Oberlin City Manager Report from #ICMA Conference Day 4

Bonjour and bienvenue for my final conference report.

The day started early with a discussion with the ICMA Executive Director and others who are in their first positions as City Manager's. All found the conference helpful and ICMA as an organization. It is helpful to build a network of fellow City Managers encountering similar circumstances in their first CM post.

Next, I participated in a session entitled Moving from Color Blind to Color Rich. We all need to be aware of the "primal reactions" and "cognitive shortcuts" that cause unintentional bias because "even if one's explicit beliefs change, the cultural residue may persist in memory and continue to influence behaviour." I picked up a number of tools and training materials we can use in Oberlin.

The conference ended with remarks by organizational health expert Linda Duxbury and installing the new ICMA President Darnell Earley of Saginaw, MI (the second African American ICMA president ... the first was Sy Murray). Darnell gave an inspiring address on the importance of supporting the City Management profession, continuing our professional development, participating in ICMA on committees, mentoring others and caring and supporting our families.

Ms. Duxbury addressed City Managers on the trends in human resources and increased demands on employees and managers due to recessions, cutbacks, etc. She reminded us that our competitive advantage is our people and we need to support them and avoid burnout from doing more with less.

I return to Oberlin tomorrow evening.

Oberlin City Manager Report from #ICMA Conference Day 3

Bonjour Oberlin: Yesterday's sessions at the ICMA Conference began with Alice Rivlin addressing City Managers about the economy. She told us one reason the current recession in the US won't turn into another great depression is that many reforms were put into place after the Great Depression. These include Social Security, unemployment insurance and the deposit insurance program. The big hole in the current recession is health care. She advocates adopting universal healthcare now, not to help in the current recession, but to protect Americans in the next recession. As the conference is taking place in Canada, she noted that for the most part Canada weathered the financial crisis better than the US because of its healthcare system.

Ms. Rivlin went on to say that Americans are saving more now. This is good overall, but it will take the economy more time to recover as those dollars are being spent. She also noted that inflation is not a concern during the recovery, but future deficits are a concern.

Next I attended a session on performance measurement. Examples of communities doing it right are Coral Springs, FL (Baldridge Award winner) and Kitchener, ON. Key excellence indicators for a Baldridge award winner:

• Fact-based decision making
• Collection of actionable data
• Consistent use of multipurpose aligned and interlinking measures
• Wide deployment and accessibility of data and information

Collecting performance data should be part of the daily work of the organization. Why bother? The data reveals the values of the organization, motivates behaviour, and identifies ways to learn.

Another session focused on resource sharing amongst local governments. Such sharing can range from mutual aid to full consolidation ... and everything in between. Often the impetus is greater efficiency and effectiveness. Key success factors from one study include:

• Equitable distribution of benefits and costs
• Clear purpose
• History of trust and cooperation between staff in participating organizations and at the political level.

Well, I am off to a 7:15 breakfast meeting. More later!

Oberlin City Manager Report from #ICMA Conference Day 2

David Suzuki spoke this morning regarding sustainability. Too many people are focused on the economy right now he noted. However, the economy, healthcare, the environment and energy supply are all intertwined and can only be addressed together.

Humans are different from other animals in our ability to exercise foresight, so we need to make decisions today based on what we can foresee coming. Unfortunately, there is so much conflicting data and opinions that is makes it easy for everyone to disagree and do nothing.

Learned about the kitchen composting project from Westmount, Quebec. 4700 residential units are now participating. So far it is a costly program and they are having problems with squirrels and contamination.

Human Resources for Small Cities panel recommends cities conduct an FLSA audit. Helps to prevent law suits, prepare for contract negotiations and learn if employees are working out of class.

The attributes of a High Performing City Council includes:

• Willingness to address different issues
• Ability to address different issues
• Quality of partnership with staff

It is important to orient new Councilmembers, to hold a goal setting retreat and to let the City Council manage itself.

More tomorrow from the ICMA Conference in Montreal. Bonsoir!

Oberlin City Manager Report from ICMA Conference Day 1

Day 1 of the #ICMA Conference was a full day that wrapped up with a stirring presentation by keynote speaker John Hope Bryant.

John reminded us City Managers we are in the business of keeping small promises to the many residents of our community. And, he said, life, particularly in city management, is about hits and bunts, not homeruns. His main message was that we are not in the midst of a recession, but a reset. Accordingly, future prosperity will not look like it did in the past.

My morning began with a session on emotion intelligence and how city managers and city councils need to utilize our emotional intelligence to serve our communities. It is important for city managers to stand on our principles, but sit on our ego. As many issues become loaded with emotion, our ability to exercise self-control, with a sense of calm empathy is important to help guide our community.

The midday session was on how to make use of social networking tools to improve communication and decision-making in our communities. It is important to understand how Twitter, blogging and Facebook can be an additional tool in reaching segments of our community, but not replace traditional media and communications tools.

Tomorrow:

Kitchen Composting Collection, HR Issues for Small Communities, and more...

Bonjour: I am the #ICMA Conference:  The first session this morning will be on Manager/Council relations.  Following that, a special workshop on Community Building.  More later. 

ICMA Conference

On Saturday, I leave for the ICMA conference and will be posting to the blog during the five day conference. Stay tuned.