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Staying Power

To: The Chief of the Zenith City Public Safety Agency
From: Bob Behn
Re: Getting People to Take Change — and You — Seriously
Date: August 2002

You need to convince people that you aren’t leaving — that you aren’t leaving Zenith City, and that you aren’t leaving the chief’s post. Otherwise, people will employ the standard bureaucratic response to any new person with a new idea (or even an old person with a new idea): They will just wait you out. Until they are convinced that you — and your ideas — aren’t going away, they have little reason to cooperate.

I. Convince Everyone That You — and Your Family — Really Like Zenith City

While each of Bob Behn’s Manager’s Choice dilemmas is set in a particular public agency and deals with a particular problem, each is intended to provide a specific context for a common management challenge — one that might just as easily come up in a different kind of agency facing a different kind of problem. All Governing readers and Governing.com visitors are invited to draw on their experience and submit suggestions.

For years, it appears, police chiefs have stopped in Zenith City on their way to bigger and better jobs. They have been tourists, not residents. You need to behave like a resident — a permanent resident.

So do all the little things that you would do if you, indeed, planned to live in Zenith City for the rest of your life. I don’t just mean buy a home, rather than rent. I mean buy one that suggests you are planning to stay. Fix up the landscaping. Even if it doesn’t really need that much fixing, fix it. Demonstrate that you like this house, but that you couldn’t possibly live in it for long if you didn’t make it your home.

Then find a way to bring your family into the act. Maybe your spouse doesn’t like to accompany you to civic engagements. Maybe your kids are shy. Still, encourage whomever in your family is willing — whenever an opportunity (big or small) occurs — to say that he or she really likes Zenith City.

Neither you nor your family have to do things that you wouldn’t ordinarily do. But if you can find an opportunity to do them a little quicker or a little more visibly, do so.

II. Convince Everyone That You Really Like Your Job

Clearly, you really like this job. So make it clear to whomever you talk to that you like it.

How? I’m not too sure. It has to fit your personal style. You can’t be convincing if you are uncomfortable with the method that you have chosen to be convincing.

And whatever you do, don’t talk about other cities or other police departments. A single word about how you enjoyed the conference in Gopher Prairie can quickly make it around the agency so that in two days people will think that you are already leaving. Instead, when you get back from the conference in Gopher Prairie tell everyone how good it is to be back “home.”

III. Box Yourself in on Compstat

Everyone in the Zenith City Public Safety Agency may conclude you will be a permanent fixture for the next decade. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have concluded that your version of Compstat will be around for that long. After all, you might go to a seminar next month and come back with a completely different idea. Or you might simply get bored with Compstat. Or they might (they hope) wear you down.

You have to do something to dramatize that, like you, Compstat isn’t going to disappear.

I suggest that you do this on Tuesday, September 3, the first day after Labor Day. You could do this in several ways. When the city council meets that evening, you could testify about your Compstat strategy for FY 2003. It’s not apt to be a big news day. The council has already adopted the budget. And there won’t be any new legislation.

So ask the mayor to invite you testify about your Compstat strategy. Come prepared to make a professional presentation. But first, in late August, be sure to personally brief both the mayor and each member of the city council. Then, during the day on September 3, give the same briefing to the editorial board of the Zenith City Tribune and the key commentators on KZEN, the local public-radio station.

Then spend the rest of September on Zenith City’s version of the rubber-chicken circuit. Offer to address every civic and community organization in the city. And every time you do, bring along one of your precinct commanders. Introduce him or her, and explain not only your city-wide goals, but also your goals for this commander’s precinct.

What you want is some publicity for your FY 2003 Compstat goals. You want to make sure that every civic leader in the city knows exactly what targets you have set for your agency.

Even more important, you want to make sure that every person who works for the Zenith City Public Safety Agency knows that all of the civic leaders know about your goals.

This boxes you in very publicly. It also boxes in the precinct commanders of your agency. They now know that your Compstat can’t go away. You can’t let it go away. If you do, you will be very embarrassed — publicly embarrassed. The civic leaders will know what you committed to accomplish, and they won’t let you off the hook.

IV. Be Relentless

Use every opportunity to talk about the FY 2003 Compstat program. When the numbers look good, brag about the numbers. When the numbers look bad, clearly explain your strategy for reversing this harmful trend.

Every Friday morning, be at the Compstat meeting. Don’t miss a one. And always ask at least one question of every precinct commander. You can leave most of the questioning to others; indeed, it would be a good idea to give Francis the responsibility of chairing these sessions. Still, at some point during the discussion of each precinct’s successes, failures and strategy, you have to ask the commander a question that both dramatizes your interest in that precinct’s latest results and reveals your knowledge of both trends and the comparative effectiveness of different approaches.

Eventually, at least one precinct will begin to make some progress. When this happens, make sure that both the precinct’s commander and its cops are appropriately rewarded. I don’t mean with money. I mean with recognition. You might hold a special ceremony at the precinct. You might ask the commander to put together a team to explain the precinct’s strategy at a Friday meeting. You might ask the mayor to let the precinct commander make a presentation to a city council meeting.

You possess lots of vehicles for dramatizing both individual precinct successes and your commitment to even further improvement. Use them to convince the people who work in your agency that you, your family and your ideas are not going to go away.

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