Discussion 7AOOE

W10 hat does a golfer, tennis player or

cricketer (or any other professional

sportsperson) focus on to achieve

high performance? They nearly

always give the same answer: “Repeat my

process (that is the process they have practised

a million times) – replicate it under real

pressure and trust in my ability”

That’s why Matthew Lloyd throws the grass

up under the roof at Etihad Stadium. It is

why Ricky Ponting taps the bat, looks down,

looks up and mouths “watch the ball”. It’s

unnecessary for Matthew Lloyd to toss the

grass. There’s no wind under the roof – it’s

simply a routine that enables him to replicate

his process under pressure.

Ricky Pointing knows you have to watch the

ball. Ponting wants the auto pilot light in his

brain to fl ick on as he mutters “watch the ball”.

High performance in sport is achieved through focusing on your

processes, not the scores.

It is absolutely no different in local government. Our business

is governance and we need to be focusing very hard on our

governance processes. We need to learn these processes, modify

them when necessary, understand them deeply, repeat them

under pressure and trust in our capabilities to deliver. If we do

that, the scores will look after themselves.

I want to share with you my ten most important elements in

the governance process. Let me fi rst say that good governance is

the set of processes, protocols, rules, relationships and behaviours

which lead to consistently good decisions. In the end good

governance is good decisions. You could make lots of good

decisions without good governance. But you will eventually

run out of luck – eventually, bad governance process will lead

to bad decisions. Consistently good decisions come from good

governance processes and practices.

Good governance is not only a prerequisite for consistently

good decisions, it is almost the sole determinant of your

reputation. The way you govern, the ‘vibe’ in the community

and in the local paper about the way you govern is almost the

sole determinant of your reputation. Believe me, if reputation

matters to you, then drive improvements through good

governance.

So here are the ten core elements:

1. THE COUNCIL PLAN

An articulate council plan is a fundamental fi rst step to achieving

your goals. It is your set of promises to your community for a

four-year term.

Unfortunately, there are too many wrong plans:

• Claytons Plans – say too little and are too bland. Delete the

name of the council from these plans and you can’t tell whose

it is! There’s no ‘vibe’ at all.

• Agreeable Plans – where everyone gets their bit in the plan.

There’s no sense of priorities, everyone agrees with everything

in the plan and we save all the real fi ghts and confl icts to be

fought out one by one over the four-year term.

• Opposition-creating Plans – we don’t do this so often but we

sometimes ‘use the numbers’ to enable the dominant group of

councillors to achieve their goals and fail to accommodate the

non-dominant group’s agenda at all. Accordingly, we create

an opposition and assign these councillors to the opposition

benches for the council term.

An articulate council plan is the least you owe your citizens.

2. POLICY DEVELOPMENT

As a sector we undertake too little policy development which

supports the achievement of our strategic goals. Yet goals or

objectives are what we want to achieve. For example, economic

prosperity, environmental sustainability, community safety and

cohesion are all goals.

Strategies are simply ideas on how to achieve goals. For example,

if economic prosperity is our goal then attracting new investment

is one of the ‘get there’ strategies.

Policies are council ‘rules’ or ‘boundaries’ that establish a specifi c

treatment of a general circumstance. For example, if our goal is

economic prosperity and our strategy is investment attraction

then our policy might be “no rates for fi ve years for new businesses

employing more than 50 people”.

There is much too little policy development in the pursuit of

council goals.

3. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

We all make mistakes in this area, but here are my fi ve top tips:

(a) It works best when underpinned by a previously articulated

and understood strategic vision –

• People need understand where we are headed before they are

comfortable discussing how we get there.

• The strategic vision, the big picture, creates legitimacy for the

many decisions, some controversial, along the journey.

(b) There is no place for spin. This is all about transparency – it’s

not so much what we decided at last week’s council meeting

but why we reached that decision. There are four reasons to

engage –

• Are we keeping promises (accountability)?

• Are we grasping new opportunities (leadership)?

18 | GN | FEBRUARY/MARCH 2010

STEPS

TO GOOD

You know that good

governance is

important, but how

does your council

get there?

Philip Shanahan has

some simple solutions.

[Vision 2010.]1ST0EPS

GOVERNANCE

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2010 | GN | 19

• Can people infl uence decisions (participation)?

