An address delivered to the Master of City Planning graduates at the University of Manitoba, June 2021. (And 6 questions to ask at any point in your career.)

—listen to this episode here—

Two big A-Ha! moments happened right after I graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1995, with a Master’s degree in city planning. One A-Ha! was connected to landing my first job, the second to doing that job.

There were limited choices for planning graduates in 1995, in stark contrast. One option was to be a hotdog stand license issuer with the City of Vancouver on Canada’s west coast—and you needed a master’s degree for this job. (I applied, but I never heard back from them. I imagine they had hundreds of applications.) Another option was to be a development officer with the Brandon and Area Planning District in Manitoba, in central Canada. I aimed to move 2300 km to the west coast, but I landed that Brandon job; I moved only 200 km to the west.

On the stairs of the Faculty of Architecture’s J A Russell building, I ran into a fellow student on one of my last visits to the school. Here’s our interaction:

It turns out that no one wanted that job in Brandon, but everyone wanted that hotdog job in Vancouver. In my view, the Vancouver-searching people missed out. I almost did.

A-ha! number one: I took the “bad job,” and I had the perfect opportunity to learn about how communities work and make choices together.

My boss at that planning job, Ron, told me something stunning a few months after I started working with him: “I never imagined someone with a master’s degree in planning would know so little.”

Put aside the fact that this sounds harsh and consider it honest—and useful.

A-ha! number two: learning does not stop when we graduate from school to the work world. There is a lot to learn on the ground, and who we choose to work with matters.

A time of big decisions

You’ve invested a lot of energy learning about cities and communities, about what makes them work well physically and ecologically, economically, socially and culturally. How much have you thought about how youfit into your community or the community in which you will next find yourself? What is the contribution you wish to make?

This time of transition is a time of big decisions:

What is my next move?
What is the work I want to do?
Who do I want to work with?
Where will I do this work?

Behind these questions are two more significant questions: What is my contribution? And, Who wants what I have to contribute?

I don’t have the answers for you, and the truth is, no one has these answers but you. Further, if older people are honest, these questions never go away. So, let go of the idea that these questions will let go of you and learn to live with them.

“If us older people are honest, these questions never go away.”

My aim is to leave you with some wicked questions you can carry around with you for decades, the kind of questions that never stop giving us a sense of direction when we feel lost. They demand a little of our time and attention from time to time, but they always help because they set us up—and keep us on— a lifelong journey of inquiry.

Inquiry

I graduated 26 years ago, and in many ways, I am not like you, a graduate of 2021. We do have something significant in common: a keen interest in communities and cities and the choices they make, and the roles we have in those choices as citizens and planners. We share a love of inquiry.

This point in time that you find yourself in, this time of transition from school to the wider world, is significant. It is a time to move from inquiry to action. My challenge to you: hold on to the spirit of inquiry and curiosity at all times because it will serve you and the communities you serve well.

That job in Brandon involved hours and hours of council meetings for the city of Brandon, the two surrounding rural municipalities of Elton and Cornwallis and planning district board meetings. After working there for ten years, I made my way to Fort McMurray to run the planning and development department for the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. A few years ago, I calculated that I spent 17,000 hours in council meetings.

While I participated in many of those council meeting hours, I spent many more witnessing the communities I served grapple with the challenges they were facing. I observed them as they wrestled, often in conflict about the improvements they wanted to make with and for their communities.

I witnessed different value systems bump up against each other. I watched misunderstanding grow unnecessarily. I watched people fling their anger around, and others handle conflict with grace. I was learning the whole time.

The crap job my classmates didn’t want was so far from crap.

I watched and learned.

I grew my skills as a planner, but I also grew my skills to work with people who were not like me and my abilities to help others, not like them. Many seeds were planted in that Brandon time, seeds that lead to:

New roles and responsibilities in Brandon
The next job in Fort McMurray when it was the fastest growing municipality in North America
Writing a book: Nest City: How Citizens Serve Cities and Cities Serve Citizens, and
Wonderful work brokering the relationships between people experiencing tension and conflict in the city

In 1995, as I walked out of the Russell Building for that last time, with Vicki giving me her condolences about a job in Brandon, I never knew where the job would take me. Then again, no one knows where a job will take them at 25, 45 or 65 years old.

Questions for your inquiry

Here are six questions to hold on to as your life shifts from inquiry to action and inquiry.

1. What do you want to say yes to?

My Brandon boss, Ron, chose me because my personality was a good fit with his and the team he was crafting for the organization. I was 25 and fresh out of school, and he knew he would have to teach me about the mechanics of issuing development permits, subdivision applications, amending zoning bylaws and development plans, or writing a new zoning bylaw or development plan. He knew I knew how to think about planning and communities. He knew I had good interpersonal skills, and he could teach me the rest.

I had no idea what I was getting into. I said yes, and it worked out beautifully. And it has again and again.

