To paraphrase a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “This is an amazing time if we but know what to do with it…”
Many communities are experiencing difficult times due to the economy. Businesses are tightening their belts, laying-off workers, delaying promotions, eliminating pay increases, cutting back on benefits and working through some very stressful times. Those who will manage the adversity and invest the time and energy now to keep their efforts toward positive development moving will come through the other side of this crazy time all that much stronger.
A crisis can clarify priorities for each of the businesses in your community, as well as for your organization. Your success depends on how you equip your organization (city, county, public/private partnership or company) with three very important concepts: 1) greater agility, 2) the ability to reinvent your organization, and 3) new and unique partnerships.
To achieve greater agility, we must become more nimble, more responsive. Streamlining the permitting process in many municipalities has been a goal in the recent past, and rest assured, if your permitting and approval processes aren’t streamlined, developers and site selectors will go where the processes are easy to navigate and painless to travel through.
Turning the focus even further inward, the organization through and in which you work can also take on the “nimble attitude” and really look at the way work is done. It’s ok to reinvent not only your processes, but the way you interact with clients and the way you meet (and exceed) their expectations. Today it’s all about providing more and more value. Do you provide the most value you possibly can to your businesses, clients, customers?
Collaborating through new and unique partnerships is the new way to work. If you aren’t looking at opportunities to work with different partners on each deal or project, you may be missing some great ideas, interesting perspectives and potential solutions to very challenging issues. Egos need to be checked at the door and doors need to be opened to new partners to get the most rewarding and fulfilling outcome for you and for the community.
Economic development organizations and municipal development staff can create the right environment for positive developments by working to ensure the operation is nimble, the organization is fresh and the players are the most appropriate for each deal.
