The Broward County Public School system has discussed the idea that instead of giving students a zero for not turning in assignments, that they receive a 50% so as not to unfairly penalized them. What are your thoughts?
One. That’s the mantra. I started blogging a year ago with the statement that “It’s all one water.” And that is true, regardless of the form it may be in (raw, waste, storm, reclaimed, gray, industrial, etc). But I may have used too many words. Dan Pink notes in his newest book “To Sell is Human” that one of the recent trends is to try to get your message to one word. Obama did this with “Change” in 2008 and “Forward” in 2012. Others have noted that branding to one word is in vogue with private companies as well. So what about the water industry? So what about water? Maybe we simply need to say “One.” It is all one. We can treat any water quality to meet whatever your need may be. So why differentiate the water source? There are many water associations out there for a variety of reasons including unhappiness with another associated (so they creates a breakaway group). But how does this help the water industry? There are too many water associations that are way too specialized in what they do. Differentiating them create silos, silos that make you think water is different. But we know it is not. It’s all one. So for example, the America Water Works Association is the oldest of the water industry associations and is the only one that sets standards for the industry. It has long created manuals of practice that have been updated numerous times by industry professionals. And water purveyors must treat all types of water to deliver healthy, safe water to your household, and they do, and have for over 100 years. Tap water is as safe or safer than any other option. So what would happen if AWWA were to reassert its leadership role with a new mantra that pulls the industry together. What if they tried “One”?
The late spring snowstorm adds to snowpack. Maybe Colorado can escape drought this summer! Congrats.
My thoughts are with those in Boston. A terrible incident surrounding a wonderful springtime celebration where some one or some group that has decided that violence is somehow an appropriate means to make a point, a point that so far has escaped us in Boston. No one deserves to be impacted by events like that.
All such acts are terrorism, domestic or otherwise. We need to understand that the goal of terrorism is to disrupt our day-to-day life, to scare people, make them afraid to do normal activities, to cause their withdraw from society, to bankrupt business and disrupt economies by slowing cash flow and disrupt governance. All to make some point. Or because they are crazy. Crazy people do crazy things; we expect it, but are always surprised when it happens.
My message to those who did this – so you are crazy, have some issue with someone, are unhappy or want change. There are doctors and appropriate channels for change, so why disrupt people’s lives? What does this accomplish? That’s the eternal question. Such behavior cannot be tolerated and tends to make us stronger.
For the rest of us, we do society and those directly impacts an injustice to “accept” it, to tolerate it or to ignore it. May we judiciously pursue the guilty and bring them to justice. We all must do our part. Special thanks to all those already helping – the blood donors, first responders, people on the scene who helped. In the meantime, as FDR said the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Defy their goals! Don’t give into their desire to disrupt us. May our healing begin…
Let’s think about great leaders in business and politics in the US. Our two greatest leaders were Lincoln and FDR. Lincoln led us through challenging times, but his means to govern and organization of the federal government was a huge change from those before him. FDR led us through the challenge of the Great Depression and WW2. But government and the world was hugely different as a result of his tenure in Office (and thanks to Truman for completing it).
Other political leaders included all those crazy radical forefathers who had the audacity in 1776 to think that average people could actually govern themselves. We have no conception to day what a crazy idea that was in the 18th century as we take it for granted today. Teddy Roosevelt changed how we viewed open space. But mostly is change that people wrought that made them leaders.
In business, Ford changed how car were made in an effort to sell more at lower costs. Edison changed the world with the light bulb. Los Angeles would not exist if William Mulholland had not conceived of bringing water and power across the mountains. So is it change or challenge that creates leaders? Or both? Or something else?
In the last two blogs we discussed the three issues were associated with risk tolerance in the public sector which stifles innovation, application of business principles to public sector efforts, and the lack of vision and understanding of consequences. In this blog we will explore the third issue – the lack of vision. This is perhaps the hardest of the three parameters discussed. One would think that applying private sector business principles would help with the vision process, but it does not because the terms for elected officials are comparatively short term. In addition, our demands on the private sector are short term profits which has hurt the long-term vision of both public and private sectors.
