czblog

reflecting on projects completed the last several years - a housing policy for the city of bridgeport, a series of deep dives for the pennsylvania housing finance agency, an implementation guide for a mothballed economic development strategy for a city that can't presently be mentioned, analysis of the landbank in eugene for harvard university, and others - i believe deeply that buried in the nation's appetite for systems change are a series of critical lessons.

one is that the appetite to do things differently is very different than the capacity to do so.  when you reflect on the limited gains by the otherwise ambitious agenda of new urbanism, or on the stalled implementation by housing agencies across the country to heed the evolved knowledge of common experience and science that concentrated poverty is to be avoided, or on any number of other stalled or came-up-short efforts, you see that HAVING DECISION-MAKING TOOLS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS HAVING THE CAPACITY TO PULL THE TRIGGER.

once i gave a speech in austin texas, and laid out a wonderfully coherent vision and even a decent plan.  proud of myself someone in the audience stood up and in front of about 300 people said, at my expense:  "your presentation was lovely.  it reminds me of the story of the two planners sitting on the edge of the bed smoking a cigarette and talking about how great it's gonna be!"  i had to laugh.  but though i laughed, and even thought about it for years, not until recently in the large shadow cast over all the great plans czb has delivered to clients have i begin to seriously bore deep into what i see as a serious issue:  the implementation frustration.

when a client asks us to analyze what's going on, we do, and quite well and without the varnish of wish and kumbaya and rodney king's facile can't we all get along bullshit.  the client gets the analysis, in which are the decision-making tools - now seductively presented as GIS generated four color maps - remarks about how elegant the conclusions are presented, and says let me read this and get back to.  a few days later they remark : "wow, you really nailed it.  this is it.  this is EXACTLY what's going on....let me keep thinking."  it's like watching someone move along the continuum from having had one drink to five and realizing whoa i gotta get up in a few hours.

then you get the call.  we aren't sure we want the truth quite so unvarnished.  or some variant thereof.  so you negotiate.  back and forth over the meaning of this word or phrase.  and to be sure, the preciseness of the verbiage is critical.  but eventually the battle over the exactitude of the words becomes a proxy for the rectitude of the client.  it becomes work avoidance.

a client learns that its hunch was confirmed.  what they're doing isn't working.  they spend thousands - in some clients' case hundreds of thousands - of dollars to study.  to plan.  to consider.  what they're really spending scarce resources on is work avoidance.  in their moments of self reflection they think they are learners.  some may in fact be.  but being a learning organization as the gestalt would have it, doesn't give you results because the learnings are never deeply incorporated into the generation of new pathways of doing business.  there is the commitment to seek knowledge, but not to use it.  not really.

in this is the challenge facing community development (as the watercolored presidential campaigns of putative change agents would have the sheep conclude) is systems change.  non-incremental change.  change based on comprehensive grasp of interconnectedness.

yet this often induces the same paralysis an huge inbox does.  where to start?  and when you begin unlayering the reality of execution, looking for the feedback loops, the multipliers, the wraparounds, and the low-hanging fruit, you find yourself staring into the headlights of the on-rushing work of mobilizing people to behave differently.    the work of adaptation is almost never based on the science of what we know.  were that the case the idiots in the white house would long ago have bought the goods instead of so delaying work that we've kinda bought the farm.  and not an organic farm, either.

no, adaptation hinges not on knowledge but improvising sometimes without it.  not knowing the outcome of what may occur if, but incorporating the reflections of the outcomes generated by looking back over what has.  in pitting "what has" against "what if", we are consigned to dustbinning accumulated wisdoms as long as we see this as the modern day equivalent of gutting some poor Roman dog in order to read its entrails in the public square.

implementation can't occur without deep learning.  deep learning requires information and decision making tools.  but those tools - which are becoming increasingly sexier with far more seductive powers every day - are not the same thing as backbone. 

now its time to figure out how to get the boards of some of these state agencies to actually get serious about deconcentrating poverty.  about growing opportunity.  about locating responsibility and accountability.  

