Robert Pittman, Executive Director and Founder, Janus Institute
Countless barrels of ink have been spilled over leadership and leadership development. Several months ago, I actually heard a comedian say “if all else fails, I could be a leadership consultant.” All joking aside, leadership is a recurring topic in one way or another at every Janus Forum. People sometimes ask me why some communities build stronger economies and move forward while others languish.” My standard non-response used to be “it depends” but now my answer is straightforward: if a community has good leadership and some knowledge of how the economic development process works, it has a much higher chance of success. Some Forum attendees praise the cooperation and support they get from local leaders while others wish they had more, but everyone agrees that good leadership is critical for community success.
At the August 2012 Janus Forum in Rabun County, Alan Price discussed leadership from a crisis management perspective based on his experience as Chief Pilot of Delta Airlines during the 9/11 terrorist attack. Executive management teams at all the airlines were forced to make critical decisions with enormous implications in an unprecedented situation. According to Captain Price company core values including the safety of passengers and employees helped guide Delta, and the airline was one of the first to ground all airplanes on the morning of 9/11 even before the Federal Aviation Administration ceased all commercial aviation operations. I believe core values and guiding principles regarding economic development could help many communities in a crisis or non-crisis situation, and we will explore this topic further in future Forums and related publications.
Speaking of, our next Forum will be held February 28-March 3 at the Amelia Island, Florida Omni Hotel complex. Our host sponsor will again be Enterprise Florida, who helped make the Forum held last year at Watercolor in Santa Rosa Beach a great success. We will continue to include active participation by site consultants and corporate real estate executives in the program, but we will never forget what has made the Forum such as success – strong peer learning and economic “best practice” opportunities for all participants. Undoubtedly, the upcoming Forum at Amelia Island will again provide participants and sponsors with ideas and contacts to help make them even more successful. The program schedule with invited guests will be announced soon.
To conclude, I would like to add to our on-going discussion of leadership and say simply that being a good community leader or economic development professional often involves having the courage and conviction to “stick to your guns” and continue to advocate and support economic development programs that will help the community achieve its goals whether they are popular or not. Sometimes leadership is just telling the truth.
Archives for October 2014
IEDC Hits Back at NPR Story that Called Economic Developers ‘Job Fairies’
Executive Editor of the Janus Reporter
If you don’t rigorously measure your organization’s economic development efforts every day, you might as well close up shop.
That was the not-so-subtle message of a standing-room-only workshop at the International Economic Development Council’s annual conference last week in Fort Worth, Texas.
Organized in response to a National Public Radio program that three years ago compared professional economic developers to “job fairies,” the workshop pulled no punches. If economic developers want to be respected for the work they do, the IEDC panelists said, they’d better start measuring their performance and transparently reporting it to every stakeholder in the community.
Otherwise, you end up being called a “job fairy” or worse by reporters who don’t know better, said Ben Wright, founder and CEO of Denver-based Atlas Advertising and the moderator of the panel.
Indeed, the packed room was silent as Wright played a clip of the radio broadcast that openly made fun of hard-working economic developers who were attending an IEDC conference in 2011.
The entire piece struck a tone that said — if you choose to do economic development for a living, you are basically a shameless huckster.
While IEDC President Jeff Finkle wrote a scathing rebuke of NPR – a rebuttal so strong that it prompted NPR management to issue an apology for the controversial piece – the damage had been done.
How damaging was the piece? Here’s one take on it:
“The thrust of the radio report was that local and economic developers across the country actually do little to create jobs for the nation as a whole; that they largely ‘steal’ jobs from one another; that they are ‘lying’ or at least ‘spinning’ in selling their communities; that even their local impact is negligible; and that their real interest may be to protect their own jobs.”
Jeff Finkle didn’t write that; the NPR ombudsman did.
Economic developers had been lambasted; and on October 21 in Texas, Wright and the IEDC panel members acknowledged that without objective measurement and transparent reporting, their work should be questioned.
“The media refer to winners of incentives as ‘corporate tax dodgers,’” Wright said. “The question is – how do we change the dialogue?” It changes, he noted, when economic developers become transparent in tracking and reporting their own performance metrics.
“Performance tracking is a moving target, but it can be done,” said Wright. “More deals are happening today, and the investor-stakeholder mindset is changing. But one thing that will never change is that elected officials are always going to count jobs.”
Susan Davenport, vice president of economic development for the Gainesville (Fla.) Area Chamber of Commerce and Council for Economic Research, said that “metrics are front and center in anything we do. Our metrics are bold and bolder, and the corporate community has embraced what we are doing.”
Kenny McDonald, chief economic officer for Columbus2020 in Ohio, said, “We are transparent and accountable, and all of our metrics are driven by extensive McKinsey analysis. Our goals are a 30 percent increase in per capita income, $10 billion in capital investment, and the creation of 150,000 new jobs. Through August of this year, we are at 98,000 net new jobs and $4.5 billion in capital investment.”
McDonald explained that “you are going to have some ups and downs. The key is to remain consistent in how you measure your progress and in how transparent you are in reporting it to your community.”
Chris Camacho, vice president of business development for the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, said that “we are really passionate about metrics. Our advice is to have them and share them. It helps to have a healthy paranoia. Also, have a reputation plan. Preemptive preparation is the key.”
Davenport added, “Be transparent and be an educator. Manage the dialogue to ensure a positive outcome for your organization.”
McDonald added, “Understand that this is hard work. Invest in a ton of training and then accept that you won’t see the fruits of your efforts until three or four years later. But if you stick to following your master plan and pursuing your goals, it makes decision-making much easier.”