Cheese

The City Manager’s role could be defined as Medium Cheddar which is the area between new and aged cheddar cheese. Mild and Sharp cheeses have completely different tastes, Councils and staffs have completely different roles and views. City Managers are involved in facilitating vision, building community, developing policy concepts, championing ethics and being a social reformer with the council. The City Manager then becomes involved in translating the “policy message” from the Council level into clear, actionable and passionate implementation strategies that align with the staff’s culture, performance targets, output capacity and real-life challenges that staff runs into every day.  You have to be the one that can turn their “I can’t” into “I know how.”  To be translator, advocate, driver, caring mentor, performance monitor, communication specialist, planner, and the thousand other roles necessary to keep two very diverse team elements functioning.

COUNCIL

As with any goal oriented organization, the performance of a municipality is based on its ability to function as a team. The council-manager form of government was designed to blend the political and administrative realms into a team by reducing the system of checks and balances that characterize our state and federal governments, where separation of legislative and executive powers is valued. The relationship between the manager and the elected officials sets a tone for the entire municipality. Although some elected officials prefer to be combative and attempt to frustrate the team relationship between and among members of the council and between the council and the staff, it is critical that the manager prepare the council for this role.

The Council’s role expectations, decision making process and program performance evaluation system will define the quality of the municipal organization. The Council’s roles within an effective team are as political values advocates, policy-makers and feedback system.

Secret Knowledge

Today I read about secret knowledge. I find that secret knowledge and the illusion of knowledge are very similar yet different. The illusion of knowledge is a lack of understanding the facts, secret knowledge is a deliberate ignoring of the facts and or creating stories that project your solution without any intention of using the truth. More information and less fact makes for strange decisions.

Advocate

Political conversations are about "What did you hear?" Frequently this focuses the political conversation on a story. Stories are very important to politics because politics and community building are about values. In the role of advocate, what council members say is often more important to the community than what they know or what they have accomplished. The stories that council members choose are about the values they want to convey to diverse groups throughout the community. That's what stories do. They convey symbolically how people feel and what they value. Staff can write a paper about program accomplishments, or a Council member can tell a story about someone leaning on a shovel. The former is a administrative exercise; the latter is a political one.

Imagine you are a council member who has received a request for a crosswalk from a group of senior citizens living in subsidized housing. They indicate in their handwritten letter that they cannot cross the four-lane street in front of their apartment building to go to the library or the grocery store. The request is processed routinely by the city's traffic engineer. Based on traffic counts, site distances, accident history and other objective criteria in the traffic manual, the engineer recommends against any traffic control at the intersection. So far, this seems like one of those evidenced based decisions typical of good decision making.

Then, you as a council member are invited to the apartment building to meet with the residents. What you learn is the story behind the request. They tell you that for the elderly, dignity is tied to their mobility and independence. Not being able to cross this street confirms their worst fears, and they seem to be asking, "Isn't it appropriate for the city government to help the older citizens in this community maintain dignity in their lives?"

The evidenced based decision just turned political. It's not that the staff was wrong. Their role and orientation are to recommend hard, objective facts instead of sorting out the values. One of the Council members’ roles is to be a values advocate by using the evidence in combination with social values to make a decision reflective of the community.

The example above depicts the differences in politics and administration as contrasting ways of thinking about problems due to differences in logic. Political logic is different than administrative logic, but is just as important. This means that the council’s role of cultural and political values advocate requires a  team problem solving process that allows administration to re-focus on the desired outcome rather than the most efficient outcome.

Illusion of Knowledge

Have you ever been with someone at the coffee shop or restaurant and they knew how to fix a government problem based on their personal knowledge of the subject? They may have read a portion of the local newspaper article or driven by the project and they now understand more about the issue than the engineers, planners and managers who developed the project. The illusion of knowledge is when people mistake their personal knowledge for a deep understanding of the problem.

The "illusion of knowledge" is the when people think they have a better understanding of something than they actually do. This leads them to think they are more skilled or knowledgeable than they actually are and this permits them to have greater confidence about information than the facts justify. Truth is not defined by how many people believe something but by the proper application of fact. Still, people allow superfluous or idiosyncratic knowledge to create a confidence that tends to overrule statistics and facts.

Being a Manager

A Friend sent me this: I once worked for a very talented city manager who lasted 12 years in an environment dominated by two esteemed Greatest Generation council members. The manager was thought highly of by the employees and wanted to raise his large family in a good school system. He had no thoughts of leaving. When his mayor died in office, that last link to a more mature council chamber lasted almost two years, or one election cycle. The manager suffered his first termination in 22 years. From this experience evolved my theory of The Sandbox Syndrome: Our culture may allow people to attain positions of power and authority with the very same emotional tools they had when they were 6 years old and refused to allow the 8-year-olds into their sandbox.

Tis the Season

ELECTION SEASON

With the 2014 election season approaching it is important to remember that City Managers should not use public resources to invite Council members or other city employees to attend political campaigns or meet and greets when requested to do so by third parties, nor should they attend them themselves.   Neutrality is essential.  Attendance to any politically affiliated event portrays a small act of political activity and appearance can display support.  In the election season, it is also not a staff function to research and analyze information generated by third parties on candidates to determine if it’s factual.  We recommend you decline any requests as it, too, is not an appropriate use of public resources (i.e. time). Finally, all that put aside, local government professionals do not lose their right to voice opinion by virtue of the job.  They should refrain from political activities that undermine public confidence in professional administrators.

REPORTING WRONGDOING

There is a cost to silence.  It is better to address concerns peer-to-peer and intervene early for the best possibly outcome.  There is professional accountability to reporting wrongdoing and value in self-policing.  As a City Manager, there is a personal responsibility to prevent damage to the reputation of other professionals and the profession.

JOB HUNTING

When searching for new employment, there are three important actions to abide by:

1.      Create Accurate Resumes: This means including all short tenures, not misstating credentials, and not exaggerating or “hiding” employment history.

2.      Practice Candor: Be forthcoming in your history.  Demonstrate honesty upfront then when a background check has already ensued.

3.      Be a free Agent: You are under no ethical obligation to tell your current employer that you are looking elsewhere.  Nevertheless, do not burn bridges.  It is a courtesy to provide advance notice to them before news begins to leak.

When being offered a new job, do not entertain a counteroffer from your former employer.  It reflect bad form and poorly on the profession.

REAL WORLD ETHICS

ICMA Code of Ethics does not cover spouses.

Remember, while advocating for a candidate may not be allowed, advocating for an issue is.