Video 3:4 Transcript

Interview with Carol Bergum, and Diane Enger

Kelly Jerrott: Welcome, really excited today, to talk to some former colleagues of mine. And we’ve got Caitie MacKinnon, who is working on this chapter a lot with me on cultural value and soft power in our communities. Today we have Carol Bergum and Diane Enger. And we’re going to have a little chat about the power of the coffee meeting and how we’ve gotten things done in a local community.

So maybe I can ask Carol and Diane if you can introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit of your background. So let’s start with Carol.

Carol Bergum: Sure. Hello. Very nice to be here. I am currently the director of planning and development at Spruce Grove, and I spent probably about 25 years as a registered professional planner, worked in nonprofit in the province and mostly in municipalities, and enjoy the work very much and on the side, running a small company called Plan Savvy that provides educational services for planners.

Jerrott:  Fabulous. Diane.

Diane Enger: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for inviting us to this great conversation today. So I’m Diane Enger. I’m the director of Recreation and Parks with the City of St. Albert. I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to be working with the city of St. Albert for over twenty five years. So I really have seen a transformation in the community in St. Albert, and feel very fortunate to be a part of the evolution that has happened.

As director of recreation and Parks, we build new facilities, we support community organizations in the service delivery. We are always looking at new initiatives and everything that we do in recreation and parks is a collaboration and an engagement with the community, because we are here to serve the community and their needs. And so along the way, it is always bringing the community along and with us in terms of the decisions that we make and how we move forward in shaping our recreation and parks for our community.

Jerrott: Thanks. And just to loop everybody in. I have worked with the city of St. Albert, so both of these ladies have been colleagues of mine and I was there for almost 10 years in the cultural services director position and community services director for a little while. So we worked together quite a bit.

One of the things that we thought might be helpful for folks is to talk a little bit about how we got things done. And I don’t know, ladies, do you have your coffee? We used to have a regular coffee meeting every couple of weeks. And we started that. It’s been, I was trying to think how long ago, but it’s been a while.

I wanted just to talk a little bit about that, and how that started and what role that played in terms of how we got things done in the organization. Because both of you have moved forward a lot of community based initiatives and projects that really add to the cultural value of the community, and the impact and how rich St. Albert is. And I know Carol’s over in Spruce Grove right now, too and doing some wonderful stuff there. But just wanted to talk a little bit about those coffee meetings and how powerful those informal meetings are. To share with some of the students in the program that sometimes it’s those informal conversations that really, help us as we as we move along.

Diane, I know you were key in setting up some of these. So want to start?

Enger: Kelly, you know, the coffee meetings were such a great opportunity. We only spent an hour Friday morning, eight o’clock.

Your work is so busy that sometimes you don’t have the chance to stop and have some informal conversation and make connections that you, maybe wouldn’t have gotten in more of a formal environment. So we were really fortunate. Every couple of weeks. We had one hour on a Friday morning we’d meet at a coffee place.

The exchange of information was so valuable in that. It’s those things that are informally happening in the different departments across our organization that we don’t get a chance to understand or see. There might be something that’s happening in culture or planning or engineering that really does have an impact on how things move forward in recreation and parks. Even just having a comment that is – ok, “We’re doing this public engagement on this new land happening.” I’m like, “Oh, gee, that’s great because we’ve got these new parks that are needed and how are we going to connect?” – And even just that, “I need to make sure I remember that.” So as I go back to my formal work, how does that impact the work that I’m doing?

So on one hand, the informal conversations and the connections that we discuss was great. And then we were also fortunate. Sometimes that deep dive into other areas where we needed each other’s perspective and all of us being professionals in different areas of our organization, had different perspectives on issues or initiatives, projects.

Understanding and hearing your colleagues perspective on a project or initiative was so valuable because,you know, sometimes you don’t necessarily think of it as a holistic or a 360. And so with people that you respect and admire, professionals that you work with, those insights are very valuable in helping you, again, move forward projects or initiatives.

Jerrott: Hey, Carol. Want to add your perspective?

Bergum: Absolutely. I thought it was one of the most valuable tools that we had for really being able to gain a perspective of the whole organization. And as well as a tremendous learning opportunity.

It could be organizational things. I remember we talked about things, about sort of strategic planning and work planning for our departments, and each of us brought some different ideas. We all ended up kind of putting together tools that we could all use. And so there was greater consistency across, starting to build across the organization.

It was really neat to see how everybody’s ideas could come together, or even some things like how you impact others. Because in planning and development, we’re doing a lot of work that kind of happens way before the other things, like doing the early planning for where parks are, or how we’re going to incorporate the arts into the community. A lot of times we can get caught up in our planning development work and we forget about these other areas.

So by talking to each other, it’s like, “Oh, this is how we do it,” and “this is where…” For instance, Diane, you have an opportunity to talk to us about whether this piece of land will work for a park or not. And we can also start to become more conscious in our work of the needs of all the other groups and better plan for it. It becomes a lot more streamlined, allows you to be much more successful in the end instead of like, – “Whoops! “How are we going to fix this problem? How are we going to fix that problem?” – Which we did too. But, just being able to pull all those ideas together, it really just enriched your own ability to do your work in your department.

Just knowing people. It’s a heck of a lot easier to pick up the phone and run down the hallway and say, “Oh my gosh, this is happening. What do you think of this?” or “I have this problem? Have you dealt with it?” And so from that perspective, there was – So many things you could think of where it really added value to what we were doing.

Jerrott: So important, and I know I learned so much. Sometimes we would invite other people, if we wanted to zero in on something. At some point we had our director of engineering join us. And I was trying to, you know, we were trying to learn processes, and in terms of the development process it was a great learning opportunity. As you both said, a great chance for us to develop that understanding.  Because we all, and you can’t help it, in your department, you start moving along with your own projects, and it’s really easy to lose sight of how that might be impacting other departments. Even the sharing of resources is so great.

Enger: Maybe if I can. Can I add into that too, just listening to the conversation?

So yes, there’s all the work pieces, but I think the other piece that the coffee meetings provided for me, was the human side of things.

I got to know my colleagues on a different level. I got to understand what drives and motivates you as well. And that helped me to work more collaboratively. It’s never, always perfect at work, and you don’t always agree with your colleagues. And so if there is a disagreement with one of my colleagues I’ve have gotten to know a little deeper and have had these casual conversations with, I had a better chance of understanding really where they were coming from. And I think being a bit more supportive and maybe not as judgmental, or maybe understanding a bit more, their perspective because you had the chance to have those informal conversations.

So I think it just really builds a relationship to when you do come to a crossroads where you have a bit more challenging time. It helps you understand, I think better, that person and hopefully move through some of those crossroads a little smoother.

Jerrott: I think that’s really important. Thanks, Diane. Actually our coffee meetings became, we described it as a little bubble sometimes, right? And it became that safe place where we could kind of talk things through and support each other along the way. Which was really valuable depending on the particular week we might have had at work.

And, everybody goes through that, so that’s part of our normal process in how things flow in our in our day to day. Sometimes things work well and sometimes they don’t. And having that sounding board was really, really helpful.