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16 November, 2016 0 Comments

We Long for Leadership: Do We Know What it Looks Like?

November 16, 2016 By Jeff Perlman Leave a Comment

Conversely, you are not a leader if you squash ideas and enthusiasm.

With an historic presidential election behind us, the topic of leadership in America and in our communities has become a front burner discussion. Here’s a few thoughts on what we think are essential attributes for leaders in government, business, non-profits and academia culled from books and articles on the subject.

7 Essential Attributes: All Seven Are Necessary for Success

“People would rather follow a leader who is always real versus a leader who is always right. Don’t try to be a perfect leader, just work on being an authentic one.” –Brad Lomenick

Integrity

Integrity is like the foundation of a house. It’s not the first thing you notice, yet without it, the house won’t stand and all the fancy amenities won’t matter.

So what is integrity? It is saying what you mean and meaning what you say. It’s keeping promises, its resisting temptation to be corrupted and it means telling the truth. But it also means a lot more than just telling the truth. It means not being silent when you see something you think is wrong. It means being able to hold yourself and others accountable and it means always acting ethically.

Quote: “If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.” –Former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson.

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand what someone else is experiencing or feeling. It means an ability to tune into others, to listen and to understand. Leaders need to be able to connect to people. They need to be able to probe beneath the surface, to sense conflict before it erupts and nip it in the bud and they need to be able to sense the mood in a room and adjust their communication accordingly.

Quote: “Leadership boils down to strong relationships. Before I can be an effective leader I have to know the players, they have to get to know me and we have to trust and know each other.” – Coach K. of Duke.

Emotional Intelligence

Leaders need to understand their blind spots and weaknesses as much as their strengths. They need to evolve and adapt to new challenges. They need to work well with diverse personalities.

Quote: “Until you know yourself, strengths and weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want to do it, you cannot succeed.” –Warren Bennis.

Vision

Every good leader has vision. Leaders imagine a better future. Visionaries understand that leading is a job to do not a job to have. They are transformational leaders, with a clear vision of a brighter tomorrow. They are able to think long term and focus beyond the daily grind.

Visionary leaders inspire. They are optimistic and they never lose focus.

Quote: “Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.” – George Lucas.

Judgment

Good judgment is essential for effective leadership. Good judgment means good decision making. In leadership positions, you will often have to make dozens of decisions on a regular basis. Sometimes you will be given time and information; sometimes you will have to make quick decisions with little information. As a leader, you can’t afford to be indecisive. You have to answer the call.

Three tips for developing good judgment and making good decisions.

1.Zero in on what’s important

2.See the whole chessboard

3.Take decisive action.

Quote: “Mistakes are not the ‘spice’ of life. Mistakes are life. Mistakes are not to be tolerated. They are to be encouraged.” –Tom Peters

Courage

Leadership is not for the faint of heart. If you want to lead, conflict is inevitable. Leadership means being on the front lines of conflict. It means having the courage to take a stand and know that you will make some people angry. You will make friends and you will lose friends. In leadership positions: you will be tested every day.

Quote: “Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.” -— Eddie Rickenbacker World War I hero

Passion

Passion is the drive to achieve, to make a difference, to put a dent in the universe. Without passion, without drive, you cannot be an effective leader. You have to wake up every day driven to learn, achieve, master and move toward your goals and vision. Passion drives progress.

Quote: “The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.” -— Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch

10 October, 2016 0 Comments

Strategy + Team=Success

October 10, 2016 By Jeff Perlman Leave a Comment

I’m a big fan of Fred Wilson.

He’s a highly regarded NYC based venture capitalist who writes a fascinating blog on investing and technology.

This time of year, he’s spending his time in board meetings planning for the upcoming year.

When you are involved in a successful enterprise, board meetings are exciting. It’s fun to talk about growth and expanding market share. But when you are in struggling enterprise, board meetings can be very challenging and often stressful.

Wilson believes the keys to success are having a strategy and building a winning team. Here’s what he has to say:

“You have to get the strategy right and you have to have a team that can execute it without your day to day involvement. The CEOs that I work with that are struggling are usually running into issues with their team and/or their strategy. And the CEOs that I work with that are doing great generally have gotten the strategy set and have built a strong executive team underneath them.

This sounds so simple. But it is not.

Most of the companies I work with didn’t really start out with a strategy. They started out with an idea that turned into a great product that found a fit with a market. And they jumped on that and used it to build a company. Most of them wake up at some point and realize that a single product in a single market is not a strategy and they need to come up with a plan to get a lot bigger and build a sustainable and defensible business. I like to think that this is one place where a good investor group can help. If we are doing our job, we push our portfolio companies to work on their long term strategy and refine it to the point where it makes sense and is executable. But an investor group cannot give a company a strategy. It has to come from the founder/CEO and a small group of senior leaders. The smaller the group that is working on strategy, the better. Strategy is not something that can be done by committee.

The second thing, building an executive team that can execute the plan without day to day involvement of the CEO, is even harder. Most of the companies I work with go through a lot of hiring mistakes on the way to building this team. Some hire too junior. Some hire too senior. Some hire bad cultural fits. Some hire people that are nothing but cultural fit. And an investor or investor group can help with this but I believe that founders/CEOs need to learn how to do this themselves and make these mistakes. The best thing an investor group can do is to help a founder/CEO to understand when they have the wrong person in the job. Or help them understand that more quickly.

