The “I” in ICMA has been part of ICMA’s DNA for 90 of its 100 years. That dimension sets it apart from our sister organizations round the globe and to the great benefit of all our members. ICMA has brought great value to its international members and also to numerous places around the world that have looked to our association to learn and apply the value of professional local government.

ICMA does great good for local government in the United States and around the world in dozens of countries, especially since Orin F. Nolting made international relations and expansion of the city manager form of government to other countries an ICMA priority in the mid-1950s.

As international members, we have been made more than welcome and been accepted as equals in our great profession. What members, including myself, have gained will of course differ from one person to the next. What follows is a personal international perspective on the value of ICMA, including a moment of truth that really crystallized it for me.

Paramount Importance of the Code

Many years ago at one of the first ICMA Annual Conferences I attended, a keynote speaker said that, "Text without context is pretext." I’ve never forgotten it and regularly chant it at our senior management meetings. So what's my context?

Some people have trouble holding down a job. Mine is holding down a country. I have served as a city or county manager in three countries, starting off in my native New Zealand, then New South Wales (NSW) in Australia, followed by three years in the United Kingdom (UK), then back to Australia and to who knows where next?

I've been a member of the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers (SOLGM), Local Government Managers Australia (LGMA), and the UK’s Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE).

The one constant through that time is that I have been an active and long-serving member of ICMA, and was especially proud to be its president in 2005–2006. There is, however, a marked difference between the ICMA professional organization and those cited above.

It's the ICMA Code of Ethics. Make no mistake. Some of our sister organizations have them as well. The difference is that they are used more as guides to behavior, rather than as tools for both encouraging ethical behavior and more importantly, calling recalcitrant members to account.

The more I have become involved in ICMA and particularly through membership of its executive board, the better I have understood the paramount importance of the code to our profession, and its compelling moral suasion in driving what we do in our professional lives.

An Enduring Influence

Here's some additional context. In NSW, corruption in public organizations is sadly a regular feature of public life. Set up some 20 years ago, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) investigates serious allegations of public corruption, including allegations about public hearings, and makes findings of fact that in some cases lead to criminal prosecutions.

This is not some public body that is called into occasional action. It is a full-time agency with 100 staff members, a budget of more than $20 million, and a regular provider of compelling drama for the media and the public alike.

Local government is one of its targets. Even so, professional associations—except in the more extreme cases—do not tend to take a lead or be active in promoting ethical behavior but rather have a stronger focus on professional and personal development.

With ICMA, of course, it's different. Its regular inculcation of the importance of the Code of Ethics and the concomitant need to call to account those who contravene its tenets has been a powerful and enduring influence on our profession and on us as members of it.

That's because it reinforces the value base that drives how we do our jobs, rather than just focusing on professional knowledge and skill. A question worth asking is, how can we imbue the international membership with the same sense of the paramount importance of the Code of Ethics?

That said, ICMA is undoubtedly the best source of professional knowledge and skill about our profession. That was brought home to me when I attended my first ICMA Annual Conference at Fort Worth, Texas, in 1990 as part of a manager exchange with Lee Walton, then city manager of Antioch, California.

Until then, going to the annual SOLGM conference in New Zealand was the highlight of my professional year. Our attendances were in the low hundreds, as befitting a country of some three million people, 30 million sheep, and 78 local governments.

In Fort Worth, I felt like a kid stepping into a management sweet shop, not knowing what to taste first. It was love at first sight. The sheer size and scale of the conference was something I simply hadn't contemplated.

Not only that, the array of choice and the excellence of the speakers and presenters, both then and since, far outweighed anything I had ever experienced.

An excitable exaggeration perhaps, but the key point endures. There is no better annual conference on professional local government management than ICMA's. It's why I have only missed four since that first one in Texas.

A Lifetime Network

As the years have rolled by, the annual conference has come to mean more to me than the chance to learn and be astounded by what it has to offer. It's also the chance to catch up with valued colleagues who have now become firm lifelong friends. It's also the time when my partner Lyn and I take a good part of our holidays to revisit favorite parts of this great nation, as well as find new places to explore.

Obviously, my connection with ICMA has been a life-changing one. Stepping outside the comfort of my own country has been a huge part of my personal growth and learning, both as a professional local government manager and as a person.

I'd encourage my American colleagues to take the opportunities that ICMA has to offer you in seeing and understanding how local government works in other parts of the world. If my example is anything to go by, you too will be richly rewarded by what you see, learn, and experience.

Speaking Truth to Power

Let me conclude with the personal moment of truth I referred to earlier.

My mayor is an extremely forthright person. You'll never die wondering what she's thinking. As you would expect from someone whose mother also served on my city council and who herself was a member in the NSW State Parliament before joining the Shellharbour City Council, politics is in her blood.

When she was elected mayor by her fellow councillors, I found myself dealing with someone who is savvy, determined, knows what she wants, and is still learning the meaning of the word “no.” My regular interactions with her are vigorous and robust, which is probably why they are also productive and (almost always) amicable.Each year, senior staff and councillors celebrate Christmas with a dinner out at a local restaurant. Last year, the mayor and I were asked to say a few words.

She went first and after thanking everyone present for their efforts over the past year, turned in my direction and said: "Michael, I'd particularly like to thank you. We've had some difficult conversations and disagreements on matters, but I've always appreciated that fact that you are always determined to say and do the right thing and stick to it."

I was stunned. She had said something that I had taken for granted but had never heard it spelled out so plainly and publicly. It was like staring into a full-length mirror.

Now, why did her comments have such an impact on me, and what's the relevance to you as a reader of this article? Doing the right thing is at essence about the way we behave, and in a manager’s case, to comply with ICMA’s Code of Ethics. But for me it also reflects the need to speak truth to power and to give frank and fearless advice when it is needed.

Would this have meant so much to me had I not joined ICMA? I very much doubt it.

Small wonder then that when I heard the plaudit the mayor so kindly paid me this past Christmas, my first reflection was to think of ICMA and the value of doing the right thing—always.