Group process

A Reservoir for Civic Progress

August 7, 2019 By Otis White

If you want to see how civic projects can move communities forward, take a look at the Bridge Center in Baton Rouge, La. Or, at least, at what it will be when it opens next year.

The Bridge Center will be a place for people suffering from mental illness or substance abuse, and, in particular, an alternative to police and EMTs taking them to jail or an emergency room. This “third option,” as advocates like to call it, should bring a cascade of benefits: relieving overcrowding at emergency rooms and the county jail while dealing with the region’s addiction and mental illness issues more humanely and productively.

It will even be easier for the cops. Processing a prisoner at the county jail can take an hour’s time or more; waiting at an emergency room can take even longer. The Bridge Center’s aim: Complete the handoff in 15 minutes. And did I mention that it will save money? One study estimated that the Bridge Center will save up to $55 million in its first decade over incarceration or emergency room treatment. Little wonder then that nearly every public official, from the mayor to the county coroner, supported it.

But it’s also an example of how hard such things can be. The project began five years ago when a group of law enforcement officials, mental-health advocates, public-health experts, judicial-system leaders, and elected officials met to study Baton Rouge’s problems and identify solutions. Experts from around the country were brought in. There were group visits to a center in San Antonio, Texas, that became the Bridge Center’s model.

A clinical-design team outlined a series of services the Bridge Center could offer and how they could work together. A study suggested how the center might be funded. A nonprofit board was assembled that included the district attorney, the sheriff, mental-health care advocates, physicians, and other stakeholders.

With this mountain of testimonials, documentation, near-unanimous political support, heartrending stories of loved ones lost in the jail, and favorable news coverage, supporters asked voters in December 2016 for a modest tax increase to get the center started. They said no. It took two more years and a massive citizen-engagement effort to get a different result. Last December, voters in East Baton Rouge Parish, where Baton Rouge is located, finally said yes to a 1.5-mil increase in property taxes. Looking back, local officials are convinced the Bridge Center was worth the effort. “It was absolutely a step forward,” says Mayor Sharon Weston Broome.

Then again, local government leaders could afford to be patient with the slow pace. They have an ally, an organization that managed the Bridge Center proposal from first meeting through months of research and two referendums and will stick with it through ribbon-cutting: the Baton Rouge Area Foundation (BRAF), a community foundation that has evolved into a kind of research and development center for civic progress. BRAF’s fingerprints are on numerous projects, from a plan for downtown Baton Rouge to a nature center that takes visitors into a Louisiana swamp. It is trying to launch passenger rail service from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. And this is just a partial list.

By managing so many civic projects, BRAF applies the lessons of one initiative to the next. (One lesson: Don’t take referendums for granted.) Along the way, it has gained a reputation for getting things done, which opens even more doors. As foundation President John Davies says, “When the Baton Rouge Area Foundation asks people to come to a meeting, they will usually come.” And these advantages grow over time. While elected leaders come and go, BRAF Executive Vice President John Spain notes, “we are consistently here.”

Mayor Broome is a fan. “We are extremely fortunate to have a strong foundation like BRAF in our community,” she says. Still, she’s careful to add that the foundation doesn’t dictate to local government; it collaborates. As she sees it, the city and the foundation are “co-creators” of civic progress.

I’ve seen other organizations play this R&D role in a community, at least for a while. Typically, it is a business group such as a chamber of commerce. Occasionally, a university will step up. But most communities have no organized way of learning how civic progress works. They depend on extraordinary leaders (some elected, most not) to figure things out. And here’s the problem with that: In a lifetime, an extraordinary leader may take on one or two big civic projects before drifting out of civic work. When she leaves, her knowledge, skills, and relationships leave with her.

So you may want to ask: How does my community pass civic knowledge from one leader to the next? How do leaders build relationships? How do good ideas find funding? How do they survive disappointments?

If there isn’t an organization or at least a process for learning from successful projects and storing civic knowledge, good ideas may come like rain striking parched ground. They make a splash, raise hopes and then evaporate. Is it time to build a reservoir?

