Practice & Policy Lecture: November 2010

I really wanted to
start off by saying
if Governor Henry had asked me,
"what organization would you like to be
a part of in a capacity that might be able
to make a difference
in this community,"
it would not have taken me long
to have come to the same conclusion that
then-State Senator Angela Monson
recommended to me and to Governor Henry
and that was the Department of Human Services.
I'd like to say the Department of Human Services,
really their job is to, to help people, to help,
to help people.
That's, that's really the bottom line.  To help.
That's, we don't collect taxes,
we don't make sure that you get to,
that your health is what it ought to be.
It's included in some of the things that we do
but our job is to, to help.
When folk come to us,
they come to us because they have a need
and so our job is to help them.
I was already familiar with Raymond
Haddock and Director Hendricks prior to
coming on as a commissioner.
I have been in meetings with them,
had discussions with them about things
in the community.  Already I was working
very close with the Oklahoma Marriage
Initiative and traveling and obviously was
having conversations with us about what we
were doing and so I was familiar with a lot
of things that were going, I was familiar with
the direction that DHS was going in and I was
very happy and excited when I received a call
from the Governor to ask me to become
one of the Commissioners because it fit in with,
with everything that I thought I was called to do.
Let me just give you, uh, I know they asked me
to talk about customer service and I can tell you
how that came up too in a minute,
but let me give you an idea of why I believe
that I am in the right place and at the right time.
I want you to look at my week this week.
I have some members here who can attest
that I am not making up stuff.
(Audience laughter)
They said I have a vivid imagination, and so
this week: this week I have spent some time
speaking with individuals who have substance
abuse problems, intimately, talking with them
this week.
This week I have been in court,
Drug Court program dealing with the judges
and District Attorneys trying to advocate for folk
who have signed onto the Drug Court program
so that they may be able to regain some portion
of their lives after encountering some difficulties
in their lives and I know that all of you are aware
of difficulties in your lives, and I am coming back
to that so don't let that get too far away from
your mind's difficulties of life.  All of us face
issues and difficulties in life and I've spent this
week down at the County Courthouse with one
of my members, who had gotten into some
problems and, and so I, I had to be there
because as, as her mother said,
"You know, it's just nice to have my
pastor there".  I can't influence the judge,
I couldn't do anything but, listen to what
she said, it was just, "it's nice to have my..."
And you know I'm well enough, I'm well-adjusted
and matured enough in this life to understand
that you know what, I am really not much of
anything and so I realize when people said
things like that, that I have grabbed hold to
the idea that it's what I am trying to do
that's really making a difference.
I spent some time this week, leading,
a funeral of a young man who committed suicide,
who was a member of my church 35 years old,
recently married August of this year, just had a
baby girl.  Can you imagine?
One of the phone calls I got this week,
a friend of mine who died in Washington D.C.
The family wants to bring her body back here
to lay her to rest and the family did not have
all of the necessary things they need and
so they have asked me to get intimately involved
with the funeral home and with designing the
service.
We're getting ready with our Thanksgiving and
Easter baskets and one of my members
texted me and said, "Pastor, do you have
anyone that you would like to give a basket to?"
And I thought to myself, we are very generous
but we don't have enough baskets to give
to all the folks that I encounter,
who are in need.
And so I, I need you to know that by all accounts,
most of you know we-- created
Temple Gardens for the Senior Housing Program.
I am over there quite often dealing with
those individuals and the issues and the problems
that they have from the standpoint of
senior citizens.
Have I touched on everything yet?
I'm trying to give you an idea
that I have some sense of what DHS is all about.
Some sense of the difficulties that we encounter
in life and the responsibility that rests
with this organization in trying to fullfill--
I think our Mission's statement mentions
something about developing folk to become
independent ...AND productive.
That's part of our Mission's statement.
That the folk who walk into our doors,
part of our job is to help them
to become independent and productive.
