Public Participation in Budgets?

Our systems are breaking down.

This is especially evident when it comes to public spending.

As the government financial year-end of March 31st approaches, there is often a flurry of activity as employees scurry to spend everything within their budgets to avoid having to return the dollars to their central treasury and risk being criticized for inaccurate estimates, or, in a worst case scenario, having next year’s allocations reduced.

Additionally, elected officials and staff are faced with growing demands and budget woes leading to painful cuts in public services and infrastructure that too often impact our most vulnerable.

As the scenario is played out, community members are typically excluded from the decision-making.

Of course, it’s not fair to blame elected officials and those who work for government. I work with many who are stellar people.

Unfortunately, they are too often trapped in bad systems.

The good news is that a new system for government spending is gradually making its way from its roots in South America to communities across North America.

It’s called Participatory Budgeting or PB.

What is PB? PB is an alternative and more democratic way to manage public money.

Originating in 1989 in the Brazilian City of Porto Alegre for their municipal budget, there are now over 1,500 participatory budgets around the world. Most are for local government budgets, but counties, towns, housing authorities, schools, universities, and other institutions are using PB to ensure ordinary people have a real say; to promote more transparency, accountability, and more effective decisions that address the greatest needs; and to encourage and engage more citizens to work alongside government in seeking and implementing innovative solutions.

In Porto Alegre, as many as 50,000 people have participated each year to decide as much as 20% of the city budget. Since 1989, PB has spread to over 1,500 cities in Latin America, North America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. In the US and Canada, PB has been used in Toronto, Montreal, Guelph, Chicago, and New York City.

PB usually starts as a pilot project with a small budget of “discretionary funds” — meaning money that is at the discretion of officials or staff and not set aside for fixed or essential expenses.

While this is often a small part of the overall budget, it is a big part of the funds that are available and up for debate each year. Some communities are also using PB to allocate funding provided by foundations, community organizations, and fundraising efforts.

According to the PB website each experience is different, but typically follows a similar basic process.

Residents generate values and priorities, brainstorm spending ideas, volunteer delegates develop proposals based on these ideas, residents vote on proposals, and the government implements the top projects.

While seemingly simple to implement on a pilot basis, PB will require leadership support from both the grasstops and grassroots of our communities.

As with a lot of change, the shifts in power will make many people nervous. As a result, it will have to be viewed as helping elected officials and senior staff to do their job better.

Creating a new system in democracy is never easy. It will require extensive planning to design a sound process of communication, outreach, and the solid facilitation that will generate community buy-in.

Perhaps the best idea is to simply think of it as a pilot project. Somehow that seems to make it clear that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying something new.

There Will be Chaos

Planning for the future never used to be so complicated.

Whether you were planning to improve your personal life, an organization, business, or even an entire community, it was simply a matter of figuring out where you currently were, where you wanted to go, and then developing action steps to address the gap in between.

Today, we live in far more complex and fast changing times.

As my future-focused colleague Rick Smyre put it in a recent conversation, today it is more a case of needing to prepare for a world that doesn’t yet exist.

I think the late management guru Peter Drucker got it right when he once said, “Trying to predict the future is like driving down a country road at night with no lights on while looking out the back window.”

The analogy of looking out the back window is especially relevant because we are entering a new era  often trying to plan with ideas, leadership, and institutions that are better suited for an old world.

Instead, we need to embrace the idea that new times call for new thinking.

Smyre believes there are five major shifts that need to be made if we are ensure our planning is more adaptive in nature.

The first is the need to shift from hierarchies to networks. While traditional hierarchies worked for the industrial age, we instead need to invest in building the relationships, networks, and webs that will ensure we have the capacity to adapt quickly.

We also need to understand that very little is fixed these days.  Pretty much everything is dynamic so we need to build tolerance and acceptance of constant movement and change. And yes, there will be chaos.            
           
Very little will be predictable, everything is instead emerging.

Embracing that we live in a time of turmoil will mean that rather than planning for change that reforms we need to pursue change that transforms. In other words it can’t just be about modifying, improving, or making things more efficient and effective. Instead, it needs to be about change that redefines and turns things upside down.

Lastly, instead of our more typical linear thinking, we will always need to be much more systemic and holistic in our approach.

So where do we begin?

Whether we are planning for ourselves, our family, an organization, business, or community, values are going to be a critical filter for decision making and priority setting. Take the time to have conversations about what is important and the beliefs and ideals that are shared.

While it’s unlikely any of us really wants to struggle, it is important too that we embrace the chaos and act in a spirit of hope.

While chaos often leads to being risk-adverse, as we plan we need to be willing to examine situations carefully, take risks, embrace creativity, and contribute enough effort. Of course, we may also have to back off, change, or stop doing some things as well.

In the end, it means we are all need to embrace being lifelong learners and explorers who are comfortable with asking questions and not always having the answers.

