As I sometimes reflect upon my college days, particularly my graduate studies, I do not recall a single discussion, a single concept presented that touched deeply on the subject of trust as an essential element of local governance. There were meanwhile more than an abundance of lectures and assignments that seemed to focus on finance, budgeting, and statistics. However, it seemed that no one was talking, at least in the early ’90s, about how to engender trust with residents. That dearth continued into my early working years when I became an assistant to the mayor and chief administrative officer.

On one occasion, during one of my very first encounters with real residents, I was asked to moderate a meeting with angry residents who were convinced that one of our city’s stormwater conveyance canals was leaking into their basements. The tests the city performed showed that it was not our water seeping into their homes. Because we had introduced dye into our water and the water penetrating the adjacent homes failed to show the dye, we concluded that naturally migrating ground water was likely the culprit. I couldn’t wait to see their faces when I introduced my irrefutable evidence and conclusion.

I began the meeting, overhead transparencies in hand, and introduced our staff and myself. Then I launched into my presentation. To my astonishment, they did not believe me! In fact, many talked over me, interrupted me, and a few actually walked out. Frustrated at one point, I snapped my fingers at one of the residents and insisted, “Hey, I’m talking here!” Despite my best efforts and preparations, the meeting was a complete failure. “How could they refute the evidence?” I muttered as I slinked back to my office. The reality I would learn years later is that it wasn’t about the data. It was about trust. It wasn’t that the information was wrong or that the conclusions were off target. They simply didn’t trust me. Heck, I think I could have told them the sky was blue, and they still probably wouldn’t have believed me.

Jim Collins, in his groundbreaking book, Good to Great, introduces something he dubbed the “Hedgehog Concept.” A Hedgehog Concept is a crystal clear, concise statement that describes in no uncertain terms why an organization exists, and as such sits at the intersection of three conclusions: (1) What you are deeply passionate about, (2) What you can be best in the world at, and (3) What drives your resource engine? 

Collins meanwhile states that the resource engine has three basic components: time, money, and brand. In contrasting that concept with the realities of the social sectors, Collins concludes that, to a large degree, social sector resource engines are fueled by our ability to engender public support. After more than 30 years in the social sector, I believe I’ve seen enough to conclude that what actually drives our resource engine in local government is trust. Without it, the wealthiest communities are left impotent. With it, even poorer communities can do great things.

Our Shared Trust Dilemma

If you’ve been in the local government business for a while, think of that one city. It could be right next to yours, in the general area, or maybe it is yours! Regardless, the community always seems to be in some state of upheaval. Their residents frequently appear to be outraged about this or that, and extremism is everywhere, along with conspiracies galore. There’s a lot of elected and administrative transition, low voter turnout (just the outraged show up to vote), you get the picture. 

All of these symptoms and more are in reality signs of a trust deficit. Actually, more than a few local governments are afflicted by trust deficits. Unfortunately, instead of addressing the root cause—the trust gap itself—they hack at the branches. “Let’s have a citizen appreciation day!” “How about we fire the city manager?” And an oldie but goodie, “Let’s lower the property tax rate!” Disappointment usually sets in when they realize they can’t fill a trust gap with free stuff, throwing money at people, or even offering up a human sacrifice. They must build trust!

It’s not that local governments, compared to the federal and state governments, do all that bad. In fact, according to a Gallup study going all the way back to 1972, local government in the United States stands head and shoulders above its counterparts in terms of its ability to generate trust. Still, it has scarcely in that period of time pierced the 70th percentile. Sadly, about a third of citizens do not trust their local government, meaning they do not have confidence that their local government has the desire and/or capacity to address the issues that they believe are most important to them. That’s why, when it comes to trust, I call local government “the prettiest horse in the glue factory.” We may be better than the federal or state government, but that ain’t sayin’ much. And while we may not be getting much worse, we certainly haven’t been getting better over the last half-century.

