Archive for the ‘Aligning the Misaligned’ Category

How to Stop Being a Victim: Throw Yourself a Pity Party

Friday, June 29th, 2012

Have you ever had days when you felt really, really sorry for yourself? Perhaps you’ve felt like the world has done you wrong, or you’re in a no-win situation. Maybe you really ARE in a very difficult situation. Yet you still need to move forward with your life; you can’t afford to remain mired in the muck of victimhood.

I have a suggestion for helping you get out of that pattern: throw a “pity party” for yourself. By that I mean you set a timer for 10 – 20 minutes, during which time you feel as sorry for yourself as you possibly can, wallowing in your feelings of inadequacy, anger, misery, or whatever negative emotions come up. Be as hard on yourself as you possibly can be. Really revel in your negative feelings. When the timer goes off, the party’s over. You pick yourself up and move on. Repeat as necessary.

The reason this process is effective is that it allows you to honor your feelings and work through them so you can move forward in a productive way. My friend Iris, a cancer survivor, told me that throwing pity parties for herself was how she coped with the uncertainty and misery and negative emotions and victimhood associated with her disease. It’s worked really well for her, and I’ve passed along her methodology to many people who reported it worked for them as well. (I’ve used it successfully myself.)

So the next time you are experiencing strong negative emotions that are keeping you from moving forward in your life, throw yourself a party! I’m sure Iris would be pleased to know that her advice is serving others well.

© 2012 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

How to Set Goals that Work FOR You Instead of Against You

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

As I neared the end of my doctoral program, I convinced myself that I must be an idiot because I couldn’t get the hang of writing a dissertation. Time after time, I would write a chapter or section only to have my advisor tear it apart (sometimes literally) and tell me to start over. One day when my frustration level was very high, my advisor asked me a simple question: since I had never written a dissertation before, why did I expect that I would be able to do it perfectly the first time? In effect she was asking, “What’s your evidence that you should be able to do this without making mistakes?” That question was a gift, as it forced me to consider my underlying assumption, which turned out to be, “Because I should.” Wow – talk about an unrealistic expectation!

That experience is why I was the perfect person to answer a question posed by a client recently. He wanted to know how to set goals that are appropriate, especially when they represent something new for which one has little or no frame of reference. By “appropriate” he meant goals that are neither too challenging nor too easy – i.e., those that provide just enough of a stretch to engender a sense of motivation. What I told him is that there are four critical success factors to setting appropriate goals:

    1. Realistic expectations
    2. Regularly tested assumptions
    3. A properly aligned mindset
    4. Celebration of forward movement

Realistic expectations

You set realistic expectations for your goals by looking at the evidence, including your own and others’ experiences. For example, if you know it takes you two days to write an article and your goal is to write an article in two hours, you break the goal into steps – i.e., you don’t expect to bridge that difference overnight. Your first step toward reaching that goal may be to do some things that will help you write more quickly, such as creating an outline first, or blocking out some uninterrupted time to work. If after trying those techniques you still are unable to write an article in two hours, it’s possible that you need to adjust your goal a bit – which is okay. Not only have you gained some valuable information by this effort, but by virtue of trying to get to two hours, you will end up getting much closer to two hours than the two days it’s taking you now.

Another way to set realistic expectations is to make evidence-based decisions. By that I mean take a realistic look at your experience to date, and make choices and decisions based on that information. If you don’t have such experience, take a look at those who do. Having said that, I hasten to add that it’s important to use the correct “comparison other” – who often is YOU rather than another person.

Regularly tested assumptions

Often the assumptions on which we base our thoughts, beliefs, and actions do not make themselves known easily – i.e., we have to seek them out. It’s safe to say that there are underlying assumptions lurking in the background, influencing our choices and decisions. Sometimes our assumptions are correct; other times they are not. Sometimes they become outdated and need to be replaced.

One easy way to test an assumption is to ask “Why?” Look for the evidence to back up the assumption and/or to ask what purpose it serves. If there is a reasonable answer, then the assumption probably is sound; if not, this is likely the time to release it.

