Unleash the (Smart City) Power Within!
How to Apply Tony Robbins’ 3-Step RPM Process to Awakening the Giant within your City
There are cities out there that are a lot like me — doing OK, but wanting to become smarter, healthier, wealthier, and ultimately, happier. We’ve got it pretty good — good money coming in, good people to depend on, and in good health for our age — but not really living to our full potential. And certainly not using all the talent and tools available within to realize our dreams and aspirations.
Here’s where Tony Robbins comes in. Yes, I know, he’s someone you and I might dismiss as a motivational speaker selling a fleeting hope of personal change and happiness. And what he has to say may seem to have no application to urban planning, mobility, and the rising collective desire for the creation of Smart Cities. But, if I want to create an extraordinary life for myself and my city, Tony’s approach to goal-setting and goal-achievement has some relevance. The tools to create the change I want to see in myself can be applied to the change I want to see in my city. Get it?
I’m imagining my city as a larger representation of myself. You should feel free to do the same. To gain focus and clarity on my vision and take the first step toward achieving the realization of it, I need to apply what Tony calls RPM, short for the Rapid Planning Method, or Results-oriented/Purpose-driven/Massive Action Plan. RPM has you ask yourself three questions in a specific sequence on a consistent basis. The sequence is critical, he says, because if you don’t know what you want and why you want it, but then go ahead to create a plan for how to get it, your actions will not be sustainable through the inevitable challenges. And you’ll have little possibility of experiencing what it is you really want.
City planning usually works the other way. From my experience working at city departments of transportation, planning is often undertaken in order to discover what is wanted and why it is wanted. The planning process starts with a problem (for example, an intersection with a high number of crashes, a lack of affordable housing) and months — or sometimes years — of stakeholder meetings and government decision-making results in a plan or a project serving some defined “purpose and need.”
What I’m advocating here is to try to do this in reverse order — define the result desired and the purpose and need first before there’s a pressing problem to be solved. And then do the planning work necessary to know how to get the result wanted. Do what Seth Godin calls “thrashing early.” It’s less expensive and difficult in the long run and produces innovative, exciting plans and projects that are worth implementing.
By “thrashing,” Seth means the creative work in which we get to the core of the magic we are creating, the thrilling decisions as to what is wanted and the compelling reasons why. City governments, more often than not, thrash at the end. At the end of city planning efforts, the city decision-makers start with the meetings to determine who the plan or project is for, what it’s for, and how it could be made magical as they’ve defined it. At the end, it’s too late to have these meetings, because, using a metaphor Seth uses, “the battleship is mostly built.” Thrashing late is really expensive and results in mediocrity: “There’s a committee meeting, people pushing each other to average it out, lower the stakes,” Seth says, “As a result, the project slows down” and is watered down. The alternative is to thrash early.
RPM provides a framework for cities to thrash early. RPM, as Tony says, turns the typical city planning paradigm around so that movement isn’t mistaken for achievement. Action plans with long to-do lists are commonplace. Plans that are obsessed with outcomes instead of activities aren’t.
In this article, I’m going to apply RPM to Smart City planning. It’s a concept that may be familiar to city government officials, though likely in an abstract way for most. But, the RPM framework can be applied to other city initiatives — crime prevention, eradication of homelessness, Vision Zero, regulation of bikeshare and scooter-sharing, to name just four.
So, without further ado, below are the 3 steps Tony Robbins talks about for personal development that can be applied to the transformation of a city into a smarter one.
Step One: Know the Result You Want to Achieve
The first thing Tony wants us to ask ourselves is “What do I really want?” In the context of becoming happier, healthier, and wealthier, “What would an extraordinary life look like now?” The point is to get absolute clarity about the exact result you want and why you must achieve it. The more precise and measurable the result, the stronger it is.
What you shouldn’t be doing at this early stage is starting with a step-by-step plan of action. You’re setting yourself up for failure if you do, Tony says. Determine your measurable outcome before getting bogged down in all the to-dos.