What is a vision? It is supposed to be a concept of where you want your organization to be in a longer-term future. It is an agent for change and those developing the vision are outlining the change they want in the organization. What services are to be provided, what water sources are to be used, energy self sufficiency, wastewater reuse opportunities, incorporation of storm water to sources waters, etc.? All possible ideas, but they only scratch the surface of the universe of opportunities that might exist. The key is change, which normally requires thinking outside the proverbial box. Change rarely comes from doing the same thing over and over. Change requires innovation. So by its very nature, the status quo is not leadership because no change is required. Managers who “don’t rock the boat” may be excellent managers, but they are not leaders. Elected officials who’s mantra is not to raise rates, are not leaders either.
Your customers often are a great source for defining vision. They will tell you what services they want. I recall a meeting went to where I was talking about leadership to some elected officials. The public was present in force. I brought up the concept of developing a vision. The public was encouraged. They spoke out about ideas. All very good. Then one of the Board members informed everyone that vision statements were the job of the attorney and he would just write one up. That did not go over nearly as well as that Board member had hoped. He was abdicating his roles in overseeing the utility as well as any leadership role he might have hoped to have. The public knew what they wanted, and it was clearly change, something the Board member clearly did not want.
So the question is “are we that afraid of change that we cannot tolerate leadership?” Are managers and elected officials so concerned about change that they actively suppress it despite public outcry? I often raise the following question when talking to elected officials – how many statues have been raised for politicians who did not raise rates? We’ll talk about that next time…
In the last blog we discussed the three issues were associated with risk tolerance in the public sector which stifles innovation, application of business principles to public sector efforts, and the lack of vision and understanding of consequences. In this blog we will explore the second issue – application of business issue into the public sector. The public and private sectors are different. We need to recognize this. For the most part, the public sector does those things that the private sector deems to be averse toward profits. Clearly everyone needs water, but if you can’t get people to pay for it, you can’t make a business out of it. Enter government, which has the ability to lein and condemn houses for failure to be connected. A bit more incentive.
Or take fire service. Fire service in New York was once a private affair. You paid and the fire company would respond. If your house caught fire and you had not paid, then what. No one shows. This was illustrated nicely in the movie “Gangs of New York” and was the catalyst for creating the NYC fire department. And many others. It simply is not acceptable to have some people but not all, because of the risk to everyone. Vaccinations are the same way. Much easier to implement by government. And historically this is what has happened.
But we often hear the commentary about how we should be “running government like a business.” However I suggest this is an oversimplified argument that ignores true differences in the objectives of the public and private sector. The two sectors are different and let’s look at an example. If you were in charge of Ford Motor Company and let’s say you had only two vehicles, the F150 pickup (largest selling vehicle in the US) which has a high profit margin, or a passenger vehicle which does not have a high profit margin and does not sell nearly as well. If you determine that your revenues are likely to decrease as a result of the economy, where do you make cuts? There is an easy metric – cutting costs and reducing production of the passenger vehicle might actually maintain or improve your profit margin. So that manager looks like a brilliant leader.
He (generic) now gets hired to run a City because of his success at Ford. The City of course has a revenue shortfall, so what does he do? Much more difficult. He has police, fire, parks and recreation, planning, etc. so where do you cut. None of them are profit centers; they are all services, the value of which cannot easily be measured. He could evaluate the risk of higher losses if he cuts the fire department, but that likely has other issues. Hence there is a distinct different in the metrics between the sectors. So he cuts all services the same amount – sharing the pain because there is no means to measure the impact of success of cutting costs. Every government employee recognizes this method to reduce the budget. So how would that have worked at Ford? Well, cutting back on the F150 and the passenger vehicle the same percent would likely make the overall situation worse, not better. A Ford executive making that type of decision would be roundly criticized and likely dismissed, but that same person is viewed as a successful manager in the public sector. Nonesense. He’s still an idiot and deserves to be fired. Ditto the other officials that go along with such simplistic decision-making.
