Transcript What is Working? - Missouri City Management Association

Why Innovation Matters Now
More than Ever
Karen Thoreson, Alliance for Innovation
Vuja de
Navigating the Fiscal Crisis:
Tested Strategies for Local
Leaders
What did we Ask?
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What defines the current crisis?
What has worked in previous efforts?
Which organizations cope better?
Why innovation is critical?
How can local governments contribute to
the recovery?
Deeper and Different
Than the Last 50 Years
• Housing Market
• Auto and Financial Services
• Manufacturing and Exports
• Service and Retail
• Even Energy is Impacted
 All Levels of Government
 All Sectors of the Economy
 None of Us Have Experienced Before
Deeper and Different
• Sales Tax
• Property Tax
• State Government Transfers
• Capital Markets – Public and Private
• Pension and Other Investment Funds
Lessons from the Past
• Tax cuts have less impact than cash
investments.
• Investment in capital projects is better than
support for operating costs.
• Continue projects with low versus high
operating costs.
• Block grants speed recovery compared to
competitive grants.
Lessons From the Past
 Cutback Management?
• Across the Board Cuts
• Freezing the Workforce
 Or Strategic Management?
• Predict the Decline
• Focus on Core Mission
• Educate the Public
• Long Term Savings, Not One Time
Contributing to Recovery
• Maintain Spending, Don’t Cut Revenues
• Avoid Across the Board Cuts
• Don’t Cut Capital Projects With Low Operating
Costs
• Avoid Random Hiring Freezes
• Lead Inclusively
• Draw on Ideas from All Sectors
Opportunity in Crisis
• Improve the Organization
• Resize or Restructure
• Develop New Partnerships
• Focus on Community Priorities
• Proactive, Not Reactive
• Embrace the Future’s Possibilities
So What Have We Seen?
3 Strategies:
1. Hunker Down
2. All Expenditures are Equal –
Lower Tide, Lower All Boats
3. Transformation – “What If,” Not “Why Me”
CRISIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY
RIDING ON A
DANGEROUS WIND
Who Copes Best in Hard Times?
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Strong Management Capacity
Targeted and Flexible Spending Choices
Revenue Diversity
Have a Long Term Financial Plan
Maintain Adequate Reserves
Fees for Service Reflecting Cost of Delivery
Educated Stakeholders
Adaptive but Resolute Organization
Promoting Constructive Change
 Cut Quickly, Avoid Delay
 Long Term View
 Core Mission, Highest Priorities
 Innovation and Continuous Improvement
 Manage Revenues, Not Just Expenditures
 Organizational Design and Processes
 Employee Stewardship
 Embrace Inevitability, Stick With It
 Communicate with Stakeholders
What do Transformed Governments
Look Like?
 Anchored Around Purpose, Mission & Values
 Risk Tolerance Profile – Innovation Matters
 Understand the Brutal Facts but Focused on the
Possibilities Not the Problems
 Engaged with all Stakeholders
 See a Path to a Desirable Future that others
don’t
 Individuals & Organizations Use Both Left and
Right Brain
Areas of Innovation
Top 22 in 2004 (Joshua Franzel, Review of Policy Research,
2008)
• Managerial/Administrative (3), e.g., 3-1-1
• Technological (10), e.g., web portal, video streaming,
online GIS, online transactions/applications, wifi, online
training
• Area-Specific (9)
 Emergency coordination
 Traffic photo
 Hydrogen fuel cells
 LED signals and smart signs
 Monitoring traffic flows
 Crime technology-shoe wear
 Natural storm water runoff control
 Affordable housing
 Public-private partnerships in parks
Areas of Innovation-Current
Thoreson and Svara, Municipal Year Book 2009
• Sustainability
• Organizational
• Youth advancement
• Law enforcement
and technology
• Health and wellness
• Business process
reform
• E-gov
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improvement
Succession planning
and regeneration
Citizen participation
/engagement
Community renewal
Cities and schools
Correlates of Innovation
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Wealthier and larger organizations
Sunbelt
Cities/counties without unions
Cities/counties with public pressure for change
Cities/counties competing with other governments
Democratic vote
Council-manager form cities/counties
Correlation does not mean causation.
What’s happening on the inside to convert these
conditions or overcome these conditions to produce
innovation?
Six Qualities Linked to Innovation
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Leadership
Creativity
Internal Collaboration
External Partnerships
Community Connections
Results Focused
“I’m happy to give you
innovative thinking.
What are the guidelines?”