What do you want to say yes to?

2. What is the next natural step?

What happens if you imagine that there is no wrong next move? If you are willing to learn from whatever happens, then there is no wrong next move. It could be work that:

Makes no sense and feels right
Makes no sense and doesn’t feel right
Makes perfect sense and then doesn’t work out
Makes perfect sense and does work out

If we imagine there is no wrong next move, then it will always work out.

What is the next natural step for you?

3. What do you want to learn?

It could have been easy for me, like my classmates, to disregard Brandon as a good opportunity. If your class is anything like mine, you might be aiming for a big job in a big city. But I want to tell you this: never underestimate what you will learn on the ground, with people and their lives and lived experiences. Never underestimate what you will learn in small communities or what might feel like an odd job or an odd way to work.

When I moved from school to the work world, my learning experience shifted from theory to practice. Ron and I were a fantastic pair. He didn’t have a university degree, but I did. When we needed it, I had the credential. I didn’t have practical experience, but he did.

Remember this: you are in charge of what you learn. If work feels a little (or a lot) crappy, arrange for some fun and energizing activities on the side.

You might not know what you want to learn. You may feel your learning is complete, but there’s a change in the learning to come… there are no exams. There will be challenges and deadlines. The world after school is a school of a different kind.

What do you want to learn?

4. Who do you want to work with?

Ron went out of his way to introduce me to people with similar interests in my new community. He knew that I’d outgrow the job and wanted to keep me there for as long as he could. But beyond those practical reasons, Ron supported me with question 3 (What do you want to learn?) and made extra effort to make me feel at home both at work and in the community. He connected me with people I would enjoy outside of work. Remember: When work feels a bit crappy, arrange for some fun and energizing activities on the side. I learned that people like Ron are who I want to work for and with.

Who we work with matters—our bosses, our peers and eventually the people who will work for us. We all work better when work is enjoyable because the people we work with are enjoyable. Humans handle any challenging situation better when the people working on it work well together. There are great people out there you haven’t met yet. To find them, ask:

Who do you want to work with?

5. How do you like to work?

Be honest with yourself:

Do you like to work quietly on your own, or are you energized by working with other people?
Do you like the limelight, or do you want to stay behind the scenes?
Do you want to spend a lot of time outside, or does being in an office appeal?
What energizes you the most: work that constantly changes or work that remains the same?

There’s nothing wrong with your preference. Run with it. And know that whatever it is now, it may change.

How do you like to work?

6. What do you want to experience more of?

Here’s an idea that may make you feel uncomfortable: you are in charge of your experience. Yes, things happen out of your control, but you are ultimately in charge of what you think about it, and what you think about it shapes how you feel about it.

Who do you want to be? Do you want to be the kind of person who expects terrible stuff to happen or expects wonderful stuff to happen? Do you hide from things that go sideways or investigate to see what improvements are warranted next time? As you head into this next phase of life, know that the learning never stops. It just changes.

What do you want to experience more of?

Your inquiry matters

As I worked as a planner and held myself in a series of inquiries about the role of planners and our work, I concluded that our work, as citizens, is the force that regenerates our cities. Planning is a specialized form of work that serves our cities and community. Planning is work that serves our communities but is not what makes our cities.

A city or community gets its sense of direction from citizens. As planners, we support the process of finding our sense of direction and making it come to pass. As citizens, always inquiring about our contributions is vital. Nest City:

When citizens lose their sense of purpose in their work, cities lose their sense of purpose. If we lose track of where we are going and why, then the cities we build to support us on our journey have lost track too. Cities are only as good as we make them.

The work we do is personal and professional, never separate, at any scale. Whether you are planning for yourself, with a community or a city, region or nation, we make choices about how to improve our communities. These are always fraught with tension, conflict and emotion.

What pulls us through the conflict is a sense of direction, even if vague and nebulous. This sense of direction helps us understand what constitutes improvement as we make short-term choices and plans.

A few years ago, I found this checklist for what to bring each day to summer band camp. It works, too, for any group coming together to work together. Bring:

Your instrument in good working condition
An open, respective attitude
A willingness to learn and try new things
Smiles and laughter
A snack

To conclude, with heartfelt congratulations, I offer some words from Nest City:

City planning involves far more than city hall. When we are self-aware and engage with others to make decisions, we affect our city’s well-being and directly impact what we get in return from our city. The summer camp checklist evokes a distinct setting: a band camp where we gather to learn and grow with others. In the case of a city, we are musicians creating our city. We do not cooperate well with each other if we are not in good working condition; if we are not open and respectful; if we are not willing to try new things; if we rarely bring smiles and laughter; if we do not take the initiative to provide the snacks that we need to nourish self and others. Our band camp—our nest—is only as good as we choose to make it.

An address delivered to the Master of City Planning graduates at the University of Manitoba, June 2021.

Reflection

“I Never Imagined You Know So Little”