When planning practitioners reflect on their practice, they notice that their own behaviour is unusual when their communities find success – they seek and embrace challenges, they are aware of strengths and weaknesses in themselves and others, they endlessly seek opportunities and the place trust in others. There are, indeed, emerging essential non-technical competencies that make a planning practitioner effective.
As an effective individual planning practitioner, the following elements are emerging as essential:
- Find your passion and spend your time there
- Be self aware
- Be open to any communication
- Be comfortable with being uncomfortable
- Seek to understand
Further, it is useful to consider what could make a collective planning practice effective. The following elements are emerging:
- Get on the radar vs. duck the radar
- Be political and get political
- Build coalitions
- Generate allies and advocate
- Step forward
There is a gulf between what we know we ought to do, and what we actually choose to do. The Greek work for this phenomenon is Akrasia. The leadership challenge for the planning profession is to step through and over the gap – to what is possible for us in service to Alberta communities. As individuals and as a collective, we will find our voice if we dare to dwell on what we dream. While the collective voice for planning practitioners is unknown, it will only emerge as we seek our collective leadership capacities. This is our challenge for 2010.
I dream of growing and learning in new ways.
The full article can be found at – http://www.aacip.com/public/AACIP_JournalComp_Issue3_Revised.pdf