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How to transform pockets of excellence into systematic success
Sarah leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples in frustration. Through her office window, she could see the usual morning rush in City Hall’s parking lot. As Public Works Director, she’d built one of the most efficient, innovative departments in the region. Yet right now, that success felt more like a burden than an achievement.
“Another department wants to ‘pick your brain,’ Sarah?” her assistant asked, noticing her expression.
“Planning this time,” Sarah sighed. “They’re struggling with the same project management issues we solved two years ago.”
And therein lies the puzzle that keeps her up at night: Why, in an organization where everyone worked under the same roof, did each department seem to operate on its own island? Why did the same problems pop up across departments, each team struggling to find solutions that already existed down the hall?
This isn’t just Sarah’s story. It’s playing out in municipalities across the country.
You’ve seen it yourself. There’s always that one department that seems to have figured it out. That one team that consistently outperforms. That one leader who appears to have cracked the code.
They become legends in your municipal halls. Other departments send their people to shadow them, attend their meetings, learn their secrets. Sometimes it helps – for a while. But somehow, the magic never quite translates.
It’s like having a master chef in your kitchen who can create amazing dishes, but can’t seem to teach others to replicate them. The ingredients are the same. The kitchen is the same. But the results? Dramatically different.
Last month, I sat down with a city manager in the Pacific Northwest who had finally grown tired of this pattern. “We’ve got excellence,” he told me, “but it’s trapped in silos. It’s like having a vaccine for inefficiency but no way to distribute it.”
His municipality had tried everything:
Yet excellence remained stubbornly localized. Why?
The answer lies in understanding the difference between sharing knowledge and scaling excellence.
Think of excellence like a garden. You can’t grow a garden by simply sharing information about gardening. You need:
Municipal excellence works the same way. It’s not enough to share best practices. You need to create the conditions where excellence can take root and spread naturally.
A few months ago, I spoke with a municipality that had cracked this code. Their secret? They stopped trying to clone their high performers and instead focused on building systems that made excellence inevitable.
Their Public Works director didn’t just run an excellent department – she built a leadership development engine that could be replicated across the organization. Their Planning director didn’t just solve problems – he created problem-solving frameworks that any department could adopt.
The difference was systematic rather than personal. They built:
They achieved this through what I call “systematic scaling” – creating the conditions where excellence naturally spreads and takes root.
This is where the Municipal Leadership Development Circle (MLDC) comes in. We don’t just help you identify excellence – we help you build the systems that make it multiply naturally throughout your organization.
Think of it as creating a leadership greenhouse – the right conditions, the right systems, and the right support to help excellence grow everywhere, not just in isolated pockets.
Remember – certain high-touch features like executive coaching sessions and on-site workshops are limited in availability and allocated by enrollment date.
Don’t let another year pass watching excellence remain trapped in silos. Don’t keep reinventing solutions that already exist within your walls.
→ Schedule a Municipal Development Strategy Session
Learn how MLDC can help you:
The municipalities that act now will secure priority access to all program features. The ones that wait will still be wondering why their pockets of excellence aren’t spreading next year.
Seth Winterhalter is the President of HaltingWinter Municipal Solutions and creator of the ABCs of Impactful Leadership framework. Through the Municipal Leadership Development Circle (MLDC), he helps municipalities transform isolated excellence into organizational transformation.
