122 – Are we really that ‘special and different?’ The answer: ‘No’.

Posted on June 23, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Whistler 340 words

Really, what is all this nonsense? (more nonsense here and here) Ratepayers pay their money for efficient and effective services. They don’t care about all the other stuff and they don’t want a relationship with the Council, council officers or their councillors. They just wish that it all worked really well. For me, this Thinkpurpose.com post says it all.

While councils mess around wasting time exploring their differences and putting effort into looking different to their neighbours – nothing like a new livery and big signs at all city entrances to add value for the ratepayers – and not agreeing with neighbours about regional initiatives just for the sake of it (‘we can’t share their facilities, they’re from the other side of the river!’), they will never get it right.

People just want consistent services, wherever they live. When you move homes to another suburb, why should you have to learn a whole lot of new systems to get your rubbish collected, or pay your rates, or register your pet? Surely once your pet has been registered, you should be able to live anywhere with it? Why do there need to be different systems for taking rubbish away? The bins all look the same (actually, they are often different colours to show they are from somewhere special!).

Even within councils, more emphasis on being similar and the same instead of special and different would help. How many people at the council do you have to contact to register your name for paying rates, joining a club, registering your dog, paying a fine? Every department seems to have its own register of people it deals with. How many times has someone from the council come to your home for one purpose and when asked about something else they say ‘I am sorry, I can’t help you with that. That’s another department’.

Come on. People at the council are just more faceless people in the life of most residents. They don’t want a relationship. They don’t want to spend money on frills. They just want services to be delivered efficiently and effectively. The two eff words we don’t like to use.

120 – Captain Council discovers a superpower – BFV.

Posted on June 18, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Linda Perkin 750 words

In the first instalment, Captain Council cast the management alchemy spell, only to immediately fall unconscious to the ground. Awakening some time later, he rushes to that evening’s council meeting ….

Taking his seat, Captain Council looked around the chamber. The usual crew were present. All of the councillors were in their usual positions, watching each other warily. The CEO and officers were sitting nervously waiting for business to commence. Perched on chairs at the front of the auditorium were the two regular attendees – like Statler and Waldorf. Continue reading →

119 – Long read: Three recent local government leadership pieces from ACELG, MCC and IBAC.

Posted on June 18, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Colin Weatherby 1450 words

From time to time something worthwhile will be written about leadership in local government. Mostly, what is written is highly aspirational and touching, but not useful. Three recent reports do provide a useful insight into local government leadership.

The first is a report ‘Council approaches to leadership – Research into good practice’, published in April 2015 by the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) and the University of Sydney – Centre for Local Government. It reports on a research project conducted with 8 councils to look at approaches to leadership development identified as ‘good practice’. The aims are to:

Present examples of councils with good practice approaches to in-house leadership development initiatives.
Outline the themes and program structures within the council examples that work well to build the leadership capacity of local government managers.
Provide some practical guidance for local governments in developing their own leadership programs.
Explore some different examples of leadership capability frameworks in use by the sector.

The second report is the ‘Organisational Capability Review’ completed in May 2015 for Melbourne City Council (MCC) by Jude Munro, Dr Bronte Adams and Steve Parker.

“The review is an independent assessment of how the organisation is performing. It examined how the City of Melbourne sets its direction, plans and prioritises, collaborates, manages organisational performance and develops and motivates its people.”Jude Munro AO Dr Bronte Adams Steve Parker

The third report is the ‘Local Government: Review of council works depots’ report completed by the Victorian Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) in May 2015. The review was conducted to identify common vulnerabilities and opportunities to strengthen processes in local government works depots. It looked at four areas of depot management – procurement; management of bulk consumables; management of small plant and equipment; and leadership and culture.

What do they tell us that is useful?

118 – Improving service operations. Why it doesn’t happen in local government.

Posted on June 16, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Whistler 500 words

I have read Lancing Farrell and Colin Weatherby’s posts on characteristics of demands, redesigning operations and improving service operations through action plans and service redesign, with some interest. It is all good stuff and not too difficult to understand or do. The question I ask myself is why I don’t see it happening everywhere across the sector. The ‘special and different’ posts partially explain it but I think there is more to it.

To begin with, the motivation to make improvements doesn’t really exist. People say they want to improve the quality of services to their community, and in response to threats like rate capping they say they want to be more efficient. But they don’t really want to do either.

Most councils have the potential to improve productivity by 10-15% (more in some councils). Continue reading →

117 – ‘Captain Council’. A local government superhero.

Posted on June 15, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Linda Perkin 670 words

Introducing our newest superhero ‘Captain Council’. When writing something recently, I found myself asking ‘What would Arnie do?’ Arnold Schwarzenegger’s response to a situation has become something of a yardstick. It made me think that what we really need in local government is our own yardstick – what would ‘Captain Council’ think or do?