The staff was having a meeting they invited me to
about doing a lot of things, looking at strategic
planning and the one I attended was,
happened to be about customer service and
I added some remark which will teach me not to
speak up anymore and I won't ever do these
kinds of things.
(Audience laughter)
But they asked me after my remarks if I would
be apart of this lecture series to talk about
customer service and I told them gladly I would.
Would someone watch my time because I'm
not preaching, normally when I preach I can
get through quick but uh...
(Audience laughter)
I can tell by the way the "Amens" start
going down I know it's time for me to stop.
(Audience laughter)
So somebody... okay thank you, thank you.
I'm glad to see Oscar Jackson here, our
State Personnel Officer, yes sir,
glad to have him with us.
Um, customer service, listen you know what
I could talk a lot of things about customer
service, I do have my, ...
I haven't always been in ministry.
Some of my friends can to attest to that
back home in Memphis that not only had he
not always been in ministry he hadn't always
been close to ministry, so...
(Audience laughter)
Yeah, yep.  Uh, my first life I,
I was an accountant and so I've had an
opportunity to, to really do some things
in the business world and to know, and so
I have had to take some of those,
I worked for Kraft Food Service when it was still
an independent company and I went to all of
the training sessions they had and we obviously
had, I was not in the retail section,
well I was in the retail section so we had to
service some of the retail clients and so I,
I always had to go to some of their workshops
on customer service and I can remember that
stuff 30-40 years ago, uh, when I was doing that.
I remember some of those workshops.
I remember all of the things that they used to
say in customer surveys.  We have some of
those at DHS.  Let me tell you something,
customer surveys normally,
normally they can be usable, they can be useful
to some degree but don't put all of your eggs
in that basket.
Because normally customer service goes one
of two ways; folks who really didn't like what
was going on at all on one end and folks
who really liked what was going, who really
did really well, they did what you asked them
to do.  And then when you really do look at
the ones who really appreciate what you do
normally, (I just picked this up because I tried
to watch this movie, "Avatar", and I've still
got to watch it three to four more times
to really get to understanding of what it is).
Really customer service is about creating
an Avatar and your Avatar is always better
than your real life.
(Audience laughter)
The way you see yourself.
I thought when I saw that movie that would be
a great thing to do to be an Avatar but I
still, I don't know.
How would you tell somebody that they had
a nice tail without getting into trouble?
(Audience laughter)
So, customer service...customer service.
Well first thing that I thought about when I
started dealing with this idea of customer service,
we really do need to know who we are.
We need to know who we are.
Listen, I have been around since I think the end
of 2005 as Commissioner and I have tried to dig
in as deep as I could to understand and to see
and to talk to folks.
When I'm out in public you know when I do
sermons now, part of my sermon presentation is,
I am one of the Commissioners of the Department
of Human Services and if you need to talk to me
afterwards, please stop me.
I've got cards in my pocket right now that I could
give someone with my cell phone number on it.
Yesterday I was at an in and out luncheon and
there were five or six DHS workers there and
I sat down with them--
Didn't tell them who I was at first, just
wanted to hear the conversation.
Because I am always listening.
We need to know who we are.
The first thing we need to know about
who we are: We Do Good Work.
We Do Good Work.
Listen: do not give anyone else the pencil
to write your story.
I read The Daily Oklahoman, I have it on my iPad,
I read it and I flip through it,
but I don't let the daily Oklahoman
write my interpretation of what DHS does.
Because they miss the stories of a
young lady who walked in my church last
December the 24th and we were, had to finish up
some baskets that we were trying to get out
for Christmas, Christmas eve, the 24th and
she came in, it was 7:30 at night and we were
trying to get folk out of there to get home
and, and she brings in this little kid for one of
my members who is a foster parent, Ms. Bottoms.
And it's 7:30 and I say to her, to Ms. Bottoms,
"I want to introduce you to this lady."
She introduced me.  It's a, it's, it's a DHS worker.