As an American people, we have weathered a dozen armed conflicts, four world pandemics, five full-out recessions, a variety of bubble bursts and other economic meltdowns, and a number of national scandals since 1972, but the stats do not appear to support the conclusion that any of these have had a direct impact on trust in local government. Actually, what cities and counties do or don’t do impacts trust more than anything. Certainly, headlines sporting unfortunate incidents in other communities don’t help engender trust in local government; we conclude that to some degree, what happens to one of us impacts all of us. I nevertheless assert that regardless of bad news at home and abroad, regardless of stories coming out of communities far from us or even next door, it is what we are not doing that is perpetuating our chronic trust deficit.

To explain what I am saying here, I have another story. While living in Arizona years ago, I was advised by those who had resided there much longer than our family that termites are simply a reality of living in the Sonoran Desert. In fact, one neighbor told me, “There are two kinds of homes around here: those with termites and those about to have termites.” That would have made a great slogan for an extermination company! Similarly, there are two kinds of cities: those with a trust deficit and those who are actively building trust with their residents. Trust is not static. You are either building it or backsliding into a deficit.

The Crucial Ingredients of Trust

Stephen R. Covey, the late management guru and author, pointed out that trust is generated when trustworthiness and competency collide. In other words, if we want to build trust, we have to show both characteristics. University of Houston researcher and author Brene Brown described trustworthiness like this: “It’s choosing courage over comfort; choosing what’s right over what’s fun, fast, or easy; and practicing your values, not just professing your values.” I have defined trustworthiness as that quality that merits another person’s extension of trust; and that quality entails everything Brene Brown describes. It is an authenticity that people feel when they, as author Simon Sinek describes, perceive that you share their values and have their best interests at heart. Competency, on the other hand, entails caring enough to completely understand a need and then acting upon that understanding with professional will and capability. Competency is not talent or ability alone. If we do not do as Covey counsels, “seek first to understand,” we cannot demonstrate our competency and therefore cannot generate trust.

This concept that trust is the construct or product of both trustworthiness and competency wasn’t an entirely new concept to me when I entered the public sector in 1994. In the 1980s, I had a public relations career going, and the Stephen R. Covey organization was a client of mine. I was therefore well aware of the Covey perspective of trust. However, as absurd as this may seem, once I became engaged in the social sector, at least early on, I failed to be introspective enough to realize that our city might be guilty of the same trust-depleting behavior as the business world had been engaged in for decades. Ironically, it was an experience with the private sector that caused an epiphany.

Those of you who have read my book, Elevating Trust in Local Government, know that I relate a horrific customer service experience in the form of the “Parable of the Chicken Sandwich.” I won’t spoil the story for those who have not yet read it, but the saga involves the efforts of a restaurant manager to force me to accept something that I had not ordered. In fact, nearly the entirety of his energy during that encounter was expended on the exercise of convincing me of the quality of what he had provided, regardless of whether it was wanted.

In the moment, of course, I was not entirely reflective and philosophical about the incident. I just wanted to put as much distance between me and that restaurant as possible. However, much later, a terrible question bubbled to the top. “Could we at city hall be guilty of the same kind of trust-corrosive behavior?” My organizations through the years have always been full of genuine, dedicated, talented people who work hard every day. The vast majority of those with whom I’ve worked have done a superb job in making life better for thousands. This much has never been in question, any more than I questioned the quality of the product the restaurant manager was forcing upon me. The question is often going to be, “Is this what our residents are expecting us to do for them?”

I am afraid that many of our colleagues, as I once did, naively think that an election process largely satisfies the community’s appetite for self-determination and governance. One senior gentleman put it this way to me, “When I was a boy, my older brothers played a game called ‘keep away.’ They’d throw the ball above me and around me, so I couldn’t touch it. Now, every election, it feels like I’m just electing new people to play keep away.” The reality is that many residents want to be involved in defining the future of their community beyond election day. The fact that such an opportunity rarely materializes for them may help explain why voter turnout sits at historic lows.

At the same time, I recall seeing an ICMA State of the Profession report showing that just one-third of the 66% of cities that even have a strategic plan made the effort to involve their residents in that process in any meaningful way. Even fewer have translated their plans into real action. This is why I have been, over the last decade, advocating for a community-based approach to strategic planning. Such an initiative allows us to ultimately demonstrate both essential elements of trust: trustworthiness and competency. As we engage our residents in defining the future of their community, truly listening to what they believe will most likely elevate their quality of life, we most assuredly demonstrate trustworthiness. By then delivering on those expectations, we show our competence. Why would any of us ever distrust a person or institution we knew completely understood our desires and then repeatedly demonstrated a competence in delivering on those expectations?

