CBRM Mayor & Council: 6 Books To Help Develop A RESULTS Mindset

There are many decisions made at CBRM council that leave business minded people shaking their heads. When councillors seem to think that perishable flowers or anachronistic clocks in front of police stations are wise investments, it's certainly reasonable to ask ourselves:

Are these people really the ones most capable of promoting economic development?

After all, Mayor Cecil Clarke and his inner circle insisted Archibald's Wharf in downtown North Sydney (estimated annual visitors greater than 300,000 for the ferry) was only worth $250,000 for the entire property, and then built small washrooms on the Sydney waterfront (estimated annual visitors less than 100,000 for the cruise lines in 2016) for close to the same costs.

Location Visitors Property Mayor & Council's Decision Cost
North Sydney > 300,000 Archibald's Wharf Sell prime waterfront real estate next to Marine Atlantic including all buildings and wharf ~$250,000 for land and structures
Sydney < 100,000 (2016) Waterfront Build washrooms ~$250,000 for bathrooms

The point isn't that adding bathroom facilities is a bad thing. However, by contrast, it shows the lack of perspective on value when we effectively give away prime real estate for next to nothing. Taxpayers pay for those decisions.

What are the next big projects for the CBRM?

They will take out a loan of $6.67 Million, and take $6.67 Million from the province, and $6.67 Million from the Federal government - to build a second berth which can be arguably reasoned is not a priority, has a questionable business case, and doesn't solve the main problem continually indicated by consultants: poor visitor experience.

Mindset Comes From the Experience that Comes With Age

Some could argue that many councillors are targeted for criticism because of their advancing or advanced age (i.e. well past retirement age). However, age itself is NOT where the issues with council arise.

The true root of these issues is that age is correlated with experience. For the senior aged men on the CBRM council, they lived in Cape Breton when its past industries were in much better shape, and our population was higher. Their experience is with Cape Breton being an island where workers got by predominantly under the ground, on the sea, and forming steel. However, steel working and mining have either disappeared or declined almost to non-existence here.

Older councillors were not getting their education in a time when the expectation was that new graduates often need to leave in order to secure a career and financial future for themselves - as it is now.

That expired mindset is not useful to us anymore. The current and future effectiveness of the people who have it depends on whether or not they are willing and capable of developing a new one. A man like Ray Paruch has become the devil's advocate before council. However, he shows a willingness to collaborate with more progressive ideas. He attempts to use his age as an advantage in having built a wealth of knowledge of the functioning of the CBRM and its pre-amalgamation communities. His apparent disinterest in seeking other elected offices means he doesn't have to play it safe (as is common with career politicians with aspirations towards higher office).

Our Future Depends on a New Mindset

Cape Breton has lots of indication that people here, still in the start or middle of their career, can lead us into a new era - and manage to do so with some skin still left on our knees.

When Rory Andrews returns home from a life in the United States and abroad, he reframed our downtown problem. He did more than anyone else has to transition us to a new way of thinking that the downtown was not a failed mall.

When Amanda McDougall, educated in Political Science and with experience living and travelling abroad, arrived at council, she immediately started giving those who watch the happenings at council new hope. One of council's youngest, she isn't hindered by a lack of experience in how things are done in other parts of the world. She possesses it, while many of her senior colleagues do not. She's inquisitive, expressive, dignified, professional, and sincere in her mannerisms. She's willing to ask "why", challenge the status quo, and offer her own experience into the mix. When the byproduct of a very problematic mindset reared its unsightly head in recent weeks, she conducted herself professionally and let those responsible for the offensive speech sink their own ships.

This new mindset created the opportunities of Protocase, Marcato Digital, and MediaSpark. It made it possible for people like Gavin Uhma to achieve near unimaginable success as a Cape Bretoner trying to compete in a new industry. And it is this new mindset that we MUST develop in order to succeed.

We're Stuck With Present Council For Four Years

Our mayor and council is just newly elected for their four year term. Sparing medical leave or a desire to depart for personal or political objectives, these are the people that will govern over municipal matters for quite some time.

For the majority who lack the right mindset, we cannot replace them. The best we can hope for is that the others among them (McDougall, Coombes, MacMullin, Paruch) are able to have a positive influence. And we can work hard to exert our own influence upon their decisions. We must let them know our expectations and hold them accountable for their departures from those expectations.

That leads me to my suggestion of six books whose core ideas can lead us to a RESULTS mindset. I'd like to offer a recommended reading list for the current mayor and council, and any of those at the CBRM involved with economic development. While it's unlikely any of them will ever go beyond the cover pages shown below, I'll share each title and key point of learning they could gain from them nonetheless.

A Book List That Will Help Build the Right Mindset for RESULTS

#1 Are Your Lights On?

Council seems intent on legacy projects to build a resume (the mayor), or easy projects that make them look like they are doing something to a non-scrutinizing public (flowers). But there isn't any clear indication that they are problem solving. This easy read unlocks a new perspective on understanding what a problem really is. I suspect if council members read this book, they definitely would not have spent $120,000 of taxpayer money on flowers. However, if they did, they'd be much more capable of making a case for it.

