Here is Part 2 of A City Manager’s View of Leadership. Part 1 appears in the preceding post.
On Fostering Economic Development in Janesville [From a public recording of station WCLO of a 7/14/08 citizens’ panel interview of managerial candidates]:
We are very fortunate in this particular state to have a tremendous work ethic, we are very fortunate to have a tremendous, our intellectual capital is pretty outstanding and that obviously comes from our educational systems in this state whether it be, you know, at the local level or the outstanding university system that we have. So I think in a knowledge based economy that we are in today, we need to first really work on the collaborative approaches that we can do with our educational institutions….
The name of the game in today’s economy is continuous learning, and we have to provide our workforce the opportunities, accessible ready resources, for continuous learning. So I think that’s part of it. I’m going to throw out an idea to the Council this afternoon, but maybe creating a Janesville University where you bring the resources of all these great universities that we have nearby maybe right into the community…
On Collaboration & Pronouns [From a public recording of station WCLO of a 7/14/08 citizens’ panel interview of managerial candidates]:
….If I use the term I, I don’t like to use the pronoun ‘I,’ I don’t use that very often, but if I say ‘I’ I am obviously trying to impress you all in what I’ve done, but everything I’ve done is in collaboration, in cooperation, with a lot of good people….”
On Exceptional City Services and President Kennedy’s Inaugural Address [From a public recording of station WCLO of a 7/14/08 citizens’ panel interview of managerial candidates]:
Well, first of all, I think there’s got to be a connection between what the city employees are doing and the larger goal. Let me explain that by telling you a story. I believe in management by metaphor, so I tell a lot of stories because people relate to stories real well.
I always sit down with new employees in the city, I really appreciate and understand the importance of that, and I tell them I might be the city manager but what you do is just as important as what I do. None of us are as important as all of us.
And I tell them a quick story, and I’m going to tell you this quick story. President John F. Kennedy, 1961, Inaugural Address, what did he say? He said we’re going to put a man on the moon, we didn’t have any female astronauts so I apologize for that … [appreciative laughter]… but we’re going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade….
A couple of years later, President Kennedy was going through one of the NASA buildings, and he saw this older man, and he was waxing the floor, the vestibule of the floor, and you could tell that he had great pride in what he was doing. Okay? And President Kennedy came up to this little old man and said, “Boy, thank you for taking care of this building, your doing a wonderful job.” He said [the older man], “Mr. President, I am helping to put a man on the moon.”
That’s what we have to do…
Choosing One’s Words Carefully [From the City Manager’s Weekly Report, 3/7/08, inspiration quotation at the end document]:
“Be careful; think about the effect of what you say. Your words should be
constructive and bring people together, not pull them apart.” -Miriam Makeba
I think this is a good selection of our city manager’s views, and you may find that your own officials have a similar outlook. These are probably the views of many careerist bureaucrats and appointed officials across America. There’s nothing unusual or unique about any of these remarks.
I will post commentary on these views at this same time tomorrow. I will offer, as you can guess, a different perspective – one more rooted in the private and individual than the public and communal.
There is no hurry: our city manager isn’t going anywhere.
Neither am I.
In the meantime, I will post our latest Planning Commission Meeting and latest Common Council meetings, and offer a recap of recent Libertarian Party foolishness politics.
After I post on these manager’s remarks, I will offer a few posts tomorrow on the Constitutional lawsuit against the City of Whitewater in the Meyer case.