City halls run on meetings. On any given day, in offices, council chambers, meeting rooms and conference halls, there are meetings. Big ones. Small ones. One-on-one. Important ones. Wastes of time.

Some meetings will be of grave importance. Some others, not as much.

Canadian giant Shopify a few months ago culled 12,000 recurring meetings from its corporate calendars: productivity increased.

I got thinking about meetings, and the associated issue I want to discuss with you, after an email exchange with a very thoughtful city clerk. She was making the point to me that her staff are swamped these days. At what point does doing more with less become doing less with less?

City councils are not very eager to add staff because of tight budget constraints. Yet demands on civic staff are accelerating: Requests from the public. Social media pressures. Elected officials' needs.

The urgent push for adding housing stock and speeding up development approvals will certainly create extra workloads for planning, engineering, finance, legal, clerks and other civic departments. Housing is an immediate and urgent matter for governments in Canada. The recent $74 million federal grant to London, for example, specified conditions for more rapid housing approvals.

The question I raise is, considering the shifting demands and new environment for city halls, do you REALLY need all those meetings?

Sure, there can be legitimate reasons for meetings: clarity; brainstorming a critical issue; making sure everyone knows their tasks and responsibilities; agreeing on a plan of action.

And city halls both must have and want to have lots of public participation meetings, although there is danger along that path. Too often elected officials use the "we need to get the public's input" as a way of dodging a thorny problem and kicking the decision can down the road. That means staff must prepare a new report and organize another meeting. More time.

The second thing I got thinking about was, well, thinking.

This is an associated problem with the meetings question. As the demands on a manager's time and the pressures for performance increase, is that person ever getting time to think?

Would the world end if a manager scheduled a 30-60 minute "Think session" once a week? Maybe get out of city hall, without a cell phone, and have a walk or sit in the park? Wonder about the current civic issues, think about how you are managing your staff, contemplate better ways of operating your department, question why you are battling with that crazy councillor from ward 3

I spent most of my business career running radio stations. They define a 24/7 business, because they literally are scheduled for every second of every day. High pressure business. When I think back, I would have been a better manager if I: 1) had taken a vacation every so often; 2) had scheduled a bit more 'think time' into my calendar; and 3) was a little more empathetic with people.

Perspective can be an elusive goal. As someone smarter than me once observed, "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that your original goal was to drain the swamp."

There are many smart managers inside city halls. But if they are constrained from being creative, bold, innovative and to show leadership, then it becomes a harder path.

The pressure on civic management and employees these days is immense. That is not going to ease. Clever, innovative thinking is crucial.

This new environment will demand break-through technology (AI could be very helpful), smarter thinking, and a willingness to change traditional ways of operating. These are the new realities for civic government.