December 9, 2024 • 30 mins
In this episode of Curiosity at Work, Dr. Julie Pham interviews Ryan Calkins, Port of Seattle Commissioner and advisor at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Ryan shares how curiosity drives his leadership in public service, from fostering innovation through skunkworks programs and connecting scientists with industries at PNNL. He reflects on navigating challenges as an elected official like public scrutiny, balancing competing priorities, and empowering teams to embrace creative problem-solving. Tune in to learn how Ryan uses curiosity to inspire innovation and tackle complex issues in public and research sectors.
#RyanCalkins #PortOfSeattle #PNNL #CuriosityAtWork #Leadership #PublicService #Innovation #WorkplaceCulture #EnvironmentalAdvocacy #ProblemSolving
Connect with Dr. Julie Pham:
- LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliepham2/
- Website:https://curiositybased.com/
- Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/juliephamphd/
Connect with Ryan Calkins:
- Email: calkins.r@portseattle.org
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryancalkins/
#RyanCalkins #PortOfSeattle #PNNL #CuriosityAtWork #Leadership #PublicService #Innovation #RenewableEnergy #WorkplaceCulture #EnvironmentalAdvocacy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) I'm Dr. Julie Pham, founder of Curiosity Based.
We help people practice curiosity in the world, starting in the workplace, because that is where we spend most of our waking hours.
Curiosity as a practice boils down to self-awareness, relationship building, and clear communication.
So join us as we interview leaders to see how they use curiosity at work.
Hello, welcome to the Curiosity at Work podcast.
(00:27):
I'm Julie Pham, and today I'm so excited to get to interview my dear friend, Ryan Calkins, who I met actually back in 2016, when Ryan was the co-owner of a CrossFit gym.
And then he became an elected official.
So Ryan is also the first elected official that we get to interview on this podcast.
(00:49):
Ryan, welcome.
Hi, Julie.
So good to be here.
Thanks so much for the invitation.
And I do want to say we are recording this on Veterans Day, and I just want to really honor our veterans who have served our country and other countries in doing one of the hardest jobs that anyone can imagine.
Indeed.
Yes, my father was a veteran, so I thank everyone who has served.
(01:12):
So Ryan has been the, I mentioned Ryan was an owner of a CrossFit gym, and then also worked in microfinance, started a nonprofit to help with economic development.
Now Ryan is an advisor at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and a serving Port of Seattle commissioner.
(01:34):
Yeah, it's funny, you led with a CrossFit, like I don't think in my bio anybody's ever led with the fact that I owned a CrossFit gym, because it just, it was kind of a side hustle for me.
But yeah, so anyway, amongst the other things I did in my time at CrossFit gym for a while.
Well, I always really enjoy talking to people with very diverse backgrounds and experiences, because I think it informs how we think about practicing curiosity, especially practicing curiosity in the workplace.
(02:03):
So Ryan, could you describe a little bit about the PNNL and about the Port of Seattle?
What's the, what is the work situation there?
How many people do they, is it hybrid, is it in person, and what are the general functions that are in each of those?
You bet.
So I get to have two jobs, and they're both dream jobs for me.
(02:27):
The Port Commission is an elected role, serving the people of King County, which is the county that encompasses the city of Seattle.
And in Washington State, we elect our Port Commissioners.
And so every four years, I have stood for election in this role.
(02:48):
And it serves as a sort of intensive board of governors for this big public agency that covers the airport and the seaport.
We have about 2,700 employees right now.
And essentially the role of the commission is, in some, it's to help co-write the budget with the executive director, select the executive director, and provide general oversight through an audit committee and bi-monthly meetings, so two meetings a month.
(03:18):
We also participate in something called the Northwest Seaport Alliance, which is a joint operating agreement with the Port of Tacoma, the other very large industrial port in Washington State.
And so it's a pretty unique elected position in that it's not full-time.
But my day job is working as an advisor at Pacific Northwest National Lab, which is a federally funded research and development center, which there are 17 of them in the country.
(03:45):
We operate independently of the federal government.
So I'm not an employee of the federal government, but work for a nonprofit that manages this entity and a couple of others.
And essentially, our job is to be the kind of fundamental research institutions for the United States.
And we cover all sorts of areas.
At PNNL, our expertise is in, we've got a number of core competencies, including chemistry, so developing new fuels that are carbon-free to power the economy.
(04:16):
We're the grid lab, so we are the lab that has most of the expertise on our transmission infrastructure in the United States.
We've had breakthroughs in things like monitoring radiation around the world.
So we've been heavily involved in nuclear disarmament and post-disaster in places like Chernobyl.
(04:37):
And we continue to be at the forefront of science around a bunch of areas that we think are fundamental to developing the green economy, the transition away from fossil fuels.
And that organization, sorry, that organization, we're about 6,500 people, the vast majority of whom are researchers and scientists.
(04:58):
And then there's a few folks like me.
I'm not a researcher or a scientist.
I'm like the only PhD, non-PhD in the building.
But my job is to try to help connect those folks, these geniuses to industry and other potential, let's call them users of the amazing science that PNNL is producing.
