Town residents are being encouraged to help with what may be the most critical decision made for the Town of Wake Forest for the next decade or more – the search for a new town manager.
In December, Town Manager Mark Williams announced he would retire on April 30 after 32 years with the Town of Wake Forest, 22 of them as the town manager.
Early this month, the town board hired Steve Strauss and his Developmental Associates to lead the nationwide search. Strauss, who has led the town board retreats for a decade and whose firm has been instrumental in the town’s hiring decisions, explained during that work session that town residents are one of the key stakeholders in choosing a manager along with the town department heads, the town staff, the commissioners and Williams himself.
Strauss said his firm does not conduct the traditional “good old boy” search process with submitted resumes and free-form interviews. Instead, he said, he and his associates try to get a good understanding of the town organization and determine what is unique about the town, what are the challenges in the next three to five years and what style of leadership would be compatible with the town.
There will be a public forum Tuesday, Jan. 27, hosted by Developmental Associates in the second-floor meeting room in town hall on Brooks Street. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. and residents will be asked to weigh in on several questions, including:
— What are the most critical challenges facing the town now and for the next two to five years?
— What are the most important responsibilities of the manager?
— What are the most critical competencies the town should seek in its next manager?
In addition, the town will use Engage Wake Forest – a comprehensive community engagement website – to encourage interest and get feedback. Go to www.engage.wakeforestnc.gov in the next few days to respond to a variety of questions about the search for the new manager.
Strauss said his firm uses several methods for recruiting candidates for such positions: the usual ads in trade journals and websites, Linkedin and other social media sites, and targeting possible candidates across the country. Because of their work in the field, Strauss said, “We have developed a pretty good inventory of candidates across the country.”
Then the firm requires all candidates to apply on one website so that all applications have the same information, making them easier to sort out. Strauss and his firm then, using the criteria the town board has established from input from all the stakeholders, analyzes the applications using a spreadsheet and ranking system and narrows the field to 15 candidates.
Trained interviewers then conduct structured telephone interviews with the 15 candidates using a scoring system and their individual notes.
The next steps are the administration of an emotional psychological inventory, answering some short essay questions and a Google search by a retired police chief who consults with Developmental Associates to see if there are any missteps in the past.
Strauss said a different person conducts each of the steps, meaning there are four independent perspectives.
At the end of these steps, the firm has narrowed the field of candidates to no more than seven who are invited to town for an assessment center process. They will be put through exercises to show their skills in budgeting, presentation, supervision, writing and organization.
Over two days, usually a Thursday and a Friday a combination of people who have been trained to be assessors (Williams and Deputy Town Manager Roe O’Donnell have been assessors in choosing other managers and town staff) conduct the assessments with a different team for each skill.
On Friday afternoon the town board will go into closed session to hear from the assessing teams one at a time. “None of the teams know how the candidates performed in other exercises,” Strauss said. At this time there will also be an indepth analysis of the individual candidate’s emotional personality and other questions. At the end there will be one, two or at most three candidates left.
“Now you’re ready to interview,” Strauss told the commissioners, “and we’ll help you structure that and provide some questions.”
Finally, when the board makes a choice, Strauss said he and his firm will help with the contract negotiations and an outside service, the retired chief of the Garner Police Department, will gather background information about the finalist.
Strauss said only one of the managers they have placed only one has left early, and one commissioner was unhappy with him.
“We used it when we hired Ruben (Wall, Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources director) and Ginny (Virginia Jones, Human Resources director) and it was amazing to see the analysis,” Williams said. “It was spot on. It was almost scary it was so accurate.”
2 Responses
I didn’t even know we had a town manager! Mr Williams has been the manager for 22 years!?!? He must be the most invisible manager in the state. The next guy or gal needs to get out the town hall hiding place and circulate throughout this growing community. We need a visible manager and not a ghost. Heck, until now I thought Vivian Jones ran the day-to-day operations around here.
I do not understand the concept of paying someone $20,000 to conduct a search and then want the public to be a part of the process. The people of this town elected the Commissioners to oversee such processes. All five of the Commissioners and the Mayor have or had executive positions or owned businesses, I would think that they would be capable of finding a suitable replacement. The money that the firm received could have gone to better use; such as supplying the Alston Massenburg Center with things for the children in the after school program to do. The money could also be put into properly repaving Franklin Street.