decisions we make will be better and employees will feel more satisfied. Notes 1. A number of surveys show that managers and employees believe that a significant amount of time spent in meetings is wasted. For a summary of some of the relevant surveys, see: Ray Williams. “Why Meetings Kill Productivity,” Psychology Today, April 15, 2012. The New York Times article cited below also includes some of these statistics. 2. Lisa Belkin, “Time Wasted? Perhaps it’s Well Spent,” The New York Times, May 31, 2007. The author cites a Microsoft survey showing that employees spend approximately 5.6 hours a week in meetings. Other surveys show similar results. 3. Part of the research for this article is based on Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter, by Cass R. Sunstein and Reid Hastie (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014). The authors cite ample scientific evidence that conventional group decisionmaking practices result in sub-optimal decisions. 4. Perspective taking and precision questioning are two techniques suggested by the work of Phillip Tetlock and Daniel Gardner in Superforecasting. (Penguin Random House, 2015). Examples of hotel tax application come from an upcoming GFOA book on forecasting. 5. Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard (Crown Publishing, 2010). The authors show research that indicating that peer pressure is an effective way to help create organizational change. Laura Larsen is budget and program evaluation manager of the City of Madison, Wisconsin. She would like to acknowledge the assistance of Drew Corbett, finance director, City of San Mateo, California; Ryan Kinsella, senior financial analyst, City of Portland, Oregon; and Heather Johnston, city manager of Burnsville, Minnesota.
SDML Directory Changes Arlington
Delete: ES Jason Niemann
Beresford
Delete: CM Daniel Williams Add: CM Jason Muellenberg
Brookings
Delete: HR Katie Krogman Add: HR Donna Langland
Clear Lake
Delete: FO Karen Harford
Dell Rapids Add:
CM Bill Schmidt
Florence
Delete: T Christy Busskohl Add: T Chris Meyer
Kimball
Delete: CM Matthew Dykstra CM James Kroupa Add: CM Paul Dorwart CM Shelly Janish
Long Lake
Add:
Midland
Delete: T Rock Gillaspie Add: T Dakota Fosheim
Miller
Delete: AIR Jim Bonebright SS Jim Bonebright WS Jim Bonebright Add: AIR Terry Manning SS Terry Manning WS Terry Manning
Salem
Add:
FO Donna Hoffman
CM Mary Jo Heiberger
Email Directory changes to info@sdmunicipalleague.org. Visit www.sdmunicipalleague.org for a cumulative listing of changes to the 2016-2017 Directory of Municipal Officials.
The article was originally published in the June 2016 issue of Government Finance Review (www.gfoa.org).
SEPTEMBER 2016
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