These are both areas where experience is huge. The CEOs I work with who have done the job multiple times get these two things right much more quickly. But even they can take a year or two to get these right. First time CEOs often take three or four years to get these things right. But sticking with founders who are first time CEOs through this process is usually worth it because they have a connection to the initial vision and mission that a hired CEO has a hard time replicating. There is not a good rule of thumb on this issue (who should run the company). Facts and circumstances on the ground will generally determine how that should go.

My final point on this is that once you have the strategy and team locked down, you should step back and let the machine do its thing. I like to say that CEOs should do only three things; recruit and retain the team, build and evolve the long term strategy and communicate it effectively and broadly in the organization and externally, and make sure the company doesn’t run out of money. When those are the only things you are doing, you are doing the job right. Very few CEOs get to focus on only these three things all of the time. Things break and you have to fix them. But when the machine is working and you can step back and watch it hum, it is a thing of beauty.”

Amen.

This blog likes to focus on cities and there is a real parallel between what Wilson is talking about and building a successful community. And there are some differences.

First, strategy can be substituted for a community vision and while for business Wilson recommends a small group be involved in crafting strategy, in a city it helps if you have as many stakeholders involved as possible. It’s the job of elected leadership to prioritize, hone and drive the vision and it’s the job of city staff to implement in a timely and efficient manner.

But cities get in trouble when there is no strategy, vision or plan. And they get in trouble when egotistical leaders decide to keep their own counsel and cut themselves off from input or debate.

They also get in trouble when they decide to micromanage and delve into the day to day operations of the city. If you find that you are doing this, you need to stop. If you find that you need to do this because your staff can’t or won’t execute, you need to get new staff. But elected officials need to stay in their policymaking box (which is plenty big) and allow staff to do their jobs. Ideally, you should try to create a culture of experimentation and innovation not fear.

If staff can feel confident enough to think outside the box and solve problems legally, ethically and efficiently you will succeed. If they feel bullied, micromanaged and or afraid to make a mistake you have created a culture that will fail to solve problems or seize opportunities. Your best talent will flee, you will not be able to attract top tier talent and you will turn lemonade into a lemon.

I happen to believe in outcomes over process. That does not mean that process is not important or that you shouldn’t have a process. But it does mean that outcomes are more important— as long as you act legally, ethically and morally.

It shouldn’t take three weeks to type a basic building permit. It shouldn’t take a year to approve a mixed use development. It shouldn’t require an act of Congress or a deity to get a parking agreement and or a developer agreement. If it does, you got a problem.

Strategy and team; you need them both. One doesn’t work without the other. And if you are deficient with either or both, you have major problems and you cannot succeed.

4 October, 2016 2 2 Comments

Keepers of the Flame

October 4, 2016 By Jeff Perlman 2 Comments

Jan Gehl–cities for people

Jan Gehl is an award winning Danish architect who has worked on high profile projects all over the world.

Recently, he visited the Harvard Design School to discuss the role of politics and leadership in driving improvement in cities.

In his experience, he believes “the personal factor is very strong in bringing about transformative urban changes”.

Gehl’s new book New City Spaces talks about nine cities that have really turned things around, and in nearly all of the cases, it started with some centrally placed person or torchbearer who had a vision. It might have been the mayor of Curitiba, the longstanding director of urban design in Melbourne, or the mayor in Strasbourg. In Copenhagen, the city architect, city engineer, and mayor worked together, and in Portland it was more or less the Greens winning the election in 1968 that brought significant change, according to Gehl.

“It (transformative changes) could come from the bottom or above, but very seldom did it grow out of the day-to-day administration of the cities. It was often a force from the outside, or a new officer or a new politician.”

Interesting and I have no doubt that Gehl is correct in his diagnosis of the cities he has studied.

But I would argue that another model—outside the hero mayor or architect narrative—is citizen driven planning or visioning. Delray used this transformational model effectively from the late 80s until the mid 2000s for plans relating to the downtown, neighborhoods, culture, education and parks.

It works.

In many cases, change is driven by a threat or by conditions that are so poor, they drive people to organize and push for reform. In Delray’s case, the threat was a plan by the Florida Department of Transportation to widen Atlantic Avenue to facilitate hurricane evacuation and a downtown that was vacant, dark and dead. While this may not be the best week to argue against the evacuation idea, it was widely believed that if FDOT was successful we would have lost our downtown forever. Instead of being a narrow, pedestrian friendly street promoting slow traffic, the avenue would have been a highway—good for evacuation– bad for urbanism.

I’m hoping the new effort relating to the city’s update of its Comprehensive Plan is more like an old school visioning exercise than a top down exercise designed to check a box for the sake of optics because community visioning is critically important and so is the Comp Plan.

Gehl is correct when he notes that transformation rarely grows out of day- to -day administration.

Same goes for business.

When you’re leading or running a city or a business, you really have two considerations: the day to day and the future. You have to consider both or you are doomed to failure or disruption.

