August 22, 2017
What are These Listening Sessions I Keep Hearing About?
Please forgive the length of today’s Tuesday Letter. It covers an important topic to me, and I hope it is or becomes an important topic to you.
During the interview process to become your Associate Director for Cooperative Extension and in my first posting in the Tuesday Letter, I commented that I would hold a series of meetings to get input regarding the future direction of K-State Research and Extension from you, our colleagues, Extension Councils, our external partners, and the public. We have already held three such meetings with internal audiences: the Extension Administration Team’s office professionals, the program focus team leaders, and the state Extension specialist leaders. We will be holding similar sessions with the State Extension Advisory Council and the leadership of our professional associations over the next two weeks.
Knowing how our informal communication channels work, I imagine many of you have heard about those sessions from those who participated in them. That is quite alright. I told the participants they could comment on what was said but not who said what. You may have questions about what I have started to call the “Listening Sessions,” and in this Tuesday Letter I will try to answer the basic questions.
Why?
We can probably think of examples of businesses, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations that failed because they stopped listening to the people they serve, their strategic partners, and the volunteers and professionals that made up the organization. We will not be one of those organizations. We need to listen to the people we serve, our partners and each other as we develop our future. We need to make sure we are addressing the critical issues Kansas and K-State Research and Extension faces and do so in the most efficient and effective manner possible. We will not be able to please everyone, but we do want to make sure we offer opportunities for people to share their thoughts and concerns.
How?
The internally focused Listening Sessions have run and will run as follows. Like the name Listening Session suggests, I facilitate and listen without commenting – which, admittedly, is hard sometimes. We discuss external issues and then internal issues affecting K-State Research and Extension. Next, we conduct a Start/Stop/Keep exercise, which is shorthand for:
• What should we start doing?
• What should we stop doing?
• What should we keep doing?
When we hold these meeting throughout Kansas, there will be three listening sessions per stop. The three meetings will be spread over the work day and evening. One will be focused on our local unit and regional Extension professionals. The other will focus on our Extension councils. The process described above will be used for these two groups. The third meeting will be for the public – both users and non-users alike. The format for this listening session will focus more on a needs analysis and how the participants prefer to receive our educational programs, information and services.
When and Where?
I will be working with your regional director to establish locations and dates for the Listening Sessions. Some will be held for “blocks” of local units. Others, where appropriate, will be held in and for specific local units.
My goal is to have a summary of the Listening Sessions disseminated by this year’s Partnership Meetings. To meet this goal, the local unit listening sessions will be conducted after the state fair and run through the end of the year.
What Do You Need to Do?
Please assist your regional director when they reach out to you for logistical help. Also, once the logistics have been established, please actively market and recruit participants for the Listening Sessions. In particular, we need you to actively recruit participants from our Extension Council and the general public, especially those from the general public who do not use us or have stopped using our educational programs and services. Finally, actively engage as a participant in the Listening Sessions so you will be an active participant in determining our future!