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Colleen Jollie, State Tribal Liaison: A Story of Transformational Change
Author(s) -
King Cheryl Simrell,
Beeby Megan
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.00961.x
Subject(s) - transformational leadership , trickster , state (computer science) , spell , indigenous , agency (philosophy) , sovereignty , work (physics) , sociology , public relations , political science , public administration , law , social science , engineering , anthropology , politics , mechanical engineering , ecology , algorithm , computer science , biology
Colleen Jollie, the state tribal liaison at the Washington State Department of Transportation, practices a form of transformational public administration that, at its heart, reflects a Coyote or “trickster” style of management. In indigenous stories across the world, the trickster uses his or her wiles to disrupt, refuse, and dismantle ways that are not working in order to creatively, and sometimes chaotically, build new ways. Jollie’s work as lead tribal liaison has transformed the agency, the tribes, and the relationships between tribes and the agency, creating a culture of cooperation across significant differences and honoring the transformational energy required to cooperate across difference. Like the Coyote, who does what needs to be done through many means, but mostly through thoughtful effort, Jollie works to create change that serves both the state and the tribes. As this profile indicates, the work isn’t always easy and the outcomes don’t always spell success, but the work is necessary for tribes and state governments to forge the kinds of relationships imagined in treaties and in other agreements between sovereign governments.