So yes when a citizen calls to complain about a tree branch you need to respond. But, you also should be thinking about your tree canopy and whether you have planned your open spaces well enough. Leadership requires taking care of the present and planning for the future.

In a council-manager form of government, in which the mayor’s position is supposed to be strictly policymaking and part-time (the part-time part is a fallacy, trust me), you can’t wait for a hero with a vision to come to the rescue. It’s up to the citizens to take responsibility, but leadership is critical. The best leaders seek input, constantly engage, try their best to raise the level of conversation and once adopted become the chief evangelists and defenders of the vision. Staff implements, leaders drive the vision.

And believe me; the vision will need defending and driving because change is never easy nor universally accepted especially if your vision is ambitious and not boring or incremental.

Every city aspires to be a great place to live, work and play—but the devil as they say is in the details. Vibrancy requires activity and public spaces may need to be activated and that may mean noise and people.

Change while often resisted is also inevitable. So you can count on your vision being challenged on a regular basis. The best leaders are guardians of the flame. If they resist the urge to cave when the critics emerge and trust in the people’s vision your plan will gain traction and soar. But if they capitulate—the vision will die and along with it any chance of meaningful change. Oh and you’ll lose the trust of citizens who helped to forge the vision and counted on you—the elected leader—to ensure it moves forward.

That’s a high price to pay. Many cities do. And they are the ones who are either left behind or caught and passed by other cities.

What’s at stake? Quality of life, quality of place, property values and whether or not you can provide opportunities for all.

In other words…just about everything.

9 September, 2016 2 2 Comments

We Can Do Better

September 9, 2016 By Jeff Perlman 2 Comments

My goodness, politics is depressing.

We’re a hyperlocal blog, so we won’t weigh in one the presidential race.

But we will opine on the local stuff which sometimes includes state politics.

I was recently engrossed in a particularly interesting issue of Florida Trend magazine which detailed the amazing scientific breakthroughs and research being done throughout the Sunshine State.

Story after story of remarkable advances in cancer research, biochemistry, cyber security, energy–you name it.

FAU was front and center with great pieces on the new director of The Brain Institute and stories about great work being done in areas ranging from oceanography to aging. (Just in time for us my friends).

And then we hit the politics section of the magazine. Ugh.

A piece about Florida’s ridiculous primary rules (I read it twice and can’t quite grasp it, but understand it’s ripe for manipulation and therefore is being manipulated surprise, surprise). And a piece about some imbecile state legislator seeking to circumvent term limit rules and extend his time in office another 8 years. Double ugh.

I’m not one of those anti-government people and not someone who thinks politics is always distasteful.

I believe in public service and I think politics can be a noble calling.

I also believe in good government and I have seen it in action.

Delray Beach had it for a long while and made progress as a result. I’ve always admired Boca’s efficiency and how their local government has been able to keep a big and growing city clean and beautiful.

I’ve also admired a great many local elected officials over the years (And have thought more than a few were real, serious and almost mind blowing clunkers).

Good government delivers needed or desired services effectively and efficiently. It’s ethical, transparent, accessible, customer focused, innovative and humane. If it’s clicking and working well, it can set a community apart. But if it’s broken, it can screw it up horribly.

I believe good government facilitates and is aspirational. It should help where needed and get out of the way when that’s needed. But it’s clear that across America, something is wrong with our politics and you can’t have good government if your politics are dysfunctional, mean, visionless, disparaging and petty.

We can do better. We have to do better.

All across America that is our challenge. And like every other great challenge, the answer can always be found with people. We need to attract our best and brightest to politics–I think it’s clear we are not. At least not in the numbers necessary to solve our greatest challenges or even recognize our greatest opportunities.

We need more engagement. More leadership training. More civics and more knowledgeable citizens. If we fail–we’re toast.

25 August, 2016 0 Comments

History Must Be Used & Experienced

August 25, 2016 By Jeff Perlman Leave a Comment

Vin Nolan has experience and can sing karaoke.

Editor’s Note: We are taking a break and will be back after Labor Day. Thanks for reading and for your feedback. Be safe and keep an eye on the tropics.

Last week, we wrote about the launch of a civic boot camp at the Delray Chamber of Commerce.

The four week class is designed to engage and inform people who are interested in running for public office or serving on a board.

This is the first time the chamber has done such a class. This effort is different than Leadership Delray, because it is more focused on politics and public policy.

Since it is designed by the chamber, the content of the class is notably and unapologetically “pro-business” and emphasizes the importance of economic development. Tonight, former Delray Economic Development Director Vin Nolan will be the guest speaker.

Vin has what they call in the biz “chops.”

He’s a certified economic developer with lots of real world experience. He is currently heading up efforts at the Small Business Development Center at Palm Beach State College and also has background as an elected official in Connecticut. So he brings a broad range of experience and understanding to the process. He knows what works and he knows what doesn’t.

I’ve learned a lot from Vin about economic development and one key concept sticks out: the need to take advantage of good business cycles and the importance of doing what you can to minimize the damage from down economies. Imagine economic development as climbing a mountain. In good times you can reach decent heights, but inevitably the cycle ends and you slip a little. The key, Vin has taught me, is not to allow yourself to plummet off a cliff. There’s no guarantee you’ll be able to make the climb again.

