Each Thursday, we put one of our local newsmakers On The Spot. This week: Auburn City Manager Mark Palesh
This week's question: What has been your biggest disappointment and your biggest achievement since starting your job a little less than a year ago?
In my late 20s, soon after being appointed to my first position as city administrator in a small Utah community, my father came to visit me from New York. As he sat in my office chair he said; “Well son, how do you do this job, and how do you know when you have done it well?” I could not answer his questions at the time, but after having served six communities in three states, over a 30-year career, I am closing in on them.
I have found that I was never smarter than the people I worked for or surrounded myself with as department heads and employees, so what to do was never an issue.
The issue was how to do it, and the how it can be reduced to one rule: “The ends never justify the means!”
The means are about people, and people are about feelings, personalities, communication, traditions and individual beliefs.
If we focus on the way (means) we solve a problem or initiate a project, the project will take care of itself, even if it ended up being different than our original intention.
Every community has what is commonly referred to as its “one-percenters,” those people making up the vocal minority who, through unsigned letters-to-the-editor, rumormongering, and other nefarious methods, constantly remind us of what is wrong with an individual or the community and what can't be accomplished. They go about building the biggest house in town by demolishing the homes of others.
On the other hand, I have always concentrated my efforts on the real “one-percenters” whose opinions I have cultivated and cherished.
You already know them; they are those individuals and families who have made it in life, not by stepping on the heads of those in front of them, but by unselfish acts of kindness, service and generosity.
They boost people upward to accomplish great things for their community, while serving as a solid support base, even under the most trying circumstances.
These are the people who will let me know if I have done it well; these people are the “Real Deal” in the City of Auburn!
In my late 20s, soon after being appointed to my first position as city administrator in a small Utah community, my father came to visit me from New York. As he sat in my office chair he said; “Well son, how do you do this job, and how do you know when you have done it well?” I could not answer his questions at the time, but after having served six communities in three states, over a 30-year career, I am closing in on them.
I have found that I was never smarter than the people I worked for or surrounded myself with as department heads and employees, so what to do was never an issue.
The issue was how to do it, and the how it can be reduced to one rule: “The ends never justify the means!”
The means are about people, and people are about feelings, personalities, communication, traditions and individual beliefs.
If we focus on the way (means) we solve a problem or initiate a project, the project will take care of itself, even if it ended up being different than our original intention.
Every community has what is commonly referred to as its “one-percenters,” those people making up the vocal minority who, through unsigned letters-to-the-editor, rumormongering, and other nefarious methods, constantly remind us of what is wrong with an individual or the community and what can't be accomplished. They go about building the biggest house in town by demolishing the homes of others.
On the other hand, I have always concentrated my efforts on the real “one-percenters” whose opinions I have cultivated and cherished.
You already know them; they are those individuals and families who have made it in life, not by stepping on the heads of those in front of them, but by unselfish acts of kindness, service and generosity.
They boost people upward to accomplish great things for their community, while serving as a solid support base, even under the most trying circumstances.
These are the people who will let me know if I have done it well; these people are the “Real Deal” in the City of Auburn!
The Citizens' Say
There are 5 comment(s)
annmarie wrote on Feb 12, 2008 8:23 AM:
hillbilly wrote on Jan 15, 2008 12:41 PM:
So, What has been your biggest disappointment and your biggest achievement since starting your job a little less than a year ago? Can you answer the question now?????????? "
stevedallas wrote on Jan 11, 2008 4:07 PM:
Yikes wrote on Jan 10, 2008 7:59 PM:
drwoo wrote on Jan 10, 2008 5:27 PM: