12. Reinventing the Court System During COVID-19 with Alton Adams

Facing a global pandemic, Deputy COO of Public Safety for Fulton County (Atlanta, GA), Alton Adams shares with us the three pillars he used to successfully keep inmates safe while maintaining their constitutional right to due process.

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David Morris  00:10

Hello, and welcome to the HiPER Leadership Podcast where we break down incredible and often untold stories of game change. I am your host, David Morris, CEO and founder of HiPER Solutions. Our mission is to bring positive change to the world. And change isn't easy. Our intent with the podcast is to share best practices so that you, our listeners, can gain some actionable, practical approaches to your next big bet endeavor. Today, our guest is Alton Adams, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of Public Safety in Fulton County, Georgia, the most populous county in Georgia, and was in the forefront of the news with our most recent 2020 elections. Good morning, Alton.

Alton Adams  00:58

Good morning, David.

David Morris  01:00

Alton, and I got to know each other last year and covered so many topics in every one of our conversations. I was particularly intrigued by what he was able to achieve in Fulton to keep the court system moving and people safe during COVID. And what Alton is doing today to institutionalize some of the game-changing results, so they continue long-term. Alton, let's start out with the situation you saw with the jails, overcrowding of the jails, because hearings wouldn't be able to occur. What would been the consequences of that?

Alton Adams  01:37

Yeah, thank you, David. In February last year, when we started to hear about COVID. And then in March, when it was, I guess, starting to rapidly increase, we, meaning myself and the broader justice community and Fulton County, realized that we had to change the way we were operating, if we were, in fact to continue to get individuals out of the jail. And the reason that that's important is: arrests happen every day. And so, there is always an inflow of individuals into the jail. The court system, which adjudicates the cases and [either] gets individuals either back home if they're found innocent, or to a correctional facility or prison, if they in fact, are found guilty, needs to in fact, continue to function, if you are going to be able to maintain and to minimize the population or minimize the increase in the population [in jail]. What we were faced with was, how do we, in fact, continue to have individuals who are detained (arrested), come before a judge for a first appearance, which has to happen within 48 to 72 hours, depending on your county, and have a decision made on their bail so we could in fact, continue to have individuals exit the jail at the same time that we had individuals who are being booked in. Concurrent with that, we had to work with our state and our superior courts to try to put together a calendar, building a bench calendar initially, because we couldn't move individuals to the courthouse as part of the COVID restrictions, to find some way of advancing those cases that we can, in fact, move through the system.

David Morris  03:30

If these hearings did not go virtual, would have it just slowed everything down. I mean, how overcrowded could the jails have become? And what would the consequences of that?

Alton Adams  03:42

For our jail, which was operating at about 85%, of what we call our operating capacity, it would have been disastrous, because we would very quickly have reached a point where we would not have been able to take any more individuals, which is not an option. So, we would have had a situation where we would have had to start putting four individuals in a cell that was designed for two people. We would have had to have started to look at using our recreational area for what I'd call kind of general housing. And the implications of doing that in the midst of a pandemic, where jails and correctional facilities were already identified as being vulnerable to a major spread of COVID-19 would have been significant. We had to find a way to keep the system going and to find a way to minimize the potential impact on the jail population so that we could, in fact, keep people safe. And as it turns out, because of the slowdown in the courts, because superior courts were closed. There were no jury trials. We haven't resumed jury trials. There will be a year next month, when we have not had a jury trial in Fulton County. We were already starting to see a backlog in terms of being able to have individuals have a trial. So, we had to find a way here, again, to focus on first appearances, and also where we could have bench trials where an individual would have a zoom call with a judge to continue to move individuals through the system.

David Morris  05:26

How many deaths from COVID in the jail?

Alton Adams  05:30

It's a great question. Our number one goal (metric), like anyone's right, was to minimize the impact of COVID on the jail population: to keep the detainees as healthy and safe as possible. And we have tested more than 3,000 individuals to date, (I'm pleased, but we're still in the midst of this, right?), but to date, we have not had any fatalities from COVID at Fulton County. And given the fact that we have, on any given day, 2,800 individuals in our jail system, we consider that to be a key success for us.