Probably, the best way to hedge against a free fall is to land investments during good times that build on the strengths of your community and create lasting value.

I think Delray Beach and Boca Raton have done a good job with that in years past. It was proven during the great recession when despite deep and considerable pain—foreclosures, job loss, a dead real estate market—the cities survived relatively intact. Atlantic Avenue may not have seen much in the way of new business, but it didn’t suffer vacancy or desolation either. The same can be said for Mizner Park and downtown Boca’s eastern “spine.” Good planning, solid vision and bold implementation got us through the historic downturn. We survived.

I think that’s a good indication that our community has created value and some degree of economic resiliency. But that strength—which would be the envy of many cities nationwide—does not mean we can afford to grow complacent or smug. After all, success is never final. We must always be thinking about ways to solidify our gains and add new sources of investment and healthy growth to our cities.

When those in leadership positions fail to understand that dynamic, they risk our success. In other words, you can screw up a good thing.

Last week’s kick-off also featured an inspiring speech by the great Frances Bourque, the visionary behind Old School Square. Frances shared her journey with the class, most of who are relatively new to Delray and probably didn’t know that the cultural center was once a blighted, abandoned school surrounded by a chain link fence in the heart of the downtown.

Frances is such a powerful speaker it’s hard not to get swept up in her passion for the arts, history and community. But out of a thousand lessons she can impart, one rang especially true for me after listening to her talk last week: in order for history to be appreciated and loved, it needs to be experienced and used.

So…Frances told the group that while historic sites need to be maintained they also need to embrace the public by providing access. They need to be used and enjoyed in order to be loved and protected. And that’s the mission of Old School Square; to be a gathering place for the community. Listening to Frances tell the story, reminds us all of how fortunate we are to have a facility such as Old School Square and to have had visionaries like Frances who saw what that old abandoned school could be.

These types of lessons and information are so vital and they need to be shared in order for a community to keep progressing. In the end, we are all stewards (if we choose to be) and our responsibility is to leave a place better than we found it. Sometimes that means the place will be different, that’s inevitable. But it’s always helpful to glean lessons from the past, because they do inform your future if you are willing to listen and learn.

A Word About Congress Avenue

Found this in my inbox this morning from Jim Smith, chairman of SAFE, Safety as Floridians Expect, and a member of the Congress Avenue Task Force.

Thank you Christina Morrison and SAFE Director of Community Outreach Director Carol Anderson for your comments supporting the Delray Congress Avenue Task Team recommendations.

In case you missed it, during the City Commission Meeting, Christina said that the Commission should approve the Task Force’s recommendations, not just “accept and file” If you’ll recall, “accept and file” was the same action taken by a different City Commission re the 2010 Vision report that effectively buried the report in a City file cabinet. (Editor’s note: many of the same commissioners were around to “accept and file” that visions report or participated in the charrette which led to the report).

Carol Anderson made a similar comment of support.

There may have been other public comments supporting the task force that I missed. So, if any of you supported, I apologize for not hearing it.

Here’s what Carol Anderson said:

Regarding Item 7G, the Congress Ave task force report:

The Commission should not just “accept and file” but should endorse the vision by “adopting and approving” all the task force’s recommendations and direct staff to draft both a new Master Plan and the LDRs to implement it. The manager can report back and recommend contracted expertise if staff can’t handle this.

I had the privilege of chairing the Task Force that delivered what we thought was a very solid report in February outlining a series of recommendations to jumpstart economic activity and transform Congress Avenue from an underperforming corridor into “Delray’s next great street.”

More than 30 people volunteered for close to a year to craft a new updated plan building on an existing vision developed over a decade ago in reaction to the loss of Office Depot, which left a 40 acre hole in Delray.

The Task Force experience was awesome and the work they produced was excellent. One of our key recommendations was not to let the report sit and gather dust, but to immediately begin implementing the recommendations to take advantage of the economic cycle and to get traction for the updated vision. Specifically, we recommended that the Task Force morph into an implementation group, like was done in the early 2000s to ensure that the Downtown Master Plan would be more than just an exercise in talking.

In other words, here’s the report, get moving, get things done.

Once you start to see progress, you build momentum. You send a message to the private sector that you are serious about progress, not just flapping your gums.

So it’s disappointing to see that six months later, the report is being “filed and accepted”—whatever that means. I sure hope we didn’t waste the valuable time of the volunteers. I’ve heard that the city is issuing an RFP and budgeting big bucks for an outside firm to write the master plan.

Like Ms. Anderson said: why not save the money and get your Planning Department to do it? Again, this effort is not creating something entirely new. We are talking about building on zoning and codes already adopted over a decade ago. Why not update the LDR’s with the new thinking of the task force, clean up the language that no longer makes sense and get moving?

It will save money and time. The Task Force did the heavy lifting—pro bono out of a love for Delray and a belief in the vision. Let our planners do the rest and then let’s start marketing the corridor.

22 August, 2016 0 Comments

Vision, Courage + Urgency=Success

August 22, 2016 By Jeff Perlman Leave a Comment

Dollar Shave Club CEO Michael Dubin’s viral video disrupted an entrenched industry.

Vision.

Courage.

A sense of urgency.

