New Perspective

I became a City Manager because I wanted to make sure that government was doing what I thought it should be doing. Wow, twenty five year's later my perspective has changed. I have adapted to my environment and discovered that there was more than just me that had to be considered.
The first five years on the job were spent learning how to get things done. Government spends as much time slowing the process down as the private sector spends speeding them up. The budget, notices, permits and meetings take time - a lot of time and the processes aren't necessarily intuitive from the cost effective point of view. For some reason, every person in the city thinks they should be notified and given an opportunity to comment.
The project priority system and financing don't function on a direct revenue generation system. Even though you know that the street floods because of inadequate storm sewer and destroys public and private property does not mean the project will be done because it affects a limited number of members within the community and the taxes raised don't have to be spent on the problem.
Fortunately, I had some mentors who were willing to help.
The next five years are about assessing what went right and figuring out how much was screwed up the first five years and fixing the problems. This involves trying to bring the organization along with you after the first five years. You also begin to understand the other players in your environment and how to effectively interact with them.
Now I'm settling in and starting to become effective and then I take another job. But, now I have certain skills that make this new job easier and the most important is the desire to continue learning.