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Opening up to Learning and Leadership
for Multnomah County Health Department

As an experiment in inclusion and leadership development, Multnomah County Health Department's Business Services group organized a two-day retreat where staff from throughout MCHD could develop recommendations for the Department's budget. The fresh thinking that took place during the retreat was apparent, but organizers also wanted to understand the effect of the retreat on participants' leadership skills.

I interviewed participants twice about how the retreat influenced their professional growth--once soon after the retreat and then again several months later. I organized their observations into themes, selected illustrative quotes, and wrote a report that presented my findings. The report was shared with other Multnomah County departments to demonstrate the potential benefits of opening up decision-making processes and allowing more input and involvement by employees.

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New Portlanders Speak
for the Office of Portland Mayor Tom Potter

As mayor, Tom Potter established a task force charged with exploring barriers to immigrant and refugee involvement in civic life. The task force was expected to develop a set of recommendations for presentation to Portland City Council.

After documenting the activities of the Immigrant and Refugee Task Force for 10 months, I wrote a final report that explained the task force's recommendations and the rationale behind them. The report was accepted by Portland City Council, and some of the recommendations have since been implemented.

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Communications Style Poster
for Multnomah County Department of Community Justice

The Department of Community Justice had recently begun a long-term process of increasing its intercultural competency and wanted to ramp up its staff's understanding of cultural differences, including differences in communication styles.

Working with DCJ's management consultant, I wrote an informational poster on communication styles that includes advice on flexing to someone else's style. In addition to being displayed in county buildings, the poster is provided to county human resources staff and their partners before they conduct employment interviews, to promote fair and equitable interviewing.

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