If you're not good at storytelling, are you even governing?

Your people are likely doing great work. It's your duty to let constituents know what public service looks, sounds and feels like

Jun 23, 2023

"The best arguments in the world won't change a single person's point of view. The only thing that can do that is a good story." — Richard Powers, The Overstory

Even though I’ve read Powers’ amazing book, I had forgotten that quote. But world class storyteller and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns had not. He referenced it while talking about The U.S. and the Holocaust on the Honestly podcast in January. Here’s his take on the power of story.

“You need to tell stories. That's the basic human currency, is a story. ‘Honey, how was your day?’ And then you edit human experience into something coherent. ... There’s multiple ways to understand a subject. If you see that, then you’re not fighting somebody, you've not made an enemy of someone, you begin to say, ‘Oh, I see where you're coming from.’”

Compelling storytelling is a basic function of good government. If you cannot explain what you do in ways that capture the public imagination then you are not governing well. So we’re going to showcase some great storytelling over the next couple of newsletters. This week, we’re going to focus on people. When I say people, I mean your people, i.e., government employees.

Looking back at the quote that opens this post, if there’s one thing folks need to have their opinion changed on, it’s this: Too many see government employees as a bunch of lazy, clueless bureaucrats who weren’t smart enough or ambitious enough to get an honest job in the private sector. And returning to Burns’ quote, the public needs to understand we’re decent folks, just like they are. There’s no need to fight with us. We live here, too. We’ve got hopes and dreams for ourselves and our families just like you do. In this business of making the world a little bit better place to live, we’re all in it together.

But you have to tell the story to the public that we’re hardworking, dedicated folks who are passionate about public service. It’s a Good Government Truism that you should be doing everything in your power to build your credibility, and telling well the stories of your people is a great way to do that.

Today, we’ll look at three categories of employee storytelling: the basic profile; what your people are doing when all hell breaks loose; and what they do when they’re not at the office.

Basic profiles, done right

Many local governments have picked up on the value of profiling their employees and sharing those stories on Facebook and YouTube. More of you should be doing it. Compelling video is easier than ever to produce given the powerful tools we now carry in our pockets and purses that for some reason we still refer to as “phones.” And if you have a cable TV franchise, you should be collecting fees that can pay for all the video production hardware you could ever want.

And you don’t need to be Ken Burns to create interesting, well-told documentaries about your people. Here’s a great example from the City of Brownwood, Texas. They leveraged a new employee recognition program that honored four workers “who have gone above and beyond and have embraced the City’s core values of Integrity, Service, Excellence, Respect, Vision, and Empathy.” (Love, love, love the ISERVE acronym!) They created simple yet well-produced videos, using footage of the employees doing their jobs. They asked each employee the same basic questions: How long have you been working at the City? What do you do? What’s your favorite work memory? What’s a time you felt you made a difference in your community? What’s the ISERVE value you most identify with? What do you love about Brownwood? How have you progressed in your career at the City? What makes you a good public servant?

You can watch the brief videos on the City’s Facebook page. Here are a sampling of the quotes I really like, that tell the story of what these employees are all about.

Chris Lee, utility worker II, says the core value he most relates to is Integrity. “It's good to be honest and do things for the City the right way and not cut corners.”
Joshua Oden, parks crew leader: “I really want to serve. It's in my DNA, part of my family’s values.” He recalls a creed shared by his great grandfather: “When a man sums up his life and he looks back on it, he hopes he's given more to the world than he took from it.”
Stewart Stonger, GIS specialist/IT manager: “Everything we have is a gift from God and we're to love our neighbor as ourself, so I hope those somehow come through in my work.”
Kelley Charboneau, sanitation worker III (welder): This quote isn’t from Kelley, but from one of his friends who commented on the Facebook post. “I am proud to know Kelley and call him a friend. I can assure you the citizens are getting their money’s worth out of this worker. He is a hand.”