A version of this posting appeared on the Governing website.

Photo by Charley Lhasa licensed under Creative Commons

A Beginner’s Guide to Facilitation

January 25, 2016 By Otis White

If you’re a civic leader, chances are that you’ll have to facilitate a meeting. It could be for a community task force or an intergovernmental planning group. It might be a community visioning meeting or a nonprofit board planning retreat. However it happens, don’t be surprised to find yourself managing a group of people who are struggling toward a decision.

You know how decision making works inside an organization or within a political setting, of course. A group makes a proposal, another group might argue against it, and a third group (the boss, the board, the city council) decides.

Well, put aside that image. In the meetings I have in mind, there’s just one group, which explores the issue, discusses different solutions, and comes to a decision. If you’re the chair (or if the chair has asked you to facilitate), it’s your job to get this group through its fact-finding and discussion and to a decision.

So how do you do that?

I’ll offer some pointers below, but first let me tell you why facilitation is growing in importance: We need more collaboration. Cities are increasingly archipelagos of dispersed power, and to bridge these islands of influence, we need people who can help independent decision makers think and act together. That can be you.

Here, then, are some of the basics of structure, process, and coming to decision. Consider it a beginner’s guide to facilitation.

Structure: There are three cardinal rules: Deal with the present before the future, the outside before the inside, and the “what” before the “how.”

If you have a day-long retreat, spend the morning discussing the current situation: basically, how we came to this place and how we’re positioned to deal with the issues we face. Many strategic planning sessions start out with a SWOT analysis (which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). This can help participants understand the present before talking about the future.

If you do a SWOT analysis, be sure to begin with the “OT” parts, the external opportunities and threats, before the “SW,” the internal strengths and weaknesses. This will help focus participants on the issues they face and avoid getting bogged down in blame-casting.

As the discussion moves to the future, you’ll want the group to set goals before discussing strategies. This is harder than it sounds because most of us live in the “how” parts of our jobs, not the “what” parts. But if the group gets sidetracked by the details of doing, it will never focus on setting goals.

Process: The most basic thing participants want in an important meeting is to be heard. Not just listened to, but heard and acknowledged. So find ways of doing this.

When I facilitate meetings, I write down what people say on large flip charts. Others use laptops with overhead projectors. This isn’t just procedural. Recording what people say in such a visible way moves the meeting along, as people tend not to repeat themselves when their comments are on display. It also helps the group see connections among ideas, and that can help with decision making.

Coming to decision: As the group discusses the future, try framing what participants say as alternatives. As these alternatives are fleshed out, post them on a wall, adding details as the discussion moves along. At some point, it may be obvious which alternative the group prefers.

If not, you can ask the group to vote. Roll calls work, but a better way is dot voting, especially if there are a number of alternatives. You know the drill: You hand participants some colored dots and ask them to vote for the solutions they think are most viable.

Dot voting is transparent, interactive, and surprisingly enjoyable. You’ll be impressed by how seriously participants study the alternatives. And when it’s done, the group’s decision will be as plain as the dots on the wall.

Like/Unlike

September 18, 2012 By Otis White

Thinking is hard work, and if we had to think our way through every thing we did, we couldn’t keep up. That’s why we use mental shortcuts, which come in two forms: Framing for making sense of things and models that give us strategies for action.

Most of the time, these things work so well that we hardly notice them. We see something new (merchants complain about teenagers loitering near their stores), we frame it (public safety threat) and know what to do (send in the cops to warn the teens and, if that doesn’t work, write tickets). But what if the usual models don’t work or if the thing that pops up doesn’t appear to fit any previous frames? That’s when it’s time for something I call “Like/Unlike.”

To understand why this is helpful, you have to know how the shortcuts work together. The key step is the framing, which is a fancy way of saying we’ve put something into a category (teens loitering = public safety threat). The point of putting things into categories is to limit our options for response. There’s nothing wrong with that—it gives us a manageable list of actions to take—and as long as we put things in the right categories, these actions should work. Mind the caution: As long as we put things in the right categories.

