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City Council Meeting Retreat Tuesday, February 17, 2015 Page 8 into play in determining the reasons for doing things, and trying to tailor things in unique situations (e.g. plowing cul-de-sacs for Public Works) and how those areas may be tai- lored, even if costing more money, but in presenting a new plan to the City Council to address them. For Finance, Mr. Rapp suggested it may be in defining who its customers were (e.g. City Council and outside world) and how it can better support those customers through differently formatted reports, or how choices affected and made things better or achieved customer intimacy while not sacrificing transparency and accuracy; and then ar- ticulate those choices to the decision-makers to make policy. Councilmember Laliberte noted an example of Mr. Schwartz and his staff providing op- tions to the City Council last year to address the frozen pipe issue. When talking about focusing on one value proposition, Mayor Roe suggested that it ad- dressed the resource side as well; opining that if spending a lot of time and resources above the minimum in other areas, by using the value proposition model, it could free up resources for other areas; but it would take some analysis to figure out the benefit of do- ing so. From her personal background in research, Councilmember McGehee stated that if opera- tional expectations are strong and tight, an organization should be able to manage brain- storming at 30% of its time while meeting as a group to review policy ideas within that group and see the issues and ways to shift and change the culture. Councilmember McGehee opined that there were times when the organization had to be controlled, but the rest of the time, cross training should work. Mr. Rapp noted that, at the end of the day, the City appeared to still want to be operation- ally excellence (control), but also still wanted some customer intimacy, on opposite ends of the spectrum; and asked participants to define which way they wanted to move. City Manager Trudgeon sought to focus on challenges, acknowledging that a lot of what the organization did was silo-oriented, with departments containing experts in their vari- ous fields. However, Mr. Trudgeon noted that staff was finding that most solutions actu- ally reach across departments and are multi-level in nature, and needed tailoring for each of those specific issues. As an example, Mr. Trudgeon referenced the Karen refugee population and how several departments were working with them on landlord issues (School District, and Community Development and Police Departments, and the Housing & Redevelopment Authority) and breaking new ground to do it, with no standard operat- ing manual. However, Mr. Trudgeon noted that, while trying to break free of the silo ap- proach to problem solving, it was still necessary to have some hierarchy in place, without falling back on department-specific solutions, but seeking a collaborative approach with- in the hierarchy. Mr. Trudgeon opined that this was what he'd like to see and be used more broadly. Mr. Rapp acknowledged that a collaborative culture most strongly supported a customer intimacy approach, and while being more complicated to manage, it was inclusive and