If you want to succeed as a city or a business, you need all three.

Two out of three, just won’t cut it. All three traits are non-negotiable.

Unless of course, you don’t really want to succeed; if you want to pay lip service you can skip one or more of the aforementioned and you’ll fool a few people but you won’t get anything done.

Vision is a big word, but it can be as simple as an idea or as complicated as a breakthrough innovation. I think it also requires a particular mindset: you have to be aspirational and you have to know where you want to take things.

Examples of vision, courage and urgency abound.

Dollar Shave Club sold this month to Unilever for $1 billion.

Fueled by a clever viral video, Dollar Shave Club took a simple idea—make it easy to buy cheap razors and solved a painful problem. Razors are expensive and they are often kept under lock and key in the pharmacy. Blades are inconvenient to buy and ridiculously priced. But Dollar Shave Club made it easy, they had the courage to go up against industry giants and they had a sense of urgency to make it happen. To learn more visit: https://www.dollarshaveclub.com/blades

A small (but growing fast) hot sauce company I’m involved with also has a simple idea. We think the market leader is old, tired, vinegary, watery and doesn’t taste good. So we created Tabanero, using premium ingredients and a complex recipe that we believe tastes great. We are a long way from a billion dollar exit, but we just gained placement at Publix, Sprouts, Lucky’s and all the big food distributors. We are on our way. We have a vision, we are fearless and we are peddling as fast as we can.

Same with another company we are heavily involved with; Celsius which seeks to disrupt the beverage industry which is filled with iconic giants such as Coke and Pepsi. But Celsius is a healthy alternative to sugary soft drinks and seeks to capture a market that doesn’t want aspartame, sugar, corn syrup, artificial flavors or preservatives. The Celsius team has courage, belief and a tremendous desire to seize the day. Working with people who exhibit these traits is an energizing experience; pun intended.

That mindset translates to cities as well.

Delray’s vision was simple: revitalize a town that had good “bones” and make it a desirable to place to live, work and play.

Now mind you, ‘live, work and play’ is not a revolutionary idea. Thousands of communities have adopted that mantra—but if you look closely only a few had the courage and the sense of urgency to make it happen.

Why? Who knows?

But you can bank on resistance to progress, long lines of protesters, lawsuits and election challenges if you try and make change.

Delray had the courage to do it anyway. And leadership also had a sense of urgency and a desire to take advantage of good economic cycles. Some may call it making hay while the sun shines.

Boca had a vision too. Consider Mizner Park for example. They were challenged, but they persevered and got it done.

Pittsburgh saw its steel mills close but had a vision to reinvent their economy around medicine, education and robotics. Their sense of urgency in doing so was important because without a wholesale reinvention, the Burgh would have sunk into the ooze.

Last week, I got a call, (I won’t say from who) other than he was a property owner who is concerned that Delray has lost its vision and sense of urgency. The guy is not a household name per se in Delray, but he’s owned some strategic pieces over the years. His identity is really not important.

It’s not the first call of this nature that I have received. Mostly, the calls are laments that complacency has set in, political divisiveness too and that the economic cycle may be closer to the end than the beginning and that we didn’t make hay, in fact we chased the hay away.

Yeah, I know development is controversial. And for good reason a lot of times. Some of it, maybe even most of it, can be generic, lacking in imagination, poorly designed and more of the same old, same old.

But that can be fixed. Architects, developers and designers can be and should be challenged to do better.

It’s possible to make places people friendly and to design spaces that complement or improve their surroundings.

Some cities have created design studios to help ensure that projects are the very best they can be.

When famed new urbanist architect Andres Duany came to Delray for a town hall lecture, one of the first things he said was that cities should never make developers and architects guess—they should engage with projects early in the process and shape them so that they enhance the built environment.

Legendary former Charleston Mayor Joe Riley felt that mayors were the primary architects for their cities and had a responsibility to make sure that each project was as good as they could possibly be. Now, truth be told, there are limits. After all, most mayors, including Riley, are not architects or designers, but if they take the time they can learn enough to help make projects look and feel good.

FAU’s Abacoa campus used to have what they called a Florida Public Officials Design Institute, which sadly became a victim of budget cuts. It was a great program; it helped me a lot on the original vision for the Congress Avenue corridor and ideas for the four corners of Military Trail and Atlantic Avenue.

Nationally, there is a Mayor’s Institute for Civic Design which has a stellar reputation.

But there are limits too, I admit. There are property rights and if a developer, with his or her own risk capital wants to build a certain building they have a right to do so—as long as they follow the rules.

Still, most developers I have met are open to being challenged and open to design ideas, if as Duany notes, you engage them early– before they spend big bucks on plans they will be reluctant to toss in the trash.

Mix is important too. I agree with the lament about endless condos, even though I am a firm believer in the need for– and wisdom of –downtown housing if we are to have safe and sustainable urban cores.

But charmless boxes are just that—city codes should encourage good design, varied styles and features that please the public.

But talking about design is a very different conversation than the ones we typically have, which is usually about chasing development away or pretending that we can prevent change. We shouldn’t do the former and we can’t do the latter, even if we wanted to.