• Can people access services and opportunities (access and

inclusion)?

(c) Repetition and simplicity – we compete for people’s attention

in this marketplace. When you are sick of telling them, they’ve

just started listening.

(d) Be clear about the engagement you seek. Use an accredited

model like the International Association for Public

Participation’s system to match the kind of community input

you are really seeking with the engagement strategy you are

employing.

(e) Be multi faceted. All the tools at our disposal are appropriate

in different situations. Try using Twitter, blogging or just

delivering an A4-sheet to every home in a street about to

be reconstructed to tell them how much it costs, who is the

contractor, why the street needs a total makeover and who to

ring with problems.

4. CEO MANAGEMENT

Some still don’t understand the fundamental importance of

properly managing the CEO. There is absolutely no place for

‘folksy’ arrangements. And those who treat CEO performance

management light-heartedly or without rigour don’t understand

the power of the process to achieve real results.

5. COUNCIL MEETINGS

The single most important governance activity which forges a

governance reputation is the council meetings.

They create the governance vibe in your municipality.

Some tips:

(a) Fill each agenda with strategic, broad issues straight from the

council plan. If people aren’t talking about the issues in the

pub, why are these issues on your agenda? I get annoyed when

people congratulate themselves on a quick council meeting

– aren’t there any problems in those municipalities? Quality

agendas need quality planning and preparation.

(b) Every council meeting should demonstrate who is in charge

– by the way, councillors are – so:

• Staff don’t talk much.

• No ‘received’ or ‘to be noted’ recommendations – every

report must invite councillor intervention.

• Interventions from councillors need to be organised – who is

the council ‘whip’?

• Every report includes sound expert advice, information and

evidence.

• Always be briefed, agree on no surprises or ambushes.

6. REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNANCE

Most thinking about governance is about corporate governance

– councillors acting as a council. However, the electoral system

seems to mimic state and federal governments – councillors feel

like a representative. Citizens treat councillors as a representative.

They reckon they are a constituent. Local governments must

develop sophisticated systems and protocols that enable

councillors to handle constituent representations. However, those

systems and protocols need to protect and enhance corporate

governance – not undermine it.

7. STEWARDSHIP AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Councillors have an obligation to act in the long-term best

interests of the municipality. That’s stewardship. So:

• Monitor progress

• Manage assets

• Leave the municipality in better state than you found it

• Understand the long term implications of decisions

• Manage risks

• Strive to improve service effectiveness and effi ciency.

8. RELATIONSHIPS

Relationships are usually affected by behaviours. Where behaviour

causes collateral damage to relationships we often get people in

the decision making process ‘playing the man not the ball’. That

is, being in confl ict with a person instead of their opinion.

Poor relationships, regrettably, usually result in lousy decisions.

Councillors and their colleagues are all on the government

benches – relationships usually matter.

9. ADVOCACY

It’s very important to your community. We already know that

a signifi cant improvement in your community’s rating of your

advocacy effort will almost always be accompanied by improved

ratings for all of your services and your overall performance.

Advocacy works best when it comes from previous articulated

strategic positions. In other words, if something is really

important to your community, it ought to be in your council

plan. ‘Left fi eld’ advocacy is seldom appreciated and sometimes a

downright failure.

10. ETHICS

This is obvious. If they think you are dodgy, your good governance

reputation is in tatters. If in some circumstance you feel confl icted,

remember two things. Firstly, how would you feel if the whole story

was on the front page of the local paper – except your side of the

story. Secondly, use your instincts and intuition to help you decide

what is best. Then check the rules very

carefully. If you only look at the rules, you’re

bound to get confused and miss the point.

So those are my ten key concepts. Good

governance isn’t so hard – it just deserves

our careful attention.

“WE NEED TO LEARN THESE PROCESSES,

MODIFY THEM WHEN NECESSARY,

UNDERSTAND THEM DEEPLY, REPEAT

THEM UNDER PRESSURE AND TRUST IN

OUR CAPABILITIES TO DELIVER.”

PHILIP SHANAHAN

IS A FORMER CEO OF

DAREBIN CITY COUNCIL.

HE HAS WORKED IN

LOCAL AND STATE

GOVERNMENT FOR

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