Quintin Shepherd, Superintendent for Victoria ISD, chats with us about being the new kid in town, and how to bring change without being seen as making waves. Read on to find out how he brought along a trusted friend of his - Thoughtexchange - to rapidly build trust through transparency in his new community.

What value did you get from your exchange?

I was new to the district and two weeks on the job. We could increase taxes without a referendum, but I needed to build support from my community. I also needed to create some transparency around decisions. It was my start towards building a collaborative and transparent culture.

What advice do you have for other people asking this question?

Don’t just ask the question via an exchange. We held community forums, pushed the forums through Facebook Live and ran the exchange at the same time. Any of these events alone may have picked up some people but they are still somewhat disconnected. By running all three forums at the same time, people on Facebook could log on and ask questions or share thoughts through the exchange and those thoughts could be answered live in the forum. We reached 6,000+ people in two forums.