Integral City Managers

Meshwork Effectively With Council, Staff, Agencies and Others

Integral City Managers create meshworks because life in the global city is so complex that it cannot be managed with simple hierarchies or undisciplined networks. Meshworking in the city, coordinates different capacities, functions, and locations so that alignment and coherence result in an integrated operating strategy and/or emergency response.

Table 1 illustrates eight levels of complexity and key values that all co-exist in today's city. Each level has a complex intelligence (Column 3) that motivates behaviors in people (Column 4).

Table 1:     Emergent V-Memes and Community Values [i]

1. Levels 
       of 
Complexity

2. Key Value

• Focus

Survival

• Self

• Creates safe clans & nests
• Respects powerful elders
• Separates Us vs. Them
• Ritualizes the mystical, signs

Power

•  Self

• Defends self against World full 
  of threats & predators
• Enjoys self to the fullest in the moment

•  Breaks free from 
   domination and constraints
•  Conquers, outfoxes, 
   dominates other aggressors

• Recognizes one right way
• Gains purpose in causes
• Suffers guilt in consequences
• Sacrifices in honor

•  Conserves peace and quiet
•  Acts cautiously and 
   carefully Enforces order, 
   tidiness and neatness
•  Honors social position 

• Invents best solutions
• Exploits resources to create good life
• Measures performance
• Acts optimistic, 
  takes risks, is self-reliant

•  Prospers through 
   strategy, social 
   and economic structures, 
   technology, competition,
   planning, engineering

Communitarian
• Group

• Seeks inner peace
• Everybody is equal
• Everything is relative
• Honors harmony in the group 

•  Creates social safety nets
•  Demands political 
   correctness
•  Accepts diversity
•  Invests in culture

•  Sees all life as natural systems
•  Remains flexible, 
   spontaneous, functional
•  Considers, chaos & change are natural

•  Thinks globally, 
   acts locally & vice versa
•  Makes global 
   interconnections
•  Highly diversified
•  Not isolationist
•  Information rich

Levels 
       of 
Complexity

• + immigrants retain 
homeland ways
• – use of turbans instead 
of helmets threaten 
safety standards

•  + artistic expression, 
   independence
• - bullies, gangs

• + obedient drivers 
  observe traffic laws
• - bureaucrats over-regulate
• - governments over tax

• City planners plan for 20+ yrs
• + Govt. redistributes wealth
• - rich vs poor gap
• - Eco polluters threaten 
    environment

• + universal health care 
service
• - social safety net 
policies spend 
    $ before wealth produced
• - city bankruptcy from 
   social over spending

• + integrates all value lenses
• - undervalues group capacities

• + thinks local, acts 
global• - TBD

1. Levels of Complexity

2. Behaviors

3. Meshwork of Expertise

1

• Lives off land, street

• Food bank organizers

• Salvation Army

• Homeless Shelter Sponsors

2

• Respects folk ways

• Honors family, kin, ethnicity

•Traditions are important

• Guards sacred places

• Culturally sensitive social workers

• Workers Compensation Board

• Pastors, Rabbis, Imams, Shamans

• Private Security Firms

3

•Breaks free from domination and constraints

• Conquers, outfoxes, dominates other aggressors

• Coaches

• Mentors

•Parents

• Teachers, Guides

4

• Conserves peace and quiet

• Acts cautiously and carefully

• Enforces order, tidiness and neatness

• Honors social position

• Police

• Fire & Rescue Workers

• Park wardens

• City Planning & Engineers

• Girl & Boy Scouts

• Service Clubs

• Agriculture workers, Farmers

• Trades people

5

• Prospers through strategy, social and economic structures, technology, competition, planning, engineering

• City planners & Engineers

• Local business people

• Heat, Power, Light utilities

• Financial institutions

• Strategic planners

• Economic developers

• Food processors

• Building developers, contractors

• Emergency Response Systems

6

•  Creates social safety nets

•  Demands political correctness

•  Accepts diversity

•  Invests in culture

• Health care service providers

• NFP

• Social service providers

• Multi-Cultural associations

• Community developers

7

•  Integrates differences into interdependent, natural flows

• Scenario Planners

• Technology developers

• Computer workers

• Ecologists

• Biogeneticists

8

•  Thinks globally, acts locally & vice versa

•  Makes global interconnections

•  Highly diversified

•  Not isolationist

•  Information rich

• Global traders

• Financial institutions

• Telecommunications experts

For other aspects of City Managers click on these links:

• Develop Leadership Capacities
• Negotiate Change and Diversity
• Meshwork Effectively With Council, Staff, Agencies and Others
• Plan Strategically for the Global Village

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[i] Hamilton, M., Integral Metamap Creates Common Language for Urban Change, Journal of Change Management, 2004, in publication

Provocations and Paradoxes in the Integral City.
 

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