Longboat seeks institutional Sterling Award through exemplary service

Getting an organization from good to great can be a challenge, according to Town Manager Howard Tipton. But when it comes to achieving institutional excellence, Tipton is no stranger.

Over the coming years, Tipton and Support Services Director Carolyn Brown are spearheading a series of institutional changes to improve the functions of Longboat Key’s town government. The goal is to win the Florida Governor’s Sterling Award, a system used to evaluate and improve performance in organizations. 

Based on the national Malcolm Baldrige criteria, the Sterling award has been used to evaluate manufacturers since 1992. However, the principles translate well to organizations such as town government. 

“It’s a very organized way of elevating the performance of a company, or an agency in our case,” Tipton said. “Instead of manufacturing a widget, we manufacture a service, so you can use the same principles.”

In 2008, Tipton was a part of the team at the Orange County Clerk of the Courts that won the Sterling award. He said going through the process and then winning the award transformed the organization. 

Key areas of focus for the town’s Sterling journey are: leadership, customer focus, workforce, work processes, knowledge management and measures/results. 

According to Tipton, the benchmarks meant to evaluate the town will improve how the town can be more aware of citizens’ expectations, and then exceed those expectations. Sterling criteria will also help the town build a framework to measure the performance of meeting or exceeding those expectations. Those measurements can then be used as a metric to compare Longboat’s town government to other governments and organizations. 

A main focus for Tipton and Brown is to create a well-trained, cross sectional team of employees. The foundation of this training, Tipton said, will be the Lean Six Sigma yellow or green belt training, in which Tipton is green belt certified. The Lean Six Sigma training teaches people how to ask a series of “why” questions to get the most desired solution from a problem. 

Having a team of trained employees from multiple departments will allow them to see problems from different angles. For example, if there’s a problem in the Planning and Zoning department, a team of employees from departments like Police, Fire Rescue, Information Technology and more may be able to see the problem differently. 

The process of achieving the Sterling award is something that will take time, and requires a coordinated effort from all departments. The idea is to have everyone trained on the function of the entire system, so no one is left wondering how the processes of the town work. 

Vertical and horizontal communication then, said Tipton, are crucial. Realizing how individual actions work up the ladder and affect the system as a whole is the vertical communication. Horizontal communication is looking at those individual processes by themselves, like permitting and 911 responding. 

Right now, Brown is in the first stages of the path toward Sterling. This includes familiarizing herself and others with the process, and creating a dashboard to track the progress. In the fall, Tipton said one of the focuses will be on revamping the strategic plan to make it more robust. He wants it to be a more active document for every employee, rather than just a binder than only few may be familiar with. Tipton said there may be costs associated with training and implementation, but those have not yet been identified. 

But the Sterling journey isn’t something that is done in a month, let alone a year. 

“It won’t be instantaneous, but I think we’ll internally see a lot of improvement as we make our way,” Brown said.

When Tipton believes the town is ready, he will submit an organizational summary to the board that reviews the Sterling award. This can be tough, Tipton said, because it requires summarizing all the processes and training in about 10 pages. 

Once submitted, reviewers from other agencies will come to the town to witness the systems first-hand and interview employees. The reviewers will grade the town’s processes in accordance with the key areas of the award. 

Both Brown and Tipton said the town is already doing a lot of “Sterling” things. One example is in the customer service surveys, which take feedback from residents. Another example are the meetings departments have to set goals and objectives. Tipton said the town already receives high marks in the customer service surveys. 

“We’re doing good, we just want to be exemplary,” Brown said. “We want to be the best of the best.”

Another example is external validation, Tipton said. A recent example is the achievement of Building Official Patti Fige winning the Plans Examiner of the Year award from the Florida Building Officials Association of Florida. 

Photo by Carter Weinhofer

Going from an A to an A-plus organization is a bit more difficult than one may think, Brown and Tipton said. It’s about framing things better and a higher degree of accountability to really find those key areas of improvement. 

In the end, Tipton said going through the Sterling process will add a greater degree of transparency and accountability between departments, while continuing to provide great service. 

“Even if we never get the award, which I think we will, we’ll be better than we were,” Tipton said. “It’s not about the award, it’s just about providing excellent service every day.”