Archives for 2014

How to Cover City Hall

May 28, 2014 By Otis White

My first real job, after college, was covering local government for a newspaper in a mid-size city in Georgia. I came to it with a good deal of curiosity and seriousness of purpose but not much genuine understanding of local government. And in the brief time I covered city hall there and in a second newspaper job in Michigan, I’m sorry to say, I didn’t learn much.

Don’t get me wrong. I was energetic, as accurate as I could be, and interested in a lot of subjects (like downtown development, public housing, local politics, race relations, criminal justice, and economic development) that helped me see how cities worked. But I never truly “got” local government.

Partly it was the result of college political science classes that had taught me about Congress and the White House. Where in city hall, I wondered, were the caucuses, the white-shoe lobbyists, the reform groups, the entrenched interests, the partisan battles, the momentous decisions? The men and women I met in mayors’ offices and city councils, budget offices, planning departments, police stations, courts, water departments, and public works agencies seemed sincere and reasonably competent, but not very inspiring. And certainly nothing like what I expected to find if I ever got to cover Congress.

It has taken me a long time to understand local government, aided by side trips into business journalism, magazine publishing, and now consulting. (Thank goodness I got off the journalism track that might have taken me to Washington.) What helped with my education was getting to know some corporate CEOs as a business reporter and, later, editor. Many of the CEOs I met in the 1980s had two interests outside of running their businesses. One was their industry’s wellbeing, which involved them in state and national politics. The other was their city’s wellbeing, which did not seem to be as much about their own narrow interests as something bigger. It appeared to me that they genuinely wanted their cities to be better places (or, at least, what they defined as better), and the things that interested them were physical: downtowns, universities, airports, arenas, highways, transit systems, and so on.

That’s when it first occurred to me that local governments were different creatures than federal or state governments, and not just their kid brothers. And trying to see Washington-style politics played out in a city council or county commission might not work.

But if local government wasn’t about partisan politics, public policy, and the clash of great interests, then what was it about? The central issue for cities, I learned over time, was something older and more basic. It was about people and places, how they interacted, and how they could made to interact better.

Now, let me pause for a disclaimer. I don’t mean to suggest that local politics are always noble. There are ugly aspects to local government in many places. One is ethnic advantage, where one group uses its influence to hold down other groups while favoring its own. Another is corruption, which sees government as an opportunity for plunder.

And beyond the bigots and the crooks, there are the clueless, the perpetually aggrieved, the showboaters, the time wasters, the bureaucratically rigid, the lazy—as well as the thoughtful, the inspiring, the determined, the philosophical, and the dedicated. In other words, local government is a slice of humanity.

But being about people and place and the interactions of the two does mean there’s something that grounds local politics, something missing from state and national politics. This doesn’t mean local governments don’t have conflict. They do, but the conflicts tend to be about things quite different from those in state capitals or Washington, D.C.

In the weeks ahead, I will get into some of these conflicts—and the real forces that drive local politics. I’ll present this as a guide for journalists and bloggers who want to cover their local governments in a more informed way, but these postings may be helpful as well to citizens and leaders who sometimes have trouble seeing the community forest for the squabbling among the trees.

I invite your comments along the way. If I agree with you, I may go back and change some of what I write. After all, this as an exercise in sense-making, not an apology for local government. Like all human institutions, local governments are flawed. But beneath the flaws are patterns we should pay attention to. What follows are some of the patterns I’ve noticed.

This is the first of a series of postings about better ways of understanding local government and writing about local politics.

What Would FDR Do?

April 23, 2014 By Otis White

We usually think of politics in communities in two ways: as the “big-P” politics of campaigns and referendum—noisy, zero-sum contests that get lots of public attention—and the “small-P” politics of gaining approval for policies and projects. These are the nonzero-sum contests of compromise and tradeoffs that revolve around regulatory approvals, planning board and city council votes, and the occasional state law.

But there’s a third version, a kind of meta-politics that’s critical to progress but rarely gets noticed. It’s the politics of public opinion. How important is public opinion? Listen to Abraham Lincoln: “With public sentiment,” Lincoln said, “nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.”

But how, exactly, do you mold public sentiment? And are most civic leaders good at it? The answer to the second question is no. The answer to the first can best be understood by turning to another president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who, second only to Lincoln, was the greatest molder of public opinion ever to occupy the White House.

Roosevelt’s masterpiece was changing American attitudes about involvement in World War II. Yes, Pearl Harbor was the defining moment, but by December 1941 public opinion had already changed greatly, as Lynne Olson tells us in her recent book, “Those Angry Days.” And that was Roosevelt’s work.

He could not have faced a more daunting task. There was a strict “neutrality act” passed in the mid-1930s that banned arms sales to any nation at war. America’s own military was a shell. (Weapons were so scarce that only a third of U.S. soldiers and sailors had ever trained with them.) Congress was overwhelmingly opposed to intervention, and so were the American people.