(05:19):
So Ryan, you've got two very different jobs with very different workforces, because with PNNL, mostly scientists, mostly PhDs.
And then at the Port of Seattle, there are a lot of people who are working in our airports, in the port, who are really on the front lines of this work.
And so it's interesting that you can draw from these different perspectives.
(05:42):
And I'm assuming that practicing curiosity actually might look different in those different workplaces too.
Yeah, I mean, to your point, I think at the Port of Seattle, we have about 1,000 trades people, represented workforce, and 1,000 non-represented workforce.
And those jobs range from customer service agent, absolutely never stop coming to work through COVID, folks working on the terminals.
(06:10):
We've got a marine maintenance unit.
We've got a fire department, a police department.
And then, of course, we've got a finance team and a contract procurement team.
So it's a really diverse organization that is working literally 24-7, 365 days out of the year to maintain an operating large hub airport and a seaport, for sure.
(06:34):
So Ryan, we often talk about practicing curiosity and the value of curiosity.
And all of our listeners, they already know why curiosity is important.
Sometimes, though, practicing curiosity can be really, really hard.
Can you share when is it hard for you personally to practice curiosity at work?
(06:56):
I spend a lot of time thinking about this.
And I think when you lead a public agency, there is a sense of stewardship that comes with that.
I came from a small business background.
And while you absolutely want to do everything you can to maintain that business, at the end of the day, the stakes aren't what they are when you lead a public agency.
(07:18):
A public agency cannot fail.
We cannot not have public services available, whether it's a school district or a fire department.
Those things have to operate.
Whereas in a small business, that's part of the risk-reward mechanism is what allures a lot of us entrepreneurs to something like that, the possibility that you might fail, but you also might succeed in a grand way.
(07:42):
You know, that kind of marks that.
But not so in public agencies.
We really do have to make sure that the lights stay on, regardless of what happens.
And I think there is an element of that that may tamp down some of that curiosity.
Because we're afraid to take big risks sometimes.
(08:03):
And so as a public official, one of the things I'm always trying to work on is how do we create spaces where innovation, where curiosity, where the ability to ask kind of wild hair questions is welcomed.
And we have an excellent program, particularly at our airport, that's focused on, it's kind of a skunkworks, where people can bring crazy ideas and really throw everything against the wall and see what sticks and provide them a space to experiment with some of that, while also not risking the entire endeavor in the process.
(08:37):
So you started talking about what what do you do to get curiosity to foster curiosity work?
I still don't want to move away yet from what makes it hard.
And so I'm hearing you talk about the responsibility that that stewardship.
What about I mean, you're an elected official.
What about public scrutiny as well?
And if you could just give an example of when you found, wow, I really don't really this is hard for me right now.
(09:05):
I don't want to do it.
One issue that I've been exploring in my own responsibility as a leader is a pattern that I've seen emerge quite a bit in areas that pertain to the port in particular, where I genuinely believe that we are failing to provide young men in particular, with the kind of educational opportunities that foster real success in early career.
(09:39):
And there are sometimes when that conversation isn't welcomed, that there's a fear that it's just an attempt to undercut all of these gains we've made in equity for women in the workforce.
And trying to figure out how to ensure that whatever we pursue to support young men who are struggling right now isn't seen or doesn't function as a zero sum game.
(10:06):
I'll admit that is an area I have feared to tread because there is a real concern that because people's attention to politicians or public servants, our workforce is pretty limited.
If all you've got is a soundbite to try to convey that, sometimes it's hard.
(10:27):
It just comes across as, oh, you know, this guy's just trying to take us backwards, when
in fact what we're really trying to do is how do we build on the gains that we've seen for
women in the workforce and continue to engage that effort and also recognize that men have
struggled in the last couple of decades with educational attainment, and we need to figure
(10:49):
out what's going wrong there and truly address it.
Yeah, so either or thinking, that can really create, that makes practicing curiosity hard.
When you know that people are having this either or thinking, then how do you engage with that, too, and how do you bring in other perspectives?
One of the things I always admire and think is so hard for elected officials is how the public, the capacity to comprehend nuance can be quite, at times, quite limited, and yet as a public official, as an elected official, I should say, you've got to balance all of these different sides and then come up with something that is clearly understood by the public.
(11:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, you know, I think of part of the motivation for pursuing this role in the first place is because I have always been an environmentalist, and I can, I remember the time in childhood when I was about my daughter's age.
She's eight years old.
When I first became aware that this was something that I wanted to pursue and have ever since been, I consider myself a dyed in wool environmentalist.
(12:01):
However, in this particular role as a port commissioner, there are trade-offs that you simply can't avoid.
And so while I, you know, my inclination is to support every environmental initiative that we possibly can, they all require resources.
(12:22):
And so it's, and sometimes it means that you're having to choose between two good environmental initiatives and prioritize.
And oftentimes that ends up meaning that you've got a group of activists or supporters or others who feel like you have either left an opportunity on the table or you're turning your back on something that's really important to them.
(12:50):
And so that is one of the hardest parts of this job is using good judgment to try to understand how am I going to create the greatest possible good for the greatest number in my limited capacity as a decision maker.
