By Mitchell Berg and Craig Waldron

Why does incivility pose a concern to managers and their communities? First of all, incivility can lead to an erosion of public trust, resulting in people simply giving up on their government. Ridiculous and rude behavior makes it difficult to maintain a positive perspective of what government can do for its residents. Incivility can also lead to major delays, a decrease in productivity, and a waste of scarce resources.

Unfortunately, incivility also moves a community’s perspective away from the important long-term view to more of a short-term perspective, while redirecting the community’s energy level to putting out the flames of day-to-day brush fires. One can also see the threats of lawsuits that actually surface from uncivil behavior and the respective costs in time and money these lawsuits cause.

Incivility can contribute to low staff morale and high turnover, exacerbating the challenge of encouraging the next generation to consider public service. A community that is affected by a high turnover rate in staff may suffer a loss of institutional knowledge, which can prolong projects or even delay time-sensitive residential and business requests.

Consider a Code of Conduct

What can a management professional do about incivility? First and foremost, a manager can consider a code of conduct for elected officials, staff members, and residents when they are visiting, working, or testifying at city hall. Buy-in to this code is absolutely critical on the part of elected officials, as they need to help establish internal support.

Once a code of conduct is adopted, it needs to be seen as valid and credible by those serving on the governing body, those working for the council, and those who reside in the community. Steps to make any code credible should include having staff model the code of conduct in front of elected officials and residents.

Subsequently, staff members need to provide training on the code to volunteer boards and committees. Local governments and community organizations can adopt a public outreach and engagement effort within their communities to increase awareness about civility. The Speak Your Peace Civility Project (www.dsaspeakyourpeace.org) is one template several local governments in Minnesota and Wisconsin have used to improve both communication and civility.

Skills and Training

Building civility necessitates that a manager encourage elected and appointed officials to attend training. The presiding officer—the mayor or council chair—needs to develop extensive skills in terms of how to run a meeting, how to listen, how to receive testimony, and how to move issues forward in an amicable manner.

This person can make or break the level of civility in a community. When the presiding officer is the one acting uncivil, however, there appears to be few options. One course of action is providing training to all elected officials.

This training would include how to conduct a proper meeting so officials can actually find out how a meeting should be conducted and also learn what they can do if one isn’t. Through training and coaching, they will find out how to effectively control and manage each other when their behaviors lead to incivility.

As a manager, it can be extremely difficult to step in and attempt to influence an elected official’s behavior. That responsibility has to fall to the officials themselves, holding each other accountable.

Managers would do well to enhance their own respective skill levels to better tackle this issue. We suggest skill development in nine areas: listening, conflict resolution, enhancing emotional intelligence, defusing volatile situations, positively flipping dilemmas, staying flexible, becoming a role model, reinforcing civil behavior, and developing trust with elected officials, residents, and staff members.

A Serious Threat

We also want to emphasize that the management profession is extremely concerned about the lack of civility and the threat that it poses for the democratic functioning of our communities.

Every one of us needs to take a look in the mirror and figure out what we can do in all aspects of our lives to encourage civility. Our democratic institutions may depend on it.

Mitchell Berg is an adjunct instructor, Department of Government, Minnesota State University, Mankato, and city administrator, Mahnomen, Minneota (Mitchell.berg@mnsu.edu), and Craig Waldron is a professor, Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota (cwaldron01@hamline.edu), and a former city administrator of Oakdale, Minnesota.