Last month, I was featured on the How To Really Run A City Podcast by the Philadelphia Citizen.
The podcast was co-hosted by former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and Philadelphia Citizen co-founder Larry Platt and it centered on “What Mayors Can Learn From Toyota”.
[Psss… I come in around 13:31.]
In the podcast, we talked about why the public sector doesn’t invest as deeply in supporting the evolution and advancement of its workforce, a.k.a., training people how to do their jobs.
They asked me what it’s like to be in the room where you came up with the idea for a great innovation—i.e., “The Room Where It Happens.”
When most of you hear the phrase “The Room Where It Happens,” you’re probably thinking of the hit musical Hamilton.
In Hamilton, “The Room Where It Happens” is a magical place where history-altering ideas and decisions happen. It’s where the leader comes up with an amazing idea, and then, *cue the montage*, everyone’s life changes for the better.
Everybody wants to be in “The Room Where It Happens.”
To me, though, that isn’t “The Room Where It Happens”—that’s a Hollywood fantasy.
To me, “The Room Where It Happens” is being in a room where:
- Someone gets their driver’s license in 3 minutes
- Someone receives food assistance in less than 2 hours
- A family adopts a child after going through a 90-day approval process
- Executing a contract that’s been in limbo for 200+ days to open low-income housing for older adults experiencing homelessness
Because the reality is, “The Room Where It Happens” isn’t sexy. It’s usually…boring.
It’s a long and difficult meeting. It’s following up for the third time on an email chain. It’s the long hours it takes to finish a project because you want to improve the public.
It’s the part of the movie that is thrown into the montage. But in reality, the room “where it feels like we didn’t do anything” is “the room where it happens.
All those project meetings to discuss changes, all those emails with six replies. Those small, deliberate meetings and conversations move those contracts to the finish line.
Yes, there is collaboration and innovation, but there is no ‘eureka’ moment. Steven Johnson put it best: “Eureka moments are very, very rare.”
Anyone can innovate. Not everyone can execute.
It takes hard work, long hours, and persistence to execute amazing ideas.
That’s why you have to endure “the room where it gets done” to truly soak in “the room where it happens.”
There are no short cuts in innovation or in organizational change.
Want to listen to the full Philadelphia Citizen podcast? Click here to listen to “What Mayors Can Learn From Toyota”.
Want to learn about how you can make things happen in your workplace? Drop me a line if you need some help getting it done.
Actions speak louder than words.