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	3. Aspects of Complex Adaptive Intelligences	4. Behaviors
1	Survival - Self	Depends on instincts & habits to survive Life basics have priority	Focused on self and/or immediate family survival
2	Safety - Group	Creates safe clans & nests Respects powerful elders Separates Us vs. Them Ritualizes the mystical, signs	Respects folk ways Honors family, kin ethnicity Traditions are important Guards sacred places
3	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
4	Order - Group	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
5	Truth Success - Self	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
6	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
7	Systems - Self	Sees all life as natural systems Remains flexible, spontaneous, functional Considers, chaos & change are natural	Integrates differences into interdependent, natural flows
8	Holistic - Group	Scans the macro Synergizes all life Works for safe orderly world Restores harmony	Thinks globally, acts locally & vice versa Makes global interconnections Highly diversified Not isolationist Information rich

In relation to the same levels of complexity we can also see each level has healthy (+) and unhealthy (-) examples of behaviors, that co-exist in the city.

Table 2: Examples of Healthy and Unhealthy Behaviours

Levels of Complexity	Examples: [Healthy +] [Unhealthy -]
1	+ Survival bands perpetuate life + Lives off land, street + food bank workers - homeless
2	+ immigrants retain homeland ways - use of turbans instead of helmets threaten safety standards
3	+ artistic expression, independence - bullies, gangs
4	+ obedient drivers observe traffic laws - bureaucrats over-regulate - governments over tax
5	+ City planners plan for 20+ yrs + Govt. redistributes wealth - rich vs poor gap - Eco polluters threaten environment
6	+ universal health care service - social safety net policies spend $ before wealth produced - city bankruptcy from social over spending
7	+ integrates all value lenses - undervalues group capacities
8	+ thinks local, acts global - TBD

Meshworks offer overarching interconnections that combine the best of all kinds of organizational skills and models. Table 3 shows some examples of the expertise the City Manager could draw on to create a meshwork of support to respond to the behaviors.

Table 3: Meshwork of Expertise

1. Levels of Complexity	2. Behaviors	3. Meshwork of Expertise
1	Survival bands trying to stay alive 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

The foregoing examples illustrate multiple meshworks to address a full spectrum of city behaviors at any given point of time.

Meshworking is equally effective when a full spectrum of expertise is brought to bear on single issues or clusters of issues like homelessness. City Managers can form a meshwork to collaborate across disciplines to enable strategic foresight, scenario planning, and strategic implementation that address and prevent homelessness. A meshwork for homelessness could be assembled from the following domains:

Bio-physical Sciences
Healing Modalities — both Allopathic and Alternative; Individual and Family Systems Therapy
Psychology
Evolutionary psychology
Culture
Law
Sociology
Anthropology
Human settlements (architecture, engineering, construction trades)
Economics
Ecology

For more ideas and references check out the Internet Resources at the Integral City Discovery Zone, Intelligent Book Shelf and Integral City Shopping Cart.

For other aspects of City Managers click on these links:

Top

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