The Importance of Engaging Your Residents in the Process

I recognize that by exclusively espousing this concept of community-based strategic planning, I may appear myopic and insensitive to the reality that there are other ways to demonstrate both trustworthiness and competency. If so, I apologize. The key isn’t that you take your residents through the next strategic planning process with you. The key to trust building is that you demonstrate trustworthiness and competency to them. It’s just that I haven’t found a more effective exercise for accomplishing this than community-based strategic planning, followed by robust implementation of the plan.

So at this point, it is my hope that we share an understanding that all of us in local government suffer from a trust dilemma; that we are either building trust within our community or that trust is declining; that a trust deficit can manifest itself in a variety of ways that make local governance difficult at best and impossible at worst; and that the best way to build trust is to demonstrate our trust worthiness and competency.

I believe I have also made it abundantly clear that a community-based approach to strategic planning is not the only way to demonstrate both trustworthiness and competency. It is simply the most effective approach I have found so far. Meanwhile, you may ask rhetorically, “Aren’t there cities and counties that enjoy great trust while never having implemented a community-based approach?” While visiting with a city council in Colorado several years ago, I was asked whether it was my opinion that their city ought to scrap their current strategic plan in favor of pursuing a community-based approach. They had described their current plan as the construct or creature of a few councilmembers, senior staff, and a lay citizen. Together they had composed an unambiguous blueprint for their city’s future, complete with goals, metrics, timelines, and strategies. However, beyond a few less-than-well-attended open houses, they had not involved their residents to any great degree in creating the plan.

As I often do when posed with similar questions, I asked a Dr. Phil-style question of my own. “Well, how well is the current plan working for you?” They replied that they felt like it was working well and that surveys showed that their services were appreciated—highly valued, in fact—and that trust was robust. I then answered their question, “Sounds like you’re doing all the right things. I wouldn’t recommend that you throw the baby out with the bathwater. What I would recommend is that the next time you update your plan you consider bolstering resident involvement and input earlier in the process.” There are certainly cities and counties—and you may be currently serving in one—that appear to be doing all the right things. Their residents love their local government, trust is sky high, and life is good. May I first congratulate you if such describes your circumstances, but to you and everyone else, may I suggest a few things.

First, remember that trust is fluid. Nothing in our business is static. We are either building trust or trust is declining. If you’ve been around local government for any appreciable amount of time, you know what I’m talking about. Communities that were once bastions of progress and trust declined into unstable, almost schizophrenic basket cases, and vice versa. It is therefore incumbent upon us to always seek ways to build trust. Second, one can certainly hit the center of a dartboard with eyes shut, but why on earth wouldn’t you prefer to open your eyes before you launched your dart? Wouldn’t you want to maximize the chances that you’ll hit the target?

It has always perplexed me why some cities not only neglect but downright refuse to involve their residents in the strategic planning process. Said one of my colleagues, “It’s not that we haven’t tried to involve our the community in strategic planning. We just haven’t found the exercise fruitful.” I recently heard a resident, if you can believe this, during the public comment portion of a council meeting, as the elected body contemplated a strategic planning initiative, declare, “We’re already heading north, and we don’t need a bunch of residents telling us we ought to be heading south!” Astounding. It’s as though the manager in my parable was telling the girl up front, “Look, they may come in looking for chicken sandwiches, but tell them we’re too busy right now cooking hamburgers.”

You may indeed be able to hit the target of the dartboard with your eyes shut, but you won’t be able to do it repeatedly. And your customers may shut up and eat their burger now, but they won’t do it forever. Therefore, in part two of this article series, I’m going to share a simple approach to strategic planning using methods that I’m sure you’ve already employed. There’s nothing secret or proprietary this approach. In fact, I don’t even claim to have invented it. So, in my next article, I’m going to give you an extremely high-level description.

RICK DAVIS, ICMA-CM, is assistant city manager of League City, Texas, USA. He is the author of Elevating Trust in Local Government: The Power of Community-Based Strategic Planning. (rick.davis@leaguecitytx.gov)