David Morris  06:05

It's remarkable. And I think what's really important is that technology is table stakes, everyone has the video conferencing, everyone's buying all this technology. What you did, which was remarkable, is you got a set of constituencies to come together, people that are not used to being told what to do, and helped develop effectively a new protocol, which would allow for a virtual hearing, something that it sounds like will continue for many years to come. Share with us a little bit about what the key to this was, who were the constituencies and how did you get all these stakeholders aligned on one compelling mission?

Alton Adams  06:44

Most court systems, just like Fulton County’s, have a series of different ‘agencies’ we'll call them, that are led by an elected official. In the case of Fulton County, it includes the Chief Judge of Superior Court, the Chief Judge of state court, the Chief Judge of magistrate court, the district attorney, the clerk, and the public defender; these individuals run their own respective areas. Now, it's a system where they have to cooperate for it to work. But they are all individuals who run their departments. And I affectionately refer to them as the system, right, not only ours, but the entire system has its kind of “Game of Thrones” in the sense that you have individuals who run their own areas. For us to be able to pivot and make this work, [to] go virtual, have the clerk agreed to have her clerk take notes virtually and do the things that clerks do, for the public defender to agree that they could effectively represent their client in a virtual framework, for the district attorney to agree that he and his assistant DAs could represent their cases efficiently, for the judges to agree that they were prepared to timebox their cases. Most of you may know, or may not know, that the that each judge runs their own courtroom, they run it on their own calendar. And so, the thought of a judge saying, “I am going to hold my hearings virtually in a two-hour window” was something that had never been done before. And so, as we, and you and I have talked about David, you have individuals who have their own respective areas, the system has to work together. And so, one of the big focuses, and really in a sense, accomplishments, was not necessarily the deployment of Zoom, even though we did we deployed it at a scale and at a pace that I think is, is notable, but to your point, the ability to have everyone come together, and change, really, as quickly as we did, is probably the single biggest accomplishment, as it were. And it was a combination of what I say three things: One is a lot of change management and managing via influence. And that collaboration, having a personal, in some ways, relationship with some of the key stakeholders, or certainly having credibility was really, really important. I think the second thing was, even with the individuals who are managing their individual areas, we did need to have a clear plan and be decisive about it. We needed to be clear about the technology platform. We needed to be clear about the changes impacting the processes. We needed to be clear about the need for IT organizations to now report into one individual, as opposed to reporting into the individual silos, for this to work. So, I think that being clear about what we were trying to do was [a] really, really important part of our credibility. I think the final thing was being prepared to be decisive and what we call failing fast, right? We knew that there was some things we were going to do that we were going to have to pivot on. And this concept of failing fast is not something that government overall is really designed to do. It's not part of our core DNA: the whole focus on let's get after something, it may not work, let's think about some of this stuff is trial and error, and then be prepared to pivot when we need to, was a key part, also, of being able to accomplish what we did.

David Morris  10:27

I know you talk a lot about thinking of the constituencies as clients, and that orientation, I'm sure went a long way. As you think about some type of obstacle, some individual that perhaps was a blocker, but really could have delayed this whole thing. What approach did you use in that situation, to get that individual or group aligned and keep it on pace?

Alton Adams  10:54

Well, my own personal style, but it's something here, again, that I learned, I think and developed in my management consulting days, and perhaps even before that, is to mix having structure and process and formal meetings with being able to reach out directly to the key stakeholders and have one-on-one conversations and have candid conversations. And so, each of the stakeholders that I mentioned, and each one of those offices are on my speed dial on my cell phone, and I believe I'm on theirs as well. And so, to be able to have conversations offline, to be able to address concerns in a one-on-one environment, while we were planning and getting together in a group environment, I believe was key to overcoming some of the challenges and obstacles that tended to come, you know, that tend to come up, when in fact, you're having broad meetings to implement change.

David Morris  11:54

This certainly is not your first game change. We've talked about some really exciting ones previously in your career. What would you say the skill set that you honed over the years that really became the most important tool in your toolkit to pull off this change management in record time?