reflecting on projects completed the last several years - a housing policy for the city of bridgeport, a series of deep dives for the pennsylvania housing finance agency, an implementation guide for a mothballed economic development strategy for a city that can't presently be mentioned, analysis of the landbank in eugene for harvard university, and others - i believe deeply that buried in the nation's appetite for systems change are a series of critical lessons.

one is that the appetite to do things differently is very different than the capacity to do so.  when you reflect on the limited gains by the otherwise ambitious agenda of new urbanism, or on the stalled implementation by housing agencies across the country to heed the evolved knowledge of common experience and science that concentrated poverty is to be avoided, or on any number of other stalled or came-up-short efforts, you see that HAVING DECISION-MAKING TOOLS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS HAVING THE CAPACITY TO PULL THE TRIGGER.

once i gave a speech in austin texas, and laid out a wonderfully coherent vision and even a decent plan.  proud of myself someone in the audience stood up and in front of about 300 people said, at my expense:  "your presentation was lovely.  it reminds me of the story of the two planners sitting on the edge of the bed smoking a cigarette and talking about how great it's gonna be!"  i had to laugh.  but though i laughed, and even thought about it for years, not until recently in the large shadow cast over all the great plans czb has delivered to clients have i begin to seriously bore deep into what i see as a serious issue:  the implementation frustration.

when a client asks us to analyze what's going on, we do, and quite well and without the varnish of wish and kumbaya and rodney king's facile can't we all get along bullshit.  the client gets the analysis, in which are the decision-making tools - now seductively presented as GIS generated four color maps - remarks about how elegant the conclusions are presented, and says let me read this and get back to.  a few days later they remark : "wow, you really nailed it.  this is it.  this is EXACTLY what's going on....let me keep thinking."  it's like watching someone move along the continuum from having had one drink to five and realizing whoa i gotta get up in a few hours.

then you get the call.  we aren't sure we want the truth quite so unvarnished.  or some variant thereof.  so you negotiate.  back and forth over the meaning of this word or phrase.  and to be sure, the preciseness of the verbiage is critical.  but eventually the battle over the exactitude of the words becomes a proxy for the rectitude of the client.  it becomes work avoidance.

a client learns that its hunch was confirmed.  what they're doing isn't working.  they spend thousands - in some clients' case hundreds of thousands - of dollars to study.  to plan.  to consider.  what they're really spending scarce resources on is work avoidance.  in their moments of self reflection they think they are learners.  some may in fact be.  but being a learning organization as the gestalt would have it, doesn't give you results because the learnings are never deeply incorporated into the generation of new pathways of doing business.  there is the commitment to seek knowledge, but not to use it.  not really.

in this is the challenge facing community development (as the watercolored presidential campaigns of putative change agents would have the sheep conclude) is systems change.  non-incremental change.  change based on comprehensive grasp of interconnectedness.

yet this often induces the same paralysis an huge inbox does.  where to start?  and when you begin unlayering the reality of execution, looking for the feedback loops, the multipliers, the wraparounds, and the low-hanging fruit, you find yourself staring into the headlights of the on-rushing work of mobilizing people to behave differently.    the work of adaptation is almost never based on the science of what we know.  were that the case the idiots in the white house would long ago have bought the goods instead of so delaying work that we've kinda bought the farm.  and not an organic farm, either.

no, adaptation hinges not on knowledge but improvising sometimes without it.  not knowing the outcome of what may occur if, but incorporating the reflections of the outcomes generated by looking back over what has.  in pitting "what has" against "what if", we are consigned to dustbinning accumulated wisdoms as long as we see this as the modern day equivalent of gutting some poor Roman dog in order to read its entrails in the public square.

implementation can't occur with deep learning.  deep learning requires information and decision making tools.  but those tools - which are becoming increasingly sexier with far more seductive powers every day - are not the same thing as backbone. 

now i have to figure out how to get the boards of some of these state agencies to actually get serious about deconcentrating poverty.  about growing opportunity.  about locating responsibility and accountability.