Ready ?

Originally posted November 27, 2014

You just can’t find walnut laminate this burly, these days.  Riding the elevator up from the parking garage at the Galt House hotel in Louisville transports you to the past.  Surrounded by the most brazenly plastic wood the 1970s had to offer, it’s like you’re being transported to the set of American Hustle.  But Amy Adams is nowhere to be found.

Your past does find you, though, while waiting for the others to head to dinner.  Former Fort Worth City Councilor Joel Burns e-mails and asks a favor.  It’s a small favor.  Joel’s at Harvard these days, as a mid-career MPA student at the Kennedy School.  He has a classmate with questions about the city management lifestyle and wants to know if I’d be willing to talk to him.  Sure thing.  I’m nothing if not a shill for the profession.

The profession asked essentially the same question earlier this year.  Would I be willing to deliver a presentation pondering the question, “Are you Ready For The Manager’s Chair?”  There would be several hundred assistant city managers at the 100th Annual ICMA Conference in Charlotte, and at least a few might have nothing better planned for Tuesday from 11:00 to 12:15. The presentation turned the one question into twelve and went something like this (click here for pdf).