A lot of noses are out of joint over the Mayors Dream Team. Few members of Council want to spend three days in a workshop.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON  November 12, 2012  The Mayor’s dream could become a bit of a nightmare.  More than half of his Council isn’t on board for this one.  Those we spoke with did so on an unattributed basis.

The Mayor has engaged Dr. Lance Secretan to facilitate the development of a defining dream for Burlington. “It is my hope” said the Mayor, “that this dream will provide the community with an ambition and determination that brings us together and helps us build a future for which our children will be proud.”

The media release in which the dream team” idea was revealed was thin on details.  Other than knowing a bit about who is paying for the event and that his Council members have noses very much out of joint we still don’t know much.  The Mayor’s office has not gotten back to us with any details

Is this still one big happy family? Or has the idea of working together beginning to fall apart.

Council members were told of the Mayors Plan to hold a meeting that would pull together a group of citizens to talk about “Defining our Dream”.  The idea apparently came about after the Mayor read Lance Secretan’s The Spark, The Flame, and the Torch, while on vacation last summer.  Then, when a local commercial landlord suggested to the Mayor that the city didn’t have a clear sense of where it was going the two streams of thought came together and the event went from an idea to a fully formed event.

The Mayor apparently liked what he had read and liked what he was hearing as well and went ahead with his plan to pull a dream out of a group of citizens the Mayor has chosen.

Council members were first told that just one Council member would be asked to attend.  That didn’t go over very well.  There was a general uproar from council members which moved the Mayor to change his mind and allow that they could all attend but they would have to take part in the full program which is to consist of:

A half-day session on November  21st to get a briefing on the ground rules and how the two day session that follows will be done.

Then there are two full days of “daydreaming” – that’s on the Thursday and Friday.

Then on the Saturday morning there will be session with city staff, who will attend on a “volunteer” basis,  and talk about how this dream might be implemented.  How does a staff member say no to the Mayor when asked to help a group of citizens implement a dream?

Frank McKeown, Mayor’s Chief of Staff, attempts to fix the clock in Council Chambers. There are things that perhaps need fixing on the eighth floor.

Once council member was aghast when told this was the plan and made the comment that it is council that determines what is to be implemented.

A number of council members cannot or do not want to devote that much time to a project they apparently had little input on.  One asked: Is this the kind of stuff on the part of the mayor what happens when Frank decides to leave the eighth floor?”.  Frank is Frank McKeown, the Mayor’s current Chief of Staff who leaves that position December 31st.

Thinking it through while developing the Strategic Plan. Was the same kind of thinking done with the Defining the Dream initiative?

Another council member suggested there may have been a bit of a ”falling out” between the Mayor and his Chief of Staff on directions to be taken during the second half of his first term of office.

That same council member informed us that there was “significant developer” money behind the $50,000 this three days of day dreaming event is going to cost.  That may be a bit of a stretch – we are told that all of the funds needed to pay for the event came from the business community, however the Mayor has not said who those business people are.  One is the owner of a very significant number of commercial rental properties.

The idea of pulling together a group of citizens to talk about the “big dream for the city first came to public notice when the Mayor put out a press release saying:

“After speaking with and listening to thousands of residents over the last two years I believe we have a need and an opportunity to better define what we want Burlington to be; how we want others to see us; and how we want to see ourselves” … “ I want to generate a discussion about what we do want.”

Checking over the notes.

The dream will start an important conversation with the entire community that will result in a prosperous future for our City. I believe that by creating a defining dream we will have a rallying point, a touchstone, which will bring us together and allow us to make the decisions we have to make with purpose.

The understanding a number of people close to this development have is that a property owner has had a very significant impact on the Mayor’s thinking – more than most of the council members which has them upset.  They thought they were part of a team and that this council had gotten away from the Cam Jackson habit of going off on one tangent after another.

There are many noses out of joint over this one.  An idea that has some merit but little transparency now has to overcome serious opposition from council members when it should be moving forward very smoothly.

The public doesn’t know who has been invited to take part in the defining of the dream.  Is this the Mayor’s circle of “friends” advisers and financial contributors?  On what basis were they chosen?

Who is Lance Secretan?  Our Burlington did a piece on the man and his book sometime ago when the Mayor mentioned he was going to be reading the book while on vacation.

Secretan is seen as a part of the Tony Robbins “self-help” crowd that advances a theory and an approach to changing the life you live.  Secretan has taken that marketing approach to the corporate level.  It sells.

Secretan espouses what are called the CASTLE principles:   Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love and Effectiveness.  He is a physical fitness buff who has a home in Ontario.  One can see the similarities in personality traits between the Mayor and Lance Secretan who is basically a motivational speaker.

Here is how Secretan describes what he does:

Over 30 years at the Secretan Center, we have discovered that the common, unifying experience among winning teams, great endeavors and extraordinary achievements—is a dream.

A dream is not the same as the familiar “Mission, Vision and Values” statements favored by so many organizations. A dream is an order of greater magnitude. It is a bold declaration of how we are going to make a difference in the world, what new frontier we are going to establish, how we will redefine the game we play, the new standards we will set, and what we will do to light fires in the imaginations and hearts of all those we touch.