And at the same time, recognizing that you do try to want to live to fight another day too.
(13:10):
Ryan, you're making me think about, is it also hard to practice curiosity when you campaigned on a certain issue and then to practice curiosity once you're in office about the other side or different perspectives on that issue that you campaigned and you feel committed to the public because that's what you campaigned on.
(13:30):
Is that hard?
It is.
You know, one of the tropes in politics that I hate is this notion of a flip-flopper.
And both sides are guilty, certainly, of kind of casting their opponents as a flip-flopper.
(13:53):
But when facts change, if your mind doesn't change to accommodate new facts, then you're just an ideologue.
Another word for a flip-flopper is somebody who came to understand or circumstances changed and so their previous position no longer is the right one and they need to change to align with reality.
(14:17):
And so, yeah, there are times when you come in having taken a position on something and then you realize you were wrong and it's time you need to change your mind.
And I think that supple mind is sorely missing in politics.
We need to be willing to not only say, I was wrong before or things have changed since I took that position and I need to be able to take a new position, but also to laud folks who are courageous enough to do that.
(14:48):
Yes, because it actually could be harder to admit that we've changed our mind than to hold fixed to what we said we were going to do.
At Curiosity Base, we like to suggest reframes and these are just different ways of thinking about something.
So you could say, is that person determined or are they being adaptive?
Because they're actually both, right?
(15:09):
And so let's go to the next question, which is about how do you encourage people to practice curiosity at work?
And so you've already talked about PNNL and the skunk work.
So now I actually want to hone in on your work at the Port of Seattle, especially as an elected official, because we have had public servants interviewed on this podcast and they talk about it's hard in a political environment to practice curiosity and it's particularly hard with power dynamics.
(15:41):
So how do you as an elected official still encourage curiosity for those who feel that they have a lot less power than you?
I think the most important element of this is that understanding that when you are in the spotlight, that is not a moment to make public grievances of frustration with co-workers or subordinates.
(16:11):
And instead, to figure out moments in one-on-one conversation to guide, to critique, but fairly.
But in the public sphere, you really do need to present.
(16:31):
You are representing the institution.
And so, you know, I think critique privately and thank publicly is kind of a good way to think about how to protect the...
I mean, I just think about the public servants at the Port of Seattle.
These are earnest, hardworking folks who are...
(16:52):
They know more about their particular subject matter than I will ever, ever know.
And so while it is important for me to ask hard questions and to balance the needs of that particular subject matter versus another one, at the end of the day, you need to give that person the benefit of the doubt that they are doing their earnest best to provide you with the information or the leadership or programmatic resources that are necessary for a particular thing.
(17:23):
And so be very gracious and appreciative in public and take private moments to critique, I would say.
Ryan, I hadn't thought about it that way, but that is such a great way to frame that, to have those moments of critique or even just probing.
Sometimes probing deep questions could come off as critique.
(17:46):
And I can imagine that if you do that in public, then that person might think, oh, I shouldn't take that risk again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think you're right.
You have the two very different workforces.
And at PNNL, you said, was it 6,500?
6,500 people?
And has it stayed steady or has it declined or increased in terms of the number over the years?
(18:13):
It's been steady growth.
There's been a couple of sort of step changes in our history.
Most recently, we're funded kind of under two buckets of the federal government, the Department of Energy and also the various departments of defense, homeland security, folks who are engaged in things like protecting national infrastructure.
(18:39):
So you can imagine all the uses under our nuclear expertise.
And in each of those, it's roughly half and half.
But in each of those, there has been periods where the US government has decided we need to expand our capacity to study these things.
So you can imagine post 9-11, there was a very significant interest in radiochemistry because they needed to track dirty bombs around the world.
(19:06):
And so PNNL, as one of the nation's premier radiochemistry laboratories, saw a significant increase in its budget at that point.
And we have recently benefited in the renewable energy and energy efficiency space because of the, I call them Bill and Ira, the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act, which kind of supercharged US industry and research around the move toward the green economy away from fossil fuels.
(19:37):
So we've had a pretty significant increase in overall staffing as a result of those moments in US history.
So I would think of scientists as naturally curious.
And so my question is, how do you interview, how do you recruit to ensure that the people who are going to be coming on board are curious?
(19:58):
What's your favorite technique to gauge for that?
Well, at the labs, I get to participate in some of the HR processes, mostly related to people who are not scientists.
Actually, I do some of the recruiting for those of us who are science communicators.
(20:20):
And so I definitely think we love when we get to connect with polymaths, right?
With folks who seem to have, are just brilliant in their subject matter expertise.
Maybe they also are a chess champion outside of work.
Maybe they build boats, just like they seem to just have that kind of insatiable desire to learn.
(20:44):
That, you have to be really careful when you're interviewing somebody about what you're allowed to ask.
You can't ask if you have kids, you can't ask questions that might inadvertently inform you of areas that you have to be careful about.
And so I have in my interviewing history, I've learned to probe in other ways to try to figure out what is really your passion?
(21:11):
What drives you as a person?
