April 11, 2008

To: All DHS employees

From: Bruce Goldberg, M.D., director

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"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
~John Wooden

Last Friday James Toews, Bryan Johnston and I had the pleasure of visiting with staff and community partners at our St. Helens, Astoria and Tillamook offices to recognize and thank them for their outstanding work during the December storm and floods.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting so many dedicated and caring individuals. They set an excellent example for all of us and they inspired me to change how I do things and add photos to this week's message.

The employees in the District 1 CAF, child welfare and self-sufficiency offices and those in the local aging services agencies are some of the many DHS and partner staff who went well above and beyond their normal duties during this past December's winds, heavy rains and floods to serve people in need. They surmounted situations that included office closures, lack of electricity, no computer connectivity, impassable roads and the flooding of their own homes. Despite all of these barriers, they were able to respond to the surge in people's needs for services.

How did they do this? That's what was so impressive. They refused to be burdened by the way they'd "always done things." They worked together and with many external partners to find creative ways to get things done.

As I listened to their stories about flood-related activities I was struck by how much can get done when everyone is focused on the goal of helping people in need. Impediments and constraints are quickly overcome and set aside. I'm not saying all constraints are unimportant -- certainly we must always do our jobs with ethics, safety and legal requirements in mind. However, as we are discovering through our Lean process reviews, many of our guidelines and procedures can benefit from some streamlining.

And that's what many of our staff did during the floods -- on the fly they streamlined processes and cut out unnecessary delays in providing crucial services. Almost equally important, they discovered what they were capable of accomplishing, and they built supportive and collaborative relationships with each other.

I sincerely hope this spirit of energy, creativity and collaboration will continue to be a part of their work during the months and years ahead. I also hope that all of us will follow this fine example. We all would benefit by making this spirit a part of who we are and what we do every day.

And last, these stories of trying new things and reducing constraints have inspired me to try something new in this message. I, too, have been feeling constrained in my ability to share my thoughts with you while keeping my messages relatively short. So, in the spirit of a picture being worth a thousand words, here are a couple thousand words about my visit to Tillamook and Astoria. (And I apologize for not having photos of everyone or any from St. Helens. I'll try to do better next time.)

The Astoria Self-Sufficiency team receives a much-deserved recognition award. Joining them (in the center of the back row) are Bryan Johnston and Bruce Goldberg.

Alicia Carignan, child welfare program manager, (left) and Lee Coleman, District 1 Manager, (right) present Bruce Goldberg and James Toews with a souvenir of their visit to … as you can guess from the cheese … Tillamook!

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