pages: CityCouncil/2019-12-18.pdf, 28
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CityCouncil | 2019-12-18 | 28 | City Council Workshop Workshop Report Management Partners mistakes/risk will breed an overly conservative organization and will stifle creativity and flexibility and the benefits these values can bring. Try to focus feedback on service quality, not individuals: An ongoing challenge is the difficulty of reconciling the ultimate responsibility of the city council for city service quality versus the need to avoid interfering in the daily management of the organization. It is much better for the city council to communicate service level or quality concerns to the city manager versus performance judgments regarding individual staff members. It is particularly inappropriate for individual members or the council as a whole to try to direct the manager to hire, fire, or promote members of the city staff. Don't expect managers to take sides in councilmember disputes: Regardless of how they may personally feel, most city managers will avoid, at all costs, "taking sides" in disputes between councilmembers. While on occasion the manager might try to help reconcile councilmembers, don't expect the manager to take your side in a dispute with a fellow member. Even if they may agree with you, most managers will avoid taking part in public or private criticism of council- members unless professionally required to do so in extreme cases. Don't jump to conclusions regarding citizen/customer feedback: While it is your responsibility to be available to listen to citizen and customer feedback regarding the city organization, be careful not to jump to conclusions based on what you are told. Oftentimes an individual may sound completely sincere and credible while providing you an inaccurate account of their experience with the city organization. It is best to not jump to conclusions, one way or the other, until the manager is able to provide you a response to the concern. It is embarrassing to criticize staff for poor performance only to find out that the information you relied on was not accurate. At the same time, the manager needs to not be overly defensive regarding staff performance until he or she also has heard "both sides of the story." Don't expect the manager to exercise "political leadership": While managers are inherently leaders of their organizations and, to varying degrees, in their communities, their role is not to be political leaders. That is, it is not intended for the manager to be "out front" on community policy issues. Some- times city councils want managers to take leadership (advocate publicly) on controversial issues to avoid potential political consequences to themselves. While tempting, this is contrary to the intent of the council/manager form of government under which the elected officials are to take the lead on purely policy matters. 8 - 22 | CityCouncil/2019-12-18.pdf |