And so sometimes I'll just ask the question, if I just were to bump into you on a Wednesday night or a Saturday morning, where might I find you?
And I love the responses I get from that question, because it does typically go to, what is their raison d'etre?
What is the thing that when they wake up in the morning, they're really excited to think or talk or engage in?
(21:33):
And so I find that question to be particularly helpful.
And also when the answer comes back, they stumble with it.
It does genuinely make me concerned that maybe they don't have that kind of curiosity or a passion.
So interviewing for that passion, what do they do on a regular weekday outside of their work?
(22:00):
You know, we're sleeping a third of our life, we're working a third of our life.
What are you doing that other third of your life?
And by the way, I never heard of that as a function, science communicators.
I just learned something new about a role.
Ryan, I can't help but ask, just because you said, you told me earlier that you were also the chief HR officer when you were running the gym.
Is it different?
Did you interview different people?
(22:21):
That was actually at the, I ran and I had an important distribution company for 12 years from kind of early 2000s to mid 2010s that overlapped a little bit with the gym.
But that was a much larger enterprise.
And so I hired about one person a month on average in that role.
(22:43):
When you were looking for curiosity, what did you look for?
What was the technique you used back then?
Or is it the same one that you use now?
Well, it was that question.
I first, I came up with that question when I was hiring for that.
I had read a book about how useless, it was based on some research by Danny Kahneman, how useless so much of the HR entry process is.
(23:06):
And so I just had, and I was using every one of those things.
So I cut all that stuff out.
I created a really objective process as objective as I could get before we ever interviewed anyone.
So I wanted there to, I wanted to cut out biases and subjectivity as much as possible and not rely on things like first impression to make final hiring decisions.
(23:31):
And so that by the time somebody came in, we were pretty certain we were going to hire them.
And it was more like a chance for them to vet us.
And so in that process, I always felt like I kind of knew whether, I mean, it was within 30 seconds, you would get a sense of whether, we wouldn't have said this then, but was the vibe off?
(23:57):
But it was almost like the first step in the onboarding process.
By the time they came in for an interview, we were going to answer any questions they had for them, get them to walk through the place, see if they really wanted to work with the actual team that we had, that kind of stuff.
So at that point, we had already asked the questions around passions and work history and that kind of stuff.
(24:25):
So making sure that they would want to work with you as much as you would want to work with them too.
I will say one other attribute that was a sort of non-negotiable for us, and I don't think this is true for every organization, but at least for every organization that I participated in leadership in, is kindness.
(24:47):
And I think for me, that's a non-negotiable because that ability to feel safe in a workplace is so important to my leadership style.
I want people to be able to trust that they're going to be treated with respect in their workplace, no screaming, a general sense that this is a person that I wouldn't mind spending eight hours a day, five days a week with.
(25:14):
And so that, I think, it's one of the ingredients in the recipe for me for successful workplace culture.
Curiosity and kindness.
So Ryan, last question, what resource, where do you go to inspire curiosity in your own life that can be outside of work?
(25:36):
This was a tough question, in part because I don't want to sound trite and be like, oh, I'm a voracious reader.
And I love some of the examples I've heard in previous instances, but I kept returning to this thought that isn't necessarily a cultural or literature resource, but instead it's the opportunity I've had, particularly in the port role, to work with young people.
(26:08):
And part of the reason, and I had this experience just this last Wednesday night, it was kind of a rough week, and I had an opportunity to go and meet with roughly 50 young people, all from immigrant families, many of whom were undocumented.
And I went into it nervous that current events would have them in a really, feeling a lot of anxiety or dread, and instead what resulted was a conversation in which they were sharing their aspirations, they were, they just demonstrated this grit that was so empowered.
(26:54):
I came out of the meeting feeling so hopeful and rejuvenated, I mean literally rejuvenated, feeling younger again, surrounded by these young people who were just, they would run through walls to get that higher education that they're aspiring to, to be able to find a job that can support their family, to be able to pursue their passion, to do things like they just, to be able to travel.
(27:21):
And so for me, and that has consistently been the case for me as a commissioner, that I regularly get opportunities to work with young people who are, you know, whether it's K-12 students who are interested in learning more about aviation or maritime, or college students who are interning at the port, or early career folks who are just beginning to kind of cut their teeth in an industry.
(27:46):
That for me has regularly been the source of inspiration and new ideas and a sort of antidote to the cynicism that we all get when we spend a lot of time working in a system and have had our share of no's, you know, that for me has continued to be a resource that seems like a well that never runs dry.
(28:14):
Ryan, you're really lucky.
I am.
You're really lucky that the people you serve also inspire you and inspire you that what is possible, that there are so many possibilities that in times when we think that there might not be hope, there is hope.
For sure.
Thank you for sharing that.
(28:34):
Yeah, I mean, that, that gratitude is something we wrap up with every night at our dinner table with the kids, everybody's sharing something they're grateful for.
And, and I don't have to fake it.
I am truly grateful for the charmed life that I've lived, for sure.
So right, how do people get in touch with you?
Best way is just to, you can email me at the Port of Seattle, which is my last name.
