Change

When my kids were younger, I often thought of the quote, “The only people who look forward to change are babies with wet diapers.” I found, of course, that even babies with wet diapers would put up a fuss about change.

In government, we often find ourselves uncomfortably in the middle between calls for change and pressures to preserve the status quo. That’s why it is important to be intentional about change, starting with clarity about “what is the goal?”

This year our city government is working intentionally on change on a number of fronts. We are continuing to emphasize greater accountability and empowerment of our staff. We have implemented performance measures for every department. We are also embracing "budgeting for outcomes" which will better match up how we spend our money with the goals we are seeking to achieve.

We are also pursuing positive change to promote a more sustainable Ventura through our “Green Initiative.” During the last fiscal year we inventoried our practices throughout the city to benchmark how well we do against national standards. In the year ahead, we’ll be moving forward on a number of efforts to make Ventura a more sustainable community. A key area of emphasis will be economic development, with the goal of retaining and attracting high value, high wage jobs. We will continue with our push for "smart growth" and will initiate an ambitious look at the future of our parks.

The overall goal of such initiatives is to go from good to great in pursuing the community's long-term vision for Ventura’s future. How we manage these change efforts is crucial to their realization.

Police Chief Pat Miller recently shared with me a matrix that not only illustrates the key attributes to successfully managing change, it also pinpoints the pitfalls of giving short shrift to any one of them. It's a helpful reminder that change requires careful planning and execution to be successful.

As we enter the local election season, both incumbents and challengers will be presenting their agendas for the future. Of course, it is not enough to just announce you want change -- you have to be both focused and patient enough to see those changes to fruition. Whoever is chosen by the voters will have the challenge of ensuring that the goals and promises they advocate are actually realized. For those of us with the job of seeing the aspirations of the community realized, ensuring that we have the required vision, skills, incentives, resources and action plan is critical to getting that job done.