If you look around, you can see this framing process at work in cities. One of my favorites is the dilemma posed by food trucks for city regulators and health inspectors. Are food trucks more like restaurants or hot dog carts? If you put them in the hot dog cart frame, then you should regulate where they operate but not worry too much about health inspections. If you put them in the restaurant frame, then you shouldn’t say much about where they operate but you should be diligent about health inspections. (My suggestion: Consider them a third category with their own set of regulations.)

The key is to pause before applying the frame. And Like/Unlike will help with that. It’s a simple way of checking your assumptions. You can do it through a quick mental checklist or you can pull together a group and do it more formally.

Either way, it involves listing attributes and categories, then asking whether the attributes fall into any of the categories. In the food truck example, food trucks are like hot dog carts in that they do business on public rights of way (which raises concerns about location) but like restaurants in that they prepare food in non-standard ways (which raises concerns about public health).

If you have enough attributes and categories, you can make a grid and do check marks. When you’ve finished, you should be able to stand back and see if the evidence points toward an obvious category (and resulting set of actions) or if you should approach the problem as something entirely new. (Don’t be too surprised if you find that you need more information. After all, why are those teenagers standing on that corner?)

Again, the key is the pause. The best leaders are those who are thoughtful, who don’t rush to judgment, who see dimensions to problems that others don’t. The thoughtfulness doesn’t paralyze good leaders. They understand full well the need for action, but they want to be sure the analysis that drives the actions is as accurate as possible.

And what makes it accurate is putting things in the right categories from the start. Like/Unlike will help.

This is part of a series of brief postings called Rules for Reformers. For an introduction to the series, please click here.

“What” Before “How”

September 11, 2012 By Otis White

Many communities fight the same old battles over and over. And even when there’s something new to consider—a solution that could improve the downtown, say, or a big economic development opportunity—the city can’t seize it because everyone is squabbling about the details. How do places get stuck in such unproductive debates?

There can be many reasons, some involving deep unresolved conflicts (dealing with race and class or other social and political divisions). But a surprising number of times, the reason is simpler: The community is talking about the issue in the wrong way. Leaders have jumped into a discussion of “how” before talking thoroughly about “what.”

Confused? Bear with me. Most leaders are problem solvers by nature. Show them a problem, and they’ll work through as quickly as possible to a solution, then pour their energies into selling that solution. On one level, it’s refreshing to be around such quick thinkers. And if the leaders are extremely powerful and can bulldoze opponents (think of Mayor Daley at his zenith in Chicago), it might work. Otherwise, it’s a recipe for disaster.

Here’s a better way: Spend at least as much time talking with other leaders and the public about the problem and why it’s worth solving as you do on actual solutions. Help everyone agree on “what” (the problem and the benefits of its solution) before moving to “how” (the solution itself).

Yes, this requires quick thinkers to show some patience, but it will pay off in two ways. First, it will dampen divisions. Most of the big battles in communities are over “hows,” not “whats.” (People generally agree on the need for better mobility, just not on that road in that place. They agree on the need for city services, just not on that tax at this time.) If you start with a thorough discussion of “what” (mobility and its benefits, city services and their benefits), you make it easier later on to accept the sacrifice of the “how.” Second, spending more time with “what”—and inviting many people into that discussion—may open the door to a better “how.” In complex environments like cities, thinking about problems from many perspectives usually improves solutions.

Let’s use an example: how to help your downtown. Let’s say that you’ve been thinking about this for a long time and have decided your downtown needs a business improvement district, which allows commercial property owners to tax themselves for special improvements such as streetscaping and security. If you do what many leaders do and simply announce your solution, you open a free-fire zone. Property owners may not like it (why should they pay for additional services the city ought to provide?), citizens may be suspicious (isn’t this just privatizing our downtown?), downtown residents may object (why don’t we get a seat at the table?), and on and on. Six months from now, you may still be bogged down in the debate . . . if the idea isn’t already dead.

Why not take those six months for a discussion of what downtown could be if its biggest problems could be solved? How it could look and feel. Which new businesses or attractions could be there. How young people or older citizens might use it.