(28:59):
So calkins.r@portseattle.org
And if it, if that gets caught in the spam filter, feel free to find me on LinkedIn too.
I check that pretty regularly.
So, and that's just my first and last name.
So, and I absolutely will answer your emails.
That's one thing.
I don't get deluged like some electeds do.
(29:22):
So if you, if you have any questions, you just want to do an informational interview about the Port of Seattle, or you went to the airport and the bathrooms weren't clean.
Let me know.
I'm sincerely happy to, to field those questions too, so.
Ryan, thank you so much.
Thank you so much for your service to our community and listeners continue to practice curiosity in the world.
(29:48):
Thank you, Julie.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) I'm Dr. Julie Pham, founder of Curiosity Based.
We help people practice curiosity in the world, starting in the workplace, because that is where we spend most of our waking hours.
Curiosity as a practice boils down to self-awareness, relationship building, and clear communication.
So join us as we interview leaders to see how they use curiosity at work.
Hello, welcome to the Curiosity at Work podcast.
(00:27):
I'm Julie Pham, and today I'm so excited to get to interview my dear friend, Ryan Calkins, who I met actually back in 2016, when Ryan was the co-owner of a CrossFit gym.
And then he became an elected official.
So Ryan is also the first elected official that we get to interview on this podcast.
(00:49):
Ryan, welcome.
Hi, Julie.
So good to be here.
Thanks so much for the invitation.
And I do want to say we are recording this on Veterans Day, and I just want to really honor our veterans who have served our country and other countries in doing one of the hardest jobs that anyone can imagine.
Indeed.
Yes, my father was a veteran, so I thank everyone who has served.
(01:12):
So Ryan has been the, I mentioned Ryan was an owner of a CrossFit gym, and then also worked in microfinance, started a nonprofit to help with economic development.
Now Ryan is an advisor at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and a serving Port of Seattle commissioner.
(01:34):
Yeah, it's funny, you led with a CrossFit, like I don't think in my bio anybody's ever led with the fact that I owned a CrossFit gym, because it just, it was kind of a side hustle for me.
But yeah, so anyway, amongst the other things I did in my time at CrossFit gym for a while.
Well, I always really enjoy talking to people with very diverse backgrounds and experiences, because I think it informs how we think about practicing curiosity, especially practicing curiosity in the workplace.
(02:03):
So Ryan, could you describe a little bit about the PNNL and about the Port of Seattle?
What's the, what is the work situation there?
How many people do they, is it hybrid, is it in person, and what are the general functions that are in each of those?
You bet.
So I get to have two jobs, and they're both dream jobs for me.
(02:27):
The Port Commission is an elected role, serving the people of King County, which is the county that encompasses the city of Seattle.
And in Washington State, we elect our Port Commissioners.
And so every four years, I have stood for election in this role.
(02:48):
And it serves as a sort of intensive board of governors for this big public agency that covers the airport and the seaport.
We have about 2,700 employees right now.
And essentially the role of the commission is, in some, it's to help co-write the budget with the executive director, select the executive director, and provide general oversight through an audit committee and bi-monthly meetings, so two meetings a month.
(03:18):
We also participate in something called the Northwest Seaport Alliance, which is a joint operating agreement with the Port of Tacoma, the other very large industrial port in Washington State.
And so it's a pretty unique elected position in that it's not full-time.
But my day job is working as an advisor at Pacific Northwest National Lab, which is a federally funded research and development center, which there are 17 of them in the country.
(03:45):
We operate independently of the federal government.
So I'm not an employee of the federal government, but work for a nonprofit that manages this entity and a couple of others.
And essentially, our job is to be the kind of fundamental research institutions for the United States.
And we cover all sorts of areas.
At PNNL, our expertise is in, we've got a number of core competencies, including chemistry, so developing new fuels that are carbon-free to power the economy.
(04:16):
We're the grid lab, so we are the lab that has most of the expertise on our transmission infrastructure in the United States.
We've had breakthroughs in things like monitoring radiation around the world.
So we've been heavily involved in nuclear disarmament and post-disaster in places like Chernobyl.
(04:37):
And we continue to be at the forefront of science around a bunch of areas that we think are fundamental to developing the green economy, the transition away from fossil fuels.
And that organization, sorry, that organization, we're about 6,500 people, the vast majority of whom are researchers and scientists.
(04:58):
And then there's a few folks like me.
I'm not a researcher or a scientist.
I'm like the only PhD, non-PhD in the building.
But my job is to try to help connect those folks, these geniuses to industry and other potential, let's call them users of the amazing science that PNNL is producing.
(05:19):
So Ryan, you've got two very different jobs with very different workforces, because with PNNL, mostly scientists, mostly PhDs.
And then at the Port of Seattle, there are a lot of people who are working in our airports, in the port, who are really on the front lines of this work.
And so it's interesting that you can draw from these different perspectives.
(05:42):
And I'm assuming that practicing curiosity actually might look different in those different workplaces too.
Yeah, I mean, to your point, I think at the Port of Seattle, we have about 1,000 trades people, represented workforce, and 1,000 non-represented workforce.
And those jobs range from customer service agent, absolutely never stop coming to work through COVID, folks working on the terminals.