This woman has been giving Ms. Bottoms a
chance to do some other things, and she has,
she has sacrificed her time, to 7:30 on
Christmas eve to be with this kid, 'cause I
asked her, Ms. Bottoms introduced me to her
and I said, "Are you on overtime?"
(Laughter)
She said, "No, no,... " (quietly) "I don't get,
I don't get overtime."
Did you read that in The Daily Oklahoman?
No, you didn't get that one in The Daily
Oklahoman, did you.  No.
Thousands of stories like who we really are.
And when we discover who we are,
we start looking at the fact that we are
very much like the folk who come into our offices.
The folk we support to do the work
that our offices do.
And you have to remember that if
you've got problems, just imagine
the problems that they, they have.
I know what I'm talking about because I'm
a pastor and being a pastor, you know sometimes
you get identified as someone who is above
problems.  It's as if when you become a pastor
you get a card that says, "Exempt from issues
in your life".  I didn't get that card.  Yeah.
I have a daughter who had a child out of wedlock.
I didn't get that, I didn't get that card.
I had a mother who died uh, February of 2009
that suffered eight years with Alzheimer's,
I didn't get that card.  Yeah.
I have two nephews in the California penal system
I didn't get that card.
I have a niece who just got out of the Jackson,
Mississippi, penal system.  I didn't get that card.
When I'm dealing with the issues of other folk,
I, listen, I have to remember that I am carrying
some issues myself.
When folk come into my office they don't
want to hear about my problems, because they're
presenting me, because I am sitting in a place that
they feel they can come and get some help.
I know what I'm asking you.
I know what I'm asking the employees of
DHS to do.
I am asking you to not only know yourself but
then to mold and make yourself into someone
who can sacrifice sometimes your own needs
because of the place that you have selected
to work, to hear the needs of others.
Not many jobs ask you to do that.
Nobody ever thought to think about what you're
really called to do.  I hope Director Hendricks
that we let those folk read our Mission Statement
because I go back to those ending statements.
We are there to help make folk independent and
productive, well what does that say about us?
It says to us that folk who are coming to us
are most likely not independent and not
productive.  That does not mean that they
are useless, it means that they are not
independent and not productive.  It is our
responsibility, our obligation by carrying a badge
that says, "OK DHS" that we are going to try
to do our best to help them to become...
It's a tough thing to ask for our folk isn't it Paula?
but that's what we ask, our employees, to do.
When you know yourself, then you know what
you are capable of doing and when you know
what you are capable of doing, that's when
you can allow yourself to look at what you
are asked to do.  Does all 7,500 whatever
plus employees of DHS do that?  No, no.
Listen, it's only me and my wife in my house,
my children are grown and let me tell you,
one of us don't act right some time.
(Audience laughter)
And let me make it clear, it's not my wife.
(Audience laughter)
I can't get along with myself sometime, you know.
(Audience laughter)
So, no, no, no, no, what we don't, we don't
imagine that everyone but what I do imagine
is that we take some time to recognize really
what we have been called to do.  You remember,
remember the movie, I remember a particular
scene in "Pretty Woman" when the female lead,
I can't remember her name.
(Audience) Julia.
Yes, yes, she goes into the store, a male lead
sends her in there because he's rich and she's
a hooker and he goes into the store and she
goes into this boutique on Beverly Hills Avenue,
or Boulevard and she goes in and they see how
she's dressed.  She's dressed like a hooker and
the lady who is serving her looks at her and makes
the determination from just looking at her that
she does not have the resources to purchase the
stuff that's on her shelf and so she disdains her
in the way that she handles her.  She, she, she,
talks to her as if you can't, you really can't afford,
and so she leaves.  You know the rest of the
story, he comes back in and he throws out the
card and then the other lady, the next salesperson
who does get the job gets all of his commission
because he buys this hooker thousands and
thousands of dollars of stuff.
