Develop This: Economic and Community Development

Effective strategies for a community are not created in a vacuum.  They require people to come together in conversation, but the nature of the conversation is very important.

Don't shortchange the conversation.

The questions you should consider are: What could we do? What should we do? What will we do?  What is our 30/30?

In this episode, Dennis brings Ed Morrison from Purdue University back to share 10 skills that will help you better guide this conversation.

Strategic Doing: 10 Skills for Agile Leadership

More About Ed Morrison

Agile Strategy Lab

Strategic planning helps us determine the best way to expend our limited resources and works best in a command and control hierarchy.

How do we effectively deploy strategic planning in communities when we can't actually tell people what to do?

Enter strategic doing.  This is a set of disciplines which enables people to form complex collaborations quickly, move those collaborations towards a set of outcomes, and then make adjustments along the way.

The key to effective strategic doing?  It really comes down to the ability of economic and community developers to lead and guide a group conversation.  The questions are vitally important.  

In this episode, Ed Morrision with Purdue University joins Dennis to give us the basics being strategic doing.

More About Ed Morrison

Agile Strategy Lab

In a podcast first, Dennis recorded on-site at the MidAmerican EDC best practices conference last week.

This episode features 9 quick interviews and you will hear everything from talent to opportunity zones and from professional football to landing the Foxconn deal.

Jennifer Hackman, EMSI

Rebekah Kowalski, Manpower Group

Aaron Popkey, Green Bay Packers

Rebecca Mitich, Husch Blackwell

Steve Jahn, Momentum West

Kyle Adams, Ruedebusch Development

Mark Bergethon, Convergent Nonprofit Solutions

Janet Ady, Ady Advantage

Laura Million, Racine County Economic Development Corporation

Judi Johnson, City of Noblesville, Indiana

If we want a stronger talent pool, we must embrace a strategy of encouragement and mentorship with our young people.  Positive role models can be incredibly influential and can come in many forms.

Although mentoring sounds like a huge commitment and a big formal process, it can actually be much more informal and spontaneous.

In this encore episode, Dennis brings Lisa Dughi, NAF President, back on the show to share more about the organization and their work.

NAF is a national network of education, business, and community leaders who work together to ensure high school students are college, career, and future ready.  Last year, more than 100,000 students attended more than 617 NAF academies across 35 states.

According to Lisa-  think about the impact we could have if every single kid had someone they could turn to who can show them what a future could look like.

Learn more about NAF

More about Lisa Dughi

Forbes Article on STEM Mentoring

Community projects are a lot of work.  They can take tremendous social, political, and financial capital and may take years or even decades to complete.

Too many projects launch without a long-term source of sustainable funding.  Don't let your project be one of them.

In this episode, Dennis and Jason share some thoughts about ensuring your legacy projects outlast your career.

Our personal and professional lives will always have peaks and valleys.  Most of the time, we can work through the slumps, but on occasion, a prolonged slump may be an indication a job change is necessary.

How do we know when it is the right time?

In this episode, Dennis and Jason share the 7 signs that it might be time to change jobs.  They also give some guidance for talking about your slump with your supervisor.

Better data drives better decisions- especially when it comes to attracting, retaining, and developing talent.  How do you get good, local, reliable data on wages and benefits for your market?

In this episode, Jason Long, CEO of Sensible Surveys, joins the podcast to talk about the role of the local economic development group in collecting and distributing valuable data to help companies make solid decisions on wage and benefit packages.

As a special offer just for Develop This! listeners, Sensible Surveys is offering promotional pricing when you mention the podcast.  Attend a no-cost, no-obligation webinar on Thursday, July 18th at 10 AM CST for more information on the survey tool and to receive your promotional pricing.

Sign up to attend the webinar here: 

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_20jdM5HKTWGB5EXMcO9L4w

More about Jason Long

When you are busy doing other things as a non-profit executive, sometimes your board orientation process can be an after-thought.  However, onboarding new board members sets the tone for their tenure and serves as the foundation of good governance.

In this episode, Dennis and Jason share some tips for things to include in an orientation session and discuss the proper role of the board chair in this process.

In addition- it is not too late to register for the Mid American EDC Best Practices Conference in Milwaukee July 17-19.

Business attraction, retention, entrepreneurship, real estate development, workforce, and community messaging.  There are just a few of the things economic development groups are charged with navigating.

As if this wasn't enough responsibility, the role of the economic development professional also continues to evolve.  The necessary skill sets have diversified, and leadership on community issues has now become the currency of a successful career.

In this episode, Dennis and Jason share some thoughts about the changing role of economic development groups in communities and suggest some specific things career-minded professionals should consider for the future.

In addition- it is not too late to register for the Mid American EDC Best Practices Conference in Milwaukee July 17-19.

Those in the community improvement business tend to lead a lot of meetings. If you are like most of us, you probably have room to improve the effectiveness and productivity of your meetings.

In this episode, Dennis brings back Michael Wilkinson who leads Leadership Strategies, Inc. - a global company with more than 600 facilitators on contract that has trained more than 25,000 in effective facilitation.

To determine the fundamental secrets of facilitation, Michael asked great facilitators the following questions:

1. What do you do when you are facilitating?

2. If you wanted to send someone on your team to facilitation training, what are the key topics you would want them to learn?

3. Tell us about mistakes you see facilitators make?

4. What are those things you would love to have better techniques for?

Tune in to learn the results from these questions - including the key role of a facilitator.

Leadership Strategies, Inc.

More About Michael Wilkinson

Secrets of Facilitation Book