Leading Courageously in Challenging Times
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.
By Valerie A. Lemmie
April 25, 2019
We are what we
repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
—Aristotle
The Oath of the Athenian
City State challenges public officials to strive for the ideal and sacred
things of the city, both alone and with many. That was my guiding principle as
city manager. I believed it was my responsibility to promote democracy and add
value to public life by leading a well-managed organization that was efficient,
effective and economical.
As fundamental as those principles
are to public management, they are not enough. Too often, public meetings are dominated
by angry citizens shouting insults or special interests monopolizing
discussions. Elected officials often respond to the loudest voices, even if the
voices do not reflect the way most people feel. When citizens are invited to discuss
an important issue, generally nobody shows up except the “regulars.” In other
instances, like the siting of a public facility, people show up but make
unrealistic demands. Whether from apathy, frustration or anger, citizens feel increasingly
alienated from city hall. The growing mutual mistrust between citizens and
governmental institutions robs those institutions of the support they need from
the production of public goods that only citizens themselves can make.
The initial response of most public administrators—especially city managers—is to do more with less, such as reduce taxes or maintain service levels through better management practices and a customer-service orientation. Other approaches include increasing public participation through advisory committees and special initiatives like participatory budgeting; walking neighborhoods with elected officials to see residents’ problems firsthand and advising what the city can do to fix them; demonstrating accountability and responsibility by better reporting on the quality of services provided; and increasing transparency by reporting performance results on a website. Those in city hall often are pleased with what they are doing, but public confidence continues to decline. These trends can be ignored, especially when citizens complain meeting after meeting about problems city hall cannot possibly fix. Yet these wicked problems demand a sustained, comprehensive and expensive response that requires will, resources and commitment where administrators and citizens work together.
When public
administrators understand and define their role as the professional expert, problem solver and individual with all the
right answers, they reduce democracy to voting and jury duty, rather than the more
robust Athenian view of democracy as a form of governance where the people act together collectively to
produce things that make life better for everyone. Citizens working with one another—and
with government—to produce public goods gives a sense of themselves as agents
of democracy who can make a difference, rather than as constituents, consumers
or customers sitting on the sidelines.
What can public
administrators do to increase public trust and engage citizens in solving
problems they care about? How can they engage with citizens but not become
overwhelmed with more demands for city hall to act? How can they tap into the
good works that citizens already do in their communities and then expand that work
into other places or issues? First, public administrators must recognize that
citizens bring something to the table: community resources and civic assets. When
the resources and assets are leveraged with those of public institutions, public
administrators can work on the wicked problems that people care about, not alone
but with many as the Oath of the Athenian State reminds us. The critical next step
is for public administrators to muster the courage to do things differently,
especially in times of political, economic and social uncertainty that fuels
declining public confidence in government.
Challenging times require
local government practitioners to align their professional routines with the
way that citizens in communities work. They must go beyond current engagement
practices to strategies where city hall works more with the public
rather than merely for it. It means overcoming mutual mistrust between
citizens and public officials and enhancing the participatory vibrancy of
citizens to co-produce public goods with government. It means that citizens work
with government to name the issue in
language that identifies what is valuable to citizens; frame the issue so that a range of actions are considered and the
costs, consequences and trade-offs are evident; make decisions through deliberation, identifying trade-offs to turn
hasty reactions into sound judgment; identify
resources available, including intangible ones like commitment, enthusiasm
and local knowledge; organize actions to
address the issue in a complementary fashion with explicit roles for citizens;
and make use of collective learning
to keep the actions going. In so doing, they have a stake in the outcome; it
becomes a shared responsibility between them and government, not the sole responsibility
of the latter.
Working together on
shared community issues reduces distances and mistrust that increasingly have become
the defining relationship between the public and government. This revolutionary
shift happens when public managers learn to achieve results with citizens. It means
recognizing citizens as value creators, not simple consumers. We live in a time
when the only constant is change. Public managers must incorporate democratic
engagement practices into their professional routines to effectively meet
today’s challenges if they are to transmit their city not only the same as, but
greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to them.
Note: The term “citizen” is to describe the individual’s experiential role as a coproducer and complementary public actor with government, not as a legal status.
Author: Valerie Lemmie is director of exploratory research at the Kettering Foundation. She joined the foundation following a distinguished career in public service that included leadership positions as city manager of Petersburg, Virginia and Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio; commissioner on the Public Utility Commission of Ohio; and district director and acting chief of staff for Congressman Mike Turner. A fellow and former board chair of the National Academy of Public Administration, she has served as adjunct professor at Howard University and the University of Dayton and as a fellow at the Center for Municipal Management at George Washington University. Lemmie can be reached at [email protected]
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Leading Courageously in Challenging Times
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.
