My Dialogue Failure: I Judged the Person, Not Their Idea

Several weeks ago, I posted about how the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (my employer) may become a charter agency. I spoke of my adamant mistrust of this idea, based largely on who was proposing it: Cathy Stepp and other DNR administrators, who were appointed by Governor Walker and have backgrounds in business and real estate rather than natural resources.

But since writing that post, I’ve had a few conversations that made me question my own mistrust.

It turns out that some highly-respected DNR employees embrace the charter proposal. Was I throwing out the baby with the bathwater, dismissing the ideas of someone just because I feel that we’re on opposing sides? Could it be that I was succumbing to exactly the kind of Us vs. Them thinking that I try to avoid?

I want to examine my thinking to find out.

Just after I posted my critique of the charter idea, Stepp called a DNR-wide “Town Hall” meeting to address the issue. I must say that for all the criticism she’s received, Stepp has made an exceptional effort to communicate with DNR employees. Throughout her six months at the agency, she’s solicited our ideas and feedback, emailed us frequently with updates, and held these occasional Town Hall meetings on especially controversial policies.

I’m told that no secretary in anyone’s memory has made such efforts to keep lines of communication open. I’ve become convinced that, although she and I may have different values about natural resources, she sincerely cares about employees and is a good manager.

The Town Halls are held in my building, the Central Office in downtown Madison, but are open via computer connection to every DNR employee around the state. At one such meeting related to the controversial, protest-spawning Budget Repair Bill, virtually all of DNR’s 2200 employees participated and briefly overwhelmed the computer system.

At that meeting, Stepp sat at a long table in front of a conference room alongside the other administrators. The room was packed with a couple hundred employees, sitting and standing, and a few came up to a microphone to ask questions. Avoiding the crowd, Ron and I watched from a computer upstairs.

In their opening statements and through the course of the meeting, the DNR administrators were unabashedly enthusiastic about the charter idea. They described how it would free the DNR of the bureaucratic red tape that has shackled us for years.

For instance, as I mentioned in my last post, we’ve got very limited ability when it comes to hiring new employees due to a statewide hiring freeze. We also have little control over our fleet of vehicles, important for traveling to monitor natural resources and meet with stakeholders around the state.

Because decisions on hiring and vehicle use have to go through the state Department of Administration, these decisions are greatly slowed and are often not made in the DNR’s best interests.

One administrator used the word “privilege” to describe the proposal: we’d have the privilege of being the first state agency to try out a charter. We would try it as a two year pilot, and if it was successful, other state agencies would follow.

At one point, someone asked, “You’ve been so positive about this idea. Can you tell us some of the drawbacks it may have?” The answer: There aren’t any that we can think of.

At the Town Hall, it became apparent that the administrators hadn’t planned on the charter idea getting out to the public yet—that had been an accident. This meeting was a reaction to the idea being leaked to the media, forcing the administrators to scramble to explain themselves to us and to taxpayers. They seemed frustrated at this, saying that they’d wanted to wait until all the details were negotiated with the governor before revealing the plan.

Many of the questions from DNR employees were hard-hitting, though this was usually done in a congenial tone. It must be unnerving to question the head of your agency, especially on video, especially when the union may no longer be able to protect you from demotions.

Yet these questions were asked, bravely: Why so little transparency? Why not let us know you were thinking about this idea, as Chancellor Biddy Martin let the UW-Madison students and faculty know about her similar proposal? Why make the DNR a charter, when the charter model has failed in Iowa, the one state that’s tried it?

While answering these questions, the administrators’ enthusiasm seemed suspicious. As usual, their chipper tone was irritatingly hard to relate to, given the dismal way we state employees had been treated by their allies in the government.

But one long-time employee came to the microphone in support of the charter proposal. He said the proposal actually sounds like how the agency was run decades ago, in its more successful years. Back then, we had more freedom in hiring and fleet use; there was less red tape in general. This would be “taking a step forward by taking a step back.”

As a relatively new employee, I frequently hear old-timers reminisce about the 1980s and ’90s, when the DNR was a successful agency. The secretary was then elected by the Natural Resources Board, not appointed by the governor. There were more resources to do good work. I’m told that there was an energy within the agency—you felt like you were getting things done, and done well.

Since then, there’s been a steady decline towards less and less power, less and less efficiency, and more and more silly politics. “Taking a step back” to the DNR’s past, therefore, sounds like a good thing.

Since the Town Hall, I’ve had a couple conversations with other respected employees who’ve echoed the man’s positive statement about the charter idea.

Once, I was having a beer after work with a man who’s been working at the DNR over 20 years. He’s a happy, vigorous person who’s worked successfully in various positions in the agency. He shares my sentiments about all of Governor Walker’s “Open for Business” rhetoric, pointing out that nowadays at the DNR, it’s “What’s good for business is good for the environment,” not the other way around.

And, like most DNR employees, he’s bitterly opposed to Walker. “When I first got a job here, it felt like an honor. I mean, being a state worker was an honor. Now I’m a bad guy… I’ve never seen anything like this administration. This administration has got to go; that’s all there is to it. No matter what it takes.”

And yet, after all that, he commended the charter proposal, saying that we need to get free of red tape.

That conversation and others made me think hard about my own motivations. When I posted my rebuff of the proposal, it was based almost entirely on gut reaction, which was based entirely on who made the proposal and their lack of understanding of natural resources. I talked a lot about the word “customers,” and the way that Stepp seems to feel that the DNR’s customers are businesses rather than citizens and natural resources.

But my mistrust wasn’t based on the merits of the idea itself, which I admitted I didn’t understand.

This type of reaction is exactly what I want our country to get away from. If we constantly divide the world into two opposing groups—Republican and Democrat, red and blue—and we refuse to consider ideas proposed by anyone from the opposition, then we’re doomed to stalemate. I want to blur those boundaries, and I feel that I failed at this.

“I don’t like it because I don’t trust its proponents” isn’t good enough. Each idea should be examined in its own right. Even if those in charge do prioritize business over the environment, making the DNR a charter agency might still help the DNR to protect the environment.

In my quest for better dialogue, I think that here I’ve stumbled across a nugget of wisdom. In true dialogue, each party considers the ideas of the others, working to let go of bias and focus on the merit of the ideas themselves. I like that.