D.A.’s Office Adopts Version of Golden Rule

Workers in the Ventura County district attorney’s office responded with skepticism and hope Wednesday to a new plan as simple as the Golden Rule--boost employee morale by forcing managers to treat subordinates as they want to be treated themselves.

In a seminar hosted by consultants who found that fear is a driving force in the prosecutor’s office, some workers said they felt whipped into submission by bosses, while others said Dist. Atty. Mike Bradbury’s efforts to improve morale could make their working lives much better.

“But how do we change the Pavlovian response we have?” asked Marilyn Mansfield, a seven-year worker in the family-support division. “Over the years, we’ve learned to

keep our mouths shut.”

Others among the about 100 employees who attended a two-hour briefing Wednesday morning said they are ready to support the push to transform the high-stress prosecutor’s office into a kinder, gentler workplace.

“I think it’s outstanding, and it’s about time,” said Diane MacIntyre, a supervisor of child-support collections. “I buy into this 110%.”

Overall, however, most workers seemed to take a wait-and-see approach, sitting quietly and asking few questions of Los Angeles consultants Desi Rosenfield and Dave Lapin.

“You’re so quiet,” Rosenfield commented at one point.

“What does that tell you?” one prosecutor snapped.

And Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry Kilbride said that although he is hopeful that old problems will be resolved, he will believe things are better when he sees the improvements.

“A year from now, I think you’ll find this plan on a shelf some place,” Kilbride said during a break. “It sounds good in theory, but it’s very hard to put into practice. People’s personalities are what they are.”

Not that the consultants’ recommendations are so complicated. Mostly, they want office employees to agree to be nice to each other, to think before they snap and to treat each other with respect.

And if bosses must learn to hold their tongues, then workers need to stop their second-guessing, bad-mouthing and rumor-mongering, the consultants said.

“This is a blueprint for change,” moderator Rosenfield said. “Overwhelmingly the driving value we found was treat people with dignity. That needs to be embedded in this organization. Then you will have a sharing of ideas . . . and a recognition that ideas do not only reside at the top.”

Wednesday’s briefing was the result of a $34,500 study Bradbury commissioned early this year to address morale problems in his department. During the past two years, 26 prosecutors have left the 110-attorney department, most citing poor pay compared with other Southern California counties.

But Rosenfield and Lapin found problems beyond low pay. After interviewing dozens of employees in April, the consultants found worker fatigue and a persistent fear of losing their jobs.

“The employees were experiencing fear as a driving force,” Lapin said. As a result, “we found they had fragile egos.”

That stifled creativity and communication and diluted the office’s efforts overall, he said.

In response, following a two-day retreat by 25 managers and selected staff members last month, the consultants drafted two documents that define the mission of the district attorney’s office and how employees should act while pursuing that mission. These so-called strategic and moral theories stress vigorous prosecution of crooks, and showing respect for colleagues.

“We commit to treat all our people with dignity at all times,” the Moral Theory says. “We do not tolerate vindictiveness.”

Bradbury acknowledged that this may sound like so much touchy-feely nonsense. But he insisted it is not.

“I have a healthy skepticism about most of these programs,” Bradbury said in an interview. “You feel good for a couple of days and then it’s back to the same old thing. But this time I’m truly impressed that we can bring lasting change. These are ways of looking at each other and decisions and life that make fundamental differences.

“It’s the old Golden Rule, treating people the way you want to be treated,” he said. “Every decision we make, we make with these principles in mind. It may seem mechanical at first, but then it will become second nature.”

Bosses at all levels must monitor their interactions, he said. Treating subordinates, or colleagues, abusively or rudely is not acceptable, he said.

“It’s like a marriage,” Bradbury said. “It’s the little things over the course of time that destroy marriages, not the one or two big issues.”

For that matter, Wednesday’s seminar seemed like a family-counseling session.

“My perception has always been that we were kind of like a dysfunctional family,” said Mansfield, the family-support worker. “Things that should have been professional seemed to be taken personally. We’ve divided into camps and gotten into this good guy, bad guy stuff.”

So the new plan is a breath of fresh air, she said.

A key question among other seminar participants, however, was how they could be sure they can now speak up to superiors without facing retribution.

The consultants assured them that Bradbury would back up the lowliest clerks if their bosses did not follow the department’s new policy on respect.

“If anybody disagrees with how they’re being treated or evaluated, they can come all the way up to the top,” Bradbury said. “So if a single mother beating away on a typewriter in the steno pool says, ‘Can I really do that?’ Well, she can. And if I find these [bosses] are not embracing these principles, I’m going to make some changes.”

Still, Bradbury must deal with his own history when persuading workers they can now demand to be treated well.

Several attorneys remember colleagues being abruptly fired from the district attorney’s office over the years. Two months ago, a criminal prosecutor was escorted from the office by two investigators. And several years ago a lawyer who was leaving the office was told to pack up and get out four days early after he gave the office a harsh review in his exit interview.

Bradbury said that treatment of departing attorneys is an issue being addressed by one of six new task forces formed to bring change in areas where employees have concerns.

“It’s like they disappear in the night,” Bradbury said. “There’s a pretty strong belief in management among the experts that you don’t let somebody like that hang around. Still, from now on, we’re going to try to do that with some respect and dignity.”