Making Mistakes and Getting the City’s Act Together
Posted on Friday, January 4 2008 by Heather Brandon
Updated 1/5: Thursday’s Republican and Urban Compass incorrectly announced news that the hiring of Springfield City Councilor Rosemarie Mazza-Moriarty is being rescinded, for now, for the position of International Baccalaureate middle years program administrator at Van Sickle Middle School (pictured).
An article in the paper on January 3 by Mike Plaisance reported, with information from Assistant Schools Superintendent Ann Southworth (pictured), that the city’s Finance Control Board directed the position to be advertised again, at some point soon, for a duration of ten to 15 days. Mazza-Moriarty was said to be invited to reapply, along with all the other prior applicants who were initially turned down.
On Saturday, January 5, a brief article by Plaisance, without comment available from Southworth, includes comments from control board executive director Stephen Lisauskas saying that the control board has actually made no such decision yet.
City Councilor Bruce Stebbins (pictured) was quoted in Thursday’s article expressing frustration with the situation. From the piece:
Councilor Bruce W. Stebbins, who was one of the references Mazza Moriarty put on her application for the job, said the city looks bad by recommending someone for the job and then announcing a new search within weeks.
“It makes the city look like it can’t get its act together,” Stebbins said.
Does reposting this position genuinely send a message that seems to say Springfield is faltering? Is Springfield faltering?
Some would say, well, yes. The city is going through a very public learning process. Mistakes are made, realized, and then corrected, at best. At points and in waves, conventional public thought has almost appeared to relish these mistakes, dwelling on them, twisting them around and around in our hands and contemplating them until the mistakes themselves appear to define Springfield.
Learning includes mistakes. Some might even assert that mistakes accelerate the learning process. Mistakes apparently also include the very announcement of this position in advance of any decision from the control board.
In an essay on the subject, author and speaker Scott Berkun notes, “Admission of a mistake, even if only privately to yourself, makes learning possible by moving the focus away from blame assignment and towards understanding. Wise people admit their mistakes easily. They know progress accelerates when they do.”
Berkun adds that in our culture, failure leads to guilt. “This sense of shame combined with the inevitability of setbacks when attempting difficult things explains why many people give up on their goals: they’re not prepared for the mistakes and failures they’ll face on their way to what they want. What’s missing in many people’s beliefs about success is the fact that the more challenging the goal, the more frequent and difficult setbacks will be. The larger your ambitions, the more dependent you will be on your ability to overcome and learn from your mistakes.”
In order for Springfield to achieve higher goals as a city, and polish off some business-like, collaborative approaches to issues like personnel hiring, people in high places are called to a higher order of thought and interaction—a more challenging goal, one that does not include political pandering as status quo, or hiring in exchange for favors or chumminess.
Such a goal necessarily includes more “frequent and difficult setbacks,” especially as the city ramps up its efforts, and evidently also as it juggles the very people it has in high places, as seen by the recently-announced searches for both a new police commissioner and a new schools superintendent, and the swearing-in of a new mayor on Monday.
In the case of this hiring confusion, a burden of responsibility could be said to be partly on the shoulders of the control board, for stepping in and appearing to make matters more uncertain by rescinding Superintendent Joseph Burke’s decision. It’s also on the shoulders of Burke (pictured, right) for attempting to manage a major personnel hiring without doing a little checking in with the control board first. If he lacked a clear understanding about which types of hirings required notification or approval, he hasn’t said so publicly yet; in any case he did not elect to inform the board’s executive director, Stephen Lisauskas, or the city’s Mayor Charles Ryan, that he was creating this new position and soliciting applicants for it, until after he had already selected a candidate.
Ideally, it seems, Lisauskas and Ryan should not have to monitor the School Department’s job postings to find out this information, nor should city councilors be left to pass the information on casually, whether they are candidates for municipal positions or not, or simply references on others’ resumés.
A higher level of functioning requires Burke, as well as others in managerial roles, to notify officials, as a formal courtesy, if not as a requirement, of major decisions creating or filling a position.
Evident confusion or plain old mistake-making over how this hiring should be handled led the board to draft and approve a motion clarifying which types of personnel the superintendent can hire outright (teachers, paraprofessionals, assistant principal and principals), and which require control board review (all others).
The motion stated that the board’s “altering or rescinding” positions subject to review must be done with 14 days of its “receipt of notice of such action or decision.” In other words, the board is making eminently clear the rules of the game, setting a reasonable and even rather stringent time limit on its own ability to delve into school personnel decisions.
If, for its part, the control board’s mistake related at all to any lack of perfect clarity on this subtle point beforehand, it has addressed the error. Burke, on the other hand, has simply remained silent, as far as the public knows.
Berkun writes that learning from mistakes requires three things:
Putting yourself in situations where you can make interesting mistakes
Having the self-confidence to admit to them
Being courageous about making changes
And then he categorizes mistakes into four areas:
Stupid: Absurdly dumb things that just happen. Stubbing your toe, dropping your pizza on your neighbor’s fat cat or poking yourself in the eye with a banana.
