Civil Municipal - May 2024

With 27 years of experience in local government, Minnetonka City Manager Mike Funk had seen many instances of local governments trying, and sometimes failing, when it comes to strategy execution. In Minnetonka, city leaders have built a well-oiled machine that sees council, community and staff working in tandem to identify priorities and work towards them. While leadership buy-in is critical to successful strategic planning, completing action steps is essential to implementing that plan.To really execute and make progress, Funk recommends instilling a sense of ownership among staff members for each pillar and action step. For example, the financial strength and operational excellence pillar is owned by the finance director. Each pillar has a defined leader who is responsible for supporting a team of approximately 10 individuals who contribute to that pillar. In many cities, a few people at the top create the plan and try to make it happen. For Minnetonka’s leaders, the success of the plan relies on reaching more people on the front lines and ensuring they play a role in creating—and executing—action steps. For this reason, it’s important that the people doing most of the work also have a say in creating the steps and defining the performance metrics. For Minnetonka, it was critical to find a balance between the role of city council and the expertise of city staff. This meant ensuring council members offered input and high-level support at the 30,000- foot level, while allowing staff to organize tactics and steps for strategy execution. The secret to success? Implementing both a top down and bottom-up approach. VISUAL PROGRESS MOVES THE NEEDLE ON ACCOUNTABILITY AND STRATEGY EXECUTION While laying a foundation that is thoughtful and inclusive is a central component of successful strategic planning, accountability and ongoing support of the plan are necessary for long-term success. Minnetonka staff members update the plan’s action success of a strategic plan. This holistic engagement can, and should, continue throughout the plan, after the initial conversations are had and the core pillars are outlined. Minnetonka city leaders leaned heavily on input from city council when developing the secondary level of the plan, which included identifying 24 specific strategies to support the six core pillars. But engagement and collaboration doesn’t stop at the top. Leaders within the city government also use community feedback surveys to help guide decision making, establish priorities and ensure tie-in to the city budget. With the strategies in place, the city leadership team then collaborates with staff at all levels to develop realistic action steps, which make up the third level of Minnetonka’s high functioning strategic plan. 10 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 05, ISSUE 05