“He is a hand” may be the best third-party endorsement I’ve ever come across in my 25 years in this field.

If you’re not familiar with Brownwood, it’s home to about 20,000 folks and is the largest city around for 70 miles. I think of it as the city where the Hill Country ends and West Texas begins. It’s home to the semi world famous Underwood’s Cafeteria — where you should get the Combo Dinner of BBQ Steak and German sausage, and of course the cobbler and for the love of God of course you’ll want whipped cream on the cobbler when the server comes around to your table after you’ve seated yourself and for the love of all that’s holy of course you want an extra roll — which is a regular stop for me and Beloved Wife on our regular drives to Abilene where she has family and friends. It’s also home to Howard Payne University, an Aldi store, a cigar lounge and frankly has a lot more going on than you might expect, as their excellent visitor website attests.

It’s also home to Marshall McIntosh, the 28-year-old Deputy City Manager who used to be PIO for the City before getting promoted a couple of years ago. He’s an up and comer in our field, who holds an MBA from Howard Payne, and is a Certified Public Communicator as well as a Certified Public Manager.

“We wanted to film these in a way that made it seem like the viewer was the one talking to the recipient about receiving the award and the work they do on a daily basis for the City of Brownwood,” McIntosh said. “We were commended by many in the community for the way that these were filmed.”

The outstanding videos were produced by digital media specialist Jarvis Green. Well done, sir!

The not-basic profile: Crisis response

When the ship hits the sand, you should be highlighting the gritty work done by public employees while the public is safe and warm at home. People need to see and hear what it takes to keep services intact when Mother Nature decides she’s gonna pitch a fit of epic proportions.

And so she did when Winter Storm Uri hit in February 2021, millions of Texans lost power as the combination of ice and record low temperatures basically shut down civilization as we knew it. In Texas, more than 210 deaths have been attributed to Uri. It was a frozen hell on earth for about a week. Keeping basic services up and running was severely challenged by a weather event the duration of which we’d never experienced before. We can handle an ice storm that comes and goes in a day or two. But a full week of single-digit temperatures is not something we’re prepared for. And the rolling blackouts promised by the electricity grid operator turned into days-long power outages for most.

Once Mother Nature calmed the F down, the comms team at the City of Round Rock, Texas, got busy. (Actually, they had already been extremely busy — I know because I was leading the team at the time. At least, those of us who had power at our homes were busy with City business. Some team members were busy dealing with homes flooded by the bursting of frozen pipes and cascades of water flowing from the ceiling. Like I said, fun times.)

During the event, I heard from other directors about employees doing downright heroic work. So when the storm finally passed and other departments went into recovery mode, we went into storytelling mode. The end result was Storm Stories, a bonanza of blog posts that allowed our residents an inside look at the exceptional efforts of their public servants.

A challenge to telling the Storm Stories was a lack of video footage. Our multi-media specialist and his wife were stuck at a home without power, having literally pitched a tent in their living room in front of the fire place to keep warm. So our then-assistant director Sara Bustilloz figured out a cool way to embed audio clips from interviews with the featured workers into the posts. It turned into multi-media storytelling of the highest level we’d ever attempted, and indeed the City won a prestigious 3CMA Diamond Award for the effort.

Here’s a quick look at some of the Storm Stories we told, which began just a few days after life returned to semi-normal.

