to five and their proximity to our centers. So then we were able to then do a more targeted recruitment process to those families from using data from the system that was the rental and the energy piece because it serves the largest number of people, right. Prior to that, we would not have had a picture of exactly where those families were located because the census data as you know is not current data. Now that may not, that's not rocket science, but not having a data team that could do that for you in real time means that you are relying on information that you otherwise would would take longer for you to get versus knowing these are the people that we just helped in the last 30 days. This is where they live. This is where their children are. This is where we need to do outreach. And so you can, you can see that played out in terms of the work that our team does when it comes to how we address workforce, when it comes to how we outreach to youth. When you look at the crime data, that is current in terms of what's happening when you're trying to do your summer recruitment to get youth involved in employment. All of those things allow us as an organization to be able to impact the community and reach people who need our services in real time. Speaker 1 Wow, that is just brilliant. Such a wonderful example. We're going to have to write about that example as well. That's that's a really good one. It strikes me as well that, you know, this use of data and analytics and you know, and within the overarching Human Services value curve that people in the organization are learning while they're going through this. And it changes not only the organizational services and some of the programs and how you design them and run them, but how people work within the organization as well and their role. You know what the case study we did with you at the Kresge Foundation, I think one of the phrases you you use was people could no longer feel they owned their position. And I took away from that, that that people had to continuously learn and figure out new ways to work that position there in was always changing and adapting. How did you help people, I guess see that and and absorb that without, without having them just, you know, struggle through that process? Speaker 2 Well, it would be not truthful to say that we were able to accomplish that. They very much struggle through that process. And that's OK because a part of being a learning and a growing organization is recognizing that there are just times when, as things evolve within an organization, while you value your people, that there are times where they are actually better suited in a different role. And so, so sometimes when you're doing these processes, and I think I mentioned to you, education is a big part of what we're doing, sometimes that's not the right person in that role for what the role now requires. And so it requires you to really be comfortable and have a culture where people can even say to you, I don't think I can do this anymore. I'd like to look at something else in the organization. One of the things that some of them have said, I'm not even having fun anymore because this is now requiring something different. And so it doesn't necessarily mean a negative thing for someone. It could mean that they're saying, you know what I really want to go and see and work in a different division or I really would like to do something different because I don't even want to move into where this is going. So it, it, it requires you to constantly have a process of educating and, and re educating and listening to your team members, but also listening to, to customers. So in order to accomplish it, you cannot have the idea that people are going to stay where they were because as we evolve as an organization, as our roles shift within the organization, part of it is recognizing that sometimes you need to be in a different seat or not with us at all. What we want to do, however, is make sure that we are helping people transition, whether it's transition with it, transitioning within the organization or outside of the organization. Some people simply decide themselves this is no longer where they want to be and they move on. I have people who periodically e-mail me and they'll say, you know, I really liked what I heard on the agency, why I call. Is there an opportunity for me to learn more about that? Can I be invited to a training on this because I'd like to learn more about it. So I think we're we're building a culture where people don't necessarily expect that they're going to be in the same spot. And some of of them don't want to be. Speaker 1 It's all about growth. In many ways, it sounds like how did you as someone in leadership, you know, exercising leadership, how did you grow during this process, through this entire time leading, leading back to new types of outcomes? Speaker 2 Well, I want to say to you that one of the things that was clear to me when you mentioned the data piece, I knew that there was a deficiency in my own learning and understanding when it came to data, when it came to analytics, when it came to some things that I really believed the organization needed. It was really the impetus for me going back to school and getting my doctorate. Now, did I need a doctorate to do that? No, but we were pushing and encouraging our folks in the organization to go back to school, to keep learning. I had a master's degree. I really felt that a doctoral experience for me would allow me to continue to grow the organization, but that it would also address some of the things that I was worried about in terms of myself and my ability to continue to lead the organization. I was going to, you know, different conferences and I was reading as much as I could find to read, but I knew that if I was going to really lead the charge around data and some other things in the community or in our organization, first of all, and because, but I really felt like we needed