Building a Conducive Environment for Collective Success

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Process Breakdown Podcast, where we talk about streamlining and scaling operations of your company, getting rid of bottlenecks and giving your employees all the information they need to be successful at their jobs. Now let’s get started with the show.

Chad Franzen: Chad Franzen here, co-host of the Process Breakdown Podcast, where we talk about streamlining and scaling operations of your company, getting rid of bottlenecks and giving your staff everything they need to be successful at their job. Past guests include David Allen of Getting Things Done and Michael Gerber of The E-Myth and many more.

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Chad Franzen: Mike McCarthy is the chief financial officer and chief operating officer at Northern Essex Community College. He’s been a successful change agent in two different industries and has been recognized for his commitment to organizational improvements, supporting the local communities he serves, and working to enhance opportunities for adults with learning disabilities. Mike, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?

Mike McCarthy: Great, Chad. Thank you for having me.

Chad Franzen: Hey, tell me just a little bit more about Northern Essex Community College.

Mike McCarthy: Sure. Northern Essex Community College serves about 5,000 students up in Massachusetts where North of Boston, along the New Hampshire border out towards the seacoast. We work in credit and non credit plus a lot of professional development and we have campuses in Haver, Massachusetts.

Chad Franzen: What is kind of your day to day role as COO?

Mike McCarthy: As the chief financial and operating officer, I oversee finances, human resources, IT. It’s kind of a fun group, I have public safety, athletics, and facilities. So in all operational process improvements to support the academics sidelines.

Chad Franzen: Can you give me an example or two of some of those operational process improvements that you are kind of focused on now?

Mike McCarthy: Right now, we’re doing a lot of focus, especially with the COVID situation on reducing our deferred maintenance and investment into the campus and the building and the infrastructure. Actually, we spent over seven million of project money on campus. So we have things such as that to implementing new budget process and software, to help make it more accountable and streamline budget process.

Chad Franzen: Share with us some things that you’re doing to make that happen.

Mike McCarthy: Sure. Northern Essex Community College is one of 15 community colleges. So we went out to try and do a shared purchase, a number of the other schools on this budget tracking system. And we’ve implemented it we’re in year one, so this now enables us to have projections quarter one, quarter two, timely data on spends, but also helps tracking positions and as we’re building our budget for next year, it helps us provide actuals and what it looks like future projections would be on various spend. I’m sure most people have those systems, but it was a new endeavor.

Chad Franzen: Sure, sure. Hey, I mentioned that you’ve worked now in two different industries. You worked for in the education industry, what did you do before this?

Mike McCarthy: Prior to coming into an Essex, had the pleasure of working for the Essex County Sheriff’s Department for about 17 years. Interesting history, that Sheriff’s Department goes back to Salem, Massachusetts. So it’s one of the original Sheriff’s Departments in the country, the old Salem witch trials, Yale was associated with that. But there I served as a Chief Financial Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, and then I left as the Special Sheriff and Chief Executive Officer.

Chad Franzen: Would you say that there are some similar kind of trends with education and law enforcement as you’re moving forward here?

Mike McCarthy: Yeah, I think the thing that’s been most helpful was that using the approach of building people’s trust and having to earn that trust. So, especially when dealing with things such as COVID pandemics or looking at implementing change, people have to trust you. Sometimes people think you can just be made to give that to you, it doesn’t work.

Mike McCarthy: So you have that you also, both organizations were public sector Organizations. They have the similarities of working across the unions and working to facilitate the bargaining agreements and how those affect operations, making decisions, as well as the funding sources are very similar. They are broken down by a combination of state appropriation as well as revenue from the public.

Chad Franzen: So what are some of the primary differences between public, between operations and the public sector and the private sector and how do they affect you now?

Mike McCarthy: I think one of the biggest would be probably your funding sources. So for example, at the college, we’re roughly a third state funded, a third revenue tuition, and a third outside revenue sources. We’ve worked very hard to increase our outside revenue sources as there’s a national, I don’t want to say decline in enrollment, but you’ve heard about it in higher ed because of birth rates, because numbers change. So we’ve had to be more creative, to not just rely on the state funding, but to actually come up other revenues. You also, the piece would be, I think the collective bargaining, especially in Massachusetts, that’s a strong group. We have, at the college it’s the unions are across the institutions that [inaudible 00:07:13], and having to make sure that you follow those rules and impact bargain, and all of that as you’re again implementing change, technology enhancements and things of that nature.

Chad Franzen: You know, you mentioned earlier that a large part of your job was kind of building people’s trust. I’m sure a lot of people, in kind of leadership roles like yourself, CFO, COO, most COO’s have to kind of earn people’s trust. Is it kind of an intuitive where you just have to be yourself? Is there some way that you would recommend the people to do that?

