A typical day in the life of a town or city manager is anything but typical. If you’re like me, you come into work each day with a to-do list of things that need to get done, meetings to attend, and projects you’d like to start or advance. But those best-laid plans go awry when a Select Board member drops in, a department head has a crisis, or some other issue arises. All those things matter and deserve your attention, and somehow time to take a break for lunch just goes by the wayside – maybe that dusty power bar in your desk drawer will suffice…
Summertime is usually a little quieter, and the perfect time to check off an equally important thing on your to-do list – call one of your colleagues in a neighboring community and invite them out to lunch! They’ll be thrilled that you did, and the benefits to both of you will last long beyond the hour or so you spend with them. For example, with less local news coverage these days, it is likely the best way to find out what’s happening in the area that might impact your town. You also get a chance to make a new friend – and we all need those when the going gets tough for support and advice to weather the storm. Plus, you can gain some insight into ways they are approaching issues that may be beneficial to your community.
Getting to know your neighbors builds trust, and that can lead to long-lasting benefits for all of your communities. For example, these days there seems to be a dearth of good candidates for too many job openings across the state, causing all of us to struggle to get the work done. Maybe there is an opportunity to partner up to share a position that you and another town need. In two different communities I served we teamed up to share a Conservation Agent in one and an IT Specialist in another. For both, we only had funds for a part-time position, but together we could offer someone a full-time job with benefits getting us a better candidate and a win. There are regionalization grants that can facilitate such partnerships, but they often have swift deadlines to apply. Meeting to build trust and share ideas can put all communities in a good position to submit a winning grant application when they become available.
We’ve all watched what happened in Maui with shock, sadness, and empathy, knowing that crises can happen as easily to us. Building relationships ahead of such situations is invaluable to your community when something goes wrong and you need to borrow your neighbor’s front-end loader, or much more. So call your neighbor, or better yet form a lunch group of several of your colleagues and reap the benefits of so much more than just a tasty hour or so outside of the office.