This means that, to plan for a “Smart City”, you have to first define what it looks like in precise terms. Unfortunately, the term “smart cities” has become a buzzword that is not commonly understood by the general public, much less city governments. A recent survey by the tech association CompTIA found that only 9% of city officials are “deeply engaged” with Smart Cities initiatives. Larger cities, with more than 250,000 residents, seem to be more involved with Smart Cities, with 23% of city officials saying they are “deeply engaged,” while only 7% of officials from smaller cities report the same, according to the survey (Government Technology, “Georgia Launches Smart Cities Competition Grant Program,” Skip Descant, 2/22/2018). Another survey of utilities and municipal governments found a rising numbers of respondents saying that smart cities are a passing fad likely to happen far off in the future (Black and Veatch, 2018 Smart Cities & Utilities Report, p. 53).
The fact remains, however, that technology is changing the mobility, infrastructure, and utility landscape. And this change isn’t stopping or waiting for city governments to catch up. Some cities are taking steps to harness the future for the good of their citizens, and others are being left behind. Cities with disproportionately large socioeconomically- and mobility-disadvantaged communities, adversely impacted by pollution and lack of economic opportunities, are most in need of some of the benefits smart city technologies can offer — cleaner air and affordable, reliable transportation options. But without smart city policies, practices, resources, and strategies, they won’t be able to react adequately to the coming changes and utilize smart city transportation technologies to their advantage to tackle their own government inefficiencies. Socially-, environmentally-, and mobility-disadvantaged communities will not be able to address these emerging technologies through existing processes. So, they will become even more disadvantaged as technology changes are disruptively forced on their cities or bypass them in favor of more favorable markets.
An extraordinary life for a city could be to transform into a smart city where new communities are made, existing communities are strengthened, and government welcome innovation, invite investment, and give people reasons to stay. But what does a smart city look like? How will it harness technology for the public good?
The term “Smart City” generally refers to as a municipality that has decided to enable data to make its communities more livable, sustainable, and connected, improve the efficiency of services, and meet residents’ needs. Technically, it’s an urban development vision integrating information and communication technology (ICT) and Internet of things (IoT) solutions to manage a city’s assets, such as schools, libraries, streets, sidewalks, hospitals, power plants, water lines, sewers, and law enforcement.
A city that’s already on the path to transformation is Toronto. There, Alphabet subsidiary Sidewalk Labs is reshaping Quayside, a former industrial area into an innovative city neighborhood. Sidewalk pledged to spend $50 million on the first phase of planning, which has already kicked off, and pilot testing, which is scheduled to begin later this year. Construction could start next year. According to the MIT Technology Review, the Smart City vision for Quayside will include:
1 Pooled Autonomous Transportation — Driverless shuttle buses will replace private cars and provide a first/last-mile solution connecting transit centers to parking, homes, and other destinations. Because they will be able to navigate more precisely and obey traffic laws more consistently than human drivers, narrower lanes, wider sidewalks and more parks will be installed.
2 Sensors — Encryptable detection devices that sense and monitor public activity accurately and frequently will allow traffic signals and streetlights to track the flow of pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicles, prioritize autonomous buses, cyclists and pedestrians, and support long-term planning.
3 Robots & Smart Buildings — Robots will transport mail and garbage via underground tunnels, and modular buildings will be expandable to accommodate growing companies and families (MIT Technology Review, “A Smarter Smart City,” Elizabeth Woyke, 2/21/18).
Another change that cities now have the time to adapt to and make their own are automated transportation. Here, we could be referring to automated cars or even unmanned aerial vehicles (better known as drones), which are all in development with investment from Transportation Network Companies (TNC) such as Uber and Lyft. According to UC Davis and the California Air Resource Boards’ Daniel Sperling, the future will combine automation and Uber/Lyft-type sharing, or “pooling” (Phys.org, “The future of transportation systems,” Francesca Mccaffrey, 3/14/18). Without pooling, automation would lead to large increases in vehicle use and thus, more congestion. With pooling, though, automation would lead to reductions in vehicle use, but increases in mobility by mobility-disadvantaged travelers who are too poor or disabled to drive. TNCs are already moving to subscription business models, like Netflix and Spotify, to reduce the need for private car ownership.