#2 The E-Myth Revisited

Part II of this book "The Turn-Key Revolution" may offer some of the most valuable insights. Similar could be found in books on Disney's process of creating experience. Projects like the second berth make council appear as though none of them have ever visited any place off the island. Reports repeatedly remind us that it's experience that is lacking in downtown Sydney. Councillors like the Deputy Mayor recently suggested that someone said the downtown was "colorful" and used that as justification for the flower program. However, there isn't any clear indication that they understand what true experience is. Cruise ship visitors (many of whom are seniors) have to climb a steep incline just to get out of the driveway of the Joan Harriss Pavilion, to get to a downtown that has very few clear experiential rewards. Why are there no airport-style electric shuttles to bring them into the downtown areas in groups? Is it a less practical idea than investing $100,000 into a volleyball area unlikely to see significant use?

#3 Guerrilla P.R. 2.0

Exhibit A: Rob Calabrese. Exhibit B: Farmer's Daughter. If the CBRM's idea of its public relations strategy is hiring someone like Mayor Clarke's personal political hire, Christina Lamey, to antagonize critics and give journalists like Mary Campbell the silent treatment, they have a lot to learn about effective public relations strategy. If the tourism marketers(?) think photos of the Big Fiddle and the Cabot Trail are all they need to promote in order to bring people here, they aren't being effective. Mr. Calabrese decided to tap into the discontent with (then) Presidential Candidate Trump in the United States, by welcoming them to move to Cape Breton. The owners of the Farmer's Daughter in Whycocomagh interested thousands across the country with their offer of a cooperative land-for-work deal to help their business. After the Calabrese project, tourism officials saw an immediate spike in interest far exceeding their typical volume, and tourism statistics recently showed Cape Breton has having the highest increase of overnight bookings in the province. The basics of good public relations and marketing would be a good start. However, as our examples show, it's possible to do much better. Perhaps Guerrilla P.R. 2.0 might be a good source of a new mindset in PR for our council and local stakeholders.

#4 The Lean Startup

Council acts on uninformed instinct in some instances, and weighs down projects with feasibility study after feasibility study in others. Here's a cheat sheet on how they operate: If it's a preferred project like the sale of Archibald's Wharf, it gets fast tracked. If it's something that needs to be stalled, CBRM staff get to study it to death with issue papers and feasibility reports, as was the case with the Synergy Louisbourg project. Council members whose experience is primarily in retired industries in Cape Breton or single location mom and pops (pizza shops or hair salons) should be enlightened by this book. Somewhere within they'll find a key takeaway that will help them avoid choosing to be either haphazard and reliant on suspect instincts and cheer-leading, or slow and burdened by laborious study before actually putting something in motion.

#5 Differentiate or Die

If you want to kill your marketing, confuse it with patriotism. We already know Cape Bretoners love Cape Breton. If you're one of the remaining group of us who hasn't left it, that is fairly self evident. However, we need to start paying attention to two important facts. Firstly, we're not supposed to be marketing to the people who already live here. That's called "preaching to the choir". Secondly, there are lots of amazing places (including natural geography and amazing scenery) in the world. We won't win people over by telling them how much we offer something much like other places. Nor will we win by just believing that we're superior if we can't convince other people to believe the same. In any given market, you have to have a value proposition. What value do you offer? However, you also need a competitive advantage. You have to deliver the value better than your competitors. And when those two things become increasingly difficult, we have to deliver a new type of value OR deliver the value we offer in a new way. That's called differentiation. And that's how to survive in tough markets. The second cruise berth isn't much of a differentiator. The container port, however, is attempting to differentiate by serving (much) larger ships and providing significant undeveloped land that isn't available in already established cities. While the differentiation argument is there when viewing those factors in isolation, what is unclear is whether or not the value proposition is there too - with all factors considered. Customers and partners don't come to you just because you do things differently. You have to differentiate to create some advantage or other competitive offerings.

#6 The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

Businesses and organizations in Cape Breton tend to be bad at marketing. They tend to be great at hosting events for the people they already know, for those who already share the same group-think affliction, and from whom very little additional value can be obtained. Their reciprocal back patting and reliable payroll deposits convince them they must be doing a great job. I've witnessed the roll out of a economic development focused program here in Sydney. When an executive for the Chamber of Commerce asked about the marketing plan, the program administrator said they hadn't worked that part out yet. We have to stop mistaking planning events for ourselves as successful marketing. We have to stop giving each other awards before we make tangible achievements that justify them. Once we actually figure out what our product is, we have to figure out who to sell that product to, what the marketing channels are, and then make sure we're actively marketing in those channels. As Rankin MacSween said in his mayoral campaign: "Nobody is coming to save us". That's ok for the economic development people receiving stable government cheques from friends in well funded places. It's not ok for everyone else waiting for the promises of economic development, new jobs, and a sustainable future to be realized. These books can give a crash course in the high level principles of marketing. In many cases, it appears as though we either don't understand what it is, or we're not making an effort.

Bonus #7: Logical Fallacies Chart

We all have to challenge our own thinking. It doesn't take a philosophy degree to start validating our ideas. It just takes a basic understanding of how we can and do go wrong, the types of biases we possess, common fallacies or errors of logic we make, and acceptance of the limits of the human mind for all of us. If we truly stand behind an idea, we should be willing to do some introspection and examination. Is my idea biased? Does this idea truly stand up to scrutiny?

It's better to get closer to the truth than to insist on being right.

Which books or important principles do you suggest would make the CBRM mayor and council develop a more effective RESULTS mindset?

NOTE: The views expressed above are my own and do not represent lokol (goCapeBreton.com). Read more

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Michael MacNeil Follow Me
Excellent advice Joe.
Danny Sparrow Follow Me
I misread the title and had a good laugh, I thought it was a book list BY Cecil Clarke. It's better to get closer to the truth than to insist on being right. = BANG ON.

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