Properly aligned mindset

Let’s face it: especially when faced with a new goal, few of us are likely to achieve it exactly as expected the first time. Being okay with that fact is the first step to a properly aligned mindset. When you make mistakes (notice the plural here!), learn from the experience and move on rather than judge the effort a failure. Welcome the information as a way to calibrate your next effort. Think of Goldilocks in the fairy tale of the Three Bears: she had to try a bowl of porridge that was too hot, then one that was too cold before she found one that was just right for her.

Another important tip about goals is to refrain from thinking about them as being set in concrete – they are not. Especially when you are setting goals in new areas, take your best guess about what’s realistic, then move forward. As you work toward that goal you will learn how realistic it is and adjust accordingly. If you think of goals as long-term aspirations rather than as win-lose events, you are better able to adjust your expectations as you go. When your goals are too low, then you adjust them higher. When they are too high, you lower them a bit. To be motivating, goals should be challenging AND achievable. Otherwise they will become your enemy instead of your friend. Treat your goals as learning opportunities rather than as “gotcha” mechanisms – i.e., look for the learning, not for the pain.

Celebration of forward movement

In December 2002, I walked my first marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as a member of that organization’s Team in Training program. Although we trained for this marathon with a goal of finishing in 8 hours, it ended up taking us over 9 hours – and we were thrilled! The time was immaterial (at least once the course was behind us); the important part of the goal was that all 17 of our team members FINISHED. That called for a celebration, which lasted most of the night and long afterward.

The point is, we need to give ourselves credit when credit is due. Even when we don’t achieve our goals entirely, or we find that realistically we overreached, we need to CELEBRATE our forward movement! After all, what’s the fun in achieving something if we don’t take the time to recognize and celebrate it?

In summary, goals are our gateway to success, not failure. Make them work for YOU instead of the other way around. By keeping these four critical success factors in mind, you will be able to set goals that work FOR you instead of against you. And won’t that make your life much easier?

© 2012 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

6 Steps to Getting People to Do What You Want

Monday, May 28th, 2012

Recently a client complained that he was frustrated because things happened so slowly in his organization. As an example, he cited a report from an outside auditor that had been released several days earlier that he hadn’t received yet, even though his staff knew he needed it. Given that this client is the CEO, you would think that he gets what he wants! However, the fact that this scenario is a familiar one for him (hence his complaint) means that there is a dysfunctional pattern that needs to be changed.

The fact is that even when you’re the CEO, getting people to do what you want begins with YOU. Most people are willing to do what the boss wants. However, it’s up to you to enable them to do so. Here are six steps you must take to make it possible for people to give you what you want:

    1. Tell them what you want. Though this point seems obvious, the fact is that often we assume that others know what we want, when we want it, and in what form we want it. That’s not always the case. Don’t let faulty assumptions derail your request.

    2. Give them enough information about what you want that the “picture” in their minds matches the picture in yours. For example, the CEO should have specified whether he wanted to see the entire report, a written summary of the highlights, a verbal summary, or some other format.

    3. Use language that conveys the proper sense of urgency for your request. For example, there’s a huge difference between saying, “I’d prefer to see the report as soon as it’s released” and saying, “I must see the report as soon as it’s released.”

    4. Specify a deadline, including the time as well as the day by which you want (or need!) the request met.

    5. Provide a specific measure of how you will know when the request has been met. In the above situation, for example, the measure might be that the complete report is delivered to the CEO by his executive assistant within one hour of its release.

    6. Provide a reason for making your request. Research by persuasion expert Robert Cialdini demonstrates clearly that when we give a reason for our request, people are nearly three times as likely to do as we ask than if we don’t provide a reason.

The bottom line: if you want people to give you what you ask for, you must give them what THEY need to be able to do so. In other words, help them help you. Whether the request is made in a work environment or a non-work environment, you’ll all be happier as a result.

