Tag: Alberta

I dream of growing and learning in new ways

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

Cities: A Needed Part of Alberta’s New Story

As the United Nations Climate Change Conference draws to a close this week, there is parallel summit that is of significance for Alberta political decision makers: the Copenhagen Climate Summit for Mayors.

In Canadian and world politics, the buzz around the Copenhagen UN gathering is Alberta’s oil sands – for which we are tarred and feathered.  But there is a parallel, and perhaps more dramatic issue at hand that we ought to pay attention to: 75% of global CO2 emissions come from the worlds largest cities.

In Canada and Alberta, it is time to recognize and support the role local government has in creating a future where Albertans will thrive – economically, socially and culturally.  To do that, consideration of our development practices, and the impacts direct and indirect on the environment we rely on, is paramount.  A new political will in Alberta is needed that creates partnership between the Government of Alberta and its “children” municipalities.  A new Alberta that will meet the needs of generations to come starts with a new political climate that allows mayors, reeves and councils (and all other forms of local government, like school boards) to thrive. This is whole new conversation for Alberta, and one that I am committed to supporting.

The opportunity before Alberta – create a new story.  If interested, check out Reboot Alberta, an endeavour to cultivate a new political compass – http://rebootalberta.org/

(For a snapshot of mayors of Copenhagne, you may be interested in the Mayors in Copenhagen Panel – http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200912/20091214.html)

November Knitting

 

Two media items resonated with me today, starting my November knittings.

The first media item was on CBC Radio’s The Current: a warm up debate to the Munk Debates in Toronto tonight, with debaters George Monbiot and Bjorn Lomborg.The proposition: Be it resolved: climate change is mindind’s defining crisis and demands a commensurate response.A timely debate leading up to the climate negotiations starting next Monday in Copenhagen, to lay the groundwork for a global treaty to cap greenhouse gas emissions and stem climate change.(The debate is about how grave the threat is, and how much needs to be done to fight the threat, and what cost.)

The second media event spurring reflection is Annie Leonard’s new film: The Story of Cap and Trade: Why You Can’t Solve a Problem with the Thinking That Created It (http://storyofstuff.com/capandtrade/)

The bottom line, as I watch this debate, is this.Even the old-school form of debate is not going to convince anyone to do anything different than argue, rather than take action.Monbiot and Lomborg agree that there is a challenge we are facing in climate change.The fact that there is a challenge is not contested.What to do about it is.

While I surmise that no one actually thinks that the Munk Debates this evening will actually solve climate change, the format is indicative of the thinking that created the problem to begin with: state your position and stick to it all costs.The value of the debates is, in fact, in seeing clear positions.We benefit from seeing options as we make our way through the morass of information relating to climate change.

It is time, however, to get to the heart of what is really at issue, and find a way through the mess and seek doable, practical actions that will make a difference.But before I describe what this might look like, there is another consideration that should be raised with respect to climate change.James Lovelock is on to something: this is not about fixing Earth, but rather that we ought to adapt to the change that is occurring.It is the same, old thinking trap if we let ourselves think that climate change is a problem for us to fix, as if fixing Earth is something as simple as a lawnmower for a mechanic.Earth is not a simple system, but is rather dynamic.She has been around a lot longer than us, through many climate changes, and she will look after herself.Our job, then, is to look after ourselves.We don’t have anything to fix, rather we have to focus on what we need to adapt to, and how we will adapt, and, of course, when we will adapt.We might also wish to consider who will adapt.

Exploration of these considerations does not occur through debates about how to fix the problem.This simply merges two simplistic tactics to tackle climate change: debate and fix.

Two opposite approaches?How about ongoing generative dialogue and co-creation?For this, there is a whole new skill set required.We are no longer in an era where it is appropriate to set a goal and action plan and expect it to work.The variables are too variable.We need to be constantly sensing what is happeing in our world through information exchanges and conversation that welcomes diversity of insight.We need to be constantly sensing and noticing what is working in our world and what is not, which means constantly changing and adjusting the “plan”.The world is not longer a place where simple solutions will remotely address dynamic challenges like climate change.

This is the conversation I am hungry for in Alberta.We have at our disposal a prosperity that puts us in a place of responsibility.What can we do with our ingenuity that rests behind old ways of thinking and problem solving?

The place to begin is on the ground, with people practicing new ways of engaging in conversation.This is not about throwing away old ways of doing things, but broadening out our means to learn and adjust.We have the world in Alberta and Canada, and we are in a unique position to offer a wonderful ingenuity to meet the challenges we face.