A Trip Worth Taking: How the city kept the water flowing. Because of widespread power outages, most water providers could not continue to operate their pumps, which leads to a loss of pressure in waterlines and, as those of you in the utility business know, that means boil water notices. For those of you not in the utility business, that means the water may not be safe to drink. For the public, going from no power to no water was no bueno. It’s hard to convey just how PO’d the public was over the power outages. To follow that with a water outage added massive insult to copious injury. But boil water notices didn’t happen in Round Rock. It took ingenuity, courage and teamwork to pull it off. This post tells that story, and it’s worth reading.
See something, do something: A City crew makes a life-saving decision. One of the stars of the Trip Worth Taking story was Matt Fitzgerald, streets superintendent. Matt, responsible for overseeing the sanding of roads during the storm, was driving three employees home at the end of a grueling 12-hour shift — temperatures dipped to 4 degrees that morning, the lowest of the storm — when they saw smoke coming from a home nearby. So they drove out of their way to check on it, only to find the homeowner had no idea their house was on fire. This is the one Storm Story we produced a video on because we really wanted to share the homeowner’s response. Her words at the end of this 1 minute, 36 second video capture why public servants do what they do.

A worried father leads to a rescue just in time. Police received a 7 a.m. call from a father worried about his adult daughter, whom he could not reach. She has a disability, he told dispatchers, and uses a scooter to get to work at a shopping center near her apartment. It’s normally a 10-minute trip. Officers knew the store where she worked was closed, but Sgt. Shelby Ingles went looking for her. Ingles found her in front of the store, stuck on the ice on her scooter. Her phone had slipped out of her hand and dropped out of reach on the pavement. For Ingles and the others officers who responded, possibly saving this woman’s life, it was just another day on the job. And when you work for the Round Rock Police Department, the basic job is taking care of the community. Said Ingles: “It’s how I’d want my family to be treated.”
There was another post about a Warming Center the City set up and operated, and the can-do attitude of the employees who turned out to help run it. The Warming Center was not intended to be a temporary shelter with bedding and food, but a place to warm up and recharge electronic devices. Still, a custodian heard that one of the first families to arrive didn’t have any food, so she brought some with her when she reported to work.
Naturally, the facility chosen to house the Warming Center had flooded due to busted water pipes, so we told the Storm Story of the crew that sprang into action to get it ready.

Out of office profiles

Of course, public servants have lives outside of their official duties. I think it helps to tell those stories, too. Anything we can do to put a human face on our organizations is worth the effort.

And you might surprised what some of these mild-mannered civil servants do in their off time. To wit, meet DJ Jerry and DJ Art from the City of McAllen, Texas.

You’d never guess these two mild mannered desk jockeys — Jerry Noriega is the purchasing director, while Art Cantu serves as an insurance adjuster — turn into music pumping DJs by night. In these profiles, you can tell they’re just as passionate about about their day jobs as they are about their side hustles.

The “McAllen’s Own” series was honored with a TAMI Award in 2022 by the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers. It also gets the Good Government Files seal of approval.

Bonus profile: ‘I literally felt like we were living next to angels’

I can’t end this post without sharing one more profile. It was part of Round Rock’s Storm Stories, but it was an outlier because it wasn’t about an employee going to great lengths do their job in extremely adverse conditions. It was about an employee being an exemplary human being.

During the storm, Parks and Recreation Director Rick Atkins received the email below about Davetta Edwards, then an administrative assistant in the Parks office.

“My neighbor, Mrs. Davetta Edwards and her husband, were absolutely a blessing to my family and me during the snow storm. The day began with a delivery of donuts, and then assistance in finding us a hotel room for the next couple of nights. She knew of my young children and baby, and really helped ease my panic.

“The next days have been filled with text check-ins and a visit from their magnificent son offering us and my other neighbor firewood. My other neighbor was hungry, so they offered the LAST of their food to help feed them.

“Before that day, we hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers, and now, I feel like we’ve made friends for life! Their assistance has been a Godsend, and I couldn’t be more grateful. I literally felt like we were living next to angels.”

It. Does. Not. Get. Any. Better. Than. This.

Tell your people’s stories. Do it well. There are indeed angels among us, and some of them work in local government.

I’m loathe to beg, but if you’ve made it this far I’m going to ask you for one more favor. If you know of other local governments — or state or federal agencies — doing a great job of profiling their people, please share in the comments. One of my goals with this newsletter is that it becomes a space where great work is shared, and not just by me!