After—but only after—a vision is in place, then move to the problems standing in the way (we need streetscaping and better security) and how they could be solved. The groups you’ve assembled might quickly take up the idea of a BID, or they might choose another solution. But they’ll come to it with a far better idea of what they’re trying to solve and why it’s important, and they’ll come to it collectively. You won’t have to argue with property owners, citizens, or downtown residents about why it’s important to take a first step. They’ll be among those demanding it.

And they’ll be demanding it for the best of all possible reasons: They own the problem. They believe in the benefits of solving it. They’ve thoughtfully explored the solutions.

And they’ve done it in the right order.

This is part of a series of brief postings called Rules for Reformers. For an introduction to the series, please click here.

A Formula for Change

September 6, 2012 By Otis White

Is there a way, before starting out on a change process, to know how much change the community will accept? Not really, because, as in card games, luck and your skill as a player will have a major bearing. But there is a way of thinking about what causes communities (or organizations or even individuals) to accept change. And if you use this simple formula as a guide, it should increase the odds that, luck and skill aside, the change should be significant.

It’s called the Harvard Change Model, and it has three elements:

Dissatisfaction with the status quo
A model or vision of how things would work if the issues were fully resolved
A plan for getting to that vision

When written as a sentence it looks like this: The level of change (that’s the delta symbol above) is equal to the amount of dissatisfaction times the clarity of the model (or vision) times the acceptance of the plan for achieving the model. Change = D x M x P

I’ll explain in a minute how the formula works, but first a note about how I learned about it. It was from David Connell, who was head of corporate education at a large utility company based in Atlanta. We had started work on a regional economic development project when he took out a marker and, on a flip chart, wrote down the formula and explained it to me. He had learned it from consultants from the Harvard Business School; hence, the name. We used the formula in that civic project and several others in the next few years, and I’ve used it ever since. (By the way, David is now the president and CEO of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce in suburban Atlanta, so civic work apparently agreed with him.)

Now, about the formula: It is based on the commonsense notion that no one accepts change unless he’s unhappy with the way things are, has faith that things could be better, and knows what will come next (and what might be asked of him). So the work of those who want change is to:

Increase the level of dissatisfaction (push up “D”).
Help people arrive at an appealing model of the future (push up “M”).
Win broad acceptance of a plan for reaching the model (push up “P”).

But what’s with the multiplication? It’s there, David explained, because each element amplifies the others. The greater the level of dissatisfaction, the greater the desire to find an appealing vision. The clearer the vision, the more people are motivated to take the first steps toward it. And so on.

If you plug in some numbers, you can see more clearly how it works. If you have significant dissatisfaction (7 on a scale of 1 to 10), but don’t get much buy-in on a vision (2) or a plan (again, 2), here’s how much change you’ll get: 7 x 2 x 2 = 28.

But let’s say you could somehow double the acceptance of the vision and plan (that is, from go from 2 to 4), here’s what you’d get: 7 x 4 x 4 = 112 or four times as much change. And if you could do equally as well with the vision and plan as with the dissatisfaction? 7 x 7 x 7 = 343, which raises the level of change by a factor of more than 12.

The numbers, of course, are illustrative. I’m not sure I could distinguish what separates people at level 6 dissatisfaction from those at level 7. But the point is that each element is important and connected. And by working hard on each part, you multiply your effectiveness.

After David explained it to me, he wrote down another version of the formula. This time, he said, let’s imagine you had the highest level of dissatisfaction possible along with an almost universal acceptance of how things could work in the future . . . but had no plan for achieving it. In other words, 10 x 10 x 0. What level of change would you get, he asked me.

It has been a long time since I learned algebra, but even I knew the answer. When you place a zero in an equation, you get . . . zero. And if you neglect any element of the change process, that’s what you can expect: zero change.

This is part of a series of brief postings called Rules for Reformers. For an introduction to the series, please click here.

A Reservoir for Civic Progress

A Beginner’s Guide to Facilitation

Like/Unlike

“What” Before “How”

A Formula for Change

About Otis White

The Great Project

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