The public and private sectors are different, and while there are commonalities, the inability to directly measure impacts on the public sector make private sector applications suspect in many situations. Curtaining services that have much larger, unanticipated consequences, a risk that dissuades innovation because of the inherent risks and the risk of impacting some powerful constituency. Simplistic solutions that are commonly offered up simply mean that these “leaders” simply do not understand what their “products” are nor which ones are a priority. And hence they abdicate their decision-making for simplistic solutions that seem “fair.” Successful leaders in business and government will tell you lesson #1 is life is not fair. We need leadership to help us make better decisions.
One of the issues that arises in the public water utility sector is where are the leaders? A recent online discussion of the issue identified a number of barriers to public sector leadership, which differentiates the public sector from the private sector. The three issues were associated with risk tolerance in the public sector which stifles innovation, application of business principles to public sector efforts, and the lack of vision and understanding of consequences. Related to the latter is the understanding of the various types and perspectives of expertise within the industry. Over the next three blogs, we will talk about each. Comments welcome of course.
So the first one. For the most part, public officials, city managers, finance directors and elected officials, are particularly risk averse individuals as a group. For one thing, their tenure in any given job is relatively short (city manager are aground 2-3 years). Elected officials spend much of their time trying to stay in office, so clearly their leadership is guided by public opinion, never a strong point for leadership. Regulatory agencies can only be criticized, so why be innovative? For all three, plus the employees working beneath these folks, their performance is in the public eye and the public is rarely forgiving of continued or significant failures. However, innovation is often correlated with risk, which suggests that the risk associated with failure may limit the pursuit or acceptance of innovation – instead keep doing what you have been doing because that creates no waves. Nevermind that the same old way may be inefficient or outdated, the concern is the risk if a new idea fails. The reality is to “stick with what works,” a mantra that has existed in the industry for many yeas, does not accept innovation easily. Particularly of issue is organizations where many mid- and often upper division managers avoid decision-making, but may be particularly poignant in pointing out decision failures of others as a means to improve their own stock – “I’ve never made a bad decision.” But as in baseball, sitting on the bench 0 for 0, means you have never had an at bat, so you have accomplished nothing, while the person who is 6/10 may have accomplished a lot. It is successful risk taking that may lead to changes in the organization, changes in doing business, improvements in efficiency and new means to accomplish tasks or deliver services. You need to think “outside the box,” to use an overused euphemism.
So the question is how do we get the public and the public officials to accept risk taking, and to relax their risk averseness? For innovation to grow, we need leadership, which means risk tolerance. After all doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results is the definition of insanity isn’t it?
WHAT MAKES A GREAT LEADER?
This a question that has puzzled researchers for some time. Back in the 19th century we looked to enlightenment among people – mostly oriented to new ideas and processes that would move civilization forward. That helped but did not provide full answers. Of course we were still in the throes of the start of the industrial revolution. We looked at psychology to show us how to find leaders at the turn of the 20th century, but that faded in favor of trying to determine traits that made good leaders in the 1920s. The idea of traits faded as we started looking the style by which people managed (think all those tests out there), but soon found that management style, leadership perception and results were often not correlated. In the 1990s we started looking at adaptation, but as Jim Collins points out the great companies seem to have leaders that are the opposite of the charismatic leadership many seek or seek to become. It’s the plodders, who can adapt to changing facts or situations on the front lines, that seem to get results. And we only tend to notice after the fact, or well into their leadership reign, not at the beginning. In fact many of the best success stories received much criticism early on.
What this all seems to indicate is that leadership evolves, just as civilization evolves. Those that can evolve and adapt to changing conditions appear to lead the most successful organizations, but are not often recognized as the best leaders. No one set of characteristics in a person will fit each situation or challenge, but you need the ability to understand the context of the facts in order to chart a course and engage people in solutions. Without buy-in, the problem will not be solved and most challenges require thought on the part of others who are committed to the same goals as the leader. The leadership team concepts allows for the ability to delegate to those closest to the situation, or with the best skill set to resolve it, will achieve the best result and create personal accountability by creating a personal stake in the solution.
