The Value of a Having Great Team When You Work in the Public Sector

The following is adapted from Fires, Floods, and Taxicabs by Jeffrey Roth.

Building a team is the most important work you may ever have to do. It is critical to attract and retain the best people who share your organization’s values.

In the public sector, this can be challenging because we cannot always compete on salary with the private sector. However, we can offer meaningful work, an opportunity to be part of something bigger than oneself, and chances to experience things others never will.

Take the time to build a team with the right people. One wrong move can be very costly to an organization and wreak havoc, particularly in the public sector where hiring and firing can be very slow processes.

When you find the right people, invest in them. Provide opportunities for them to grow professionally and to learn new skills. There are many low-cost ways to do this today. Create forums to provide feedback to your employees on ways they can improve and how they can build on their strengths.

Give them measurable goals and check in on their progress regularly. Knowing what is expected of them and seeing their progress not only helps a team member focus but also provides a sense of accomplishment (or reveals where changes are necessary).

Finally, create a way to measure the climate of the workplace, the team, and leadership to make sure you are creating the type of environment you envision.

The Value of a Great Team

I can remember one experience in particular that perfectly demonstrates how important it is to build a high-impact team. My boss and I sat in the commissioner’s conference room, directly across from him. The afternoon sunlight streamed into the room. We had just briefed him on the design to build an analytics unit at the FDNY.

As part of a citywide effort to create data analysis capacity across city agencies, we had been asked by city hall to create a team emulating the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics (MODA).

This team of savvy number crunchers was using data from multiple sources to combat some of the city’s most perplexing problems. It was a team of smart guys and gals with economics degrees who were hired to dig into the city’s data coffers and apply big data insights to everyday NYC problems.

I had been approached by a member of the city hall team who told me that they wanted to duplicate the MODA model across city agencies and that the FDNY was a solid place to start.

First, because we had a number of data projects that required interagency coordination and would benefit from a team of data geniuses.

Second, because we were implementing the Risk-Based Inspection System (RBIS), an inspection program for FDNY fire companies that conducted building inspections throughout the city. RBIS was designed to use a risk model to score every building in NYC that the FDNY inspected and to identify those most at risk of a fire or other life safety event.

This project would help drastically increase the safety of people and buildings throughout NYC. Building a high-quality team was vital.

When we discussed the plan with the commissioner, we had his full support. From my perspective, he seemed to know how important it was to build analytical capacity at the agency, and he appreciated the need to have internal support for our own agency’s most complex data questions.

Like MODA, we would start small with eager, smart guys and gals who would dive headfirst into the city’s data troves to see how we could leverage data to optimize resource allocation and inform decision making — in essence, to make us smarter. We needed a top team to get results.

It took ingenuity and a lot of work, but at the end of the day, we were able to get the team together and complete the objective.

For more advice on the step-by-step process you can use to build a high-impact team, you can find Fires, Floods, and Taxicabs on Amazon.

This article was adapted from the book, “Fires, Floods, and Taxicabs” written by Jeffrey Roth. Throughout his career, Jeffrey has worked on some of the most complex and challenging policy questions facing cities today, including flood mitigation, emergency management, and fire and life safety. The views expressed here are his own.