Livable Cities and Political Choices

This excerpt is from an article describing 3 ways to reduce the influence of private cars in our planning decisions. While the article has some good thoughts, it was this portion that described the public and city planners role in the political decision making process, insisting that technical details be humanized. And the idea that the public needs to shift from a reactive, protesting position to an active, positive position about what we want our neighborhoods, communities, and cities to look, feel, and live.

http://www.planetizen.com/node/44299

Transforming Our Cities
Our thinking about planning has begun to change. When city planners built freeways during the 1950s, everyone believed that the decision about whether a freeway was needed was a technical question that the planners should decide by doing studies of projected demand. But when citizens began to oppose freeway construction during the 1960s, they talked about the freeways' effects on the "quality of life." By asking this qualitative question, by asking whether it is good to live in cities built around freeways, they changed the decision about the freeway from a technical question decided by the planners into a political question that should be decided democratically.

This example shows that we can make the fundamental political decisions about what sorts of cities we want to live in if we think about different urban designs in concrete, human terms, if we think about the ways of life that they imply.

This does not mean that we can do without planners. City planners are obviously needed to design the public transportation systems for any of three of the ideal types in our thought experiment - and to design many other details of these cities.

In fact, city planners were among the first to talk about limiting freeway construction, because they were the first to learn the facts about the subject. But there was a big difference between the city planners who built the freeways, who wanted to solve technical transportation problems for a passive public, and the city planners who opposed the freeways by talking about their effect on the quality of life, making freeway construction into a political issue.

We need to go beyond the anti-freeway and anti-sprawl movements, which just aim at stopping destructive developments, and to take positive political steps to make our cities more livable and more sustainable.

City planners understand the changes that are needed: We should build new public transportation infrastructure with pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods around the stations. City planners also know that needed changes are often blocked by angry NIMBYs.

At the deepest level, the problem is that most people think of themselves as clients of the planners, that their only role in the political process is to demand that the planners provide them with more housing, better neighborhoods, more transportation, easier parking, and more environmental protections.

This conventional view of city planning is part of our conventional view of the economy as a whole. The decisions are made by organizations that have the needed technical expertise, and ordinary people are consumers whose only role is to demand more for themselves.

People need to stop thinking about cities as bundles of technical problems that the planners must solve for them and to start thinking about the different ways that they would live in different types of cities.

The New Urbanists have taken a step in the right direction by organizing charrettes: People who are against a development when they hear an abstract factoid about it are often in favor of the development when they go to a charrette and work on drawings of what it could actually look like.

People will stop acting as consumers making demands of the planners and will start acting as citizens who can govern themselves, if they think in this concrete way about cities, regions, and the overall economy - if they recognize that urban design helps to determine how they live, and that they could live better by living more simply.

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Charles Siegel's most recent book is Unplanning: Livable Cities and Political Choices. He has written articles and books about a variety of subjects, including economic growth, architecture, child care, and the history of philosophy. He is also a political activist who works on local city planning issues in Berkeley, California.

5 Steps for Documenting Your Systems - E-Myth

5 Steps for Documenting Your Systems

2011 | Dec 14 in Home Page News , Management

http://www.e-myth.com/cs/user/print/post/5-steps-for-documenting-your-systems

By Bobby Burns, E-Myth Business Coach

Great systems without documentation are only rumors about the way you do things in your business.

A procedure without clear directions is little more than anassumption about the way things should be done.

Without documentation, all your tasks, functions, processes, and procedures – the way that you and your staff habitually doeverything – are nothing more than good intentions.  

In other words, you need to write it down.

You may want to resist this notion.

But how many times have you found yourself telling your employees how to do something? Again, and again, and again?

Have a Plan

My client, Ron, is a great boss and a true visionary.  He might be seen as the embodiment of the Entrepreneur. He has a great team and a thriving business.  But it wasn't always such. There was a time when he would come to our coaching meetings exasperated and highly agitated.

"Why can't people just get it?" he would ask.

"Get what?" I would respond.

"How to do things right? I've told them I don't know how many times… and they still manage to screw it up."

It turns out that Ron had three account managers who had the same tasks and responsibilities, but managed to find at least three different ways of carrying them out!