Engagement identifies another emerging hallmark of leadership which is that we all want to succeed and leaders tend to nudge their followers toward that success. Good leaders always backstop their charges, and understand that not all situations will be resolved ideally and that there may be multiple means to resolve the problem. That gives the followers the ability to “gamble” on innovative solutions without the fear of reprisals. The fear of reprisals will eliminate innovation. What you want is to lead your organization to be innovative. Organizations that foster innovation can become more effective in their industry. Isn’t that what we want? Fostering innovation is how Google develops a lot of its applications. They call it 20% time, where employees get to work on anything they want, with anyone they want, except their own projects. Think GoogleEarth, gmail, and many others. Dan Pink did an excellent discussion in his best seller “Drive.” I recommend you check it out. But then we need to ask, “When was the last time we tried something like 20% time in the utility industry?”
Planning is a process utilized by utilities in order to reach a vision of the utility as defined by the customers or the governing board, or to meet certain demands for service projected to be required in the future. Understanding and managing the utility’s assets provides important information related to the ongoing future direction of the utility system. However, the only method to develop that future direction is through the planning process. Planning should be undertaken on a regular basis by all enterprises in an effort to anticipate in to anticipate needs, clarify organizational goals, provide direction for the organization to pursue and to communicate each of these to the public. With water and wastewater utility systems, it is imperative to have ongoing planning activities, as many necessary improvements and programs take months or years to implement and/or complete. Without a short and long-term plan to accomplish future needs, the utility will suffer errors in direction, build unnecessary or inadequate infrastructure and pursue programs that later are found to provide the wrong information, level of service or type of treatment.
Planning can provide for a number of long-term benefits – improvements in ISO ratings to lower fire insurance rates, renewal of improvements as monies become available, rate stability and most importantly – a “vision” for the utility. In creating any plan for a utility system, efforts to understand the operating environment in which the utility operates must be undertaken. Second, the needs of the utility must be defined – generally from growth projections and analyses of current infrastructure condition from repair records or specific investigations. By funneling this information into the planning process, the result of the effort should be a set of clear goals and objectives needs to be defined (Figure 8.1). However, the types of goals and objectives may vary depending on the type of plan developed. There are 4 types of plans that may result from the planning process.
Any utility planning effort should start with a description (and understanding) of the local environment (built and otherwise). An understanding of the environment from which water is drawn or to be discharged is important. Both water quality and available quantity, whether surface or ground water, are profoundly affected by demand. A reduced demand for surface water helps prevent degradation of the quality of the resource in times of low precipitation. Reduction in the pumping of ground water improves the aquifer’s ability to withstand salt water infiltration, potential surface contamination, upconing of poorer quality water, contamination by septic tank leachate, underground storage tank leakage, and leaching hazardous wastes and other pollutants from the surface. Over-pumping ground water leads denuding the aquifer or to contamination of large sections of the aquifer. Planning for is necessary for surface water systems. Therefore, source water protection must be a part of any water planning efforts, including the appropriate application sites and treatment needs for reuse and residuals.
So let’s toss sea level rise into the mix. What happens when sea level rise inundates coastal areas with saltwater and increase freshwater heads inland? How do we fix that problem and should be plan for it. Clearly master planning should include this threat (as applicable), just as any regulatory issue, water limitation, disposal limit or change in business practices should be considered. One means to reduce the impact of sea level induced groundwater levels is infiltration galleries that may operate 24/7. These systems are commonly used to dispose of storm water (french drains or exfiltration trenches) but what happens if the flow is reversed? Water will flow easily into the system, just as it does for riverbank filtration. The water must be disposed of, with limited options, but let’s toss a crazy idea out there – could it be your new water supply? Just asking, but such a system would not be unprecedented worldwide, only in the coastal communities of the US.
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