Translating council values, quality-of-life expectations, and community outcomes into organizational action plans is the hallmark of excellent local government managers and a key component of good governance.

Fostering a culture within the organization that focuses on these plans and builds capacity is especially valuable. When coupled with mid-level/next-generation training and succession planning, a strong foundation for true high performance is built.

I recently experienced this type of organization firsthand in Durango, Colorado. City Manager Ron LeBlanc and the management team, which includes his assistants Sherri Dugdale and Mary Beth Miles, convert the results of the council’s hard work at its retreat into specific programs for the organization to accomplish, complete with milestones and deadlines.

They convey this spreadsheet as an information document to councilmembers to keep them updated, but importantly, do not ask them to approve it. These are activities within the purview of the staff to take or that lead to action items that will ultimately appear on a formal council agenda.

Building Organizational Support

In order to improve organizational aptitude and to gain the largest possible amount of internal support for this process, they have also created what they call their “core team.” This is a group of some 30 individuals—just under 10 percent of the employees—drawn from all departments. With a nice mix of tenured and relatively new employees, the core team has these objectives:

• Turn city council’s vision and executive team objectives into action.
• Enable the executive team to achieve a high level of performance.
• Facilitate communication flow—up and down.
• Create a depth of leadership and understanding citywide.
• Build interdepartmental relationships.
• Contribute to succession planning.
• Enhance effectiveness through streamlining.
• Eliminate duplication.
• Build and support initiative-taking by employees.

As part of the combined executive team—largely the chief management officer and department heads—and the core team retreat this year, a process was used to clarify expectations from all parties: what the core team needed from the city manager and executive team; what the city manager needed from the executive team and the core team; and what the executive team needed from the city manager and core team.

Designed to be semi-anonymous (no one was required to take ownership of any of the stated needs), the results were used to conduct a series of conversations ultimately leading to a list of agreements among the parties.

Fabulous Leadership Example

While this type of open and transparent process might seem to have an element of risk for the city manager, it also demonstrates a commitment to make personal changes in response to organizational performance needs. Despite best intentions, front-line supervisors and employees rarely get to see or interface as much as they would like with the manager.

And, as can be expected, in the absence of information or firsthand knowledge, it is easy for rumors and misperceptions to flourish.

No matter how many memos or e-mails are sent, cascading council outcomes into organizational activities is always a challenge. Opening up pathways for the employees—who actually end up doing the work—to have input into the process builds individual as well as institutional capacity.

It sets a fabulous example of leadership. LeBlanc puts it this way: “We are only as competent as our people enable us to be, so in Durango, we want to seek every mechanism that encourages that competency. If that means I need to do something different or better, then I am certainly willing to do so. But first I have to know what that is.”

With this type of top-to-bottom leadership, Durango often performs at a level that belies its population (18,000) or employee head count (320). By comparing itself to organizations significantly larger, the execution and implementation bar is set intentionally high, and employees stretch to reach it.

As councilmembers see this high level of performance, they are more willing to invest their energies in the job that only they can do, which is developing outcomes, and allow the city manager and staff to manage the activities necessary to bring these outcomes to fruition.

Here is the process that Durango uses:

• Conduct a regular council retreat that leads to consensus on key outcomes.
• Develop organizational priorities that lead to the accomplishment of or progress toward these outcomes.
• Involve as many parts of the organization as practical in this staff process.
• Keep the council informed, without ceding operational decisions to them.
• Be willing to challenge the manager’s own assumptions about his or her value-add to the process.
• Build organizational capacity and grow future leaders within the team.
• Check in regularly to make sure perceptions reflect reality.