It was a rare day when there were no problems resulting from this lack of consistency.

"I hired these guys for their experience." He said, "They should be able to figure it out. Lord knows I did!"

Sadly, Ron was completely correct in his assumption.  They had "figured it out" – by doing it in whatever way they had in their previous jobs!

Ron had his way of doing things, knew how he wanted them done, but he had not followed through beyond trusting that repeated verbal warnings and "showing them" would suffice.

It became apparent that, while Ron had a large number of systems in his head for his managers to follow, very few were actually captured.  

And this was true throughout his business.

The System for Systems

The work of developing effective systems isn't truly complete until they are captured, written down, and made readily accessible in an effective and systemic fashion.

It shouldn't surprise you that at E-Myth we have a system for that called the System Action Plan.

You should be using something similar as you develop and build your business and your business functions.

We work with our clients to help them develop a system to effectively identify the documentation work they should be doing – and how to best structure and prioritize that work.  

5 Steps for Documenting Your Systems:

You need to have a plan for effectively documenting all the key routines you have in your business.  

And you need to find a balance that works for you.  

Since the work of systems documentation will be taking place concurrently with all of the regular daily tasks and operations of your business, it is vital to have a well thought-out strategy.  Allowing sufficient time and resources from the start will prevent many missteps down the road.

Here is an example of an approach that has worked well for many of my clients:

1. Identify your key systems. One approach that our clients use is to review their business functions by separating the operations into categories we call the Seven Centers of Management Attention. You can approach this by considering one department, or operational unit, of your business at a time. List all of the key tasks, functions, and procedures you can think of.  Enlist the help of your employees. The goal is to be as complete and comprehensive as possible.
   
   
2. Draw up a "systems diagram." Create a diagram of all the systems in your business: existing systems and those that need to be created. Remember to identify all the systems that comprise your business, including systems you don't have yet, but will need in order to achieve your vision for your business. Typically, most of your systems will be in these three essential business processes: client fulfillment, lead conversion, and lead generation. You'll also need to identify your administrative, human resources, finance, and even information technology systems.
   
   
3. Make a prioritized business systems listing. Based on your systems diagram, simply list all the systems on a spreadsheet that will become a working document for planning and controlling business development efforts companywide. This will serve as the basis of your "Master To Do List" for systems documentation. Prioritization is often determined by the impact of a given system: how great is its impact on your customers and how great is the impact on your business, your bottom line?
   
   
4. Assign accountabilities for documenting the systems. It is quite unlikely that you will have the time, inclination, or even the ability to thoroughly document every system yourself! A significant part of the strategy in this plan is in delegating some or most of this function to your manager and/or staff.  And keep in mind that they, too, will have to complete this work while continuing to perform their other daily functions.  So establishing clear target dates and benchmarks is a critical part of the success of this strategy.  This won't happen overnight.  Focus on the key systems that, once implemented, might themselves have the greatest impact on improved workflow.  Do that and you'll gain even more system-development time in the bargain!
   
   
5. Develop and use a standard approach for documentation. At E-Myth we provide our clients with a System Action Plan. It is important that you provide your staff with a standard method for documentation in order to ensure the highest degree of consistency. So, starting them off with some samples, supported by training and timely feedback is essential to avoid wasted time and unnecessary frustration.
   
   

Not the Holy Grail

Now that you have an idea for how to document your systems, there's a very important caveat.

Good systems – effective, dynamic systems – are utterly essential to building and sustaining a great business; but merely having those systems is not the solution for a dysfunctional business.  

We've said it before but it bears repeating:  People are the power behind the systems.

The systems are their levers, not their replacements!

Your business has enormous potential because you and your people have enormous potential! And when your people have the freedom to find the most effective way to complete their job, not only will they take pride in their work, they'll never stop making the systems better.

Turn Frustrations into Systems

http://www.e-myth.com/cs/user/print/post/turn-frustrations-into-systems

2011 | Dec 7 in Home Page News , Management , Leadership

By Joe Wollenweber, Senior Coach

Jayne's business was eroding.

Areas of her business that were previously fertile and profitable were now barely breaking even.

She was frustrated and she needed to increase revenue.

If you follow the dictates of systemization, you might quickly arrive at the conclusion that herlead generation and lead conversion systems needed to be innovated.

