Last
week I wrote about the pending study session on goals, objectives and codes of
conduct that the Lindsay City Council was preparing to undertake. Despite my reservations, I attended that
session and benefitted hugely, both personally and professionally. Since I was the only member of the public or
the press to attend, I’d like to tell you what I learned about leadership and
our city council.
I think it would be fair to say that
the only real goal we worked on that day was learning to work together. Finding the blockages to that goal became the
unstated objective of the meeting. Barry
Sommers, the educational psychologist who facilitated it, had his work cut out
for him, but he’d come with a very full and useful toolbox and years of
practice working with governmental bodies, particularly school districts. His eleven years working with Lindsay Unified
(not to mention 27 years in Pixley) had him well prepared for that day.
Dr. Sommers’ stated goal at the
meeting’s beginning was to see if we could find pathways to becoming “an
effective, cohesive council.” Some of us
bristled appropriately, because the word “cohesive” (again, shall we check the
dictionary?) can be used to refer to an urge for uniformity that is common in
small towns but undesirable in democratic governance.
Fortunately, Sommers understood that
distinction and provided a definition of the primary job of a city
council: to decide which services will
be provided and how to pay for them.
“Cohesiveness” then became a common commitment to respecting the process
by which those decisions are made, not thinking alike. “If everybody is thinking alike, somebody’s
not thinking,” Sommers told us, quoting Gen. George Patton, that great military
strategist whose decisions helped us win WWII.
One of the blocks to cohesiveness is
unmanaged, destructive conflict. Sommer
carefully unfolded differences between constructive conflict and its black
sheep brother. He defined conflict
itself as “when at least one person is being blocked or perceives that someone
is blocking them from getting what they want.”
Constructive conflict helps clarify issues, increases involvement, makes
communication authentic, releases pent-up emotions, helps build group
cohesiveness, and perhaps most important, solves problems. Destructive conflict, on the other hand,
diverts energy from real work, destroys morale, deepens differences between us,
and produces violence.
The “codes of conduct” we were
intended to develop that day were actually the rules of engagement for managing
conflict. We worked for well over an
hour to develop a working agreement on these rules of engagement, and the
discussions we had about our differences on those rules helped clarify where some
of the blockages have been in finding solutions. The Council may find it more difficult to
stick to those rules than they thought, but at least they provide a base line
for progress.
“Trust,” of course, is the most
important element for moving from destructive to constructive conflict. For the purpose of developing trust, Sommers
had the council members tell each other their personal stories in two-minute
sound bites, a tremendously effective technique for lowering guards. We did not delve into the reasons for
mistrust on this council, which are real, valid, and high-pitched on both sides;
that discussion was tabled for another time.
For me, however, the discussion of
the role of trust was clarifying and encouraging in terms of what must be said in
this column. My purpose in writing it is
much the same as some of the Council members’ purpose for serving: helping Lindsay become a community where all
residents can have a sense of belonging and a desire for participation. Where
all residents can find themselves at home in this place. Toward that end, we are all higher on the
learning curve this week than we were the week before. Thank you, Barry Sommers, for that.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trudy
Wischemann is a homebody who writes. You
can send her your goals and objectives for Lindsay c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay
CA 93247 or leave a
comment below.
No comments:
Post a Comment