There is always a back story. Here goes.

Captain Council is a former council manager who sought election to his local Council to improve services.

In his job he had been marginalised for constantly focussing on how work could be done better. His continual efforts to get everyone else to think differently and challenge the status quo created enemies amongst those in the organisation who were threatened by change. These people criticised him to higher authority (behind his back) and diminished his career prospects to limit his influence. Higher office seemed the only way forward.

Elected at his first attempt, Captain Council (not yet a superhero) relished the opportunity to make things better. Continue reading →

116 – Are we really that ‘special and different?’ Another answer: ‘Yes, of course’.

Posted on June 15, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Parkinson 450 words

It has been a while since I posted but I couldn’t resist this topic. I appreciate the views put forward by Lancing Farrell and they have merit. But, from my point of view it is obvious why councils are different and should remain different.

Councils need different capabilities to serve their communities. These capabilities have often been developed over time in response to drivers evident to community leaders. For example, provide excellent customer service in delivering basic services to an affluent and demanding community; be able to build new infrastructure quickly and well to meet the needs of a rapidly growing peri-urban council – with limited resources; make sure that ageing facilities are cared for to protect their cultural values in a heritage place.

The leadership of every community will be different. Continue reading →

115 – Roadmap, recipe or game plan. Does it matter which metaphor you use?

Posted on June 11, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Whistler 360 words

There are various metaphors for organisational strategy in circulation. The idea that it is a road map for a journey to a predetermined destination undertaken in a car while watching the dashboard (to know the car is working properly) is popular. One I was less familiar with is Norton and Kaplan’s cooking metaphor.

They describe an on organisation is an assemblage of ingredients brought together to make a meal. Making the meal requires raw materials (ingredients), tangible capital and assets (cooking implements, an oven), and intangible human assets (the chef). A great meal requires a recipe to take advantage of these tangible and intangible assets. The recipe transforms assets that each has standalone value into a great meal with greater combined value. The recipe corresponds to an organisational strategy that combines resources and capabilities to create unique value.

Another metaphor that I relate to is the game plan. Continue reading →

114 – Classic paper: ‘Forget your people – real leaders act on the system’. John Seddon.

Posted on June 11, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Colin Weatherby 2200 words

John Seddon won the first Harvard Business Review/ McKinsey Management Innovation Prize for ‘Reinventing Leadership’ in 2010 for this paper. The prize was awarded for:

“ … the best story (a real-world case study of management innovation) or hack (a bold idea for tackling a critical management challenge) around … redefining the work of leadership, increasing trust (reducing fear), and taking the work out of work.”

As the title suggests it is a provocative paper. In his usual way, Seddon provides challenging ideas supported by practical evidence.

The context for the story is Owen Buckwell, the head of housing at Portsmouth City Council in England. Over 40,000 people rely on him for warm, safe and comfortable homes. Each year he is responsible for dealing with 17,000 blocked toilets and 100,000 dripping taps in the 17,000 council houses.

Owen has been managing housing for 6 years. Seddon describes him as a curious man who likes to get to the bottom of things.

What does Owen do?

112 – Are we really that ‘special and different?’ An answer: ‘Yes, but’.

Posted on June 9, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Lancing Farrell 400 words

This question was posted a week or so ago and readers and writers were asked to respond. One reader responded (see comments below original post). Here is my go at a response.

I am not a big fan of ‘yes, but’. In this case it is a useful way to respond to this question.

‘Yes’, of course every community is different – different people, different landscape, different housing. I could go on. These differences are important in determining the exact nature of the role each local government should play and the services they should provide. I wrote about this some time ago. Understanding these differences is critical to getting the public value proposition right and creating the value expected by the community.

I suppose the ‘but’ bit is about how the organisation responds to these differences. Because each community is different, does each organisation serving them need to be different? Continue reading →

111 – High performance: ‘The Best and the Rest’. Claudio Fernández-Aráoz.

Posted on June 5, 2015 by lancingfarrell

Posted by Colin Weatherby 560 words

This is the title of a chapter in Fernández-Aroáz’s book ‘It’s not the How or the What but the Who’. It discusses the difference between a typical worker and a highly productive worker. I was surprised at the differences in performance between the best and the rest.

Fernández-Aráoz says that a ‘star’ worker in simple jobs, for example an assembly line, and a ‘typical’ worker is about 40%. The distribution of performance follows a normal distribution, or bell curve. The distance between the best and the rest grows quickly with increasing complexity of work. He cites a top life insurance salesperson as being 240% more productive than an average salesperson, and star software developers outperforming others by 1,200%. Continue reading →

Local Government Utopia

Two hundred and fifty (or so) opinions, essays and observations

Category Archives: leadership