So what did FDR do? He bided his time (to the despair of the increasingly desperate British) as he set in motion several forces that changed public opinion. The most important: He quietly encouraged nonpartisan citizens’ groups to begin campaigning for American support for the Allies. Then Roosevelt (to all appearances) gradually acceded to their demands, first in asking for changes in the neutrality act, then in offering more generous aid to the British, then in lobbying for a buildup of the military, and finally in asking Congress for a peacetime draft. It was a step-by-step process that took two years’ time, with Roosevelt never more than a half-step in front of the public.

Today we would call this “leading from behind”: letting others be the point people for change as you remain in the background. It requires a secure person to lead this way. Secure in two ways: First, emotionally secure enough to let others occupy the spotlight. Second, secure in the messiness but ultimate utility of public debate.

And this brings me to the single most serious mistake public officials make in trying to advance policies and change public opinion: They spring surprises. They announce sweeping policy proposals long before the public has accepted there’s even a problem. When they do it this way, they’re often shocked by the backlash

It is much better to do policy the FDR way: First, air the problem and its consequences. Then step aside and let others debate its seriousness and possible solutions. As the demand for action rises, step back into the discussion with a reasonable way forward. (And, yes, along the way you can do things to encourage the debate.)

Does this diminish your reputation by making you look indecisive? Well, Roosevelt was accused of that in 1940 and 1941. But reach in your pocket and pull out a dime. Which leader’s face do you find? Roosevelt’s or one of his critics’?

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by UNC Greensboro Special Collections and University Archives licensed under Creative Commons.

The Art of the Ask

February 3, 2014 By Otis White

There are probably many reasons to be fascinated by John F. Kennedy’s life and brief time in the White House. Here’s mine: I’ve long wondered how this one-time high-society party boy ever got to be such a good politician.

Chris Matthews, the TV commentator, may have finally answered my question. In his book, “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero,” Matthews said World War II changed Kennedy by placing him in charge of men not at all like him, mechanics and farmers, factory workers and truck drivers, Southerners and Midwesterners. That taught him empathy, which is a key to leadership. And somewhere along the line, Kennedy picked up a second skill: He learned how to ask people to do things.

This came in handy when Kennedy ran for office, and, Matthews writes, “realized that the key to forging loyalty within his (campaign) organization was the invitation itself. The mere act of asking someone to become a Kennedy person was the step that mattered.”

You may never run for public office, and if you do you may not need the political skills of John F. Kennedy. But asking people to do things—and getting them to do them—is a skill every civic leader and government manager needs to master, now more than ever.

Why? Because big urban problems can’t be solved by organizations acting alone; they can only be solved by collaborations. And collaborations—which are, after all, joint efforts by interests not compelled to work together—don’t come about on their own. They exist because someone brought the participants together. Simply stated, somebody made “the ask” and did so successfully.

So what’s an effective ask? It has three parts. First is finding the right person to ask. Second is asking the right way, so the person accepts the task. And third is asking again—the “second ask.”

If there’s an art to asking, it’s in that first part. That’s because finding the right person is a mixture of strategy, knowledge, and judgment. You have to know the objective (the task the collaboration will undertake), the organizations or interests that can best contribute to the objective, and the right person to work with inside those organizations and interests. (Hint: It may not be the person whose name is first on the letterhead.)

Then there’s the ask itself. Here again, it’s a mixture, usually including an appeal to altruism (imagine the good we can do) and self-interest (here’s what’s in it for you and your organization). But it has to go beyond artful phrasing because few will say yes to likely failure. So you have to show that you have a roadmap to success. That might mean facilitating meetings and offering other resources; at the very least it means deciding the number of meetings and what each will address.

And that brings us to the final part, the second ask, and back to JFK. Kennedy didn’t ask people to do things once. He asked them again and again. That’s how he built the intense loyalty that characterized his campaigns and his presidency.

There’s a bit of psychology here: When people say yes to an ask, no matter how little you’ve asked of them, they’ve investing in you. If the task is successful, your value rises in their eyes. By asking a second (or third or fourth) time, you are deepening your value . . . and building support. There’s also a bit of economics: You’ll spend much less time finding and asking people to join you a second or third time, so there is what economists might call a marginal efficiency in the second ask.

These benefits accumulate over time. But the first step, as JFK might remind us, is to ask—and ask well.

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by Andreas Klinke Johannsen licensed under Creative Commons.

The Opportunity: The Door to Civic Progress

January 13, 2014 By Otis White

For two years, I’ve been interviewing civic leaders for a podcast. I look for two kinds of people to interview. Most are leaders who’ve accomplished something strikingly successful in their communities; a smaller number are people who, through their experiences, have learned a leadership skill that’s valuable for others to know.

The format is simple. I introduce the leaders. We talk for about 15 minutes about their successes or skills, and I close by asking them for advice: If someone from another community asked how to take on a difficult project or master this skill, what would they say?

In the 23 interviews I’ve done to date, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about what civic leaders do and how they think. I’ve learned that most of their work isn’t heroic or visionary. It’s more like project management, as they move from one meeting, planning session, or presentation to another.

I’ve learned something about the motivations of these people. They seem driven to accomplish something meaningful, and communities offer an ideal stage for these achievements because civic projects often end with things you can reach out and touch—buildings, roads, and parks—things that will endure for decades. This concreteness and sense of permanence appeals to civic leaders.