Simple: Mistakes that are avoidable but your sequence of decisions made inevitable. Having the power go out in the middle of your party because you forgot to pay the rent, or running out of beer at said party because you didn’t anticipate the number of guests.
Involved: Mistakes that are understood but require effort to prevent. Regularly arriving late to work/friends, eating fast food for lunch every day, or going bankrupt at your start-up company because of your complete ignorance of basic accounting.
Complex: Mistakes that have complicated causes and no obvious way to avoid next time. Examples include making tough decisions that have bad results, relationships that fail, or other unpleasant or unsatisfying outcomes to important things.
What kind of mistake was this personnel snafu? Probably an involved mistake, given the level of complexity at the municipal level, the effort involved to correct it, and its overall preventability.
On that count, Berkun writes that this kind of mistake relates directly to the difficulty we face in making genuine, significant change, which can be so hard that we will often repeat the same mistakes of this type over and over again. “[R]efusing to acknowledge mistakes,” Berkun writes, “or tendencies to make similar kinds of mistakes, is a refusal to acknowledge reality. If you can’t see the gaps, flaws, or weaknesses in your behavior, you’re forever trapped in the same behavior and limitations.”
“The biggest lesson to learn in involved mistakes,” he says, “is that you have to examine your own ability to change. Some kinds of change will be easier for you than others, and until you make mistakes and try to correct them, you won’t know which they are.”
Without the mistake on this count, the control board and the city may not have had the opportunity to clarify a kind of boundary line. The line is drawn between the types of personnel directly under the hiring authority of the superintendent, in contrast to personnel who fall more under the purview of the broader city administration.
This distinction has possibly been very murky in the past, and is an important step on the path toward exactly what Councilor Stebbins expressed concern about, which is the city getting its own act together, especially where the public schools are concerned.
Two helpful tools Berkun recommends in the process of mistake-making, which is also the process of learning, are humor and courage. “When you’ve made a mistake, especially a visible one that impacts other people, it’s natural to question your ability to perform next time,” he says. “But you must get past your doubts. The best you can do is study the past, practice for the situations you expect, and get back in the game. Your studying of the past should help broaden your perspective.”
Once the city is getting its act together, it will also look like it.
Bill D. http://springfieldintruder.com
January 4th, 2008 at 10:47 amThe only mistake that was made was Burke thinking he had the authority and smarts to push this one through. Sorry Joe.
Bruce Stebbins is supportive of Mazza-Moriarty because they are friends, and there is a loyalty there (also why he signed as a reference).
Mazza-Moriarty said she was dissapointed at not getting the job and thought that politics had a role to play in it. No, Rosemarie, politics had a role to play in you *getting selected* for the job. Honest administration was the reason for the re-posting.
I truly do have trouble understanding how any reasonable person can look at the scenario of this hiring, coupled with the resumes of the other finalists, and *not* think Mazza-Moriarty’s selection was a gift. Two years of teaching experience beats out a doctorate in education - plus experience in a IBO program, or 15 years as a principal? I don’t think so.
It is unfortunate that Springfield looks like it cannot get its act together. Apparently it can’t. Apparently we have learned nothing from the Keoughs of the past. And that is the real shame in this episode.
Heather Brandon http://urbancompass.net
January 4th, 2008 at 11:20 amI think the control board also has a role to play in making crystal clear (sometimes repeatedly) its capacity to sign off on personnel hirings and firings.
The ensuing procedure can be difficult to navigate, because it’s a unique situation in the city right now, and it’s also relatively temporary, let alone a whole new level of accountability. The burden of responsibility for making protocols straightforward falls on the control board.
That said, I think hiring protocols in the past were likely not very straightforward. This maybe led to some bad habits. Perhaps it could be said that Burke became a part of that culture, along with other municipal employees who may not have been all that sure what was expected of them when big decisions were at stake.
I agree that chumminess is a likely reason for Mazza-Moriarty’s selection for this job. Her brother, Thomas Mazza, used to work directly for Burke as the school department’s well-regarded business manager, until last summer, when he left to become the Longmeadow public schools’ business manager.
NoPolitician http://
January 4th, 2008 at 11:39 amThis is a really good article. Time and time again, I have seen people who oppose doing things differently out of the fear of making mistakes. “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it”. But that kind of thinking leads to stagnation, people are afraid to even analyze whether things can be done better.
As the city improves its operations, it will definitely make mistakes. But we need to focus on the big picture, on the end results, not on the missteps. Unfortunately, a misstep is easier to focus on than the absence of a misstep.
When I read Councilor Stebbin’s remarks, I was disappointed. After all, from the outside, choosing a candidate with 2 years of algebra teaching experience at Commerce over someone with a PhD who had previously administered an IB program and another who had 15 years of administrative experience seems extremely fishy, particularly when the choice is a seated city councilor with political connections. His comment seemed to oppose revisiting this choice.