We should be talking about design and the very real challenge of how to allow cities to evolve without losing their essence, uniqueness and charm. We should also be talking about mix—how can we encourage cool uses and what’s missing in our community—i.e. workforce housing, co-working, boutique theaters, studio space etc?

That would require vision.

In order to achieve the vision, you need courage.

And in order to drive change, you need a sense of urgency.

If nobody’s waking up every day with a burning passion to make a difference, it tends not to happen. And those communities, businesses and organizations that do have a burning desire will clean your clock before you even know what happened to you.

25 July, 2016 3 3 Comments

What We Often Don’t See Is What Matters

July 25, 2016 By Jeff Perlman 3 Comments

I saw a great graphic the other day. (Look above).

The picture depicts success as an iceberg with only the good stuff visible on the surface.

But just below is what it took to achieve success. The trials, tribulations, setbacks, false starts, hard work, good habits and more that few see. But it’s the struggle that is essential for achieving success.

While the graphic is probably aimed at individuals, I think it also holds true for cities and other things we strive to build.

There are so many things that don’t appear on the surface. So many hurdles that few get to see.

And so it has been with Delray Beach and Boca Raton.

First Boca.

I moved here in 1987 and I remember the old mall on US 1. It wasn’t a very nice mall, but it had a bookstore and so I went there often.

I worked for a newspaper at the time headquartered on East Rogers Circle and it was a fairly desolate place back then. There were few places to eat, we had to drive to Tom Sawyer’s or into Delray where there was a restaurant sort of underground at Linton Towers. We sometimes went to Rosie’s Raw Bar, Dirty Moe’s or to a barbecue joint on Linton and Congress.

Boca was always pretty with beautiful parks. But there was really no downtown. The best restaurant may have been La Vielle Maison. West Boca began to boom and often we would venture to Wilt’s or Pete Rose’s Ballpark Cafe and yes we saw Wilt a few times and Pete a whole lot. He did his radio show from the cafe which was attached to a Holiday Inn on west Glades.

Boca was a pretty nice place back then but at the risk of offending some folks, I like it now too.

Although I knew many of the city folks and elected officials through the years I wasn’t privy to the struggles they most surely dealt with.

I was too absorbed with Delray’s journey first as a reporter and later as an elected official.

And dear reader, there were some titanic struggles and make or break decisions to make.

When I think of the 80s, the first thought that comes to mind is crime. The town felt dangerous.

I remember walking into the old Phoenix at Atlantic and A1A as a naive 22 year old new to town hoping to shoot some pool and grab a beer. I actually wondered whether I would make it out intact.

Then there was the time I was assigned a “man on the street” interview and when I stopped a guy on Atlantic Avenue he turned around and ripped the sleeve of my shirt clean off. We both stood there shocked. It was a perfect tear, not sure how he did it and I guess he surprised too, because he ran off. I can’t remember whether he answered my question. Probably not.

I went to police briefings and neighborhood crime watch meetings and heard a litany of horror stories.

Back then, there was a major drug dealer in town named Deniz Fernandez. His network of dealers were brazen and actually hung a pig’s head off a street sign as a warning to cops. When he finally went down as a result of a task force consisting of Delray police and federal agents, the scope of his astonishing empire was revealed: 10 homes, acres and acres of property, a few businesses and duffel bags full of drugs were seized.

Fernandez owned a place locals called “The Hole,“ a notorious crack house on Southwest Ninth Avenue in Delray Beach.

During the summer of 1987, the group`s business reaped an estimated $50,000 a day in gross profits by selling individual doses of crack cocaine for $10 a rock, according to federal agents and police who worked on the investigation.

Check out that number, $50,000 a day in $10 increments.

When undercover Delray officers closed in on him on a dirt road wear of town, he brandished a blue steel revolver and pointed it at them before ditching the weapon. Germantown Road, steps from a popular Ford dealership, was Fernandez’ turf and drivers were brazenly hailed to pull over and buy crack rocks. When officers showed up the dealers dispersed in seconds disappearing into the darkness. Our city was literally an open air drug market.

Once a month, the Sheriff’s fugitive task force came to town and teamed up with our officers to round up literally scores of felons who failed to show up in court or were on the run.

We rode with Charlie Comfort of PBSO, Lt. Jeff Rancour and the late Johnny Pun in an effort to find as many of the worst offenders before word spread on the street that the warrant task force was out and about.

Augmenting those efforts, was the legendary or infamous–depending on what side of the law you were on–tact team also known as the jump out crew. They were tasked with fighting and disturbing street level drug sales which was rampant in parts of Delray. This is where I first met a young Jeff Goldman, now our chief and really amazing officers such as Mike Swigert, Don West, Eddie Robinson, Chuck Jeroloman, Toby Rubin and John Battiloro.

Mad Dads was active back then. They were citizens determined to reclaim their streets from drug dealers.

I saw K-9 officers like Skip Brown and Geoff Williams deploy their dogs in pursuit of dangerous criminals and a slew of incredible detectives solving one horrific crime after another. Legends like Bob Brand, Robert Stevens, Tom Whatley, Craig Hartmann, Dwayne Fernandes, Casey Thume, Brian Bollan were only a few of the people who labored long hours below the success iceberg.