to do our own research. I really felt it was important that we were not, you'll forgive this, relying on university solely to be the ones to come in and look at our work that I had to be in a different place. So I went back to school, got my doctorate in leadership and professional practice with a a desire to continue to build where we are, but really to strengthen my own understanding when it came to data and research because I felt that was needed to help move us forward. Speaker 1 That's amazing. How did you sustain yourself during that time, You know, running the organization and working on your doctorate and, you know, just a day in, day out and slog of transformer organization. What lifted you up day-to-day? What kept you from just walking out the door? Speaker 2 Well, I, I want to be honest to anybody who's listening and say that I tried to walk out the door twice at Year 7 because I, I've just felt like I didn't want to be written about in the paper anymore. I didn't want anybody else to say that to, to question who I was as a person anymore, that I didn't care about people that. So I want to be honest and say I went through all of that. I was sued 3 * 3 times personally by employees who were not happy with what was going on. So at year 7 and year 14, I, I really wanted to leave. I really felt that I wanted and so for me, and I encourage any leader to have a, a place and know what that space is in your own life. That gives you a sense of grounding, that gives you a sense of calm and that helps you not react in the moment, but to, to really be able to make decisions from a different point of view. So I'll be just frank with you and say that my, for me, that's my faith. I'm a person of faith. And so at year 7 when I was tired and really wanted out, you know, I spent a lot of time in prayer and, and talking to people that I trusted about what I wanted to do, which was to go. And the only thing that I got back from that was if you go now, then you're going to miss what you're really there to do. And so I stayed and year 14 I was like, surely I've done all that I can do now. I, I really went into the same space of, of really examining. Is it really time maybe for me to go? And it wasn't. So I guess it was time for me to go back to school, which is what I did. But one of the things that I will tell you that was a part of that whole process of really reflecting and for me praying was being able to then say, well, then if I'm still supposed to be here, then I need the ingenuity. I need the clearance of thought to understand how to move forward. And I need people who can help move the organization forward. And with that resolve, then I was done with, you know, any plans to go. And these things continue to just sort of come into place. And so for me, that's my sense of grounding to know that I my purpose for me was a greater purpose when it came to this organization, when it came to the people who work here, but even more so or as much when it comes to the community that we. Speaker 1 Serve Cynthia, if you'd be willing to, to open up a bit and talk about this from her perspective of, of being a black woman and, and leadership in this country and the South. Obviously there's challenges everywhere in the country, but is there, I guess what, what advice would you give to others? Maybe in that situation where you're trying to drive this major transformation, but you also have the perceptions of others and and navigating this world with it on your shoulders. Speaker 2 You know, the response that I have for that, and it might not be a good one, is let it be their thing, but it doesn't have to be yours. And when I say let it be their thing, what I mean is that my responsibility, I felt, was to be the person that I felt I needed to be in terms of my integrity, in terms of my own scholarship. And I don't just mean going back and getting a doctorate, but I mean my own scholarship, my knowledge of the work, my knowledge of the field, my knowledge of what was required for this organization, the voices of the the people who work here, of the community. When I recognized that my responsibility was to be the best, my best self and to continually work at my education, then let my race be their issue. It not my own. And so that means when I walk into a room, I walk into a room with the knowledge that, you know, I've done my homework, I know what I'm doing. You might not understand that I that I know what I'm doing, but I do. And so I don't walk in there with a sense of deficiency in terms of myself. And eventually over time, you figure out that the same is true. It certainly has not been without challenges. You know that people are always wanting to, to question you or to second guess whether you know what you're doing or what you're talking about. And even just the sort, sort of sense that you are not even deserving yourself of certain types of, of recognition in that, whether that's economically or otherwise. But those aren't, I don't allow those things to be my driver. And I think what I would say to people is recognize that that's out there and that that may be what some people are holding on to, but that's not what I have to carry in terms of how I carry myself. Speaker 1 Super impactful and that I've actually just learned a lot just listening to you for the past minute there on that because it's, you know, my role. I'm often working with organizations and I walk into mini rooms where it's where I'm the only person of color, you know, and I carry, I usually carry that with me where I think, OK, wow, I got to prove to them that I'm supposed to be here and I can do this work. But really what I learned from you is that's that I shouldn't have to carry that. They can carry it if they want to, but I don't have to. That's a great lesson for for all of us. So it just, you know, maybe in our way as we close this out here, thinking about you, you've accomplished so much at Mac and it's the organization while still growing