But for now, I’m optimistically choosing to believe that the Republican didn’t capture the essence of Stebbins’ opinion in it’s one-sentence quote. I don’t see his being listed as reference as a big deal — and I doubt that he pulled any strings to get her the job, I don’t think city councilors have that much sway in the school department.
I think that a lot of the focus in improving government has taken place at Court Street, not State Street, and that perhaps the next focus of the FCB should be the school department. As a member of the general public, I have not been impressed with what I’ve seen there. They can’t even get the school boundaries published to the general public, and from what I can see, are actively withholding this information from wide distribution, perhaps to avoid being pinned down on decisions, or perhaps to be able to dole out a little patronage — for example, how is it that our incoming mayor’s 2 kids attend school at Frederick Harris when Carroll Street appears to be squarely within Beal’s zone?
From all that, plus the hirings of school committee member’s family, I get the sense that the school department operates on patronage and connections rather than qualifications and competence. Maybe that’s why our schools aren’t performing as good as they could.
Heather Brandon http://urbancompass.net
January 4th, 2008 at 1:59 pmThanks, NoPolitician. It’s likely true that Councilor Stebbins has more to say on the subject of this hiring issue than just the one line he was quoted, but the one line was also compelling in itself. I think he’s right; as Bill Dusty echoed above, Springfield doesn’t look like it can get its act together, precisely because it is getting its act together, and especially where the schools are concerned it is on an early trajectory of a journey toward figuring out solutions on a number of key issues.
About Carroll Street, where Domenic Sarno lives, it may not be in the zone for Frederick Harris Elementary School, but then again, the older Sarno daughter just might be old enough to be a “legacy” student at the school, as long as her parents find a way to get her there and she doesn’t have to take the bus. The younger daughter might not be old enough to be a legacy student. There should be a separate category for “patronage” student.
I’ve seen a little bit of how that works, with a tiny glimpse behind the scenes when I got confused by the new boundary system in mid-stream. The boundary line for the Sumner Ave School zone came down solidly between my house and the other school we walked to four blocks away.
For more baffling boundary maps that haven’t been publicly released, go here.
NoPolitician http://
January 4th, 2008 at 2:53 pmJuxtaposing the quote with the fact that Stebbins was used as a reference made him seem like he was opposed to revisiting the decision. If they had only included his quote, the picture would have been painted that he was just disappointed that the city can’t get its act together. The Republican could really stand to train its reporters better, because they painted a very specific picture with virtually no detail from the person they painted it about, leaving me, as a reader, confused as to how Stebbins feels on this issue.
I don’t think the appearance of chaos is a valid reason to not revisit this decision. In fact, I think more damage would be done by simply saying “oh well, one got away, let’s not look bad”, both in terms of having a lesser qualified person in a higher-profile job, and in terms of adding to the “it’s who you know” reputation of the schools and the city.
Thanks for the map link. I realize that there are a lot of factors behind the boundaries, many of them pertaining to racial and ethnic issues. I think it is terrible to have segregated schools, but I can plainly see the effect of focusing so heavily on race to the point where a parent feels encumbered by these factors, particularly when they result in fluid boundaries.
I am confused at how so much attention can continue to be paid to Springfield and dividing up it’s 20% white student population when most surrounding districts are 90-95% white and much better funded, and no one utters a peep about that. In essence, Springfield’s suburban ring has evolved into the segregated neighborhoods that required integration 30 years ago. Of course, the Supreme Court ruled in 1974 that intra-district busing is unconstitutional, so there’s little hope in doing anything there, and even if it could be done, that would just push people into the exurbs.
But looking back, we went from a situation where we had segregated but equally-funded schools to one of segregated but differently-funded schools, with more funding going to schools in towns with few minorities (or poor people). Seems like a step backward to me.
I think a better approach is to target economic segregation — stop messing with the schools, and instead break down barriers that prevent poorer people — who happen to be from certain races or ethnicities — from concentrating into poorer communities. School segregation problems would then be less dramatic.
In that sense, I think if Springfield dropped race/ethnicity from its decision-making process, the results wouldn’t be that different. Sure, Brightwood school would wind up predominately Hispanic, but that wouldn’t be because of any factor except that Hispanics primarily choose to live in that neighborhood — the economic differences in Springfield neighborhoods are not that large, and nearly every neighborhood has all classes of housing, from low-income to rental to single-family.
Belmont
January 5th, 2008 at 1:32 amI find it odd that so many people are “against corruption” yet don’t have a problem with Mazza getting this job over more qualified candidates, or they think the Chief’s job should just be granted to Fitchett with no competition, all in the name of “we know him and like him so he must be good”. Errr, that’s the kind of stuff that created a lot of the problems to begin with. Not linking these two with problems, but if they are truly the best candidates there is no harm in doing a true and honest search for the positions.
Heather Brandon http://urbancompass.net
January 5th, 2008 at 10:56 amToday’s Republican reports that this was all just a game of pretend.
I’ve updated portions of the post to reflect my best guess at reality. Since it’s the weekend, it’s a little harder to make calls to verify what’s really going on.
What kind of mistake was made in reporting all this inaccurately, I wonder?