John Evans, Terrance Scott, Robyn Smith, Tom Judge, Shirley Palmer, Randy Wilson, Marc Woods and Jeff Miller were road patrol cops who made a big difference. Vinny Mintus was a fixture in Pineapple Grove which was far from gentrified in those days. Very far. Tom Quinlan and Glenn Rashkind kept our beach safe and everybody knew their names. There were more. So many more.

While police and fire lived most dangerously, in every department at City Hall there were people toiling below the success iceberg struggling with financial issues, code enforcement challenges and even zoning problems–all trying to find a formula to unlock success. They found it. And that should give us comfort as we read about today’s challenges, which include a crushing heroin epidemic.

Our community has risen to challenges before, they will again.

Meanwhile, I appreciate the present because I saw the hungry years. And that’s what gives me and others civic pride.

17 March, 2016 3 3 Comments

Building a Front Row Culture

March 17, 2016 By Jeff Perlman 3 Comments

Seth Godin rocks

I’m a huge fan of the author/blogger Seth Godin.

Not only does he write amazing books (“Purple Cow”, “Linchpin” etc.) he blogs every single day. And most days, he hits it out of the park. That’s just remarkable.

Last week, he floored me with his blog entitled “Front Row Culture.” Here it is…

“The group files into the theater, buzzing. People hustle to get to the front row, sitting side by side, no empty seats. The event starts on time, the excitement is palpable.

The other group wanders in. The front row is empty and stays that way. There are two or even three empty seats between each individual. The room is sort of dead.

In both cases, the CEO or the guest speaker is going to address the group for an hour. But the two groups couldn’t be more different.

The first organization sees possibility; the second sees risk and threat. The first group is eager to explore a new future; the second group misses the distant past.

The truth is this: it’s possible to hire for, train for and lead a front-row organization. And if you merely let entropy take over, you’re going to end up with the second, lesser, failing organization instead.

Worth saying this as clearly as possible: The culture, the choice of front row or back row, is a choice. It’s the result of investment and effort.

Where would you rather work?”

I read that blog at least five times. And then I thought, not only is this thinking applicable to businesses but it applies to cities as well.

“Where would you rather work”, can easily be replaced with where would you rather live?

For me, the difference between a “Front Row” culture and lethargy is the difference between aspiration and fear.

I’m attracted to communities that aspire.

I’m attracted to cities that have vision.

I like places that are willing to experiment and open to new ideas.

I think the cities that work are those that emphasize outcomes over process. Sure, you need rules, ethics, bidding and procedures but those procedures ought to facilitate outcomes, not hinder progress or change. We can nitpick or we can progress.

It shouldn’t take 20 attempts to issue an RFP and it shouldn’t take years to approve a project. You ought to be able to get a fence permit fast and you ought to be able to grab an attractive investment and entitle it quickly so you can be ready for the next one.

Front row cultures empower residents, business owners and public servants. Places that aspire enable and encourage people to solve problems and chase dreams.

The focus needs to be on creating opportunities for current and future residents—you always have to be focused on the future.

“What’s next”? is always the key question.

Complacency is a killer. Aspiration and possibility trumps fear and dysfunction and creates quality of life and place.

9 March, 2016 3 3 Comments

A Congress That Actually Works: Possible in Delray

March 9, 2016 By Jeff Perlman 3 Comments

Building a sustainable place is not a zero sum game.

It’s not a choice between neighborhoods or your downtown or between focusing on residents or business. You can and should focus on it all. It’s a lot of work but it can be done. Check that it must be done.

Cities are complicated places. There are threads that can create magic if knit together and there can be danger when you mess with success—especially if you don’t know how cities work or have any regard for the principles that produced results.

I watched with great pride as a task force I chaired gave a brilliant presentation to the Delray City Commission on a new future we’ve envisioned for the Congress Avenue corridor. (For the record Mayor Glickstein I didn’t “bail” on the task force, I did my job and stepped aside for the presentation so key contributors could shine. It’s called leadership. I’ll get you a copy of my book).

The presentation was led by Anuj Grover, who made a major investment on the corridor by purchasing and reinvigorating with his partner Mark Corlew, the former Arbors Buildings on Congress south of Linton Boulevard.

Joan Goodrich, the city’s economic development director, was the key city staffer who marshaled a lot of resources and did a fine job collating the task force’s 9 months of work into a 309-page report, with a 16 page executive summary. The report should be available on the city’s website: www.mydelraybeach.com.

Veteran commercial real estate professional Christina Morrison who works and sells the neighborhood every day and Abbey Delray resident Shirl Fields also contributed to the presentation giving their perspectives on what is needed and what it will take to make Congress “Delray’s next great street.”

I was pleased to see universal acknowledgement of the task force’s excellent work. Some commissioners expressed surprise—but they shouldn’t have been. We know how to do this kind of work in Delray; it’s why we have Delray. It’s in our civic DNA.

I read an interesting stat in a Sun Sentinel editorial endorsement in the Boynton Beach Mayoral race: despite being a slightly larger city in terms of population, Boynton Beach’s assessed value is half of Delray’s. The editorial attributed that gap to superior leadership in Delray over the years and while I would agree, I would broaden the definition of leadership to include excellent work by city staff, the CRA (best in the state) and our public safety departments which made it safe for people to invest. At our best, we are civic entrepreneurs. Craft a vision, let the staff innovate and watch places transform.