Mike McCarthy: So I’m a fan of management by walking around. So where I have facilities, I like to be out and about and try to spend some time, try to schedule it once a week to be out on either one of the campuses, for example. And that by doing that, you get seen, you get to speak to people, you get to meet them and break down any perceived barriers there may be, I think it’s helpful. Also, you can be responsive to what they may ask you and you get back to them with a quick answer to the question and basically just be yourself with them, be the difference.

Mike McCarthy: It’s challenging to get up and do it, because it’s easy to just have your head down and want to get down and go. But I think it’s helpful and it also allows you to see the campus and allows the employees to show you what they’re doing. A lot of them which will have a have great pride in the work they’re doing to benefit the students we serve. And I think it’s a neutral ground, so it’s not like they’re in your office or in an environment.

Mike McCarthy: Another thing we implemented before COVID was we worked with the unions actually to have an open forum where basically, I was standing there with members of the team and we would answer questions. People might have perceived something or thought something, then we would give you the answers on why decisions made, how it was done and move it forward that way to try and neutralize on any potential uncertainty or questions on why we do.

Chad Franzen: What would you say is maybe the biggest challenge involved in doing operations in the public sector and maybe something where you’re or something where you might say, “Oh, luckily I work in the public sector and not the private sector regarding this,” if you can think of those off the top of your head?

Mike McCarthy: Well, I think it’s, I’m guessing the biggest benefit of the public sector is the revenue piece we talked about before. So you have some state commitment of funding and you work that way. I guess the biggest difference is going to be the processes that you have to go through. There’s best practices and then there’s law. For example, trying to find leased space. You have to go through a whole process through the state and there are various rules designed to avoid corruption. They’re obviously there because it’s happened in the past, but they really have a tendency to slow down the process trying to be nimble and adapt [inaudible 00:10:28].

Chad Franzen: I have one more question for you, but first, how can people find out more about Northern Essex Community College?

Mike McCarthy: Geez, that would be great. Well a few ways, happy and hopefully if you’re a fan of the sports pages, you’re going to see our baseball team is ranked number 10 in the country in division three junior colleges. So they’re heading off to Florida, so that’s a good way. But I think the best way is on our website. I would encourage you to please look at that. It’s www.NECC, so that’s Nick, Eric, Charlie, Charlie.ma.EDU. I think you’ll find as much pride in us as I find in ourselves for the services we do and the great team we have.

Chad Franzen: Last question for you. Are there any books that you have found particularly enjoyable or valuable as you’ve gone through your career?

Mike McCarthy: So I actually keep it on my desk. If you don’t mind, there’s two books that I’ve come across lately that I’ve enjoyed. First one is that I had an opportunity, it’s called Unleashed by Francis Frei. She’s a professor over at Harvard, and it really changed my perspective as we’re looking to do a better job of diversity and inclusion and the hiring that we do, that she provides a very unique perspective that I’ve enjoyed. And I’m happy to say in my time overseeing human resources, we’ve increased our diversity hires and management. The second one is I just recently had a chance to hear a guy with Dr. Tony Hall, speak about a cohesive culture in the workforce. And both of them, having get to hear them as well as read their books, it helps you see a pattern of getting through some of the tough challenges we’re all facing today, especially with trying to get people back into the office as the pandemic and the numbers are adjusting in a positive way. People have gotten used to being home, addressing those concerns with trying to create the right work environment.

Chad Franzen: Yeah, since you bring that up, I don’t hear about it much in universities or in community college or things like that, but you know, like elementary schools, high schools, a lot of teachers were really worried about coming back in. Has that affected you guys?

Mike McCarthy: So right now, we’re trying to be as back as much as possible. We had, I think it was 63% of our offerings had some form of in person or hybrid model. We do have a vaccine mandate, we do have a mask mandate when out and about, and those things are being evaluated. Well, the vaccine mandate’s in, but mask that will be evaluated and we’re looking to have more people back come well in service support. But also the pandemic has shown us because you had move so quickly that the people, the kids, and employees, they like the online options. So we try to make sure that it’s specifically on the registration of courses that we allow people flexibility to choose what works best for them and we try to follow that with the enrollment.

Chad Franzen: Hey Mike, it’s been great talking to you today. Thank you so much for your time, it’s been a pleasure to hear your insights and your thoughts. Really appreciate it.

Mike McCarthy: Thank you so much for having me Chad.

Chad Franzen: So long everybody.

Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the process breakdown podcast. Before you go, quick question. Do you want a tool that makes it easy to document processes, procedures, and or policies for your company so that your employees have all the information they need to be successful at their job? If yes, sign up for a free 14 day trial of SweetProcess. No credit card is required to sign up, go to sweetprocess.com, “sweet” like candy and “process” like process.com Go now to sweetprocess.com and sign up for your risk free 14 day trial.

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