© 2012 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

How to Reduce Stress: 31 Ways to Take Care of Yourself

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

Recently I was interviewed by Ed Poll, Principal of LawBiz Management, about how attorneys can be more effective with their clients and maximize the enjoyment of their practices by reducing their stress levels. During the interview we talked about not just WHAT attorneys can do to reduce their stress, but also HOW they can do it. Although the interview was directed at attorneys, I provided a list of 31 things that anyone can do to take care of themselves. I invite you to take a look at this list, pick a few techniques that work for you, and try them out. Isn’t a dramatic improvement in your health and well-being worth a few minutes of your time?

© 2012 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

11 Tips for Self-care: How to Put On Your Oxygen Mask First

Friday, November 11th, 2011

Recently I conducted a workshop for managers called Organizational Renaissance™: Choosing the Quality of Your Work Environment whose premise is that, regardless of the situation, each individual has a choice about how he/she experiences the workplace. Given that many work environments have been affected negatively by challenging economic conditions over the past two years, this is great news! However, leaders often struggle with exercising that choice themselves, and teaching others how to do the same, because they don’t realize there is an important pre-requisite: self-care.

Why is taking care of oneself so important? The analogy I use to answer this question is one that’s familiar to anyone who travels by commercial airline. During the pre-flight instructions, passengers are told that in the event of an emergency, they must put on their own oxygen masks first before trying to assist others. While most work environments don’t qualify as “emergency” settings, the lesson is relevant here: if you are gasping for breath (literally or figuratively) and/or losing consciousness, you cannot possibly help anyone, including yourself.

With this point in mind, the workshop focused heavily on self-care as a pre-requisite to being able to lead others effectively. In fact, we identified and discussed 31 tools and practices for self-care. With a nod to the multiple 11s in today’s date (11/11/11), here are 11 of those suggestions. For those who are interested in learning more about these concepts and/or in seeing examples, there are links to some of my articles that provide more details.

    1. Watch your self-talk: is it life-affirming or energy draining? The way we talk to ourselves (and others) creates our reality, which is key to being able to choose how to experience the situations in which we find ourselves. You may find examples of affirmative self-talk in my article Transformative Self-talk.

    2. Paint a picture of how you want to live your life, and use it as a touchstone for making personal and professional decisions.

    3. Surround yourself with people who infuse your life with positive energy.

    4. Distinguish clearly and realistically between things you can control and things you can’t. Focus on the former and release the latter. An easy exercise you can use to make that distinction is described in my article Begin to Take Control of the Quality of Your Life. Suggestions about how to release people and things that no longer serve you well, or that you cannot control, are provided in my article How to Release Things You Cannot Control.

    5. Focus on your strengths and talents, not on your shortcomings.

    6. Make a conscious choice about how you will experience each day by identifying one perspective you intend to take. Using the statement, “Today I choose to ___,” fill in the blank with one intention such as “feel compassion for myself,” “accept myself for who I am,” “be inspired by those around me,” or “feel worthy.” You may find a long list of suggested transformative choices in my article Transformative Choices: What’s on YOUR “To Do” List?

    7. Attending to all aspects of your being – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual – enables you to ensure you are addressing all the important elements that go into self-care. Just as organizations use a balanced scorecard format to ensure they are measuring all important aspects of their business, so individuals can devise a personal scorecard to keep their self-care on track. You may find an explanation and example of such a tool in my article Creating Balance in Your Personal Life: What’s in YOUR Personal Scorecard?

    8. Look for opportunities in every situation rather than obstacles.

    9. Be kind to yourself. Imagine your best friend is in your situation. What would you do to support and nurture him/her? Do those things for yourself.

    10. Reward yourself on a regular basis. You may find suggestions about how to do this in my article How to Optimize Your Personal Rewards/Recognition ROI.

    11. Zealously guard your time. One tool that works exceptionally well in putting things in perspective is a simple question. Ask yourself, “Am I the only person in the world who can do X?” Most the time the answer is “no.” When that’s the case, delegate X (the task) to someone else.

