Some of our most important lessons we learn by example.
My mother, Gail Kleine, died in late January. In life, she was a force, a wonderful energy: frank, fierce, and fun. She was a leader in the community, and her legacy includes thousands of young people whose lives she improved, and even saved, through her public service and professional work.
Compared to my mother, I’m a wallflower, but I’ve always had within me the gumption to speak my mind and take on the status quo. I know it comes from watching my mother do those things.
When a loved one departs, we are left with memories, and memory is what I’ve been thinking about since my mother’s last days. Her bright light was dimmed by dementia. As the disease progressed, she could not remember what we talked about minutes before, though she could still recall my childhood antics, like the time I pooped down the laundry chute, and other milestones from decades past.
Beyond my mother’s influence, what other lessons have stuck with me through life? Surprisingly few, it turns out. Of course, I’ve learned plenty from school, books, and experience, but within that mass of data, only a tiny number of points have kept on flashing persistently.
Science tells us that memory is a complex process that involves the brain encoding, storing, and retrieving information. What stays with us from life’s countless moments depends on several factors. Memories that are emotionally charged; relevant to our goals, values, or sense of self; novel or surprising; tied to sensory cues, like smells or music; and critical for survival are the ones most likely to stick.
My “sticky” lessons are from as long ago as third grade and have been collected from teachers, mentors, mistakes, and the search for meaning and myself. I hope they resonate with others as useful cues for finding personal perspective, becoming a better manager, or avoiding a car accident.
Broken is not less. My third-grade teacher, Mrs. Davis, was a tall redhead whose hairdo evoked Jane Jetson. One day, she handed out plastic-wrapped lollipops to the class. One of the lollipops was broken in two. It was rejected by several students before being gratefully accepted by a boy named Chucky. What I’ll never forget is how Mrs. Davis praised Chucky, explaining that even though the lollipop was broken, it was the same amount of lollipop as all the others. Not less, just different. Chucky happened to be a special education student, and the lesson that day was to look past the surface to see the worth in all people. I have made some of my best hires by doing just that.
Leave yourself an out. In my day, driver’s ed was a rite of passage. I was not the best driver’s ed student; I’m thankful to this day that my instructor had a brake pedal on her side of the car during my practice test. Much of what we were taught about safe driving, such as checking your mirrors and glancing over your shoulder before changing lanes, has been ingrained by repetition. One particular piece of advice — leave yourself an out — has endured for other reasons. The concept is to always have a plan for the unexpected, like the car in front of you braking suddenly. Did you maintain enough distance to stop in time? Can you swerve to the shoulder? In the public finance business, managing risk and having a Plan B are essential for long-term sustainability.
Leadership is setting the agenda. When I was a senior in high school, I interned at the Michigan State Capitol for a legislator named Lynn Jondahl, who chaired the House Taxation Committee. It was my first office job of any kind, and with the exception of a painful stapler incident, I enjoyed answering constituent mail and preparing briefing packets. My mother had shown me a charismatic, extroverted leadership style. An ordained minister, Representative Jondahl exercised a quiet power, which more suited my personality. He told me that the leader is the one who sets the agenda. Wherever I am — school, my neighborhood, church, work — I look to put ideas on the table and take initiative to make things better.
Practice in front of a mirror. I was president of the student government association in college, and as such was invited to address the freshman class during orientation week. I fancied my self a funny guy, so wanted to get these newbies rolling in the aisles. I wrote out a speech full of jokes, including one comparing the size of my apartment to the size of my equipment. I learned the hard way why stand-up comics start out at open mike nights in front of a few friends. Neglecting to so much as read my speech out loud in front of a mirror, I bombed. I was practically booed off the stage. It remains my most embarrassing moment, and one I learned from. I have found that uncomfortable preparation makes for comfortable performance.
