I am going to get to ideas for improving the overall wildfire situation but am waiting to hear back from a Congressional media office, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, on the Outcome-based Performance Measures webinar last week (shout out to the WO for getting back to me quickly with excellent answers to my questions!!), I found out that a Station Director had come to the FS from NASA. This intrigued me because of the “background” questions that we are probably going to see a great deal of with a new Admin coming in.. “fresh set of eyes” vs. “background in an area” vs. “a good leader can lead anything” vs. “giving your own folks a chance to lead.” Plus it used to be that a Ph.D. was a requirement, and so that has changed. Also, R&D had a long history of lagging behind NFS in both hiring women, and putting women into research leadership positions, even when they had the qualifications as required at the time, and I was interested in how they’d fixed that since I left for NFS and later, retirement. So I asked Alex Friend, recently retired Deputy Chief for Research and Development, for his thoughts. He is a guest here and has generously given us his time, so thanks to him, and please put on your “guest” behavior.
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Reflections on diverse and inclusive leadership
For leaders, the Forest Service is a tough crowd to please. And within the Forest Service, Research and Development (R&D) is particularly challenging… as they should be. Researchers are trained to be independent-minded, critical thinkers, and rigorous adherents to quality standards. A leader in R&D is expected to be highly credentialed and well-published in their field, attuned to the needs of researchers under their supervision, and a highly skilled listener and conflict manager who can calm troubled social waters in their units. However, for R&D employees, as with all people, unconscious bias creeps into evaluation of whether a leader is good or bad. Whether we realize it or not, most of us tend to value the familiar over the unfamiliar. Even though most value diversity, they may erect barriers and criticize good leaders who are just unfamiliar.
Although overt racism, sexism, or elitism are far less common now than they were 40 years ago, unconscious biases still seem to limit the rate of change to a diverse and robust workforce. In my experience as a station director and then as deputy chief, I frequently found myself facing down skeptics about hiring decisions due to the unfamiliar. Yes, candidate A has less experience in science than candidate B, but they bring something new and valuable to the table. Having something new can be a little uncomfortable. “They are from another agency.” “They never
published.” “They don’t have a PhD in forestry.” The list goes on and on. But the reality is that building a diverse and robust organization requires some risk and willingness to accept and welcome the unfamiliar.
Building diversity into leadership does not end with the hire. Changing culture, even to what is supported by the organization in policy, requires advocacy and facilitation. When someone unconventional holds a leadership position, they are often held to a higher standard than the conventional pick. Senior leaders are responsible for coaching and mentoring the leader and working with employees to facilitate success. Peers are responsible for making an extra effort to reach out, include, and be an ally for the leader where possible. It is easy to find agreement on this path, but harder to act on it when we are stretched thin, and this extra effort comes at the expense of project work.
One of the greatest challenges for R&D is the science credential. Must all R&D leaders have a PhD? It sure helps, but the critical need is experience with science and understanding what it means to be a researcher in the federal system. Must all R&D leaders have a forestry degree? While it is useful, the absence should not impede the hire of a leader who understands the interconnected communities involved in conducting, publishing, and communicating science. Using carefully crafted mandatory technical qualifications can ensure short-listed applicants have experience conducting and managing science. In my career, I have seen many people without a PhD behind their name who were excellent researchers and leaders.
Finally, and most importantly, building diversity into leadership requires changes in the way we interact with communities of science. It is natural to stay in touch with those with whom we trained in graduate school and with those who share the same research specialization. But expanding the circles in which we interact (e.g., from physical science to social science or from wildland resources to urban resources) enhances our discovery of talent. Similar opportunities exist in cultivating partnerships with tribal and HBCU colleges and universities. One example for me was engagement with urban natural resources research and stewardship. I was impressed by the diverse and inclusive leadership, and the ability to connect a representative cross section of our country to the land. Urban forest research was not in my training, but it became and remains a passion. Unfamiliar communities are a good leader’s resource for new
talent and growing an inclusive mindset.
In summary, my experience taught me to (a) be aware of and vigilant for unconscious bias, (b) be an active and intentional participant in the recruitment, hiring, and onboarding process, and (c) be open to stepping outside of my own comfort zone to allow unexpected connections to form. As thought leaders, R&D plays a critical role in exemplifying the agency’s intention of “awakening and strengthening all peoples’ connection to the land!”
I’m going to break my rule on not commenting on such inflammatory issues, but I feel this is a safe place to do so respectfully, as always.
I don’t buy into the DEI initiative, especially labeling everyone as “racists”, sexist, misogamist (I don’t really know what that really is), or anything else that signals what someone may or may not believe. I think all the culture wars that have now raged to the point that it may be hard to remember why we crossed sabres to begin with.