But that's not necessarily right.

In fact, leaping straight to a solution can do more harm than good.

The System of Thinking

Creating effective systems requires systemic thinking.

Now, that statement is not as obvious as it may first seem.  Too often, one's first response to addressing a frustration is to simply rush to install a system that will make the frustration stop.

But, that's like taking a pill to stop the pain without identifying its origin.

A business is a reflection of its owner. Therefore, it's imperative to look at yourself, as the owner, and first consider what you might be doing to cause the problem and not just leap to a solution.

Systemic thinking is, therefore, the act of thinking systematically. Step by step.

I knew it was time to introduce Jayne to E-Myth's premier problem solving exercise, the Key Frustration Process.

I started from the beginning.

"So your basic frustration is a lack of revenue, right?" I asked her this question as a way to get her to 'stop' and focus in on the true underlying condition causing the frustration.

"Yes, Joe, I thought that was clear," Jayne replied with a sigh.  I was getting the sense that she felt going over it again or delving deeper didn't much appeal to her.

Why?

Children are natural systemic thinkers.  Their favorite word is "Why?"  Sometimes, the best coaching approach is to model a precocious 5-year-old.

I knew Jayne needed to be both challenged and supported since it was hard for her to look at the actual conditions in the business that might be causing the results that were making her unhappy. Jayne tended to blame the outer economic situation; and the changing face of her industry. But I knew there was a deeper reality going on here and that's exactly what the Key Frustration Process aims to address.

"Why has revenue not kept pace year over year?" I asked.

"Like I said, the environment has changed " she insisted.

"Why do you believe that it's the outer environment and not something internal to your company?"

"I just do."

"Why?"

"Because it's all the same people involved," Jayne said with an air of frustration that facing the truth often brings if you're not prepared for the answer.

It's my job, as Jayne's coach, to push her further than she would go on her own.

"Why would you accept that it's an outer directed problem?"

"Because I'm making that assumption," she replied.

"Good, that's exactly it.  Now, why would your sales people accept the results they are getting?" I asked.

"Um-mm," she murmured. "Could it be that we really don't have a way to focus them on targets and hold them accountable?"

"Might be.  Why do you think that?"

"Well I have to admit, the entire culture around here is kind of lax in that regard. We just expect our folks to do it, and come to me if they can't."

"And how that's going for you?" I asked.

"Well, the results tell the truth, right?" She replied.

"They keep the score if that's what you mean. Why haven't you been able to change those results?"

"Well I think it must have something to do with the fact that we lack any real accountability in our company. We just kind of stopped when we started to lose clients."

"Why don't you track your sales activity goals and your conversion rates?" I asked.

"Because we just stopped doing it," Jayne acknowledged.

"So you see," I said, "you seem to have identified a much deeper condition than simply needing a new lead generation or conversion system. It's certain you may need to innovate these systems, but unless you solve this underlying problem of accountability, it will be like putting on a band-aid before you've stopped the arterial bleeding."

Graphic, but it made the point.

"Yes!" Jayne cried out, "you're absolutely right. We've let ourselves believe we were doing all we can, but in truth, we gave up holding people accountable in any real fashion, and now we're suffering the consequence of this."

How It Works

Jayne decided, based on our coaching conversation, to create better expectation agreements with goals and measurements that were discussed in regular 1-on-1 accountability meetings with her salespeople.

In just a few weeks of these adjustments, Jayne started to notice a real difference with her staff. They now knew what was expected of them and how they were going to be measured and held accountable.

It is easy to find a system solution. But if in the process you haven't addressed the shortcomings of your culture, leadership dysfunctions or other habits that need shifting, you may stamp down the fire - or stop the immediate pain - but you're likely to leave the most critical flammable material still smoldering in the background. You won't have transformed your business. Which do you want to achieve?

If you haven't before experienced the power of the Key Frustrations Process – the premier exercise in thinking systemically – I'd suggest learning more about our Key Frustrations Process online seminar. Begin to systematically identify and eliminate the core frustrations in your business and life.

If you are an E-Myth Mastery client, you've probably already taken our Key Frustrations process for a test-drive.  You might want to take it for another spin, with your 5-year old in the back seat, asking "Why?"