Innovation: #1 Key Qualities
Leadership:
• Elected Officials
• At the Top
• In the Middle
• Organization-wide
• Unselfish - Shares:
• Credit and Recognition
• Level 5 leaders
• Looks to the Next
• Generation to Sustain
Innovation: #2 Key Qualities
Creativity
• Unleashing the potential
• Not Satisfied with Status Quo
• Look for ideas elsewhere
• Working on Multiple Fronts
• Allows for Failure
• Constantly Revising and Changing
• Breakthrough and Incremental
Innovation: #3 Key Qualities
Internal Collaboration
• Unusual
• Non-Hierarchal Teams
• Diverse teams
• Disrespect the Silos
• Staff are Supported & Heard
• Members Want to Be There
Innovation: #4 Key Qualities
External Partnerships
• Public, Private, NGO
• Not Quid Pro-Quo
• Know How to Disagree
• Are Willing to Trust and Take Risk
• Understanding Value From New Perspectives
• Deep Level of Cross-fertilization
Innovation: #5 Key Qualities
Community Connections
• Real connection, Not Lip Service
• Deep Sustained Involvement
• Public: Not “me-centric”
• Looking for Long –term Value
Innovation: #6 Key Qualities
Results Focused
• If You Count It, It Will Change
• Useful and serves need
• Sustained Impact, Not Flash in the Pan
• Knowing Who Benefits
Fostering Innovation
If you create the qualities, will innovation come?
• No, Innovation is never automatic
• Yes, Will generate the ideas and foster the spirit
that supports innovation
• Support with a culture of innovation
• Consider what has worked and not worked in your
organization
• Consider the straddler (and the stragglers)
• Set the bar high. Invite all to determine how to get
over it.
Combination of Individual and
Organizational Characteristics
Organization is
reactive
Staff members
hunker down
Denial
Staff members
are resilient
Frustration
Organization is
proactive
Resistance/
Anxiety over risk
taking
Constructive
Can you be constructive but still be tired and discouraged?
What Kind of Change?
Continuum of response to crisis:
INNOVATION
< Reaction
Adaptation
Adoption Invention >
“Re-Invention”
Continuum of outcomes:
< Status quo Improvement Transformation >
Characteristics of Innovative Leaders*
Senior executives of the most innovative
companies—only 15% the total—don’t delegate
creative work. They do it themselves.
*Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal B. Gregersen, & Clayton M. Christensen, “The Innovator’s
DNA,” Harvard Business Review (December, 2009). Study of the habits of
25 innovative entrepreneurs and survey of more than 3,000 executives and
500 individuals who had started innovative companies or invented new
products.
Five “Discovery Skills” that
Distinguish the Most Creative Executives
• Associating
Successfully connecting seemingly unrelated ideas.
• Questioning
Constantly ask questions that challenge common wisdom; ask
Why, Why not, What if…
• Observing
Scrutinize common phenomena, particularly the behavior of
potential customers.
• Experimenting
Try out new ideas and approaches.
• Networking
Find and test ideas through a network of diverse individuals.
How Innovators Stack Up
What is Working?
Reassess Community Priorities
• Delray, FL (60K)
• Polk County, FL
• Jefferson County, FL
What is Working?
Re-engineer Organization
• Montgomery, OH (10K)
• Oakland Park, FL (42K)
• Olathe, KS (100K)
What is Working?
Fix Structural Deficits (personnel)
• Dublin, OH (38K)
• Washtenaw County, MI
• Palo Alto, CA (57K)
What is Working?
Advance Technological Solutions
• Decatur, GA (17K)
• Winter Park, FL (25K)
• Southlake, TX (26K)
• Palm Bay, FL (100K)
What is Working?
Increase Revenues
• Charlottesville, VA (41K)
• Hickory, NC (40K)
• Howard, WI (16K)
• Leesburg, VA (28K)
• Sarasota County, FL
What is Working?
Partnerships
• High Springs, FL (4K)
• Morgan Hill, CA (38K)
• Manassas, VA (35K)
What is Working?
Management Flexibility and Transparency
• South Jordan, UT (51K)
• Fort Collins, CO
• Las Vegas, NV
What is Working?
• Reassess Community Priorities
• Re-engineer Organization
• Fix Structural Deficits (personnel)
• Advance Technological Solutions
• Increase Revenues
• Partnerships
• Management Flexibility and Transparency
What is Working for You?
• Re-engineering Organization
• Partnership
Thank You MCMA
Karen Thoreson, [email protected]
Regan Gerlt, [email protected]