EPD Chief Watson debuts "EPD, Meet Your Customers" series

EPD Chief Steve Watson:

During EPD's monthly staff meeting yesterday afternoon, I introduced a new format I'm calling the "EPD, Meet Your Customers" series.  Moving forward, the first 15-20 minutes of each staff meeting will be devoted to introducing our supervisors to a guest from our community.



This Eureka resident could be a local business owner, community partner or stakeholder, or just a  regular citizen like you or your next door neighbor.

According to the late Peter Drucker (a well-known management consultant, educator, and author), two of the "Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask of Your Organization" are: "Who is our customer?" and "What does the customer value?"  An equally important follow-on question is, "How connected are we to the people we are entrusted to protect?" (Ginia Bellafante, NYTimes.com, "Question for Police Departments: How Happy Are the Customers?").

So, to truly be successful as your police department, we need to understand and respond to our constituents' expectations and concerns, especially what they consider results in the long term.

Our first guest was the Executive Director of the Greater Eureka Chamber of Commerce, Don Smullen.  Don did a fantastic job as he shared with us a little of his background and story, and related the concerns and perspectives of many of the businesses the Chamber represents.

We hope through the "Meet Your Customer" series is to bring new experiences and points of view to our leadership team as we hear our citizens' authentic, personal stories.  These stories have the power to influence our beliefs, change and enhance our organizational culture, leading to positive actions that produce real results.  (www.partnersinleadership.com)

We look forward to meeting, listening to, and learning from many more of our valued "customers" over the coming months as we work hard for you to protect and serve Eureka.