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Writer's pictureIan McCormack

Learning The Ropes While Sailing the Boat

We are full-on into orientation and governance refresher season from Nova Scotia to Alberta. It seems that fall is when local governments get back in earnest and put their focus forwards – sometimes into the first year of their brand new terms, and sometimes into the last year of their time on council.


Both of these groups of elected and appointed officials have a very important role in the governance of our urban communities and rural areas right across the country.


Orientations


As I’m writing this, I’m in wintry Melfort Saskatchewan preparing for a council orientation tomorrow and putting my attention to how best to equip a council that’s got a significant percentage of new members with the tools and knowledge they need. The veterans need a refresher while the rookies are drinking from the firehose. It’s actually a pretty good situation. A council that returns all its members is in a much different position than one where the whole lot of them are new. Neither case is ideal for the continuation of good governance.


Regardless of who got the votes and earned the seats, their fundamental challenge – to me anyway – is what they’re going to do over the next four years to continue to create a community that their grandkids would be proud to call home.

Councils need to think long-term even while their residents are calling about snow clearing and the cost of this year’s taxes. Sometimes the veterans need to be reminded of this; a request that I get from time to time from municipal administrators who want to see their councils succeed.


Refreshers


More and more frequently, we are asked to engage with a municipal council partway through that council’s term to provide a bit of a refresher on what governance really means in the municipal realm, and how it’s best exercised by elected officials, and then supported by their municipal staff.


While we still cover the basics, the refreshers are much more of a ‘choose your own adventure’ exercise. They are very focused on the needs of a particular community. We often end up looking at role clarity and the relationship between council and the CAO.

Some of the discussion ends up being about the formal rules around governance and procedure, but much of it also ends up being responding to what has actually occurred amongst members of council and their only employee over the past year or two since the election.


These refreshers are often held half-way through the term, but I think they would really be of benefit near the one-year mark. By that time, the new council has gone through the stages of group dynamics and done most of its collective activities at least once. It’s only then that the councillors have really learned what they don’t know, and they can ask the insightful questions that go with that knowledge.


Hybrid


I see the cycle of governance training as a loop that runs through the course of a four-year term. It starts with providing some information to candidates so they know what the job they are thinking about applying for really entails, and then moves on to the ‘drinking from the firehose’ of the orientation that comes right after election and just before budget season; a time where councillors are only learning the ropes.


After that orientation, there are many opportunities for ongoing professional development and training for council members. In several communities, we’ve provided the with a series of short governance moments that are easily digested by elected officials who may be close to their maximum capacity.


The experience I have from conducting governance workshops of various types and sorts all across the country has given me a unique insight into how similar the issues are, and how differences in provincial legislation make the job of local government slightly nuanced across Canada.


I’ve found that councillors are comforted by knowing they’re not alone. In their communities, being a councillor can be lonely, and making a mistake can be a very awkward proposition. Knowing that someone in another part of the country has had the same question and made the same mistake creates a camaraderie that reaches beyond the individual council and councillor.


My overall comment here is that governance is not a natural trait for most people, including most people who get elected to local councils, It’s a skill that can be learned and honed, but it takes effort. I’m really gratified by how many requests we get to help out in this process.


To close with a quote from a member of a city council we worked with recently on a refresher “I wish we’d done this two years ago.” In the end, that’s become a rather common sentiment.


Your Opinion


What’s your take on whether mid-term governance refreshers would benefit your own community’s leaders?


As always, you can reach me at ian@strategicsteps.ca

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