It's about the implementation, dummy.

What I learned from the City of Toronto

For the past three years, I’ve worked as Director of Strategic Initiatives for Toronto Mayor John Tory. I’ve joked that the opaqueness of my job title allows me to meddle in whatever I want. And meddle I have. From a vantage point at the centre of a city of nearly 3-million residents, the complexity of municipal issues is apparent, awe inspiring and hugely motivating. So what have I learned?

Cities are the most effective level of government

People love to be dismissive of government and to enumerate its failures. But take a moment to think about and appreciate the complexity of operations at the city level. Billion-dollar budgets, millions of residents, multiple business lines and the highest of stakes. A responsibility to deliver vital services without interruption, while constantly evolving in response to the emergent needs and realities of an ever-changing populations.  In Canada, as in most parts of the world, cities are also on the front lines of the most complex issues going: income disparity, mobility, opioid abuse, marijuana legalization, affordable housing, mental health, crime, employment disruption, climate change. They contend with these issues while literally keeping the trains running on time, and while running some serious game across multiple fronts: roads, transportation, shelters, public health, garbage collection, parks and recreation, planning and development, social services and economic development. Cities implement while other levels of government are still reading their daily clippings. Cities deliver while balancing their budgets annually and watching the majority of their economic contributions syphoned off elsewhere. That’s the government equivalent of “backwards and in heels.” Respect.   

Implementation, not innovation

Despite those who will tell you differently, there is no secret sauce to effecting change. You don’t need consultants, or outside funders, or Post Its and pipe cleaners. You need people who understand what they are trying to do, why they are trying to do it, and how to get it done.

When projects fall down in the City or fail to materialize at all, it’s not a lack of bold ideas or available avenues. It’s because people can’t effectively make the case, because they don’t understand what they’re trying to do, or because they can’t operationalize to save their lives. It’s easy to blame systems, but more often than not, it’s the execution that’s deeply flawed. Procurement is a good example of this, often wielded as the reason new approaches or tools can’t be adopted within government. But while at City Hall I was involved in the city’s first negotiated RFP for the recreation registration system, a process that quickly and efficiently allowed for the identification of the right partner to overhaul a complex system. I helped introduce a challenge-based procurement approach, with the full cooperation and support of the purchasing department. I oversaw the introduction of a partnership between Ritual and our island ferries that was executed in less than 24 hours. But I also saw simple contract negotiations drag on for years and countless RFPs fail to draw a single response, because they were badly executed.  Important work – from the King Street transit pilot to the on-going accommodation of refugees and asylum seekers – is not successful just because someone believed it was the right thing to do, but because it was well managed and well executed. And you can’t teach that with a Post It Note.

Look to the doers, not the talkers

The most effective people in government – as in life – are usually not the ones who speak the loudest, or most often. They’re too busy actually doing the work. Credibility to me is earned through delivery, and delivery is ensured through a combination of real chops (knowing what you’re doing) and meaningful collaboration (knowing how to do it). To truly lead requires effective management in the pursuit of clear and ambitious goals. There are great leaders in city government and there are great talkers. If you message me, I will tell you who is who.

It’s not a zero-sum game

I have said for years that Toronto is a city that loves to polarize around two extremes and either lodge itself there, immobilized, or careen wildly from one extreme to the other. Cars or bikes. Police or BLM. Downtown or suburbs. Around the world, such polarization is taking on frightening new dimensions, and I believe cities are where that trend can be neutralized and, hopefully, reversed. Cities are home to people of diverse backgrounds, ages, incomes, ideologies, professions and personal realities – all of whom rely on one city service or another. By improving those services, by making sure they are meeting the needs of our residents, and by telling the story of why they matter, we can reconnect people to the role, responsibility and promise of good government in a visceral, meaningful way. But to do so, we have to change the story.  We have to champion the idea that cities can be run in the interest of all residents, and that providing for some doesn’t mean punishing others.

I once had a newspaper editor who told me that if someone doesn’t understand your story, you’re telling it wrong. I believe most people do not understand the value of this city, what it’s pulling off or what its capable of delivering. So as I move on to the next phase of my career, that is the story that I’ll continue to tell. While still occasionally meddling.