At a consultant-led workshop in Greenfield, city council members spent the evening working through Patrick Lencioni’s “Five Dysfunctions of a Team” framework and agreed informally to pilot pre‑meeting dinners and clearer internal communications to improve trust and coordination.

The session, run by facilitator Fred Van Bleck, focused on the council’s ability to trust one another, engage in productive conflict, commit to decisions, hold peers accountable and focus on shared results. Van Bleck repeatedly warned that legal limits on how council members can meet—“the Brown Act really prevents you from being able to come together like any other . . . 'normal' team,” he said—make it harder for elected officials to build the kind of informal relationships that can support teamwork.

Why it matters: Council cohesion affects how clearly elected officials direct staff and how effectively the city delivers services. Participants said better interpersonal understanding and clearer procedural norms would reduce misunderstanding, speed decision‑making and make staff work more efficient.

Workshop takeaways and immediate steps

The most concrete proposals that emerged were operational, not legislative. Council members and staff discussed three practical steps:
- Pilot pre‑meeting dinners: Councilmembers informally agreed to try meeting for dinner before regular meetings to build rapport; a 5:30 p.m. start time and a proposed pilot at the June 10 meeting were raised during the discussion. Participants emphasized that such gatherings must avoid forbidden “serial” deliberations under the Brown Act. One councilmember volunteered to help get the first dinner organized.
- Regular internal updates: Councilmembers asked staff to restore a short, regular briefing (weekly or biweekly) to the council summarizing status on projects, pending items and requests from individual members so priorities are visible across the body. City Manager Paul said, “I will commit to communicating that. It’s not that easy . . . but I’m gonna make a concerted effort to . . . communicate things out in a more orderly fashion.”
- Revisit norms and the strategic plan: Members asked for clearer, written norms for council conduct (a “code of conduct” or agenda‑front reminder) and for clearer connections between council members’ agenda items and the city’s strategic plan and budget process.

Discussion, not formal action

No motion or formal vote was taken. Staff and council described the outcomes as informal consensus and a set of next steps for staff to support, not adopted policy. The facilitator repeatedly separated discussion from decision, urging the council to use frank but constructive disagreement to reach commitment before holding each other accountable.

Select quotations from the meeting

Facilitator Fred Van Bleck described the core goal of the session: “When people can be that emotionally buck naked with one another, it changes the dynamic.”

City Manager Paul committed to a change in staff practice: “I will commit to communicating that . . . I’m gonna make a concerted effort to . . . communicate things out in a more orderly fashion.”

What stayed on the table

Councilmembers asked staff to draft a simple plan for the dinner pilot that avoids Brown Act pitfalls, and to circulate a short, regular internal update for council review. They also asked staff to bring back a calendar item to revisit the council’s norms and to make sure major member priorities are mapped against the strategic plan and the coming budget workshop.

Ending

Council members described the session as useful and said they would continue the work: several members urged recurring opportunities for informal interaction and periodic team development. Staff will return with logistics and a proposed communications schedule; formal policy changes or new rules were not adopted at the workshop.