As a leader, you have tremendous responsibility, and often are expected to produce results even in the face of challenging situations. You will be best equipped to rise up to meet those expectations when you take care of yourself first, then teach others to do the same. I invite you to choose just one of the above self-care suggestions and incorporate it into your life. Isn’t improving the quality of your life worth that effort?

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

The ROI of Leveraging Differences into Opportunities

Friday, September 30th, 2011

Recently I was asked to speak to participants in a statewide leadership program about generational differences in the workplace. With four generations in the workforce today, it’s only natural that there is a great deal of interest in this topic, especially since some of the differences we read about seem irreconcilable. Interesting stuff! But definitely the wrong focus this group. Why?

First, generational differences are only one type of difference; the workplace is rife with others. Leaders must educate themselves about other kinds of differences as well. Second, and more important, focusing on differences, whatever their source, is unproductive at best, and destructive at worst. Here are eight reasons why this is true:

    1. Differences foster an “us vs. them” mentality, dividing people rather than enabling them to collaborate and work productively.

    2. Differences often encourage distrust, which cripples collaboration and productivity.

    3. Differences generally are based on traits that cannot be changed – e.g., age, race, gender, ethnicity – and that usually are irrelevant to the task at hand.

    4. Focusing on differences doesn’t allow people to see what they have in common or to discover what they can learn from one another.

    5. Making employment-related decisions based on some of these differences is illegal in the U.S. – not to mention that doing so is a bad management practice.

    6. Focusing on differences emphasizes what WON’T or DOESN’T work rather than on what DOES work.

    7. When we seek differences, we find them. Too often, forward momentum then comes to a screeching halt.

    8. Differences often are seen and treated as obstacles to success instead of as enablers of greater outcomes.

Would you want to work in an environment with those characteristics? What if, instead of focusing on differences, leaders kept the spotlight on what people have in common? Here are just a few of the reasons why emphasizing how we are alike makes good business sense:

    1. Changing the question from “How are we different?” to “How can we be successful together?” opens the door to entirely new and actionable answers.

    2. Commonalities allow people to move forward by focusing on opportunities instead of on obstacles.

    3. When we seek opportunities we will find them, which means the sky becomes the limit. While we won’t always reach the stars, we will get much closer to them than if we had set our aspirations much lower.

    4. Differences among people are not going away, so sticking your head in the sand won’t change things.

    5. Commonalities “seasoned” with differences create immense learning opportunities and unleash creativity and innovation.

    6. The emphasis is on what WILL or COULD work.

    7. Emphasizing commonalities opens the door to the best of all worlds, allowing us to move forward by learning, adapting, and growing as individuals and as organizations.

    8. Commonalities are seen as enablers – of action, creativity, innovation, collaboration, and knowledge sharing.

While it’s important to learn about what makes people different so we can understand others’ perspectives, it would be a mistake to dwell on those differences. Consider what a difference it would make in the work environment if leaders emphasized what’s common across human beings – i.e., that people generally want to succeed, to be respected and feel valued, to be part of something bigger than themselves, and to enjoy what they do. Imagine what could happen in YOUR organization if people focused on what unites them rather than on what divides them. In which environment would your employees be most productive, engaged, and committed? The choice is yours. What will it be?

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

Public Safety: Top Priority or Collateral Damage?

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

During the first few years of the economic downturn, police and fire departments across the country often were protected to the extent possible from budget cuts, layoffs, and furloughs. After all, isn’t public safety a core function of local governments? More recently, however, that automatic protection has been removed – as arguably it should be. However, in their zeal to cut their budgets, politicians and administrators seem to have gone from one extreme to the other in how they treat these agencies – and by extension, the services they provide. Instead of being a top priority, public safety suddenly seems in danger of becoming collateral damage in the political budget cutting process.