The very first training session I walked in on with the FS was Civil Rights, in 1977. The very first session, very first statement was “technicians do all the work and the professionals take all the credit.” WOW, really? I thought this was a civil rights training. Conflicted? I was a forester but working as a tech; my dad was a tech, and had been for 40 years, so who is telling me all this, but the better question was why.
This was long before “unconscious bias”, or any other made up, non-definable adjective dreamed up by a consultant, then sold to FS leadership. How many training sessions have we sat through that identified us as tainted goods, because of the way we think? How could you! Our hiring processes went so far overboard it didn’t matter if it was a great candidate or not, ya gotta check the boxes (whatever boxes were being promoted at the time). I saw it time and time again!
I was on a hiring panel (oops, can’t call it that now can we) for several Ranger positions. We had great candidates; one of which was a black guy from another Region. Nope, try again, we don’t believe it would be a good fit. Fit? That’s what I threw trying to get this guy on board! Leadership deemed the selection recommending team (sanitized hiring panel) were not aware of external factors…..
My issues with DEI is how it works to inflame almost anyone, over anything. And, look at the made up scenarios that point out (supposedly) how biased I/you/we are. Am I biased? Maybe, but I never used it as a branch on the old tree of life for anything! I’m a white male, didn’t know I was 1/8 Native until I retired, but it doesn’t matter, we are not all born racists/sexists/ne’er-do-wells, just waiting to cause harm.
I’m glad President Trump has put the kibosh to all of it in the federal workplace, and as the sun sets tonight it will be over! Now, do we put up with discrimination of any kind, anywhere? Heck no; let’s wedge a bit of merit principles into the selection process and treat folks an equals in everyday life. Am I wrong?
Jim, I hope people can have this discussion openly and respectfully. Like so many things, it started out as a good idea.. “give all kinds of people equal opportunity,” to “preferentially hire a certain kind of person”. I remember when the poor Civil Rights people and a DRF had to review all our temps to make sure folks tried hard enough to get diverse people.
I think all these ideas are good.. Veteran’s preferences, considering all kinds of diversity (I was hired into NEPA because I came from “science world”) and so on, it’s how they are carried out that can lead us into trouble. Like in the 80’s my cert for a computer person had a Veteran with no computer experience, and HR told me I could train them, which seemed unlikely since I didn’t know computers myself. Or in the 2010s I tried to hire a diverse person as an economist and was fully supported to pay for school instead of hiring someone with a masters.. but she didn’t at the end of the day really care about economics. I could go on. Even dual career assignments into open jobs can seem or be unfair.
I think both things are true.. there is a natural tendency toward seeing merit through your own lens (and as a veteran of years of reviewing R2 selections with the rest of the RO Directors, I can safely tell you that many of them saw choices differently than I did). It seemed like the other Directors had traplines or gossip canals and would run them. Since I didn’t have them, I would tend to look at the paperwork and the interview.
Me: “hey there’s a black guy we interviewed, he’s a DRF, we’re supposed to hire black folk, we don’t have any black supes right now”, the Chief of Staff at the time “you just like him because he’s so articulate.” “Me: I didn’t know that was a bad thing.” And so on. I just think that, at least when it comes to line, that merit can be quite the judgment call.
Jim, I think I understand where you are coming from as I lived it. In my opinion, I was discriminated against for being a white male back in the mid-80s when trying to land an entry level position in R10. Everyone wanted to hire me because I had proven myself as a seasonal, but the forest supervisor said, nope, this position is for a woman. They hired a woman from R5 with less experience and education than me. They even cut a deal with her as she requested an 18/8 vs 13/13 as advertised and a GS-7 vs the advertised GS-5. They also pushed a local seasonal out of a job for her husband. I then proceeded to help train her. I never had anything against her, of course. She was the one who told me the entire story of her hiring. We became friends. R10 wanted 50% of all forestry hires to be women, yet that number was far below the percentage of women that were graduating in forestry – at least based on my graduating class at U Maine. This story isn’t done….
I went back to CO where I had worked several seasons on the Rio Grande NF, got a secondary teaching degree and then wrote a proposal for an environmental education position that our progressive forest supervisor thought was a great idea. I successfully competed for the position and that is how I got on full time. Fast forward a few more years and I was asked to speak at a state equity conference. This was not a USFS event and I didn’t tell anyone because there would have been substantial micromanagement by the RO.
At the presentation, I spoke about all sorts of different types of discrimination I had witnessed in my personal life including affirmative action. I stated that the USFS has it wrong; they are trying to start at the end. The solution was to get more young underrepresented people interested in program areas such as forestry. Start young and if there is anywhere there should be affirmative action targets it is in who is admitted to higher education schools (unpopular thought among some, but I still stand by it).
But as I got older, with more life experience, I realized affirmative action was needed because the good old boy network discriminated against underrepresented groups. A sledge hammer was needed to get the ball rolling to be able to someday be in position to hire people based on their qualifications and still have a diverse workforce. I’m not sure the USFS is there yet and it is one of many reasons why I strongly believe the agency should hire educators to visit schools and get kids outside to help increase the number of underrepresented groups interested in pursuing degrees in land management. Based on feedback from former students who participated in my classes in the San Luis Valley, it worked.