Cities will also be able to apply technology to their street lights, street furniture, and parking facilities. “Smart” street lights can dim or brighten on command and improve public safety through closed circuit televisions (CCTV), gunshot detection sensors, and license plate and facial recognition devices. “Smart” street furniture (bus shelters, benches, newspaper boxes, traffic signal boxes, information kiosks) and traffic signals can become platforms to serve additional purposes, such as remote sensing and metering and communication with cars and infrastructure. Sensor-laden wi-fi interactive kiosks are already in place, serving as public communication hubs where free phone calling, wayfinding, City 311, emergency 911, high speed USB mobile device charging, and other services would be available, and generating revenue for cities (Intel, “Reinventing Smart Cities Public Kiosks”). “Smart” parking will allow connected and automated vehicles to park themselves through self-parking, specialized parking lots, and robotic parking valets so more cars can be parked in limited spaces and drivers will not need to waste time and fuel looking for parking (Forbes, “The Future of Smart Parking is Integration with Automated Technology”, Ryan Citron, 1/26/17).
So, the first step a city should take on its way to an extraordinary, smarter life is to know the result it wants to see for itself. Thrash early — engage decision-makers and gain consensus around whether your city should become a “smart city,” and if the answer is yes, what features of a “Smart City” is wanted. This will take education of decision-makers and stakeholders as to the opportunities and challenges that current and anticipated technological advancements will bring, and a determination of how prepared the city is to harness the future for the public good.
According to the Eno Center for Transportation, a Working Group is one of three steps that cities should take to prepare for Smart City technologies in their jurisdictions (Eno Transportation Weekly, “3 Ways that Cities Can Prepare for Automated Vehicles Today,” Greg Rogers, 2/14/2018). A Smart City Working Group provides a platform for collaboration between a wide range of stakeholders, including elected officials, state and local agencies, and industry, who will all be needed for the successful implementation of Smart City technologies.
Establishing a Smart City Working Group is also helpful because it will serve as the Smart City champion for the city that will forge partnerships amongst diverse groups with different needs and priorities (Black and Veatch, 2018 Smart Cities & Utilities Report, p. 6.). Like any other transformative city initiative, strong partnerships are needed to formulate strong Smart City plans that unite diverse stakeholder groups around the common vision for the city. The cost of collaboration is that planning and implementation will take longer. But the work of forming partnerships will pay off in the long-run by minimizing the opposition and roadblocks that will spring up without them from thrashing late.
Step Two: Know Your Why
The next step is finding the compelling reason why you want what you want. You should know why this is not just a “should,” but a must for me and my city. “The emotional quality of purpose,” according to Tony Robbins, “makes what you will do not only sustainable, but powerful.” Without strong enough reasons, you’ll just have arbitrary targets — “purpose is more powerful than the object”.
Tony Robbins says that the “How” will come once you know your “Why”. You’ll figure out how to improve yourself and live a more meaningful, extraordinary life once you have a compelling reason for doing so. In the same way, a city can only improve itself if the government leading it has a good reason that convinces its own forces and constituents that transformation is worth the struggle.
So, why should cities care about becoming smarter? Cities might want to become extraordinary for the people that live, work, and play in them, but more significantly, so that they don’t become hopeless cases where no one wants to live, work, or pay taxes.
If cities want to become smarter, healthier, and wealthier, they should then understand the impacts of future technology on their infrastructure to understand why they should care and prepare. If they don’t do anything to shape how technologies are planned and implemented on their streets, here is the future they could be looking at just in the transportation sector:
1 Less Revenue and Funding: With the move away from privately-owned cars toward pooled, autonomous vehicles provided under a subscription service like phone and internet plans today, there will be lower levels of car ownership, which will have the benefit of reducing congestion but will also reduce gas tax and other transportation revenues, and impact localities dependent on such funds. In addition, pooled, autonomous vehicles and smart parking technologies will require less curbside and garage space for parking, freeing up public space but reducing parking revenues. Ignoring technology innovations and investments today will also cause cities to lose out on potential revenues from data that they could possess.