What is within us that is waiting to be unleashed?

ACE Volunteer Experts in New Sarepta

On June 16, 2009, volunteers from New Sarepta, Sherwood Park, Leduc and Leduc County gathered to explore volunteering. Their goal – to sustainably recruit and retain volunteers.  Again, in my work with ACE Communities (www.acecommunities.ca) I facilitated the creation of their goal and identification of strategies to reach the goal.  Their main finding: we  know what needs to be done, we just needed to take the time amongst ourselves (as individuals and together) to find it.  We just have to do what we forget we have to do.

Here is their work and what their conclusions:

 

I was burned and sick and tired

Reminded why I will continue

A boost to run a festival!

Appreciating people where they are

I reemphasize the importance to reinvest

Taking time to consider

What we are doing right

I will mentor others and transfer the best I can

I found categories of why we volunteer

Making it easier to work with my agencies

I take away this process

In organizations

We will know what we are about

And what is expected

Keeping board members with more effort

I will mentor

An interesting thought

Why do I volunteer?

Oh, ok.Now I get it.

I bring connections to my volunteers

I don’t just say be intentional

I can be intentional

I actually know

That I am an expert

ACE Volunteer Experts in Thorsby/Warburg

In my work with ACE Communities (www.acecommunities.ca) I had the pleasure last night of facilitating a workshop with volunteer experts – the people who showed up to learn about how to recruit and retain volunteers.
With ACE leaders at Leduc County, we designed an experience that brought out the experts in Thorsby and Warburg. Here is their work and what they concluded at the end of the gathering:

The value of the conversation and commitment:

Sharing it all, networking
We know more than we thought

We renew positive
Practice
Remembering why
With inspiration
To appreciate

Encouraging community
Still cares
We don’t let the nay-sayers get me down
We keep trudging along
Walking with more support
With people like me
Not alone

What wonderful work we do
As volunteers
We do all those things!
It’s nice to hear once and a while!

We will appreciate volunteers more
I will appreciate myself more

Good to hear what others are doing
Hearing from other volunteers
I have taken in a lot
I can’t say just one thing

We are out of the box
With 39/20 networking
When we need it
We are out there

We are impressed
So many with similar ideas
We know what works
We’re on to something

We will find more people
That don’t know the word no
Always the same faces
But there are lots of kinds
Of volunteers
Worker bees and people like us
Start saying no to no!

We have lots to take home
Actions to remind myself
Once and a while
Fanning connections
What everyone said is what I was thinking

Try harder
The Terry Fox run will be running
Playing off one another
Making the connections between us

A Time and Place for Ego

Last week I was invited to join a friend at a University of Alberta Athletics breakfast gathering.  As a last-minute invite, I was surprised to find myself sitting at the front of the room with the guest speakers – the director of Athletics, Georgette Reed, athletes Lauren Gillespie and Tyler Metcalfe – and in the middle of a healthy dose of feel-good ego fanning. 

We often think the ego is a bad thing, that it leads only to selfish acts and violence.  But the stories of our speakers revealed something different.  They revealed how sport has provided them the opportunity to develop as a person, to achieve things they never dreamed possible.  How there is room for anyone to achieve more than they think they can – especially with the support of others.  And these very same people continue to give back, endlessly. 

The ego tells us that we can get people into a room and tell them stories to gather the funds to create more stories. (the Athletics program needs more more money from people like you to keep and produce athletes and people like these!)  I assume most people in the room are/were involved in sport in some way – athletes, former athletes, coaches etc – and now in a position to give back.  Our egos compel us to be in the room and feel that familiar competitive camaraderie.  In a healthy way, our ego feeds our desire to ensure that others have the same opportunities.  It feeds our purpose.  It helps stabilize the purpose: funds for ongoing excellence in athletics. 

The irony – I did not attend U of A, let alone their athletics program, but I could not escape feeling great about the program and intensely feeling that I was part of the family.  I resisted the urge to pull out my wallet on the spot, but the envelope is sitting on my desk waiting for my next round of community giving in August.  It certainly fits my criteria of giving to the things that feed the heart and soul of a community.  

 

NOTE – A Spiral Dynamics integral reading of this event:  by design, a very well organized BLUE event that generated intense, healthy egocentric RED to support the BLUE desire to find meaning and purpose and provide stability.