(06:10):
We've got a marine maintenance unit.
We've got a fire department, a police department.
And then, of course, we've got a finance team and a contract procurement team.
So it's a really diverse organization that is working literally 24-7, 365 days out of the year to maintain an operating large hub airport and a seaport, for sure.
(06:34):
So Ryan, we often talk about practicing curiosity and the value of curiosity.
And all of our listeners, they already know why curiosity is important.
Sometimes, though, practicing curiosity can be really, really hard.
Can you share when is it hard for you personally to practice curiosity at work?
(06:56):
I spend a lot of time thinking about this.
And I think when you lead a public agency, there is a sense of stewardship that comes with that.
I came from a small business background.
And while you absolutely want to do everything you can to maintain that business, at the end of the day, the stakes aren't what they are when you lead a public agency.
(07:18):
A public agency cannot fail.
We cannot not have public services available, whether it's a school district or a fire department.
Those things have to operate.
Whereas in a small business, that's part of the risk-reward mechanism is what allures a lot of us entrepreneurs to something like that, the possibility that you might fail, but you also might succeed in a grand way.
(07:42):
You know, that kind of marks that.
But not so in public agencies.
We really do have to make sure that the lights stay on, regardless of what happens.
And I think there is an element of that that may tamp down some of that curiosity.
Because we're afraid to take big risks sometimes.
(08:03):
And so as a public official, one of the things I'm always trying to work on is how do we create spaces where innovation, where curiosity, where the ability to ask kind of wild hair questions is welcomed.
And we have an excellent program, particularly at our airport, that's focused on, it's kind of a skunkworks, where people can bring crazy ideas and really throw everything against the wall and see what sticks and provide them a space to experiment with some of that, while also not risking the entire endeavor in the process.
(08:37):
So you started talking about what what do you do to get curiosity to foster curiosity work?
I still don't want to move away yet from what makes it hard.
And so I'm hearing you talk about the responsibility that that stewardship.
What about I mean, you're an elected official.
What about public scrutiny as well?
And if you could just give an example of when you found, wow, I really don't really this is hard for me right now.
(09:05):
I don't want to do it.
One issue that I've been exploring in my own responsibility as a leader is a pattern that I've seen emerge quite a bit in areas that pertain to the port in particular, where I genuinely believe that we are failing to provide young men in particular, with the kind of educational opportunities that foster real success in early career.
(09:39):
And there are sometimes when that conversation isn't welcomed, that there's a fear that it's just an attempt to undercut all of these gains we've made in equity for women in the workforce.
And trying to figure out how to ensure that whatever we pursue to support young men who are struggling right now isn't seen or doesn't function as a zero sum game.
(10:06):
I'll admit that is an area I have feared to tread because there is a real concern that because people's attention to politicians or public servants, our workforce is pretty limited.
If all you've got is a soundbite to try to convey that, sometimes it's hard.
(10:27):
It just comes across as, oh, you know, this guy's just trying to take us backwards, when
in fact what we're really trying to do is how do we build on the gains that we've seen for
women in the workforce and continue to engage that effort and also recognize that men have
struggled in the last couple of decades with educational attainment, and we need to figure
(10:49):
out what's going wrong there and truly address it.
Yeah, so either or thinking, that can really create, that makes practicing curiosity hard.
When you know that people are having this either or thinking, then how do you engage with that, too, and how do you bring in other perspectives?
One of the things I always admire and think is so hard for elected officials is how the public, the capacity to comprehend nuance can be quite, at times, quite limited, and yet as a public official, as an elected official, I should say, you've got to balance all of these different sides and then come up with something that is clearly understood by the public.
(11:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, you know, I think of part of the motivation for pursuing this role in the first place is because I have always been an environmentalist, and I can, I remember the time in childhood when I was about my daughter's age.
She's eight years old.
When I first became aware that this was something that I wanted to pursue and have ever since been, I consider myself a dyed in wool environmentalist.
(12:01):
However, in this particular role as a port commissioner, there are trade-offs that you simply can't avoid.
And so while I, you know, my inclination is to support every environmental initiative that we possibly can, they all require resources.
(12:22):
And so it's, and sometimes it means that you're having to choose between two good environmental initiatives and prioritize.
And oftentimes that ends up meaning that you've got a group of activists or supporters or others who feel like you have either left an opportunity on the table or you're turning your back on something that's really important to them.
(12:50):
And so that is one of the hardest parts of this job is using good judgment to try to understand how am I going to create the greatest possible good for the greatest number in my limited capacity as a decision maker.
And at the same time, recognizing that you do try to want to live to fight another day too.
(13:10):
Ryan, you're making me think about, is it also hard to practice curiosity when you campaigned on a certain issue and then to practice curiosity once you're in office about the other side or different perspectives on that issue that you campaigned and you feel committed to the public because that's what you campaigned on.
(13:30):
Is that hard?
It is.
You know, one of the tropes in politics that I hate is this notion of a flip-flopper.
And both sides are guilty, certainly, of kind of casting their opponents as a flip-flopper.