Ode to Those Who Annoy

She was definitely a detail-oriented person.

As follow up to training I had delivered for her organization she asked if I’d like to debrief the session. Always keen to learn and grow, I of course said yes.

After telling me she thought it was a great training session and she had learned a lot, the feedback also included her identifying a few minor typos, suggesting I make the graphics more diversified (quite valid given changing demographics), and adding some missing commas.

Whereas a number of years ago I might have found that kind of feedback to be a tad annoying, I instead found it to be very helpful and was most appreciative as I am the kind of person who, while good with the big picture, has always struggled with the details.

It seems I’ve learned to value those who think differently and are able to apply a set of optics different from my own.

I first learned that lesson a number of years ago when I worked for a municipality and hired my first staff person. In addition to meeting the qualifications, I liked the young woman and our interactions felt quite comfortable.

Turns out I was comfortable because she was a lot like me. Unfortunately, that meant she was also weak in all the areas I was weak—including those pesky details—and made me crazy. 

Consequently, she inadvertently taught me not to hire people I like, but rather to hire those who annoy me. 

On many levels that does make sense. After all, we tend to like people who are similar to us.  Unfortunately, if we only hire people who are like us, we are going to end up with a team that looks, thinks, and acts alike, with none of the diversity that results in creativity, innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness.  However, while I have learned that while hiring people who annoy you will ensure diversity, I’ve also learned they must share the same values if the team is going to be successful. For me those values include kindness, respect, a strong work ethic, responsibility, authenticity, etc.

Over the years I’ve also learned that simply hiring a diverse team isn’t enough. Too often, the nature of the work means we end up spending our time on the job with those who are doing the same kind of work and are therefore often more like us. As a result, we need to make sure staff and volunteers who don’t work together directly will still have opportunities to talk to each other.

In my previous jobs, this was done in a number of ways. When I worked for Bell Canada as a customer service representative, I spent a day job shadowing an installer—someone I typically would never get to know.

Team meetings, social opportunities, and even eating lunch together provides opportunities to connect and learn from others who you may typically only interact with on a very indirect basis.

Lastly I learned that once a diverse team is in place and they’ve gotten to know and trust one another, it is important to have them work on assignments or projects together. For instance, to design a training module, I once contracted a crazy, out of the box thinker with another woman who was more traditional in her approach. The end result was brilliant in that it was fun and creative while accomplishing the intended outcomes.

In the end, what it perhaps comes down to is that our businesses and organizations will all be richer and deliver more meaningful results, if each of us learns to suspend judgment and welcome the respective strengths and gifts each of us brings.

5 Strategies for Being a Better Boss in 2013

I can’t believe the number of people I’ve talked to recently who are desperately unhappy in their jobs.

With rare exception, the core cause of their complaints is their boss.

While I realize not everyone is a boss, most everyone has a boss. As a result, I thought I’d share my list of five strategies for being a better boss in 2013.

First of all, in the event you haven’t noticed, the workplace is changing. A good boss knows the future is about collaboration and meshwork.

To collaborate, you have to get over the idea that your position of authority gives you power.

Real power comes as the restful of trusted relationships, a sense of community, and collective effort.  Encourage suggestions and ideas from your team and, rather than micro-manage them, make the outcomes clear, empower them to deliver, and get out of their way. 

Secondly, as the boss you need to remove your focus from your to-do list — which typically is about managing day to day operations — and invest at least one hour a day in preparing for a rapidly changing and often uncertain future. Continually revisit your vision, values, mission, and direction; watch for trends and issues; and think about what’s working and what isn’t, what you’ve learned, and what’s needed to be more successful. Even more importantly, openly share and encourage others to share information and knowledge. 

Next, let go of the idea of putting employees in boxes on the organization chart. Instead of adhering to specific roles and responsibilities, tap the talents and passions of each employee and allow their responsibilities to evolve and fluctuate. While this is more challenging if you work in a union environment, you may only be talking about a small percentage of an employee’s typical work. Also know that happy employees aren’t usually the ones who file grievances.

Every boss also needs to think in a new way about evaluating the performance of their employees.  Like many others, I used to dread my annual performance review (that is if I happened to be working for a boss who actually did them). Instead, wouldn’t you think it would be much more effective to provide immediate and ongoing feedback?  Part of that will be sharing credit and recognizing and celebrating the achievements of others. 

Lastly, if you want to be a good boss, one of the most important things you can do is be brave. That means less firefighting — or doing less reacting and instead being more proactive.  

It seems we too often expend significant resources on dealing with symptoms and not enough on tackling the often messy and complex underlying root causes of the issues and challenges.  A good boss understands that it’s not about what you’re doing but why you’re doing it.

Will any of this be easy?  Not likely. But, if you think about change as a locomotive coming at you, can stand still and get flattened, or you can jump on and starting driving that train.