By “political budget cutting” I mean a process in which politicians and administrators resort to ineffective resource allocation tactics such as engaging in “proportionate sharing” or choosing to retain programs and services that are popular with constituents but non-essential, instead of setting priorities and making the tough decisions that they were elected or hired to make. One reason why the proportionate sharing tactic is ineffective is that it lumps essential and non-essential services in the same basket, and subjects them to the same percentage cuts without considering the fact that providing public safety and infrastructure are the only reasons government exists, whereas things like staging parades or providing pretty hand-printed proclamations to constituents are not core government functions. If public safety is, in fact, the top priority of a city or county government, then why do those whose job it is to allocate resources treat it exactly the same as they treat services that clearly do not represent life and death matters?

I am not ignoring the fact that public safety costs represent a major component of many, if not most, local government budgets. There is no question that the levels of fire and police pensions have become unsustainable in many areas. (At the same time, let’s not forget that when pensions are negotiated through a collective bargaining process, as most are, both parties have to agree to the terms and conditions of the contract. Public sector employees are not the “bad guys” simply because they accepted the very generous pension and benefits terms their politicians offered them.) It is clear that unsustainable public sector pensions must be addressed. More immediately, however, let’s focus on how we can ensure that public safety is treated as the top priority by politicians who must cut budgets, rather than as collateral damage.

Everyone has a role to play to ensure that public safety is treated as a top priority rather than becoming collateral damage. Here are a few suggestions:

Fire departments and police departments:
– Educate the public and decision-makers about what you do, how you do it, and most importantly, the impact your actions and choices have on public safety. Things that are obvious or second nature to you because your training is in the fire service or law enforcement are not on the public’s, or too often the politicians’, radar screens. You have a moral responsibility to educate people on the likely consequences of actions that affect public safety. Don’t make them find out through experience. And don’t allow politicians to hide behind the excuse that they didn’t know what the consequences would be.

– Educate your stakeholders in ways that are personally meaningful. By that I mean, describe to them specifically what the impact on public safety will be if a given service is taken away, or delayed, or partially provided, or reduced in quality. For example, one of the proposals in Long Beach is to reduce the number of firefighters on engines from four to three. Some people seem to think that this is a reasonable to response to budget cuts in tough times. Those are also the people who have no idea how that change affects public safety. Citing dozens of studies that show why this idea has a serious negative impact on safety is not helpful in making your case. Instead, explain the likely consequences in personal terms so people can “get” it. Few people know that if they are trapped in a burning house and an engine with only three firefighters arrives on scene, federal law prohibits those first responders from entering the house until a fourth person shows up. It’s your job to tell them.

Politicians and administrators:
– Instead of focusing primarily cutting dollars, begin by deciding what level of public safety you choose to provide to the community. To do otherwise is to shirk your responsibility and put the public in jeopardy. Articulate that decision clearly to the public. Tell your law enforcement and fire service managers what you want the public safety “picture” to look like, and let them inform you what resources are required.

– If the necessary resources are not available, ask your public safety experts for options that come with clear explanations of each one’s impact on public safety. For example, how is “actionable” response time affected by each option? (By “actionable” response time I mean the amount of time it takes for officers or firefighters or medical personnel to arrive and take immediate, effective action to resolve the emergency, not merely the amount of time it takes for them to arrive on scene and wait for additional personnel and/or equipment.)

– If you SAY that public safety is your top priority, make sure your decisions and your actions match your words.

– Prioritize the services you choose to provide given the available budget. I am NOT advocating that public safety comprise 100% of the budget – far from it. Quality of life is an important issue that should be considered in the mix. The question is, where should it rank on the list of priorities relative to public safety?

The public:
– Lean about what public safety providers do to keep us safe, what changes are being proposed, and how those changes will impact the safety of our communities.

– Consider the big picture. Times are tough, and government isn’t able to afford all the “nice to have” services it has provided in the past. Decide where public safety should be on the list of priorities.

– Ask questions – of public safety officials and of politicians and administrators. Engage in constructive dialogue with others in the community.

– Let’s not forget that politicians are in office because a majority of those who voted cast ballots for them. It’s up to us to speak up and tell them what level of public safety we want and are willing to pay for.