(13:53):
But when facts change, if your mind doesn't change to accommodate new facts, then you're just an ideologue.
Another word for a flip-flopper is somebody who came to understand or circumstances changed and so their previous position no longer is the right one and they need to change to align with reality.
(14:17):
And so, yeah, there are times when you come in having taken a position on something and then you realize you were wrong and it's time you need to change your mind.
And I think that supple mind is sorely missing in politics.
We need to be willing to not only say, I was wrong before or things have changed since I took that position and I need to be able to take a new position, but also to laud folks who are courageous enough to do that.
(14:48):
Yes, because it actually could be harder to admit that we've changed our mind than to hold fixed to what we said we were going to do.
At Curiosity Base, we like to suggest reframes and these are just different ways of thinking about something.
So you could say, is that person determined or are they being adaptive?
Because they're actually both, right?
(15:09):
And so let's go to the next question, which is about how do you encourage people to practice curiosity at work?
And so you've already talked about PNNL and the skunk work.
So now I actually want to hone in on your work at the Port of Seattle, especially as an elected official, because we have had public servants interviewed on this podcast and they talk about it's hard in a political environment to practice curiosity and it's particularly hard with power dynamics.
(15:41):
So how do you as an elected official still encourage curiosity for those who feel that they have a lot less power than you?
I think the most important element of this is that understanding that when you are in the spotlight, that is not a moment to make public grievances of frustration with co-workers or subordinates.
(16:11):
And instead, to figure out moments in one-on-one conversation to guide, to critique, but fairly.
But in the public sphere, you really do need to present.
(16:31):
You are representing the institution.
And so, you know, I think critique privately and thank publicly is kind of a good way to think about how to protect the...
I mean, I just think about the public servants at the Port of Seattle.
These are earnest, hardworking folks who are...
(16:52):
They know more about their particular subject matter than I will ever, ever know.
And so while it is important for me to ask hard questions and to balance the needs of that particular subject matter versus another one, at the end of the day, you need to give that person the benefit of the doubt that they are doing their earnest best to provide you with the information or the leadership or programmatic resources that are necessary for a particular thing.
(17:23):
And so be very gracious and appreciative in public and take private moments to critique, I would say.
Ryan, I hadn't thought about it that way, but that is such a great way to frame that, to have those moments of critique or even just probing.
Sometimes probing deep questions could come off as critique.
(17:46):
And I can imagine that if you do that in public, then that person might think, oh, I shouldn't take that risk again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think you're right.
You have the two very different workforces.
And at PNNL, you said, was it 6,500?
6,500 people?
And has it stayed steady or has it declined or increased in terms of the number over the years?
(18:13):
It's been steady growth.
There's been a couple of sort of step changes in our history.
Most recently, we're funded kind of under two buckets of the federal government, the Department of Energy and also the various departments of defense, homeland security, folks who are engaged in things like protecting national infrastructure.
(18:39):
So you can imagine all the uses under our nuclear expertise.
And in each of those, it's roughly half and half.
But in each of those, there has been periods where the US government has decided we need to expand our capacity to study these things.
So you can imagine post 9-11, there was a very significant interest in radiochemistry because they needed to track dirty bombs around the world.
(19:06):
And so PNNL, as one of the nation's premier radiochemistry laboratories, saw a significant increase in its budget at that point.
And we have recently benefited in the renewable energy and energy efficiency space because of the, I call them Bill and Ira, the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act, which kind of supercharged US industry and research around the move toward the green economy away from fossil fuels.
(19:37):
So we've had a pretty significant increase in overall staffing as a result of those moments in US history.
So I would think of scientists as naturally curious.
And so my question is, how do you interview, how do you recruit to ensure that the people who are going to be coming on board are curious?
(19:58):
What's your favorite technique to gauge for that?
Well, at the labs, I get to participate in some of the HR processes, mostly related to people who are not scientists.
Actually, I do some of the recruiting for those of us who are science communicators.
(20:20):
And so I definitely think we love when we get to connect with polymaths, right?
With folks who seem to have, are just brilliant in their subject matter expertise.
Maybe they also are a chess champion outside of work.
Maybe they build boats, just like they seem to just have that kind of insatiable desire to learn.
(20:44):
That, you have to be really careful when you're interviewing somebody about what you're allowed to ask.
You can't ask if you have kids, you can't ask questions that might inadvertently inform you of areas that you have to be careful about.
And so I have in my interviewing history, I've learned to probe in other ways to try to figure out what is really your passion?
(21:11):
What drives you as a person?
And so sometimes I'll just ask the question, if I just were to bump into you on a Wednesday night or a Saturday morning, where might I find you?
And I love the responses I get from that question, because it does typically go to, what is their raison d'etre?
What is the thing that when they wake up in the morning, they're really excited to think or talk or engage in?
(21:33):
And so I find that question to be particularly helpful.
And also when the answer comes back, they stumble with it.
It does genuinely make me concerned that maybe they don't have that kind of curiosity or a passion.
So interviewing for that passion, what do they do on a regular weekday outside of their work?
(22:00):
You know, we're sleeping a third of our life, we're working a third of our life.
What are you doing that other third of your life?
