Retreat offers insight into directors’ quirks, decision approach

Fort Smith City Director Pam Weber is a horrible cook. City Director Don Hutchings’ first sermon was a disaster.

Such were the revelations during a Fort Smith Board of Directors’ retreat held Saturday at Lake Fort Smith State Park.

A segment of the almost 7-hour retreat had the six board members, Fort Smith Mayor Sandy Sanders and Fort Smith City Administrator Ray Gosack learning more about each other — including a personality assessment providing insight into how they approach decision-making. City Director George Catsavis did not attend the retreat and did not participate in the online assessment.

“I am a horrible cook. My husband will attest to it,” Weber said during her turn to tell something about herself the others did not know.

Hutchings, now a preacher at Evangel Temple, recalled delivering his first sermon at the age of 17.

“It was such a disaster. I knew it was my first and last (sermon),” Hutchings recalled, adding that a lady named Polly spent more than an hour convincing the young preacher to stick with it.

Gosack said the older he gets the more he likes country music.

City Director Philip Merry Jr. said he was born in a three-story house in Tulsa and the house was typically full of people playing Bridge because his parents were fanatical about the game.

City Director Andre Good revealed he had serious anger management issues as a young man. A preacher eventually found him and helped him overcome the problem.

Between the ages of 16 and 21, City Director Kevin Settle worked in and managed a candy department at Wal-Mart.

City Director Steve Tyler professed to being proud of having several different careers before being able to retire at age 55.

Sanders’ big reveal drew a big laugh.

“When I got married, I was six-foot-three and weighed 120 pounds,” Sanders said.

Prior to the retreat, the board members, Mayor Sanders and Gosack participated in an online assessment to create a “Team Dimensions Profile” that explains how each person approaches and interacts within the decision-making process.

The five basic and broad “dimensions” are:
• Creators: generates new ideas and and fresh concepts.
• Advancers: communicate new ideas and carry them forward.
• Refiners: analyze ideas for flaws or revised projects systematically.
• Executors: deliver concrete results and seek successful implementations.
• Flexers: have an equal preference for most or all of the roles and can often adapts their styles to fit the team’s needs.

Following is how the Fort Smith group placed within the dimensions.
Good: Flexer
Gosack: Executor tending toward Refiner
Hutchings: Advancer
Merry: Advancer tending toward Creator
Sanders: Executor tending toward Refiner
Settle: Refiner
Tyler: Creator tending toward Advancer
Weber: Advancer tending toward Executor

“It is positive and healthy that you have so much distribution,” said retreat facilitator Ron Holifield, with Keller, Texas-based Strategic Government Resources. “It is more evenly distributed than most city-council type boards.”

Holifield encouraged the board members to use the assessments to understand that differences of opinion are typically not personal, but reflect “the other person’s tendency to see a different approach” to an issue.

Hutchings expressed concern about the assessment becoming a box.

“The only inherent danger in this is stereotyping,” Hutchings said, adding that each board member should be careful in assuming how each other view issues.

Holifield agreed with Hutchings, saying the assessment represents “a default comfort zone” for each board member and is not “an absolute litmus test” for how each will always respond.

When combining all the dimensions, Holifield provided this broad description of the board: “Overall, many people in your group seem to have a preference for the Advancer role. Oftentimes, groups with this pattern of results place a high value on people and relationships and tend to be very social and inviting. These groups are often quite good at networking and creating enthusiasm for their ideas.”