– Become active advocates for what we believe, and back up our beliefs by voting for politicians whose actions match their words. If they are acting out of personal interest rather than out of the community’s interest, it’s up to us to hold them accountable and vote them out of office. Otherwise we are enabling their “me first” behaviors.

The bottom line is that public safety is everyone’s business. We all have a stake in ensuring that our communities are safe, and each one of us has a role to play. When any one party abdicates its role, especially in times of extraordinarily tight budgets, public safety is in danger of going from top priority to collateral damage. It’s up to all of us.

What will YOU do?

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

Why Insisting that Employees “Do More with Less” Is a Mistake, and How You Can Stop Making It

Monday, July 4th, 2011

One of the biggest and most preventable mistakes I see employers making in response to layoffs, furloughs, and budget cuts is what I call the fallacy of “doing more with less.” The admonition to “do more with less” has become commonplace in organizations over the last two years. Do you find yourself using it yourself? If so, stop it!

Here are three reasons why adopting the “doing more with less” approach is a mistake:

    1. It’s counterproductive: surviving employees, already demoralized by layoffs and furloughs, perceive that they are being asked to pick up the slack without being compensated for doing so – and they’re right!

    2. Doing more with less is not sustainable long-term. There’s only so much you can add to existing workloads before people and systems begin to break down.

    3. Employees become disengaged, burned out, resentful, and cynical – and they will leave the organization the first chance they get.

    In addition, I’ve found that when they try to “do more with less,” people start seeing everything as a priority. And of course, when everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority.

Here are two ways you can avoid falling into the fallacy of “doing more with less:”

1. Embrace the concept of doing LESS with less

This actually increases productivity: employees know you are being realistic and they appreciate your honesty so they reciprocate with good performance. Employee commitment is likely to increase when you’re truthful about what you’re asking your workers to do. If you would like to learn more about this issue, here are two articles that go into more detail:

The Fallacy of “Doing More with Less”

How to Prioritize: Doing LESS with Less Effectively

2. Set priorities effectively, and allocate available resources accordingly

Let’s be clear about two facts about priorities that people often ignore. First, priorities are what you DO, not what you say you will do. Realistically, you can only have a handful of priorities at any given time. (That’s ONE handful!) Second, priorities involve choices about time. By saying you don’t have time to do something, such as going to your kids’ soccer game, you effectively are saying that other things are more important to you at the moment.

A few years ago, I developed a straightforward process for setting priorities. Here it is in a nutshell:

    First, identify clearly your organization’s vision or mission. Beginning with the end in mind is the first step in organizational success.

    Second, use that vision to categorize everything you do (e.g., evaluate performance, develop products and services) as critical, very important, or important.

    Third, devise a realistic formula for allocating resources based on the above three categories. For example, while you might decide to allocate 100% of your resources to items in the “critical” category, it’s probably more realistic to devote 70-80% of them to the critical priorities, 15% to very important items, and 5% to important items.

If you would like more detailed, step-by-step information about this process, you may obtain the template, Pat Lynch’s Process for Prioritizing Organizational Services and Programs, by clicking here and checking the appropriate box on the list from my web site. You will receive the link to the template immediately via e-mail.

What are your thoughts or experiences about doing LESS with less? Let us know!

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

New Teleseminar: 7 Strategies for Organizational Success in Today’s Economy

Monday, July 4th, 2011

Would you like to learn about the best no- or low-cost strategies that will help you re-focus and re-vitalize your organization so it can thrive in today’s economy?

I recently conducted a one-hour free teleseminar, 7 Strategies Executives and Business Owners Must Know for Organizational Success in Today’s Economy, in which I identified and described time-tested concepts, tools, and techniques that can make your life much easier and put your organization on (or back on) the road to success. Here are a few of the topics we covered:

    • How to set priorities and allocate resources
    • Techniques to increase employee engagement
    • Why insisting that your employees “do more with less” is a mistake
    • How to align employees’ interests with organizational goals
    • No- or low-cost tools and techniques that ensure organizational success

If you are struggling with the challenges caused by having to produce the same results with fewer resources, then I invite you to invest one hour of your time in listening to this free teleseminar. Then let us know which strategies you found most useful in helping to make your organization more successful!