And by the way, I never heard of that as a function, science communicators.
I just learned something new about a role.
Ryan, I can't help but ask, just because you said, you told me earlier that you were also the chief HR officer when you were running the gym.
Is it different?
Did you interview different people?
(22:21):
That was actually at the, I ran and I had an important distribution company for 12 years from kind of early 2000s to mid 2010s that overlapped a little bit with the gym.
But that was a much larger enterprise.
And so I hired about one person a month on average in that role.
(22:43):
When you were looking for curiosity, what did you look for?
What was the technique you used back then?
Or is it the same one that you use now?
Well, it was that question.
I first, I came up with that question when I was hiring for that.
I had read a book about how useless, it was based on some research by Danny Kahneman, how useless so much of the HR entry process is.
(23:06):
And so I just had, and I was using every one of those things.
So I cut all that stuff out.
I created a really objective process as objective as I could get before we ever interviewed anyone.
So I wanted there to, I wanted to cut out biases and subjectivity as much as possible and not rely on things like first impression to make final hiring decisions.
(23:31):
And so that by the time somebody came in, we were pretty certain we were going to hire them.
And it was more like a chance for them to vet us.
And so in that process, I always felt like I kind of knew whether, I mean, it was within 30 seconds, you would get a sense of whether, we wouldn't have said this then, but was the vibe off?
(23:57):
But it was almost like the first step in the onboarding process.
By the time they came in for an interview, we were going to answer any questions they had for them, get them to walk through the place, see if they really wanted to work with the actual team that we had, that kind of stuff.
So at that point, we had already asked the questions around passions and work history and that kind of stuff.
(24:25):
So making sure that they would want to work with you as much as you would want to work with them too.
I will say one other attribute that was a sort of non-negotiable for us, and I don't think this is true for every organization, but at least for every organization that I participated in leadership in, is kindness.
(24:47):
And I think for me, that's a non-negotiable because that ability to feel safe in a workplace is so important to my leadership style.
I want people to be able to trust that they're going to be treated with respect in their workplace, no screaming, a general sense that this is a person that I wouldn't mind spending eight hours a day, five days a week with.
(25:14):
And so that, I think, it's one of the ingredients in the recipe for me for successful workplace culture.
Curiosity and kindness.
So Ryan, last question, what resource, where do you go to inspire curiosity in your own life that can be outside of work?
(25:36):
This was a tough question, in part because I don't want to sound trite and be like, oh, I'm a voracious reader.
And I love some of the examples I've heard in previous instances, but I kept returning to this thought that isn't necessarily a cultural or literature resource, but instead it's the opportunity I've had, particularly in the port role, to work with young people.
(26:08):
And part of the reason, and I had this experience just this last Wednesday night, it was kind of a rough week, and I had an opportunity to go and meet with roughly 50 young people, all from immigrant families, many of whom were undocumented.
And I went into it nervous that current events would have them in a really, feeling a lot of anxiety or dread, and instead what resulted was a conversation in which they were sharing their aspirations, they were, they just demonstrated this grit that was so empowered.
(26:54):
I came out of the meeting feeling so hopeful and rejuvenated, I mean literally rejuvenated, feeling younger again, surrounded by these young people who were just, they would run through walls to get that higher education that they're aspiring to, to be able to find a job that can support their family, to be able to pursue their passion, to do things like they just, to be able to travel.
(27:21):
And so for me, and that has consistently been the case for me as a commissioner, that I regularly get opportunities to work with young people who are, you know, whether it's K-12 students who are interested in learning more about aviation or maritime, or college students who are interning at the port, or early career folks who are just beginning to kind of cut their teeth in an industry.
(27:46):
That for me has regularly been the source of inspiration and new ideas and a sort of antidote to the cynicism that we all get when we spend a lot of time working in a system and have had our share of no's, you know, that for me has continued to be a resource that seems like a well that never runs dry.
(28:14):
Ryan, you're really lucky.
I am.
You're really lucky that the people you serve also inspire you and inspire you that what is possible, that there are so many possibilities that in times when we think that there might not be hope, there is hope.
For sure.
Thank you for sharing that.
(28:34):
Yeah, I mean, that, that gratitude is something we wrap up with every night at our dinner table with the kids, everybody's sharing something they're grateful for.
And, and I don't have to fake it.
I am truly grateful for the charmed life that I've lived, for sure.
So right, how do people get in touch with you?
Best way is just to, you can email me at the Port of Seattle, which is my last name.
(28:59):
So calkins.r@portseattle.org
And if it, if that gets caught in the spam filter, feel free to find me on LinkedIn too.
I check that pretty regularly.
So, and that's just my first and last name.
So, and I absolutely will answer your emails.
That's one thing.
I don't get deluged like some electeds do.
(29:22):
So if you, if you have any questions, you just want to do an informational interview about the Port of Seattle, or you went to the airport and the bathrooms weren't clean.
Let me know.
I'm sincerely happy to, to field those questions too, so.
Ryan, thank you so much.
Thank you so much for your service to our community and listeners continue to practice curiosity in the world.
(29:48):
Thank you, Julie.
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