Creating Strong Relationships

A New Approach to working in Right of Ways

One of best selling author’s Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is to achieve win/win situations. Covey’s concept is this: in negotiation, each party should get what they want or there is no deal.

    Bruce MacBrien, a Highway Patrol Foreman in District Three at the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT), has worked to create an atmosphere where the citizens and he are each "winning." In fact, citizens are coming to him and requesting his crew to work in their right of way.

    In the NHDOT, each patrol shed is run independently. Each shed has its own budget and is responsible for planning their own work, similar to a municipality. It could be said that the NHDOT has a different level control over the work done in one of their sheds than that of a town. This is not important. What is most important is the relationship that the foreman in District 3 has built with the people who live along the roads in his jurisdiction. Bruce negotiates to achieve win/win situations. This is something all road managers can do.

    Creating strong relationships does not happen over night. Bruce has been fostering his relationships with people who live on "his" roads over the past 3 years. It has been time well spent. The first project Bruce and his crew completed, 3 years ago, was along RT 153. Bruce’s crew removed trees while enhancing the beauty of the landscape. People saw the results and liked them.

    After the first project, the crew approached landowners in town to ask permission to work their land. They agreed.

    The next project entailed cutting down a steep slope, removing a couple of trees and reseeding using a Slope 44 Mix (a mixture of red fescue, red top, and clover). According to Bruce, "we removed over 2000 yards of material at a blind intersection. We also removed over 50 oak trees which shaded the road." The townspeople "couldn’t believe what was done and thought it was wonderful." The crew made the intersection safer as a result of the work completed.

    Recently Bruce’s crew completed a project along RT 109. To convince the owner that the work would be done to her satisfaction, Bruce was able to point to other projects he had completed. By doing this, he demonstrated the quality of the work done by his crew. Bruce met with the owner to determine what she wanted and created a contract outlining the work, which they both signed.

First Bruce identified what he wanted, a safe road for winter maintenance. He felt he could accomplish this by:

• moving the stone walls back 15 feet,
• removing the trees, and
• reseeding.

Safer roads would be achieved by gaining shoulder space and allowing the sunshine to hit the road. Therefore, the crew would use less salt.

He determined that the homeowner wanted attractive landscaping. He included her desires and his in the contract:

• cutting brush, trees, and stump removal,
• move and rebuild a stone wall,
• place loam, seed, and hay the excavated area,
• transplant lilac bushes (a minor thing that meant a lot to the landowner).

Over a period of 4 weeks, he and his crew of 5 (Kevin Brothers, Douglas Joy, Todd Nason, Norman LaVertue, Mark Stevens, and Ken Wilson) did the work. Since completion, Bruce has identified his next project, and another homeowner has asked him to work on his land.

Even if you hesitate undertake a project of the size and scope of the one Bruce’s crew completed you can use Bruce’s public relationships tactic in your own community. Find out what motivates the people in your community who allow dangerous trees to stand on their property. Offer a positive approach to make the area safer. Discuss the relocation of mailboxes that can’t be plowed around. Perhaps the homeowner doesn’t know a problem exists. What other areas of concern do you have? Finding mutually beneficial, constructive alternatives can solve many problems. It is possible that everyone can win.

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