Before anyone gets upset about this practice we need to remember the context in which it is being shared. A practice demonstrated by a mindful leader. And remember mindfulness involves being curious about everything going on and trying to take the time and demonstrate patience. Trying very hard to move from acting in a reactive manner and pursuing contemplation and responding with more precision. Using all the information available to us - including what is happening more subtly and spurred on by emotions.
And for us in government this practice will be especially challenging because many of us are hired, at least partly, because we are an expert in a certain area. Naturally we can be considered an expert in our field. So while the term says "Don't be an Expert" I feel we can safely suggest that Marc Lesser means "Don't show up only as the Expert". I am thinking of an interaction with a Council. We are in the room because we are an expert. But, can we show up with expertise and share it without coming across as "the smartest person in the room"? Even if we are...just kidding. Can we show up with confidence while not looking over confident? Can we share and invite Council curiosity? Remember the concept of "beginner's mind". While what you are sharing is not new to you it is the first time you are sharing it with Council and it is potentially their first time learning what you already know. Invite their curiosity. Anticipate it. Be glad for it.
Sometimes, because of our familiarity and expertise in certain processes and subjects, we tend to move into autopilot. Let's take, for example, our budget process year after year. We spend endless hours building out a budget for Council to consider. And, in my opinion, this process changes only very slightly year after year. Thus autopilot can be engaged. And this can come across when we present to Council. We are the experts, we have done this so many times, and yes, some long term Council members can also get to the point of hitting cruise control. I have been in budget deliberations when this has led to eye-rolling and even exhausted sighs when a curious Councillor asks a question. And we, as administration, leave the session asking things like "Why don't they get it?" or "Why are they asking such silly questions?"
Remember how tipped the scales of information are for us as admin. The hours mentioned before. The fact that this is our expertise. We have a number of supports helping us get to the recommendations we make, we are a bigger team than Council, we have numerous meetings with our colleagues to ruminate. We are the experts and they are not. They have placed trust in us but we can not react negatively when they get curious. They absolutely should get curious. Now, there are times when their curiosity gets overly emotional and, especially nowadays, tip toward being disrespectful. There are no excuses for this but we still have the ability here to take the high road whenever possible. We should try and be precise and logical with our responses and come back to the issue at hand. Knowing where to tapout on these types of interactions is another blog in itself. But we can only really impact what we bring to these interactions and try to influence positive behaviour with our colleagues.
In the end, we are trying to set up Councils to make great decisions. And to do this requires all the tools in our toolbox. We need to complement our expertise with an effort to ascertain what we do not see. What is motivating Council comments or questions? Have they been approached by someone in the community feeling threatened by something we are recommending? Have they become too singularly focused on something without seeing the bigger picture? Do they need reminding of our community wide aspirations and how we are focused on achieving this? Curiosity on both sides helps us toward making great decisions.
I certainly wish I had learned about this practice earlier on in my career. I learned about a budgeting methodology called priority based budgeting while away at a conference. It was like a lightning bolt hit me when I heard how compelling it was and lead to, in my mind, great decisions being made. Excited, I mad hit my mission, to bring this home and get other people excited too. And I was ultimately successful in that we committed to implementing it. Mission accomplished right? Well far from from it. Our implementation took a long time and for me it took too long. And my own "showing up as the expert" can be partially blamed for this. This was a very big change to ask of a big organization. It was a best practice and not a legislated, or even industry wide, change. And we were not in a situation where it was condition critical. Yet, here I was showing up in rooms with my colleagues trying to drive a change they knew little about and were legitimately questioning the Why. I clearly needed to spend more time allowing for my bigger team to get curious. I needed to make space for learning, for everyone, including me. Not surprisingly, for those who I did spend more time with, we saw the biggest returns on the implementation. Later, we did make space for sharing these learnings and inviting more curios questions but did lose some time and some critical potential champions along the way.
We learn from experience. In fact, "every experience is experience". This specific initiative has helped me immensely. I am far better equipped to recognize when I am coming across as the expert. And am able to take a breath and determine the best course of action, if any, to take to invite curiosities and questions for a learning experience. I hope this is helpful.
