Introducing: The Municipal Leadership Development Circle (MLDC) - Save 50% During Launch Phase
Every week, you’ll get insights and actionable steps to help you navigate personal growth and professional success.
A journey from where you are to where you could be
It’s December 2024. You’re sitting in your office, looking back on another year of:
Now imagine it’s December 2025. You’re in that same office, but everything feels different. Your municipality has transformed. Excellence isn’t just a goal – it’s becoming your standard operating procedure.
Let me take you on that journey.
Hello, Impactful City Leaders!
Welcome to this week’s edition of “The Leader’s Lens!” The most innovative cities aren’t just hiring smart people – they’re mastering how different minds work together. This week, we’ve explored how understanding and leveraging collaborative intelligence can transform your municipality’s effectiveness.
This week, we’ve explored how collaborative intelligence can transform municipal leadership. But here’s the challenge: How do you take these powerful insights and turn them into tangible changes in your organization? Today, we’re getting tactical – providing you with a plethora of concrete tools and practical strategies to make collaborative intelligence work in your municipality.
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.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This famous quote from Peter Drucker could be adapted for municipal government: “Infrastructure determines innovation.” You can have the smartest people, the best intentions, and a clear vision for collaboration, but if your systems and structures don’t support collective intelligence, transformation will remain elusive.
What does flying Coast Guard rescue missions have in common with running a city? According to Peter Troedsson, City Manager of Albany, Oregon, more than you might think.
In this week’s episode of The HaltingWinter Podcast, Troedsson shares how his 30-year military career—including time as a helicopter pilot and commander—shaped his approach to municipal leadership. His insights come at a crucial time when cities face increasing complexity and pressure.
If leadership had a secret weapon, it would be the question. Not just any questions, but the right questions, asked at the right time, in the right way. For city managers, mastering the art of inquiry isn’t just about gathering information – it’s about unlocking innovation, building consensus, and transforming how your municipality approaches challenges.
Building a systematic approach to municipal transformation
Excellence in municipal government isn’t accidental. It’s engineered.
Just as every great building starts with architectural plans, every great municipality needs a development framework – a systematic blueprint for creating, sustaining, and multiplying excellence throughout the organization.
Let’s build that blueprint.
Imagine this scenario: Your city’s downtown revitalization project is stuck. The economic development director sees it through data and revenue projections. The urban planner visualizes spatial relationships and pedestrian flows. The community engagement manager focuses on conversations and stakeholder relationships. Each brings valuable insights, yet instead of creating a richer solution, these different perspectives are causing friction and delays.
Sound familiar? What you’re experiencing isn’t a conflict of personalities or priorities – it’s a collision of mind patterns. And understanding this hidden dynamic could be the key to unlocking your municipality’s innovative potential.
When a city faces its toughest challenges, conventional wisdom tells us to find the smartest solution. But what if the real key isn’t about finding one right answer, but understanding how different minds can work together to create better solutions?
In this week’s episode of The HaltingWinter Podcast, we dive deep into the science of collaborative intelligence, exploring groundbreaking insights from Markova and McArthur’s “Collaborative Intelligence” and what it means for municipal leadership.
