Being a Multiplier is How You Scale

Tales from San Jose City Hall

What attracted me to working in government is the huge mission. I like to do things, and there is a lot to be done to make public services work better.

But after 1.5 years on the City of San Jose’s Innovation Team, I’ve learned that being a “do-er” isn’t enough. I need to be a multiplier.

For me, this is a major mindset shift, from being an individual contributor to leading organizational change. And it’s a change that I think the civic tech movement needs to make as a whole.

The City of San Jose delivers public services to 1 million residents and 58,000 businesses every single day.

The image below conveys the scale of these services in a single year.

Whether we succeed or fail at delivering these services directly affects the safety, opportunity and quality of life for our residents and businesses.

This is a mission that’s borne by 6,200 public servants.

As an innovation team of five, how do we make an impact on an organization of 6,200 that services 1,000,000 residents across 180 square miles? My first instinct, when I started this work 1.5 years ago, was to roll up my sleeves and get things done.

A multiplier is someone who looks beyond her own genius and focuses her energy on extracting and extending the genius of others. The opposite of a multiplier, is a diminisher — someone who is so focused on being clever that she sucks up all the air in the room.

The scary thing is, many of us, without realizing it, are accidental diminishers. Especially those of us who get excited about making government work better. You know the type. We love learning about new problems, getting fresh insights, prototyping solutions, rolling up our sleeves and making it all work. And those are all great strengths to bring to an organization.

The problem is, it doesn’t matter how many bright ideas I have. There’s no way I am going to redesign all of San Jose’s public services on my own.

Even if we could hire 5 or 10 more people to join the Innovation Team, that wouldn’t be enough. Our team doesn’t own any of the services that get delivered to residents and businesses. To succeed, we need to embed user-centered, iterative practices in the rhythms of City Hall. We need to empower champions within the City’s existing structures for delivering services.

Here are a few practices I’m embracing on my journey to be a multiplier.

Meeting facilitation is a key skill for any government innovator. On our team, we are intentional about planning our meeting outcomes and structure even when they are only 60 or 90 minutes long. It’s a practice that helps us create respectful, productive and meaningful engagements with our colleagues and partners, time after time.

Why tell someone what to do when you help them discover for themselves? Starting with empathy can be transformative — it leads to the epiphany. That’s why organizing “guerrilla-style” user interviews in City Hall is my new favorite work activity. I love seeing my colleagues’ faces light up and hearing how excited they are about the different ways their customers experience their service. And when they discover opportunities for action themselves, it’s so much more powerful than anything I could ever say or do.

Once you’ve created the space for others to innovate, and they’ve discovered opportunities for action, then at some point soon, it’ll be time to let go of control and see where the team takes things.

I find myself needing to resist the temptation to save the team from mistakes they haven’t yet made. Instead of leading the charge to find the solution, I try to direct my energy into asking challenging questions, facilitating discussions, advocating for the big picture, and giving others the opportunity to lead.

I wish I could tell you that I have it all figured out. As I’ve discovered, some parts of being a multiplier come easily to me, and other parts (like letting go) are a struggle. I have lots of days when I’m not sure if I’m being effective. Or when I’m not sure if I’m making an impact, fast enough. But I also have days when I feel like I’m developing a new superpower.

Being multipliers is how we’ll scale innovation through government.

How will you be a multiplier today?

Special thanks to Kip Harkness, who pushes the Innovation Team to think of ourselves as multipliers, every day.

This post is adapted from a lightning talk at AdaptivePath.Org’s Social Table event on February 22, 2018.

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