As for unconscious bias workshops… I loved them. I learned a lot.
Now, the pendulum is swinging back hard. I understand why there is bitterness, as the sledge hammer approach caused resistance. All I can say is my life experiences helped me to get just an inkling as to how much discrimination there was and still is in the US towards women and people of color.
Mike, for a while, because I had worked with the Land Grants at CSREES now NIFA, I tried to encourage them to grow people we could hire that were diverse.. but for a long time they didn’t seem to care much (at least not the people I spoke with). We were all part of the same system, but we were not working as a system. And now we farm out work to individuals working for NGOs who are often not diverse nor with natural resource degrees. And so it goes.
Another area of frustration for me was the difference between “what I was told to do” and “what happened to me when I did it.”
I had a brilliant employee who happened to be Asian American, who was working on Roadless. The WO wanted him to detail there as a 14. I wanted to give him a chance (because we were told to do that and he was terrific) so we made all the arrangements, including paying for temporary housing, and various other people in our shop and I got together to take on his work so that he could go.
A fellow Director was acting DRF at the time called me and told me that I had to call Tony Tooke the EMC Director and tell him that he couldn’t come after all. I was retirement eligible and highly annoyed, so I told him “no, you tell him yourself.” Which he did. My point being that in my case we were told to diversify and give people opportunities, but those goals were apparently subject to mysterious constraints.
I know that guy! 🤠. I did not know that story….
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2025/01/21/trump-ends-remote-work-for-federal-employees-hoping-to-shrink-the-federal-workforce/
“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home,” Elon Musk said.
This would do far more real damage to the quality of the federal workforce than any imagined downside of DEI initiatives. The people who choose to leave the government are likely to generally be those with more employment options because of their better skills and greater value. Certainly, if this is applied to hiring new employees, it will discourage the best and the brightest from government employment. I’ll keep saying this, Trump voters were not voting for good government.
NOT my experience with remote workers, then or now. I’m sorry but the majority of employees need to be present. One of the biggest issues is the lack of personal contact, either in an office setting or out and about actively working in the landscape. The public is not putting up with this lack of presence and is helping drive these initiatives
I think when the ASC nightmare unfolded, many folks lost hope of providing, or receiving those “human touch” services that the “family” organization recognized, ceased to exist. DEI became the face of retaliatory threats, similar to tattle tails of our youth.
Merit based, ethical and non-discriminatory practices and rid the system of those who violate that trust. I can tell ya, purging the violators doesn’t happen often except in the lower grades…. My experience!
To be fair, you are right about how ASC is dysfunctional (though I’d submit not why it’s dysfunctional, the slow and unresponsive service might be the driver of that). You’re also right at least in part about the nature of retaliatory co-optation of initiatives however well-intended. And fwiw I agree about merit and nondiscrimination as well. Districts should probably be 90+ percent in person depending on role, public face, and public foot traffic. Leading with this so the next part doesn’t sound unduly critical.
I don’t mean to be harsh but Forests pre-covid or whatever as family settings is misleading and one should remember that it also bears resemblance to what I think most people recognize as family in a fairly dysfunctional sense. Feuding, alcoholic, gossip-laden… There’s more than that both good and bad, but I dislike the family framing because it relies on innate positive assumptions with the word while glossing the often equally or more appropriate negative one. Work is a labor contract. Back in the day Forests may have been family like by virtue of forced proximity in remote areas, but that is neither an unmitigated positive nor something that we can revert back to.
And I’m still unclear what the specific contributions of personal contact are. Some of the most productive workers I know, and not just in desk jobs, seem to do best the more they’re left to do what they can without the burden of coordinating with office-based work. Example of the nondesk type: sale admin who is extremely productive and on average probably loses productive time to in-person office make-nice. Example of the desk type: planners or GIS specialists who can work highly independently on production work (document x, map y). What does the je-ne-sais-quois of in-person interaction add? I’ve never gotten a specific answer. Seems to be in the eye of the beholder and boil down to a “I like it”.
A. I’m a bit ambivalent on the family thing vs. labor contract, but I did run across this in the WSJ a few weeks ago. I know that my friends who work at USAA call centersfrom home have all kinds of accountability measures built in. But in much paperwork, we depend on trust a lot. Like how long should it take to finalize a FOIA or write a wildlife section for an EA?
Any’ you missed some great opportunities to be on RD’s and SO’s that were more of a family than most families!
As for face on face? Just like now, I don’t do well talking to a stupid call tree or machine! Having worked when the Personnel Officer was down the hall, or a short drive saved much in time & $!
Not to speak of the fact that centralizing at ASC led to the loss of mostly women employees, which would be considered inequitable today.