2 Environmental Harm, Inequity, and Sprawl: Pooled, automated cars will reduce the cost of travel to as little as 15 cents per mile (versus 60 cents per mile for an individually-owned automated car traveling 15,000 miles per year), as well as the time cost of car occupants (near zero) because they will not need to pay attention to driving (Phys.org, “The future of transportation systems,” Francesca Mccaffrey, 3/14/18). So, even if the cost of owning and operating a car in the future is substantial, the time savings would be so beneficial that many will choose car ownership over subscribing to an on-demand service. This could lead to a continued proliferation of single-occupant vehicles (SOV), which, in turn, will result in more sprawl, environmental degradation, and inaccessibility by the mobility disadvantaged.
3 Disinvestment — Technology companies offering Smart City solutions could very well choose to ignore certain cities due to the cities’ lack of resources or unwillingness to adapt to change, which will adversely impact economic development and private investment in those cities. Taxpaying residents may also choose to leave for more advanced cities, leaving behind the mobility disadvantaged.
4 Missing Out on Better Decision-Making — Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will become much more widespread, enabling more automated, predictive analysis and thus, better decision making. Using data has the potential to help city agencies better deploy maintenance crews, emergency response vehicles, tow trucks, and other operational units (Phys.org, “The future of transportation systems,” Francesca Mccaffrey, 3/14/18).
So, a city’s “Why” could simply be to avoid these outcomes, or, better yet, to achieve more positive ones. But once the compelling reason is established, what can a city do to take action?
Step Three: Take Massive Action
In the course of my career working in and for city and state governments, I’ve been a part of many strategic action plans. The actions within those plans have usually been watered down by years of process, sensitivity to the desires and insecurities of elected officials, and public input. Actions are typically incremental and unambitious in order to easily show progress during implementation.
But, what if we could come up with a plan of massive actions to achieve our desired outcome? What if, amongst all the possibilities, we could choose actions that will have the most power and potential for change? For a city to do this, it must be willing to do what people wanting an extraordinary life must do — take big risks, fail, try again, and iterate.
To create the MAP to becoming a Smart City, the city, working through its Smart City Working Group, should develop a sequence of priority actions and ask itself, “How much?”, “By when?” and “For what purpose?” As the Eno Transportation Group suggests, the city’s MAP could take the form of a Smart Cities Roadmap (Eno Transportation Weekly, “3 Ways that Cities Can Prepare for Automated Vehicles Today,” Greg Rogers, 2/14/2018), a framework of short-term and long-term actions for realizing the benefits of Smart City technologies.
The Seattle Department of Transportation published the Seattle New Mobility Playbook, a comprehensive roadmap for integrating autonomous vehicles into the city’s mobility system. The Playbook developed five “plays” through which the City would work with new mobility so that new technologies “adapt to, rather than reshape” Seattle (Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle New Mobility Playbook, p. 36). Each play is complemented with specific strategies, first moves (an 18-month action plan), and an invitation to innovators and creative thinkers in technology, transportation and government to bring solutions to Seattle.
Not unlike Tony Robbins’ RPM, Black and Veatch suggests a roadmap that “thinks big, starts small,” starting with implementation of a series of smaller changes that contribute to the overall transformation (Black and Veatch, 2018 Smart Cities & Utilities Report, p. 6). Pragmatic, easy wins can create momentum and enthusiasm among implementing agencies, stakeholders, and the public. Revenue-generating smart streetlight and digital kiosk projects, for example, are less complicated but high return-on-investment projects that can build support for more complex projects down the line.
Conclusion
Though long, this article just scratched the surface of Smart Cities planning and Tony Robbins’ work. My goal was to show that the RPM process could be applied to city planning — and Smart Cities planning, in particular — just as it is helpful to Tony’s individual and corporate clients. It becomes especially useful as a means of providing focus and wisdom in the midst of the myriad of distractions pulling a city’s attention in every direction on a daily basis. As Tony says, “Wisdom comes when you start getting clear about what you want and why you want it.” It’s about time city plans and projects become ambitious, motivating, compelling, and massively actionable. We just need to rethink why we plan the way we plan. My hope is that this article can help start that discussion.
Thanks for reading! I am a consultant based in Los Angeles, after having spent a dozen years working in city and state government. I can be contacted at mr.mobillyty@gmail.com for more information on this and other urban mobility topics.
