Dignity Factor

n the chandelier-lit, marble-floored corridors of the Treasury Department's grand Washington headquarters, the political big shots hurried from meeting to meeting. The assistant secretaries and deputy assistant secretaries in their white shirts and red ties didn't acknowledge electrician Ralph Duggins in his dark blue coveralls. Even though Duggins had kept the lights burning at Treasury for 18 years, the high-ranking officials didn't say hello. They didn't nod. They didn't make eye contact.

Even Duggins' old boss, a chief of administration three levels up the chain of command, seemed oblivious when he walked right past without even a nod after Duggins said hello in the hallway.

But the old boss wasn't oblivious. He was annoyed, apparently. A few days later, a memorandum went out to administrative employees: Don't speak unless spoken to. No worker was to acknowledge the boss unless the boss first acknowledged him. "OK," Duggins thought. "Then I won't even look at you."

That happened years ago, but the anecdote makes current chief of administration Earl Wright lower his eyes and shake his head. "We always say that people are our most important resource," Wright says. "You have to show that is a true statement."

When Wright arrived at Treasury two years ago, he inherited a staff of 200-electricians, phone operators, maintenance men, librarians, print shop workers, mailroom employees and other administrative staff-whose top bosses had long ignored them, who felt loyalty only to their immediate work units and who frequently felt snubbed by the white-collar professionals to whom they provided services. In turn, people throughout the department constantly grumbled about the administrative staffers' poor service and rude attitudes, so much so that many Treasury managers tried to avoid turning to them. Administrative employees faced the possibility they would lose their jobs to contractors who could provide better services.

Wright hasn't let that happen. Today, his employees are getting better at working with their customers. Thanks to Wright, the employees say, they feel appreciated. They feel like they get the tools they need to do their jobs. They treat customers with more courtesy and in turn are getting more respect. And they're doing better work.

Wright is proving a truism as basic as the Golden Rule but just as absent from many federal workplaces: A boss who shows respect and caring for his employees gets better results from them.

SONG AND DANCE

For decades, the position of chief of administrative and management services at Treasury was held by a string of in-and-out political appointees with little or no experience managing administrative organizations. The appointees would arrive, issue memorandums, come up with policies, attend meetings, and look busy and important. Then they would leave. The employees didn't know their bosses, and their bosses didn't know them.

"For 11 years prior to Earl Wright, it was the same old song and dance," says 13-year veteran carpentry shop foreman Jim Wilson. That stagnation was the key reason the administrative services division had lost the trust of many of its customers at Treasury. The print shop, for example, had the same equipment from the 1980s until 2001. The major improvements that swept the printing industry swept right past the Treasury Department.

So Treasury officials decided to go with a new approach to administrative operations. They redesignated the chief's position as a job for career federal executives. That made it a perfect fit for Wright.

Wright spent 20 years in civilian positions at the Navy after starting his federal career as a Presidential Management Intern at the U.S. Mint. He worked in the Navy's human resources division and other administrative operations. His last position was head of the administrative support services division for the Naval Sea Systems Command, where he honed the leadership approach he is applying at Treasury over six years.

When Wright arrived, the culture of Treasury's administrative services operation was lethargic. It mirrored that of many administrative divisions Wright had worked with during his federal career, in which a lack of leadership and respect led to an acceptance of mediocrity, except in emergencies. The mantra of such cultures is, "Give us a crisis and we'll handle it. Give us time and we'll screw it up," says Wright.

Wright wanted to be in charge of a top-notch administrative office. He decided to start not with the organizational chart or the computer systems or the policy manual, but with the people. He gave them a few things they hadn't been getting, such as attention, respect and dignity. "We had to get people emotionally committed," Wright says. "We had to get people conditioned to the fact that changes were going to occur."

Wright's first order of business was to get to know his employees. He met with each of them individually. All 200.

In the print shop, which produces reports and other documents for Treasury offices, Wright met foreman Ricky Pringle. Pringle has been with the print shop, in the subbasement of the Treasury Annex, a building across Pennsylvania Avenue from the main Treasury building, for more than a decade. He always strived to impress customers with a quick turnaround on printing requests, but his equipment was ancient by the time Wright arrived. In an age of networked printing, when someone can fire off a print job from their desk to a printer across the city, the Treasury print shop still had only stand-alone printers, requiring print work to be put on computer disks and hand-delivered to the shop.

Wright loves to watch people work and figure out what motivates them. In Pringle's case, Wright sensed that he liked technology. So Wright started getting him new equipment. "I like to mess with new toys," Pringle says. He gleefully shows off his new networked printers that not only make it easier for customers to send work to him, but also store jobs for easy retrieval and reprinting. The quality and speed of the print shop's work has improved.

Wright also sensed that Pringle is one of those employees to whom other workers look for direction, a natural leader whose power comes not from his title but from his judgment and character. "He's an opinion leader," Wright says. "There are people who when they speak in a meeting, everyone rolls their eyes. He's one of those people that when they say something, other people listen."

Wright has identified other opinion leaders in Treasury's administrative operations and has worked to instill in them his vision of a top-notch office. He does that by finding out what inspires them and then giving them what they need to do the best job possible. In the maintenance shop, for example, he learned that assistant Polly Dietz thrives on challenges. So he likes to walk up to her desk with an assignment, toss it in front of her and tell her he doesn't think she can complete the task. Then he walks away. She never fails to exceed his expectations, he says.

