This afternoon, I had the chance to hear Martin Linsky, an adjunct lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard, speak at the President's Colloquium.

He was a riveting speaker, full of terrific dry humor and rapid-fire one liners.  He is undoubtedly wise and unquestionably insightful.  It was clear from the get-go that he was not going to pull any punches, either.  In a refreshing display of authenticity, Mr. Linsky demonstrated that he was not afraid to speak his mind, even when some of his positions might conflict with some managers in the room.

In particular, he raised the point that it may not be the job of the manager to provide the right answer.  Rather, it was our job to help provide our councils with a roadmap to navigate through whatever problems are facing the community.  At first, this ruffled the feathers of my inner manager.  Generally speaking, those in city management are fixers by nature, and so the idea of not being responsible for the "right answer" felt at odds with my preconceptions.

However, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. 

Dan Pink's keynote presentation this morning described the idea of making an "off ramp" to help guide the actions of others.  That is, when people are presented with a well thought out, detailed solution which solves one of their problems, they're frequently inclined to take them.  You may not always be able to compel or coerce someone into a course of action, but you'll often have success by making a certain course of action as convenient as possible to take.

And, really, that's what Mr. Linsky was saying.  You aren't always in a position to direct the flow of events.  As a younger career professional, I rarely have the ability to use straight-line authority.  At best, my authority is more of the "dotted line" variety, and a lot of the time, I don't even have that.  In order to get anything done, I have to build these "off ramps" for those up the food chain from me, and be accepting of whatever they decide to do.

Pretty good lessons for the future, huh?

Mr. Linsky also had some great nuggets (paraphrased below).  Guys, if you haven't had the occasion to hear him speak, you really owe it to yourself to do so.  It's such a refreshingly unique point of view. 

                "People don't resist change, they resist loss."

                "You can't expect people to do the same thing as you for the same reasons as you."

                "Predictability is an asset to management, but a liability to leadership."

Kudos to Bonnie Svrcek for the outstanding choice for the President's Colloquium.  It is hearing the caliber of speaker which makes the ICMA Annual Conference such an outstanding event, year in and year out.

Good night, and see you all tomorrow!

-mm