and still changing and transforming. It's in a good position. If if you were to to walk out the door soon and then someone else had to come in or if you were talking to an aspiring leader going into an organization where they had to affect major change. What are the, you know, one or two or three big lessons you would give them In a nutshell, The thing is to think about that'll keep them headed towards their North Star. Speaker 2 I could give 50, you do know that. So to ask me to do 3 is cruel and unusual punishment. I want to be clear in saying that I will definitely say communications is huge and I've had people really push back when I say that. I went to every building I sat down with, with the the team members. I had an open door policy. I listened to what people had to say. I've I've had lots of people say, well, that's undermining your managers or that's undermining your leadership. I've been told all of that, but based on the things that were happening within this organization, I was not in a position where I could trust the information that I was receiving. So it required me to be physically present and to make sure that I was communicating to people. But you can't communicate without integrity. And I, I, I must say that. So communicating, just going out and smiling in people's faces and shaking people's hands and, you know, making promises that you know, you have no intent, you have no intentions of trying to fulfill. That's not what I mean by communication. I mean, making sure that even if people disagree, even if they don't decide to stay, even if you look up and you getting three, you're being sued 3 times, even if all of that goes on communicating with the entire organization. I didn't mention during this process that probably now 12 years ago, we started agency wide meetings every two weeks and we do it on payday because people tend to be happier. And at that time we, the platform that we were using is was not as sophisticated as the one that we have that we have now, but we used a video conferencing system. And so I spoke to all of our team members and still do every two weeks on an agency wide call. That's how I inform them about what's going on. That's how I explain raises or or not raises. That's how I explain the direction of the organization. That's their opportunity to ask me questions directly about things they like or that even that they don't like. It's anonymous in that, you know, there's a the manager is typing in the question. So we don't know which team members actually asking it or somebody. Else is typing in the question. So we still do that. That's a long winded way of answering your very short question. The other one I would say is you have to learn as much as you can learn about the work of your organization. In an ideal world, you should be able to just rely on your leaders. And I'm at the place where I can rely on what they are sharing with me, what they're bringing to me. But I had to learn things myself about who we are and what we do. And, and I would say this to you, I have to know it better than anyone else knows it when it comes to the advocacy I have to do outside of the organization. Because people will sometimes tell you things that may fit their narrative, but it doesn't necessarily make it true. So that would be one of the things that the other 2 of 50 things that I would share, the last one is hard because it forces me to stop at 3 when I want to keep going is from a leader perspective, you need to know yourself. And when you know yourself and you understand more about yourself, even if you don't want other people to know certain things about you, it's important to have an understanding of who you are, but not just who you are, how you impact people. And the reason that's important is because when things happen and you get pushed back and people don't agree with you, it doesn't have to be personal for you, but it is personal for them. And I want you to understand what I mean when I make the distinction, it is personal for them, whether you intended it in that way or not, because every decision I make does affect their life. So when I make a decision about changing the title of their job or shifting them into a new a different role or saying this is the direction of the organization, while I might not have had their face in my mind when I made that decision, it still effects them. So I think understanding that it doesn't have to be personal to me, meaning when you react negatively toward me, when you don't like what I did and you express it, it doesn't have to change how I feel about you or I relate to you as a human being. But I have to recognize that my decisions are personal to the people who work here because it does affect their lives. I think that would be the final thing that I would would want to share. Speaker 1 Doctor Kermiss has been a master class in, in leadership and I think we could take this particular podcast and make it into a book. So maybe we should think about think about that. And thank you so much for for sharing your insights and your ideas. And for everyone listening in, please read the case study traversing the Human Services value curve, achieving new outcomes at the Metropolitan Action Commission. Again, Cynthia, this has been wonderful. Looking forward to hearing what's next from you. And in in the interim, good luck and go with faith. Speaker 2 All right. Thank you and thank you so much for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. Speaker 1 This has been the Chief Growth Officer podcast. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to hear more of our episodes, head to cgopodcast.org or subscribe to us on iTunes or Spotify. This podcast is hosted by Doctor Antonio Oftoli, executive director of Leadership for a Networked World at the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University. The podcast is produced by Christopher d'angelis and supported by Lauren Hershon and Karen Notch. See you soon.