By Valerie A. Lemmie
April 25, 2019
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
—Aristotle
The Oath of the Athenian City State challenges public officials to strive for the ideal and sacred things of the city, both alone and with many. That was my guiding principle as city manager. I believed it was my responsibility to promote democracy and add value to public life by leading a well-managed organization that was efficient, effective and economical.
As fundamental as those principles are to public management, they are not enough. Too often, public meetings are dominated by angry citizens shouting insults or special interests monopolizing discussions. Elected officials often respond to the loudest voices, even if the voices do not reflect the way most people feel. When citizens are invited to discuss an important issue, generally nobody shows up except the “regulars.” In other instances, like the siting of a public facility, people show up but make unrealistic demands. Whether from apathy, frustration or anger, citizens feel increasingly alienated from city hall. The growing mutual mistrust between citizens and governmental institutions robs those institutions of the support they need from the production of public goods that only citizens themselves can make.
The initial response of most public administrators—especially city managers—is to do more with less, such as reduce taxes or maintain service levels through better management practices and a customer-service orientation. Other approaches include increasing public participation through advisory committees and special initiatives like participatory budgeting; walking neighborhoods with elected officials to see residents’ problems firsthand and advising what the city can do to fix them; demonstrating accountability and responsibility by better reporting on the quality of services provided; and increasing transparency by reporting performance results on a website. Those in city hall often are pleased with what they are doing, but public confidence continues to decline. These trends can be ignored, especially when citizens complain meeting after meeting about problems city hall cannot possibly fix. Yet these wicked problems demand a sustained, comprehensive and expensive response that requires will, resources and commitment where administrators and citizens work together.
When public administrators understand and define their role as the professional expert, problem solver and individual with all the right answers, they reduce democracy to voting and jury duty, rather than the more robust Athenian view of democracy as a form of governance where the people act together collectively to produce things that make life better for everyone. Citizens working with one another—and with government—to produce public goods gives a sense of themselves as agents of democracy who can make a difference, rather than as constituents, consumers or customers sitting on the sidelines.
What can public administrators do to increase public trust and engage citizens in solving problems they care about? How can they engage with citizens but not become overwhelmed with more demands for city hall to act? How can they tap into the good works that citizens already do in their communities and then expand that work into other places or issues? First, public administrators must recognize that citizens bring something to the table: community resources and civic assets. When the resources and assets are leveraged with those of public institutions, public administrators can work on the wicked problems that people care about, not alone but with many as the Oath of the Athenian State reminds us. The critical next step is for public administrators to muster the courage to do things differently, especially in times of political, economic and social uncertainty that fuels declining public confidence in government.
Challenging times require local government practitioners to align their professional routines with the way that citizens in communities work. They must go beyond current engagement practices to strategies where city hall works more with the public rather than merely for it. It means overcoming mutual mistrust between citizens and public officials and enhancing the participatory vibrancy of citizens to co-produce public goods with government. It means that citizens work with government to name the issue in language that identifies what is valuable to citizens; frame the issue so that a range of actions are considered and the costs, consequences and trade-offs are evident; make decisions through deliberation, identifying trade-offs to turn hasty reactions into sound judgment; identify resources available, including intangible ones like commitment, enthusiasm and local knowledge; organize actions to address the issue in a complementary fashion with explicit roles for citizens; and make use of collective learning to keep the actions going. In so doing, they have a stake in the outcome; it becomes a shared responsibility between them and government, not the sole responsibility of the latter.
Working together on shared community issues reduces distances and mistrust that increasingly have become the defining relationship between the public and government. This revolutionary shift happens when public managers learn to achieve results with citizens. It means recognizing citizens as value creators, not simple consumers. We live in a time when the only constant is change. Public managers must incorporate democratic engagement practices into their professional routines to effectively meet today’s challenges if they are to transmit their city not only the same as, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to them.
Note: The term “citizen” is to describe the individual’s experiential role as a coproducer and complementary public actor with government, not as a legal status.
Author: Valerie Lemmie is director of exploratory research at the Kettering Foundation. She joined the foundation following a distinguished career in public service that included leadership positions as city manager of Petersburg, Virginia and Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio; commissioner on the Public Utility Commission of Ohio; and district director and acting chief of staff for Congressman Mike Turner. A fellow and former board chair of the National Academy of Public Administration, she has served as adjunct professor at Howard University and the University of Dayton and as a fellow at the Center for Municipal Management at George Washington University. Lemmie can be reached at [email protected]
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