The Secretan Center has developed a breakthrough system that invites leaders to identify, realize and sustain their dreams—their most extraordinary, outrageous, never-before-achieved aspirations. We call it the ONE Dream® Process. We begin by identifying what we call “Permission Space” which is the energy that propels a dream—for an organization, a city, a state or province, or for a country.

The central philosophy that powers the ONE Dream® process is our belief in dreams to inspire organizations and communities and their stakeholders to outstanding performance. Modern organizations have forgotten how to dream and instead have adopted stale, uninspiring statements and slogans. Mission statements often fail to arouse passion, but dreams always do—history is filled with examples of great leaders with big dreams. If an organization aligns its entire cultural architecture and energy behind the realization of ONE Dream®, breakthrough results—big dreams—can happen for people, customers, the organization and the community.

Any dream this city develops needs to be firmly grounded in reality and based on a solid understanding of the dynamics involved.

Is Secretan who the Mayor of Burlington should be using to define the dream for the city?  Why – when he had full access to one of the best facilitators and consultants on how municipalities grow in this country.

Georgina Black, on the right, led Council and senior city staff through an extensive Strategic Plan development process. They weren’t abler to set out the dream then – they weren’t ready. Mayor Goldring thinks the city is ready now.

Georgina Black, a partner with the consulting firm KPMG led the city through an at times exhaustive but very thorough process that produced the Strategic Plan the city now has in place.  The eleven half day event that was open and involved all the council members and all senior city staff, didn’t manage to define the “big hairy audacious” goal they were looking for, partly because they were not ready.

Creating a meaningful and fully thought out Strategic Plan was not something this Council or most members of the senior levels at city hall had much experience with.  Given where they were – they did very well.  The smart idea would have been to bring back a consultant with a solid track record with experience in a sector that is complex and considerably different than the corporate world where the bottom line matters more than anything else.

One Council member thought the Mayor “should have done something like this when the Strategic Plan was being developed. “That would have been a good time to get public input.  The Mayor could have invited specific people and made the event open to the public as well.”

We have noticed that when the Mayor is listening to people he doesn’t have much time for he can be very short and curt; almost dismissive.  We saw this early in the Strategic Plan development when different stakeholders were making their presentations.  While the comments made were what was expected, basically the “same old”, the Mayor was less than gracious with these people.

Is Burlington about to create another mini-pier incident and move forward without a solid plan vetted by all the people who should be involved and who are responsible for the outcome?  We’ve seen where that approach takes us.

This adventure is being billed as one that isn’t going to cost the city anything.  Business people put up funds for things that will serve their purposes; that’s what business is about.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

When the Workshop has been completed the Mayor has said he will share the results with the community – he is going to have to share much more with the community before the workshop if the results are to have any credibility.


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7 comments to A lot of noses are out of joint over the Mayors Dream Team. Few members of Council want to spend three days in a workshop.

  • I wish to say that this post is amazing, great, well
    written and includes appropriate and vital info.

    I would like to see more posts like this .

  • Donald

    This article is so woefully subjective to the point that even as a blog, it seems some feathers have been ruffled on the author’s account by some city staff who aren’t interested in this avenue of “media”. The fact that this is supposed to represent Burlington is embarrasing, as it comes across as slanderous “reporting” based on one’s assumptions and ideas, as opposed to actual facts.

    If you are trying to start a Burlington TMZ site, it is not working. You need to step up the poor grammar and include more unflattering photos of your subjects – perhaps of them changing toilet paper rolls in the City Hall washroom.

  • Bill coucher

    Agreed. It seems I am not alone in my view that the last election was more of an anti Cam vote than pro-Goldring.

  • Penny Hersh

    Is this a joke?…..It sounds like a man with no plan and no direction grasping at straws How can the residents take this mayor seriously? It is my hope that not too much damage is done before the next election

  • Bill Coucher

    I do agree with AC in that this blog is amateur hour trying to play reporter. Imagine if everyone with a blog wanted to be treated like legit media. I’d sue if I was city staff an you postedy
    Photo. Maybe that’s why he claims his
    Blog cost $20k .. Law suits!

  • AC

    This article leaves me questioning the validity of its statements. They seem more like speculations than facts or arguments. Why is the Mayor using Secretan and his model when he has full access to one of the best facilitators and constultants on municipality growth? I don’t know but neither does the author and instead he has made an odd post almost Perez Hilton style but with more grammatical errors using photos of City staff sitting in contemplation and making changes to an office clock.

  • Bill Coucher

    To anyone that TRULY watches the ongoings at city hall – it is not difficult to see that Goldring is still trying to find his footing. He fumbles quite frequently and doesn’t have an in depth understanding of his job. His knowledge appears to be superficial. Had he a better understanding imagine what could be accomplished!!! I also think you overvalue Frank M. He isn’t the wizard you make him out to be. In any event, we can see for ourselves in 2 years when he likely runs for council against the sleeper.
    This whole concept was amateurish.
    Too bad no one reads this blog since I have so much to say but no one to read it!