MAYOR
from the
Summit provided lessons for mayors BY MAYOR KENT GUINN
W
hat an honor it was to represent the great city of Ocala at the recent Yale School of Management CEO Summit and Mayors College in New York City. The first day of the summit was held at the Yale Club and included mostly mayors, and discussions included everything from growth to gun control to crime – issues that are common to every city. Interestingly enough, the conference was evenly divided between 50 percent Democrat mayors and 50 percent Republican mayors which created a great give-and-take on discussions. The ability to have such discussions and truly hear and understand different perspectives was one of the main points of the conference and something that I and many others took to heart. One of the big things I gathered from the conference was how important it is – especially for someone in a position as mayor – to think more critically and engage all sides and opinions of an issue. Too often we reside in our echo chambers of thought and ideology, which is equally true of those on the political left and right. But as a mayor, or anyone serving in public office for that matter, it is important to remove oneself from that realm of closed thinking and at least consider other options that may even come from your opposition. Lawyers are good at this and probably a reason many embark on political careers. In their everyday decision-making, lawyers have no choice but to analyze all sides of an issue while divesting themselves from whatever preconceived notions they may take into a case – this is much easier said than done and why pride and unbreakable ideology keep many of us from accepting or even considering options outside of their political purview. As mayors, we have no choice but to seek counsel on all matters as opposed to assuming things or jumping to conclusions. I hope to bring this methodology back with me and make it an even stronger aspect of our governance here. The second part of the conference, we were able to hear from CEOs of many major corporations and were treated to a talk from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, who urged business leaders in attendance to avoid conducting business with Russia. His remarks about the hardships his country has endured during the Russian invasion were heartfelt and eye-opening and every CEO and mayor in attendance was firm in their support for Ukraine. Many CEOs also spoke, and one of the more important lessons learned had to be about the formula for success. Harvard University’s D. Quinn Mills, professor of business administration emeritus, spoke about what he sees in successful students. His answer was not great intelligence or creativity necessarily, but persistence as the key to success. Mills spoke of setbacks and how everyone in the world faces them, but those who achieve success always deal with setbacks as merely temporary obstacles on the way to achieving greatness. No setback in life is permanent unless we deem it so, and I believe there is a great lesson to be learned here with such a sentiment. Those who exude a certain “stick-to-itiveness” are able to meet challenges and convert setbacks into triumphs. Zelensky appears to be someone who relishes the opportunity to turn a setback into a triumph. Here we have had the setbacks of COVID, inflation, crime and violence, and it is up to all of us to heed Mills’ advice and not give in to these problems but to regard them as temporary bumps on the road to greater things. I know the people of this community certainly fit that bill.
14
| JUL 2022 | OCALAMAGAZINE.COM
