Let's Look Beyond Jobs

A recent Crain's Cleveland Business article interviews David Daberko, Chairman of National City Corp and the current head of Cleveland Tomorrow's board. Mr. Daberko said this about the proposed merger of Cleveland Tomorrow, the Growth Association, and the Greater Cleveland Roundtable: "To a major degree, all three are focused on the same outcome - job creation."

In part, Mr. Daberko is right, but I think there is more to economic development. The "jobs mantra" has driven economic development in most communities over the past 50 years. While a vital aspect of economic development, job development is no longer enough to stimulate and sustain local economic growth. Over the past two years, I have been working to evolve a new consciousness in economic development that there is more to economic development than jobs.

The jobs focus is simple and politically convenient, but it sets up many economic development organizations for failure. As the lead indicator, it under-estimates the "value" produced by EDOs. For that reason, I believe that economic development organizations, like the new Greater Cleveland Tomorrow organization and Team NEO, need to broaden their performance measures to include many other important outcomes. These include innovation, investment, tax base growth, return on investment, market growth, personal income growth, export growth, new business starts, assessed valuation growth and many other metrics. Different stakeholders seek different value from economic development. In the future, the successful EDOs will be those that deliver this broader concept of value.

EDOs will remain concerned about job and business development in the future, but their ultimate goal should be to help their stakeholders create and manage new economic value in a broader sense. How do we do that? I refer you to my presentation that talks about the value that business, government, education, workers and citizens and other stakeholders seek from the economic development process. Go here to learn more about it.

I would appreciate your feedback on these new ideas.