By Randy Simpson
To take a page from Robert Pittman’s playbook, the view from my porch faces south and overlooks the transition from the Appalachian Mountains to the fertile lowlands that in the early 1800’s were home to the Cherokee Nation in the northwest quadrant of Georgia. Perched near the southern end of the Cohutta Wilderness, our home is sited to afford a view on a clear day of three lakes progressing in size from 4 to 3,500 to 13,000 acres. Each has its own character and offers different functions ranging from pure recreational entertainment to flood control and power generation.
Looking off my porch and reflecting back to my experience at the Janus Forum held in 2013 at Robert’s porch in northeast Georgia, I am reminded of the diversity in the group of attendees. I am referring to diversity in the sense of size, attributes and purpose of the communities that they represent and promote in the never-ending quest for attraction of new businesses. This diversity is not unlike the different lakes in my view; each community has its own inherent resources and collection of strengths and weaknesses.
As I facilitated discussion and interaction in the aerospace workshops, it became clear from the outset that despite the differences represented by the participants, all shared passion for the exchange of ideas and the resulting growth in understanding what success looks like and the actions that work to achieve the success. Real people sharing real stories about their own experiences, including both success and failures in attracting businesses to their communities, is the essence of what I experienced in my three days at the forum.
And the elephant in the room? By the third and final session, I had to ask this question of participants: how is it that you can so freely share with each other your secrets of success and lessons learned in failure when in many cases you either are or will be competing with each other for the same business to choose your community to call home? The answer was nearly unanimous … you win some and you lose some, but in many cases you win even in a loss when you consider geography trumps city, county and state boundaries in the quest for providing jobs in your community. A win in a neighboring county or state can dramatically improve job opportunities in your home community and generate the trailing benefits of economic turnover as dollars paid in salaries change hands many times over at the local grocery, gas station, restaurant and on and on; my own experience has been up to 6x the benefit of a dollar paid to an employee.
My major takeaway? Development of local and regional alliances that leverage strengths and offset weaknesses in attracting new businesses of all types is a key competency that needs to be promoted to assure success. This requires a commitment from local and state political leaders to work in partnership with educational and business leaders to think outside the traditional boundaries of city, county and state lines of “ownership.” I recommend that future Janus Forums include political, education and business leaders in focused sessions on the competencies required for the successful formation of strategic economic development alliances.
Randy Simpson has over 30 years of experience providing strategic direction and leadership in the Aerospace and Defense industry. He is an experienced leader, versatile team member and mentor.
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