Alton Adams  12:14

Well, I think it's, it's probably more than one tool. Because you, you have different individuals that, that you need to communicate differently. I think the number one thing, right, and I remember this from one of my early courses, or one of my early readings is, understand and appreciate that different individuals communicate and receive information differently. And so, when I would have a conversation with a judge, and even with different judges, being able to understand and communicate to them in a way that I know, they like to receive information was really, really key there is no one size fits all, when you're dealing with multiple stakeholders, all of whom have the ability to say no, and none of whom can say yes to the entire system. So, I would say that, that that's one thing, I think second thing is, and this helps, because being a bit older, helps, right, I benefited from having worked in a number of different environments, and applied technology and change management and those things. So being able to pull in some of those experiences and say, “These are some of the things that we have learned in other areas,” or being able to say, “Let me give you a sense for best practices,” and being able to divorce my particular perspective or opinion, and portray it accurately as, “These are the best practices we need to think about.” And that way, you move the dialogue away from one person's point of view; another point a person's point of view, and it really becomes grounded in fact. And, I think finally that point of a really using a fact-based, quantitative approach, and I'm a quant person, I'm a fact person, I'm a data person. And being able to say, “This is what the data shows. This is how we're going to measure it. This is how we're going to track it.” And to have people start to pivot a bit and I've had a number of folks say, “Thank you for bringing a data orientation to our discussion.” And even being able to ground this in data and facts and best practices was a key part of having individuals kind of step back and be more open, quite frankly, to the changes we were trying to implement.

David Morris  14:32

Very transferable. Curious, also a topic that comes up a lot when we work with organizations going through massive change is the air cover or the authority that the change leader has? How did you go about getting that air cover and honing it during the course of this journey?

Alton Adams  14:52

I think it's a combination of things. One is, by title, I guess, I have my title of deputy CEO for Public Safety and Justice allowed me the opportunity, before the COVID hit, to have had a number of discussions and dialogues with our key stakeholders around things like budget. Around things like technology and so on. And so, one of my roles is providing guidance and helping with the development of the budget for the justice system, which is a single largest category of spend in the Fulton County budget every year. While I don't have the ability to say yea or nay, particularly, to those, I am a facilitator and I do have a point of view and I get to weigh in. And so, a bit of the ability to influence through the budgeting process is always helpful, and having people take your call. So that that that was that was one. I think secondly, as we've talked about approaching individuals and having them embrace some of the things that we were trying to do, but also being very, very supportive and reactive when they in fact needed something. So, when a judge says, “I have a problem,” being responsive to them, and being able to basically fix things, and I guess in my role, one of my key roles is being a fixer and solving problems for my clients. And so, if the clerk has an issue, she will call me, and I will do my best to accelerate in fixing her problem. Same thing with the Chief Judge of Superior Court, same thing with the district attorney. So, in that role, it does give me a bit of opportunity in a sense, and a platform to be able to call them and say I need your help with something, and they typically are very responsive.

David Morris  16:35

Taking this story and some of the principles we just talked about and putting yourself in the shoes now have a board of directors or a governor, where you need to recruit somebody to be able to pull off big change, what would be the single key character trait, you would want to make sure that this individual would have, the leader of a change effort has based on all your experiences?

Alton Adams  17:04

If you had to pick one, and I think it's more than one, but if you had to pick one, I would say a focus on or capability around managing via influence. And the reason I picked that one is because in virtually every government institution, whether it be the federal government or the state and local, or in our case, county, it is very, very hard to move the needle on anything, unless you are able to get others to want to do it, who don't necessarily report to you. And that goes for, I mean, for example, in this particular case, not only did we have to have the key stakeholders on the Justice side agree to the changes we were trying to make, but I also had to go back to our county leadership and ask for funding for all the technology associated with that. And then I had to go and talk to the legal folks and make sure I understood and they would help us find solutions. I had to work with, with our technology teams to redeploy some of their resources. So, I think that the most important trait is being able to effectuate and manage change, without the ability to tell people what to do.

David Morris  18:24

If you're interviewing somebody for that, and subsequently reference-checking someone for that, again, putting yourself in the shoes of being a governor, and you’re choosing a director of a big department that needs to turn around, what are some of the either interview questions you might use, or again, reference check approaches to verify that the person can do this?