It’s not factual without a counterfactual. After college, I went straight to the Institute of Public Policy Studies (now the Gerald R. Ford School) at the University of Michigan. The summer in between, I helped write up an evaluation of a job training program for the Michigan Department of Social Services. At an orientation mixer, I excitedly (and maybe a little braggingly) told a second-year student about the evaluation findings. She stopped me cold with this question: what was your counterfactual? I would come to learn that a counterfactual is what would have happened without a policy intervention, such as job training. A control group, for instance. That mixer conversation was the beginning of my education in how to think critically and be ever-skeptical of the claims of advocates about what works and what doesn’t. As a budget director, this evidence-based mindset was my superpower.
Give feedback fearlessly. When I was hired as Baltimore’s budget director, I inherited a staff made up mostly of “lifers” — good people with decades of experience in the old ways of budgeting that I wanted to reform. As they retired, I replaced them with a crew of millennials who were energetic and smart, and had plenty to learn. Like most, I dread the ritual of annual performance reviews, so I try to practice TSA management: if you see something, say something. In one case, I counseled a young analyst to speak with more confidence in her briefings. She knew her stuff, but her presentations were peppered with qualifiers and non-committal language, like “I guess,” and “maybe,” as well as non-verbal signals of uncertainty. The interaction was memorable for two reasons. First, I saw an almost immediate change in how she delivered her briefings. Second, when she left me a few years later for the White House Office of Management and Budget, she told me that my feedback had been transformative. To this day, her parting words give me courage when I need it to tell people how they can do better.
Let people do what turns them on. My management style was a good fit for millennials thanks to Rick Kowalewski. When I was their age, he was my role model. Rick was a Coast Guard officer on loan to the Secretary of Transportation to implement the new Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), and I was part of his cadre of GPRA trainers. He led not by barking orders, but by asking penetrating questions, presenting interesting ideas, and giving thoughtful feedback. Several years after our GPRA work together, Rick hired me into my first management job. As I was assembling my staff, he gave me advice that I have carried with me throughout my career: let people pursue their interests within the parameters of what needs to get done. The result is experimentation, innovation, happiness, and loyalty.
Don’t sweat the small stuff in the big city. My boss in Baltimore was a man named Ed Gallagher. Ed did not waste words, or mince them. Like E.F. Hutton, when he talked, people listened, including the many mayors he worked for. What was his secret? In my first year in the job, I often found myself annoyed about agency actions or council decisions that failed my fiscal purity test, and would make a beeline to Ed’s office to share my frustration. Except in rare cases, he would lean back in his chair, unperturbed, and say, “That’s life in the big city.” It didn’t take me long to realize that I was acting like the boy who cried wolf, and that I could have more impact by staying focused on the fiscal issues that really mattered. It’s a lesson I apply to life in general. I think someone wrote a book about it.
Get to the point. An initiative I’ve always been proud of was to publish a community guide to the budget. What started out as a twelve-page pocket guide soon grew to twenty-eight full-sized pages, chock full of data on everything from tax rates to capital projects to outcome indicators. If it hadn’t been for printing costs, I probably would have crammed even more in there. Finally, one of my young analysts intervened. She asked me, “Who reads this thing?” I stared at her her for an uncomfortably long time, because I didn’t have a good answer. “I think it should be four pages, tops,” she declared. “People won’t bother with more than that.” She was right. With our streamlined guide, we went from forcing information on people to fielding their questions, and had much richer conversations about the budget. When it comes to communication, it’s all about meeting people where they are and remembering that it goes two ways.
My favorite Maya Angelou quote is, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I know my memories of my mother will fade, as memories inevitably do. What will always stick is how, with her smile, laugh, and encouragement, she made me feel like the most important person in the world, and did the same for others. Even if all my other “sticky” lessons were to fall away like dried out Post-Its, this one will endure, and I will do my best to pass it along.
Andrew Kleine is former budget director for the City of Baltimore, MD. He is author of “City on the Line: How Baltimore Transformed Its Budget to Beat the Great Recession and Deliver Outcomes” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).