Dear Minot:
I was privileged to be part of the Minot City Council’s recent retreat, as City Council members, City leadership and department heads gathered for two sessions of extremely productive and positive discussion.
It isn’t easy to coordinate the combined schedules of everyone involved in these meetings, but we’ve seen through past retreats that the results are well worth the effort. It’s vital that City leaders, elected and non-elected, gather to have frank and open discussions about where we are headed, both as an organization and as a community.
Such retreats are important for a wide variety of reasons. They help ensure our management and leadership teams are on the same page as we move into the 2024 budget cycle. Department heads used the opportunity to express any concerns they had, and Council members used the retreat as a chance to ask both general and detailed questions of department heads. The importance of exchanging accurate information in a face-to-face setting simply cannot be overstated.
Retreats are also a great way to build camaraderie, trust, and mutual respect among Council members and the leadership teams of the City of Minot. Obviously, there are areas of disagreement on budget priorities and other subjects, but professional and respectful disagreements can be healthy for any organization because it forces everyone to defend their position and consider the bigger picture rather than only their area of expertise.
As part of the retreat, the Council’s aspirations created in 2021 were discussed at length. The aspirations provide guidance and purposeful context to decisions the Council makes, both large and small. As a group, we reviewed the aspirations to determine if adjustments were necessary. These are our updated Minot City Council aspirations:
Dynamic and flourishing: Minot is a thriving and vibrant community, built on a spirit of sharing strengths. The City is committed to being adaptable and ready for strategic growth, and making successful investments in targeted partnerships.
Resilient and prepared: Minot is ready to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future.
Safe and welcoming: Minot is a caring community where people feel safe and engages, with opportunities to celebrate our histories and diverse identities.
Excellent and connected: Minot is an innovative, professional, fiscally responsible City government that works collaboratively with residents and partners to provide community leadership and deliver high-quality services.
In turn, these aspirations led to the creation of our vision statement for the community: Minot, North Dakota: Building an inviting, well-managed, and livable community together.
It’s vital that as an organization, the City of Minot creates reasonable and attainable aspirations, goals, and visions. Without them, an organization as large as ours is susceptible to becoming stagnant, and too reliant on an attitude of “That’s how we’ve always done it.”
It’s also crucial that after creating aspirations, goals, and visions, we put them into practical use whenever possible. Creating things is relatively easy; making sure they’re used as intended is a bit more complicated and difficult.
At the City of Minot, we embrace our City Council aspirations, and we are committed to actively searching for ways to include them in our discussions and decision-making processes. For instance, as staff members come forward with requests during the ongoing budget process, we will look for initiatives that have the greatest impact in these areas. We’ve purposely created our own set of standards, and now it’s up to us to live up to them as elected leaders and department heads.
Communicate. Collaborate. Challenge. Create. Cooperate.
All of these words represent priorities established through lengthy and candid discussions during our two-day Council retreat. Change and improvement rarely happen overnight; often these things are accomplished through determination, a dogged pursuit of excellence, and a commitment to providing high-quality service to our community and its residents.
Our City Council aspirations must lead and guide us as we continue on our journey of public service.
You can find more about what’s happening at the City of Minot at minotnd.org, or find us on Facebook and Twitter. We’d also encourage you to sign up for our monthly electronic newsletter on our website.