Alton Adams  18:47

Well, I would start with asking them about their personal style. Help me understand how you influence others, and are able to get individuals to change, to embrace a mission without necessarily being able to tell them what to do. And I would just ask them, “How do you do that?” “What do you rely on?” “What has worked for you in the past?” And then secondly, I would also ask for specific examples, where that was a necessity, where it actually happened, and then ultimately, what was the impact of that? And then I guess I would also, you know, here again, all around this, this theme of working through others and collaborating, I would ask them for specific references of individuals who you could call and say, “I'm calling on behalf of David” or “I'm calling on behalf of a discussion I'm having with Alton, and he listed you as a reference in terms of helping you make changes in your organization, are you being a key part of a big change? Tell me about that. And, give me a sense, right, of how he helped make that happen.” So those are, those are two or three of the things that I would want to discuss with someone where the ability to effectuate change, system-wide, or enterprise-wide at scale. And that's the other thing, I would say, if you got two years to make a change, it's a lot easier than when you have to do it in three and a half weeks. And so, to the extent that speed, and getting on with things is important, I would also look and make sure that that example reflects the kind of cadence and the pace that your organization is trying to, to operate at.

David Morris  20:42

Tremendous, well I think this is a really terrific story. And you know, again, the entire results, no deaths, no deaths, and ultimately, best practice that will be even more effective post-COVID than pre-COVID. I think that’s really a theme as we start to move out of new normal and into new exceptional. I think this is a great example of best practice that other counties can adopt. Maybe you can leave us with some thoughts on how to make sure something like this protocol does continue and old habits don't reemerge.

Alton Adams  21:20

You know, David, that's a great question. And it's one of the questions that our county manager asked me as we were going through this, his question was, “How do we make sure that we don't go back to the past, and that we do, in fact, implement these things in a sustained way?” It was a great question. And I think the way to do that is being purposeful about it, and what I mean, we actually launched a project, which I dubbed project Apollo, where we were implementing, and defining the processes and changes that we wanted to continue to have post-COVID, and I'll give you an example. In Fulton County, first appearances were all done in-person since Fulton County has been around. So, we did first appearances, you showed up physically in front of a judge in a room with a clerk, in a room with the public defender. We have moved to a point now where that's all done virtually. What we found in doing research was that there are other counties that had been doing it virtually. We have since implemented technology in every single one of our courtrooms, we have more than 50 courtrooms across the county, not just for magistrate court, but for other courts as well. We've implemented technology that will allow the judge to come to the courthouse, but all the other stakeholders, including the individual at the jail, who has to show for first appearance, to do it virtually. And to help facilitate that, we've actually built two more Zoom rooms on every single floor of the jail. So, it is our intention that first appearances will continue to be virtual for forever. When it comes to Fulton County now, the Chief Judge of magistrate court obviously is the one who ultimately makes that decision. But our goal is to make it so efficient, and to make the results so compelling, back to the data argument, that she is going to want to say, “You know, there is no reason why I need to go back to doing first appearances in person. And in fact, my judges are happier, processes [are] more efficient, we can process more cases, and it's easier on the detainee and their representative, so we want to continue in this way.” So, we have defined a dozen of those. We're starting to, in fact, implement them in a way that will make it easy for us to continue. And, by definition, remove the need and the motivation to go back to the way it was. We also have the ability to budget accordingly, so if we say we are prepared to invest in technology, but not necessarily prepared to invest in doing it the same old way, that helps to provide an incentive in that direction as well.

David Morris  24:11

Again, so applicable to so many different industries. Thank you so much today for joining me and sharing your wonderful story.

Alton Adams  24:19

David, thanks very much. It's always a pleasure talking to you and look forward to talking in the future.

David Morris  24:26

To our HiPER Leadership listeners, thank you for your continued support and feedback. Stay tuned this season for incredible stories of game-change from other HiPER leaders. Join us next week for an extreme look at what's happening in ski towns during COVID with our guest, who you could call the unofficial Mayor of Whistler, Joey Gibbons. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the HiPER Leadership Podcast on Apple podcasts. And if you have a big program you're leading, visit our website to learn more about how we help optimize teams at hipersolutions.com.