 

 

Design to Plan, Plan to Design

Last night I moderated a public session on behalf of the University of Alberta City Region Studies Centre.  The speakers were George Crandall and Don Arambula, and architect and landscape architect from the firm Crandall Arambula out of Portland, Oregon.  The topic – Regional Transportation: Lessons from Portland.

Regional planning is regional planning, wherever it occurs.  And there are some lessons for Alberta’s Capital Region and the government of Alberta.  The lessons I drew out for Capital Region planning as well as the Land Use Framework:

  1. There is a place for provincial government to ensure that local governments are  not only cooperating, but ensuring that they are producing a plan that is useful in the end.  This means what is “useful” needs to be well defined.
  2. Creating a growth management plan is not about just creating a plan, it is about creating ownership for a plan.  This occurs by working with the public.  Not just polls and workshops, but engagement where people roll up their sleeves and have an impact on the outcome.  Particularly if this process marries the interests of builders and developers (ie practicality) and citizens.
  3. Mechanisms to make a regional plan a reality are essential.  It is not enough to have a big plan and leave it up to local governments to implement.  Sample mechanism – public transportation authority, regional waste disposal strategies, regional land use design expectations and authority.
  4. Clear implementation plans and commitments are as much as the plan itself.  This implementation must factor in design front and centre to ensure the product created is what is desired.  A design purpose is front and center.
  5. In times of growth, we rely on Silver Bullets, to “just get us through”.  What we need is an overall plan.  That plan, must indicate what is to happen where.
  6. A plan that indicates what will happen where clearly delineates priorities for public infrastructure investment – best use of tax dollars.
  7. A plan that indicates what will happen where offers predictability and stability for developers and builders.  This will work well for some, and not well for others, but the direction must hold.
  8. It all revolves around great political intrigue – the creation of any plan is necessarily messy.  If it isn’t tough to create, then that is a sign that it isn’t the right plan.
  9. Imagine a jigsaw puzzle – each piece comes with a shape and a piece of the picture – is that clearly articulated for each piece of the region, or will it be for each region of the province?

In the end, we must design planning processes with the above expectations.  Then we must plan to work in design to make it work.

That Old Chevy Won’t Last Forever

At every turn, we fix and tinker, and I wonder if this is the most effective way to expend our energy at this time of economic crisis as Alberta releases its new budget.  

In the novel The Road Home, Rudi is in rural Poland struggling to keep an ancient run-down Chevy in operation.  Running it as a taxi is his only source of income.  He has put all his hope, energy and money into it, and when it fails, he as nothing left to hang on to in life.  There are no jobs.  The town will soon be underwater behind a new dam, the Central Office of Planning’s top secret initiative.  There is clearly danger in putting all one’s eggs, and hope, in one basket – or one old broken down Chevy.  
Alberta’s Old Broken Down Chevy is our oil and gas – our primary economy. By not making efforts to diversify our economy we put all our hope, energy and money into the Chevy.  At some point, we will be underwater as a result of our Central Office of Planning’s endless tinkering to make sure the oil and gas economy stays in operation.   Alberta released it’s new budget yesterday with a plan to run a deficit for four years.  Perhaps we are worse off than Rudi.  Our Central Office of Planning doesn’t appear to have a plan. 
I was reminded this week that the two Chinese characters that together depict the notion of crisis: danger and opportunity.  What happens if when we look at the economic downturn not only as a dangerous event, but as opportunity?  
A few missed opportunities in the budget:
  1. Spend on infrastructure during the economic downturn when jobs are needed.
  2. Spend on infrastructure during the economic downturn when the price is best – when thee is less competition for labour and materials.  
  3. Plan for the next phase of growth related to oil and gas.  From a provincial and regional perspective, know and understand what will happen where and what is needed to support it.  
  4. Plan and spend on the diversified economic drivers, rather than the old Chevy.
  5. Stimulate the economy with efforts that support diversification, something other than the old Chevy.  
  6. Take the time to reflect on how the last growth spurt was handled with the intention of learning and being smarter with time and money.  
Carbon capture is tinkering. Ceasing chiropractic coverage is tinkering.  While these actions address, in theory, some of the dangers at hand (bad image, spend less), it does not create opportunity.  Let’s find ways to balance our attention on the immediate (tinkering) with the opportunities to rebuild and restart our economy.  That old Chevy is good for while.  But you know, nothing lasts forever.  Whether in Alberta or on Wall Street, that old Chevy needs a little less attention.
(Originally published on April 9, 2009 at populuspractice.blogspot.com)