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

California Budget, Part II: Be Careful What You Ask (Legislators) For

Sunday, June 26th, 2011

In November 2010, California voters decided to stop tolerating state legislators’ annual refusal to pass a balanced budget by June 15th each year. They passed an initiative that requires the State Controller to stop paying the errant legislators when they fail to meet their constitutional mandate to produce a balanced budget by that date. And that pay is gone forever – no retroactive pay allowed.

That strategy seemed to work: for the first time in anyone’s memory, the legislature passed a budget on June 15, 2011. Everyone celebrated, most of all the legislators, who believed they had saved their paychecks.

The celebration was short-lived: Governor Jerry Brown vetoed the budget the very next day, saying that it was not a balanced solution to the state’s financial woes. In fact, he was quoted as saying that the budget that was passed contains “legally questionable maneuvers, costly borrowing and unrealistic savings.”

Personally, I call that budget the “Save our (California legislators’) paycheck” budget.

Legislators reportedly were outraged. After all, they passed a budget, didn’t they? And didn’t it show that revenues matched expenditures?

Well, not exactly. The Governor had promised voters a “gimmick-free” budget this year, and in his view, this budget did not pass the “no smoke and mirrors” test. In fact, his assessment of a gimmick-laden budget was backed up by the State Controller’s analysis, which found that while the budget committed the state to spending $89.8 billion, it only provided revenues of $87.9 billion, leaving a shortfall of $1.85 billion.

Oops.

Now legislators are REALLY mad: the Controller’s assessment came with the news that because the budget was not balanced, their pay and per diems would be suspended until they pass a budget that does meet the “gimmick-free” criterion. One Los Angeles Assembly member was quoted as saying, “I now have to explain to my wife and daughter that we won’t be able to pay the bills because a politician chose to grandstand at our expense.”

Welcome to the world of tens of thousands of Californians, whose financial situations are fraught with uncertainty each year when the legislature engages in its own form of grandstanding when it chooses not to meet its constitutional mandate of passing a balanced budget by June 15th. Institutions that rely on state funding, for example, have been forced to pass their own budgets without knowing how much money to expect from the state – if any. In the past few years, the state actually decided to issue IOUs in lieu of cash because the budget had not been passed. How well do legislators think that asking one’s landlord or bank to accept an IOU in place of a rental or mortgage payment will go over? Now they have an opportunity to find out themselves.

There are at least two related lessons to be learned here:

    1. Be very specific when asking for what you want or need.

    In this case, the voter-passed initiative said the budget must be balanced. Alas, it apparently did not define the term “balanced” in a way that made it crystal clear to legislators that their constituents would no longer tolerate their annual “smoke and mirrors” approach, but instead must pass a budget that actually balances when held up to the light of day.

    2. Be careful of what you ask for.

    By putting legislators’ pay at risk (as it relates to passing a balanced budget), voters caused lawmakers to focus on passing a budget. This seems to be a good thing, doesn’t it? Unfortunately in their haste to save their paychecks, the legislators neglected to take care of a few critical details. According to the State Controller, for example, the budget relies on a variety of fees and taxes to raise revenue – but lawmakers didn’t pass the legislation necessary to collect that revenue. Apparently the initiative should have said that intentions don’t count – there actually must be mechanisms in place in order for the budget to be balanced in reality.

So we’re back to smoke and mirrors. At least the legislators are not getting paid to not produce a balanced budget, which may jolt them back to reality. In the mean time, Californians across the state are suffering – again – because lawmakers –again – aren’t doing their constitutional duty.

I can’t wait for the next step: perhaps an initiative that makes the failure to pass a truly balanced budget by the constitutional deadline a terminable offense? No waiting till the next election either: no balanced budget, no job.

What’s your suggestion for getting the message across to politicians?

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.