And finally I’ve learned that despite the long hours of unpaid labor, the tedium of public meetings, and stress of occasional conflict, many of these people consider civic work an escape from their regular jobs. One civic leader told me away from the microphone that his project, which had occupied him for a decade and a half, was, outside of his family life, “the most fun I’ve ever had.”

These are valuable things to know. It explains why cities are undergoing a renaissance these days. Somehow cities have learned to attract and harness the work of these leaders more effectively than in the past. And it assures me that this isn’t a phase. People will always seek meaning in their lives, and if cities continue offering a stage for these seekers, they’ll be successful.

Interesting as all this was to learn, though, it wasn’t why I started the podcast. I’ve actually been looking for something else: the structure of civic progress.

This is an old interest of mine. In fact, I started this blog four years ago so I could think out loud about civic progress, how it worked, and how we could make it work better. Along the way, I’ve made some stabs at a grand theory. A few years ago, I created a map of community change showing step by step how leaders moved from awareness of a need to a widely accepted solution.

Most of the map still seems right to me, but I’ve learned from the interviews that an important element was missing. You can’t, I’ve come to understand, view civic progress simply as a process. You have to see it as a system as well; one that, in the right circumstances, can be mobilized as a process. Leaders, then, have three responsibilities: Make sure the system is healthy, learn how the process of civic progress works, and know how to transform the system into a campaign for community improvement.

And what is the spark that mobilizes the system into a process? I call it “the opportunity.” It’s not the same as a need nor is it necessarily a solution. It’s more like a path to the solution. If civic progress were a sport, we’d call it an “opening” the hole in a line of scrimmage that a running back sees, the pass a point guard makes to set up a score, the moves a chess master sees that lead in five turns to checkmate.

If this sounds confusing, bear with me. It’s harder to understand the opportunity in theory than in practice, and the interviews offer plenty of examples. Maybe the best was in my interview with Cathy Woolard, the former Atlanta city council member (and, later, council president) who stumbled across a transformative project called the Beltline and saw, in an instant, how it could solve many of Atlanta’s transportation and land-use problems.

Here’s how she describes that moment of insight: “It was literally the right day, the perfect council member, the perfect district, for me to be able to look at (this idea) and know immediately what the benefit would be to the residents of my district in particular.” Because she saw the opportunity offered by the Beltline and figured a way through a maze of political and bureaucratic processes, Woolard was able to move this visionary project from grad-school planning thesis to urban reality. Today the Beltline, a circle of trails and parks around downtown Atlanta, is being built, and the sections that are open are wildly popular with cyclists, runners, and strollers.

You can see another opportunity in the interview with Scott Tigchelaar, a movie studio president who talked the small town of Senoia, Georgia into turning itself into a permanent film location. What triggered this, he said, was the sale of some land in downtown Senoia. Over the years Tigchelaar had used the town for movie locations (if you watched the 1991 movie “Fried Green Tomatoes,” you’ve seen Senoia). He feared a new owner would put up something that would ruin the town for movie shootings, so he approached the mayor and council with a deal: Create new design and zoning laws, allow us to buy the land and build some appropriate new buildings, and we’ll bring you a steady stream of movie productions, along with tourism opportunities. (It worked. Filming goes on year-round in Senoia, tourists flock there to see where their favorite TV shows are filmed, and the town has a host of new restaurants and shops.)

And then there’s John Turner, the businessman who helped restore a river through downtown Columbus, Georgia and, by doing so, turned a slow, muddy stream into roaring whitewater. Some had speculated as far back as the 1970s that Columbus might have world-class rapids beneath its downtown dams. But it wasn’t until Turner and others learned 20 years later that those dams were failing that he saw the opportunity to tear them down and create the longest urban whitewater attraction in America.

Opportunities arrive, then, when a long-felt need (to change land use and transportation in Atlanta, to preserve a small town’s unique economy, to do something about a neglected river) is connected with a sudden change in the environment (a visionary plan drops on a council member’s desk, tracts of land are offered for sale, old dams show signs of failing) and a way forward is seen (master the transportation planning process, get the city council to agree to design standards, gain government approval to remove the dams and alter the river).

And who connects these things and sees the way forward? Leaders do.

In fact, this is probably the most creative thing that leaders do in cities. Like great business innovators (think Steve Jobs) or talented politicians (think FDR or LBJ), great civic leaders see paths that are hidden to most of us and connect things others hadn’t put together. Not all civic leaders can do this because it takes a special mind to see an opening to success and a strong will to push an entire community through the opening.

If you’re not that kind of leader, don’t despair. There are other things civic leaders do that are critically important, such as tending the system and managing the process of civic progress. I’ll talk about these leadership roles in future posts.

For the time being, though, keep this image in mind: Civic progress is neither a system nor a process; it’s both. And the door between the two is the opportunity. Trust me on this. I had 23 great teachers who showed it to me.

Photo by lau.svensson licensed under Creative Commons.

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How to Cover City Hall

What Would FDR Do?

The Art of the Ask

The Opportunity: The Door to Civic Progress

About Otis White

The Great Project

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