We have to be careful about individuals who we
encounter.  The fact of the matter we encounter
individuals sometimes at their lowest ebb.
We encounter individuals who come to us because
(1) really they are not hiding, they have made a
determination that they need some help and
they've got to be able to be honest and open to
go to someone, some agency to say in essence,
"I have not been able to do what as a human
being I should have been able to do and I am
presenting to you myself."
And you know sometimes how they do that?
They come in with this shield up because they
know that they are doing something that goes
against their very inner being and so instead of
coming in saying to you, "I need some help, I need
some assistance, life has taken its toll on me and
I'm unable to handle it by myself."
No.  I wished they would come in like that.
But they come in and say, (shouting)
"Hey!  You owe me something and you better
give it to me and if you don't I'm going to call
someone because I'm a citizen of the state of
Oklahoma!  This is what I need and I need you,
I don't even want to fill out the paperwork, I want
you to give it to me right now before I leave!
I don't want to hear about process!"
(Audience laughter)
And our response has got to be, "There is a
process."  But more than that our response has
got to be, "Listen I don't quite understand all that
you're going through, but I knew though that you
are here for a reason and there is a reason that
you are here.  It is not a reason that I would really
want to be here for, and so let me try and assist
you."  I hope that even if we cannot supply the
very thing that they ask for, as employees of DHS
we ought to leave them with something.  I wish,
I wish I'd know what I'm asking you but we ought
to leave them with something.  And if nothing
more because of the people that we come in
contact with on a daily basis are in such need,
our offices ought to be an oasis of calm and
peace and hope, if not tangible help.
I know what I'm asking you, listen, don't ever
think that I don't understand what I'm asking
you to do.
I wish, I wish sometimes that I could really share
with people.  Again, being a pastor has trained me
to be able to stand before you and to ask you to
do what I'm asking you to do.  People walk in my
office with problems and troubles but none of it
is ever their fault.  None of it is ever, ever their
fault.  They didn't do anything to create the
problem, they didn't stay out late when they
should have been home with their wife and their
children so now their wife is upset and wants a
divorce.  They didn't get hooked on any kind of
drugs, somebody slipped it in their, not their drink,
in their fingers and pushed it up to their lips and
made them smoke it. (Light laughter)
Yeah, it's always, listen, it's, I know.
And it's difficult.
I stopped doing, couple's marriage counseling
a few years ago after I kind of finished my stint
with Oklahoma University I stopped doing couple's counseling
because I got to the point as a pastor when
particularly members when they came in, they'd
come in and have a marriage problem and I'm
knowing these folk, I know 'em, I've been at
this church 13 years.  I've been there long enough
to know folk, so they're sitting across from me
and they start talking and I'm listening and when
you're listening you know, you're hearing, and,
and you're thinking to yourself, okay, this is not
making any sense.  So, what you know, what do
you want from me?  I said, what you ought to do
is just come home.  Don't go to the casino on
Friday night, come home.  Don't drink, stop
drinking, you know.  And so I'm listening so I had
to stop doing marriage counseling because the
thoughts started coming into my mind when I was
sitting behind my desk, you know I don't, you
know I try not to do that much but now I know
it's the best thing for me to do, I've kind of
moved around now I have to sit behind my desk
but I had to get there before I could do it because
I sat behind the desk because the thought that
came to me is I wanted to just get up and walk
around this desk and just take my hand and just
smack them right upside...(Audience laughter)
I'm telling you the truth, upside their head and
say, "Go home!  You'll be all right now, because
that should have slapped some sense into you,"
(Audience laughing) but I couldn't do that.  So, I
couldn't do that.
Know yourself, know yourself so you have the
ability to be able to become who the people who
are walking in and talking to you know that they
can receive some help.
Know that you yourself have some issues
that may complicate the process of doing what
we try to do.  People talk about how large DHS is,
how big DHS is, unmanagable DHS is.