As task force chairman, it was gratifying to see the work of over 30 volunteers receive recognition from the dais. It’s also important that elected officials do so—because their words matter. They can inspire or they can deflate. They can stoke optimism and achievement or they quell progress by being pessimistic.

In that regard and in others, elected officials have a lot of power. Power to make lasting progress or power to kill momentum. By definition, you cannot be a pessimistic leader.

The task force believes in its work. They believe in the vision and if empowered they will make things happen and be evangelists for positive change. I saw it happen with the Downtown Master Plan, Pineapple Grove Main Street, Visions 2000, Visions 2005 and many other efforts large and small that have created billions in value and a quality of life that is pretty good compared to most cities in America.

But I would respectfully caution about breaking a cardinal rule of how cities work and that is declaring that you are done or finished. If you understand anything about cities or about downtowns, you must understand that you are never done and you don’t want to be. Emphasis may shift elsewhere, priorities and dollars too, but you can never declare victory or get complacent. You also have to implement—relentlessly.

Downtown Delray Beach is a great place, not a perfect place and not without flaws but a pretty good downtown nonetheless. But we never ever envisioned stopping with food and beverage. In order to be sustainable and in order for Congress Avenue to work, we need downtown Delray to thrive and continue to build Delray’s brand. The downtown needs office and employment to complete the picture and keep the heart healthy. If we create a sense of place along Congress, we will leverage downtown’s strength and progress will happen quickly. The task force understands that and if given resources magic will happen. Once more.

27 January, 2016 2 2 Comments

The Art of The Possible

January 27, 2016 By Jeff Perlman 2 Comments

It seems we spend a lot of time looking backwards in Delray Beach.
It’s almost as if we fear the future and want to slam the brakes on change.
You can’t do it.
Change is not only inevitable it’s desired. That’s not to mean that you don’t preserve what’s worthwhile–that doesn’t go without saying–in fact, it’s worth repeating over and over again.
So what’s worthwhile? What do we value? What should we fight for?
Glad you asked.
Our civic pride.
Our vibrancy and charm.
Our historic buildings and districts.
Our downtown.
Our cultural, intellectual and artistic amenities.
Our business community.
Our neighborhoods.
Our wonderful public safety departments.
Those who volunteer.
Those who are public servants.
Our beach.
Our parks.
Our schools.
I can go on.
Cities that work and succeed strengthen their assets.
Cities that work– fix problems and embrace accountability.
But there’s a difference between accountability and a “gotcha” mentality that destroys people, institutions and morale.
There’s a difference between accountability and bullying. Accountability works when it builds capacity. It works when it teaches and when its constructive.

Bullying is destructive.

And it doesn’t last because you don’t get results via fear and intimidation. Oh maybe short term, but nothing lasting is built on a foundation of fear.
Cities are complex organisms. And a city such as Delray is a very complicated place.
This is a hard town to manage. A hard town to lead.
It’s active.
It’s ever changing.
It’s diverse.
It’s got history, pride, baggage, crime, drugs, homelessness, wealth, poverty, youth, age, commerce and tons of talent.
Delray also has unbridled potential.
We can be whatever we choose to be.
America’s most fun small town can be the place for artists, entrepreneurs, families, retirees, kids and millennials.
It already is in so many ways and it can be even better.
If we want it to be. Or it can be worse.
It’s our choice.
When I drive the streets of this city, I can’t help but feel pride.
If you don’t feel it, I feel sorry for you. I don’t mean that in a snarky way, I truly do feel remorse.
Because you are missing out on a very special place and an incredible success story.
Are we a perfect place?
No. We are not.
We can all list the litany of issues and kvetches. We can dwell on them too.
Or we can focus on what’s good, fix what needs fixing and move beyond our first world problems and enjoy where we are living. And dig in harder to fix the serious problems. Like homelessness, like drug addiction and gang violence. We can begin caring about kids being left behind and about creating opportunities for current and future residents.
We should plan for the future.
How can we transform Congress Avenue and make it Delray’s next great street?
How can we sustain the success of our downtown and extend it to areas that are lagging?
How can we ensure that Delray Beach is desirable and accessible to young families and young professionals? How we can be a safe and fun place to retire and grow old?
A place that embraces business and recreation, art and culture, history and progress.
Delray thrives when the community comes together and works on big goals, visions and projects.
That’s what created the value we see if we allow ourselves to see it.
Delray drifts without aspiration and vision.
15 years ago bus loads of people from every neighborhood and walk of life–old and young–black and white, east and west, went to Atlanta Georgia and stood up before a national audience of peers and proudly talked about our city. We talked about our schools and our efforts to fight crime and reclaim neighborhoods. We talked about our downtown and our beach and our history but mostly we talked about what we wanted to be. Our future. Our vision. Our aspirations.
And we were named an All America City. For a second time. The first city in Florida to achieve that honor.
After the event, we hugged and we celebrated and we got right back to work. And that is what it means to look forward and that is what it means to build community.
Delray works, when Delray aspires.

Nothing works when you focus on fear and pessimism.