Elected Member and Executive Staff Workshop

One of the most common concerns between locally elected bodies and their staff, be they city councils or a homeowner association Board of Directors, is the role the elected members should play in the daily operation of the community.  Once elected, residents of the community develop certain expectations that the newly elected person will now "manage" this community more efficiently, costs will go down, residents will have a say, and the waste of governance will cease.

From the staff perspective, generally speaking there are only two levels of Board or Council involvement: over involved or under involved.  Either way is not helpful to the efficient operation of the organization.  In order to perform their duties, the staff needs direction from a consensus of the elected "body," but not from the individual elected members.  Many elected officials do not understand this distinction.

At the simplest level, the elected body should collectively determine policy and the appointed staff should implement that policy.  However, as with most things in life, the practical application of that sage advice goes far deeper.  After thirty years in the trenches, Gordon Ryan Consulting presents a seminar which allows each side of the equation to examine their respective roles, thereby allowing the elected members to gain a better understanding of the daily operations and which issues are truly the perogative of the staff and how they must be given room to perform their duties without daily, and individual interference.