You know I never, I've never said that I like our
organization.  I like the fact that we have agencies
that work together that can satisfy the total
needs of an individual.  We are working right now
and trying to get some congruence, not only in
the service but in the documentation
of those services.
We are working on that.  It takes time to get all
of that done.  We are now in the process of
getting some push to do that which is going to
make it helpful for everyone so that all of us will
know what we're doing, when we're doing it
and it won't be such a complicated process.
We are working, we are working through all of that
right now.  That's another side of it.
That's coming.
What I need you to know is every encounter you
have with a citizen of the state of Oklahoma,
you, individually,
every encounter that you have, you represent
the Department of Human Services and with that
you have a responsibility to do your best
to represent us and it's difficult sometime.
I told you, I tell folk all the time I'm a
Commissioner and you can imagine that folk will
want to explain to me why they didn't get the
service that they thought they should have
gotten and I've had to call Mark Youngblood and
give him a list of names and stuff and you know
it's kind of sad when I have to call those folk back
and say you forgot to tell me that...
(Audience laughs knowingly) And then they say,
"Oh yeah, I uh, what, what should that matter?"
Well I said, "that matters quite a bit, you know,
there is a process involved in that and I was told
that if you had ..."
But you work with them.  And you recognize that
you are dealing with individuals --
who are in stressful situations themselves.
So, I think I've asked you what I wanted to ask
you to do.  I think I've related to you how difficult
it is for you to do that.  I think I've shared with
you that I have some semblance of understanding
of what I am asking you to do and how difficult it
is to make that happen.  So where do we go
from here?
Well, I think that there needs to be a revival.
I think we need to have a revival.
Well, not the kind that has to do with religion,
God, but a revival of purpose.  A revival that says
to us we are so important to the life of this state
that we need to recognize who we are.  For a
moment, imagine the state of Oklahoma without
the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.
Can you?  I try to do that sometime.  Let me tell
you what it's like, which gives you an idea of what
I deal with sometime when I talk to young people.
I had a mother and a father.  When I was growing
up my father died in '84.  I am 56, you do the
math.  I was a grown man.  My mother died in
2009, you do the math, I'm a grown man.
I can imagine when I'm talking to a young person
who says to me I don't know my father.  I have to
listen to that individual because that individual has
to help me understand what that feels like
because I cannot imagine my life without my
father and my mother and I've got a very vivid
imagination, just ask some of my members, they
wonder where I come up with some of the stuff I
come up with.  But my imagination is not that
good and I don't believe yours is either.
What am I saying?  Where do we go from here in
this revival?  We've got to start listening to the
people.  I wish that we could put that on every
application and on every job description, we have
to listen because we don't quite understand what
any person who comes into that office is going
through.  I learned in my residency and internship
and clinical pastoral education that people who I
walk into a hospital room and I sit down and talk
with, they know their problem better than I do.
And the only way that I'm going to assist them is
to listen to them and tell them what they need
until they tell me what they are really going
through.
Everybody does not need food stamps, that's not
the answer to everybody's problem.
It may be helpful, but it's not the answer.
We have got to revitalize our purpose,
our cause so that we can get the results that
we are searching for, and I don't think we've got
an employee who does not want the state of
Oklahoma to be the best state it can be and for
the state of Oklahoma to be the best state it can
be we have to take care of the least, the lost,
the lonely, the left out, the vulnerable, the victim
and those who love to be victims.
Am I putting too much responsibility on you?
Yes.  And why am I doing it?
Because I think we are able to do it.
I think we have the bounty to do it.
I think we have the ability to do it.
I think we have the drive to do it.
I think that we can become the agency...
that we are striving to become.
So I leave you with this.
When you think about your job, think about it
from this standpoint, everyone who walks into
your doors, everyone that you encounter,
everyone that you go out into their homes and
speak with, everyone that you have an
appointment with, before you see them
remember this one thing:
Your job is to help them to become independent
and... productive.
Thank you.
(Applause)