THE HUMAN SIDE

Wright's vision is that his office "will be a pioneer in providing cutting-edge administrative and support products and services." When he arrived, his employees already had the basic technical competence to perform their jobs-to answer the phones, fix faulty wiring, deliver the mail-but they lacked customer service skills.

Wright put all 200 employees through a customer service training program run by AchieveGlobal, a Tampa, Fla.-based company that trained the staff and volunteer force at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Wright mixed up the employees so that phone operators attended the training with carpenters, mailroom workers went with printers, and managers were there with rank-and-file employees. Wright's point was to instill a shared identity among the workers by having them get to know each other. He also gave the office a new name, Management and Administrative Programs, or MAP.

MAP employees learned techniques for handling ornery customers, anticipating people's needs and following up to make sure customers are happy. Such training had never been provided before.

A favorite segment among employees was called "entering and exiting on the human side." The workers learned to start any interaction with a customer with a warm greeting and some pleasant banter. They learned to end such dealings with a thank you and a promise to follow up with customers to see if they needed anything else.

Duggins, the electrician, uses the training when he goes into a Treasury manager's office to change a light bulb. Rather than just walking in, changing the bulb and leaving, he says hello and introduces himself, explains what he is going to do, does it, then offers to come back if any more work is necessary. If the manager has pictures of his or her children, Duggins will sometimes take note of them. "I try to put myself in their shoes," Duggins says.

Gwen Ashby, a Treasury operator, answers the phone one December day with a soothing "Good morning." She pauses to listen to the caller's request. "It sounds like you need to pay a collection notice," she says. Then she adds a note of understanding about the anxiety that comes with receiving a letter from the IRS. She says she will connect the caller to the proper IRS office, but tells the caller to call her back if there are any problems. Then she wishes the caller happy holidays. "Everyone is stressing since 9/11," Ashby says after ending the call. "You have to be attentive to that."

'I LOVE HIM'

Carpenter Jim Wilson and other maintenance workers built a conference room earlier this year. They put together the center table, assembled the chairs, wired the room for phone service, installed a large flat-screen videoconference monitor and painted the walls. They do those kinds of things all the time. It's their job.

But this time, a graphic artist from the printing and graphics shop took photographs of the crew at work. Then she assembled the pictures in a wall display outside the conference room, with a list of the names of those who worked on the project. Wright then held a pizza party for them in the finished room. No boss had given the workers such recognition before. "He makes sure he recognizes you," Wilson says. "It matters when people show they care."

Wright doesn't dish out praise willy-nilly, but he makes sure people know their work is appreciated. Recognition is a basic function of managers, but authentic praise was rare before Wright arrived. Getting praise now makes a big difference in employees' day-to-day work lives, they say. "You're not just doing your job out of necessity, to put food on the table," Duggins says. "It makes you want to do a good job if you know someone appreciates it."

Wright sends personal e-mails to employees thanking them for doing a particular job well. Typical is the following message sent to Ashby, after her boss received a note of praise from a caller: "Gwen: This is an outstanding endorsement of your dedication to improve our service environment and facilitate moving the corporation closer to 'world-class' status. Thank you for your continued support. Warm regards, Earl."

Ashby says Wright's caring and vision make working for him a joy. "I would go so far as to say I love him," Ashby says.

GETTING BETTER

The loyalty and commitment that Wright evokes from his employees has translated into better performance. Customer kudos now outnumber complaints. Treasury managers who once cringed at the thought of dealing with the administrative services division now have more faith that the office will take care of them.

Prior to Wright's arrival, Treasury managers had to spend a lot of time cajoling administrative workers or their bosses to get good service. "I don't have time to stroke," says Anna Dixon, director of finance and budget for Treasury's enforcement division. "Now I get a fair deal. It's not about who's who or who knew who first."

MAP employees still have a ways to go on improving performance. The Treasury librarian, for example, requested a reading table from the facilities shop in September that still hadn't arrived in December. Dixon had to spend a surprising amount of time trying to get a scanner for her office, though she's pleased she finally got it and was impressed by the professional attitude of the MAP employees who handled her request.

Also, maintenance work could be planned out on a schedule, rather than set up only to respond to problems once they occur, Treasury managers say.

Wright's next steps for the organization include implementing new procedures and schedules, installing new systems to track customer needs and rewriting performance plans to emphasize customer service. But he couldn't tackle those issues before first getting MAP employees to trust him, he says. "You need to start with a vision and the people," Wright says. "If you don't have the people thinking in the right mind frame, you're never going to get there."

Of course, there are still assistant secretaries and deputy assistant secretaries who don't acknowledge MAP employees and walk right past them in the tunnel under Pennsylvania Avenue that connects the main Treasury building with the Treasury Annex. But Ricky Pringle, the foreman whose print shop is at the end of the tunnel, doesn't let them get by. "Some people would rather look at the floor than look in your eyes and say good morning," Pringle says. He makes a point of saying hello to each of them in the hall. "When they see me coming, they know I'm going to speak."