Being a Change Maker Requires Skill

I am writing a book on economic development leadership. As many of you know, the ED Futures Leadership Survey was very successful with over 600 responses (20% response rate). By the way, if you completed the survey, you will be receiving a summary of the results this week. So watch your email box.

During the past month, I conducted phone and in-person interviews with 30 economic development CEOs and EDO board members from across America. I have about 30 more to go, including some hopefully with Canadian, European, and Asian economic developers.

One of the questions that I asked interviewees was this: "Do you consider yourself to be a change maker; that is a leader who is commited above all else to a vision of significant proactive change in your area?"

So far, seven people said they viewed themselves as "change-making leaders." Many said they were commited to bringing about positive change in their organization and community, but as one interviewee said: "you have to eat the elephant one spoonful at a time." Folks, that's incrementalism!

One interviewee said that change-making was a "conscious choice;" that is you must decide and plan to bring about transformational change in economic development. She also said that change-making requires "skill;" that is it is a learned competency that combines vision with the ability to work very effectively with other people, especially those people that you hope to change. She added that "being a bull in the china shop is unlikely to work in economic development, especially if you are a woman." Instead, she suggested that "change-making economic developers" must use great finesse in achieving a mega-change agenda. Vision alone won't cut it.

The rest said: 1) they would like to be more of a change-maker, but their leadership (board of directors, governmental body, etc.) was not ready for transformational change; 2) starting revolutions was not part of their job description; 3) change-making was just one of many roles they must play as a successful and balanced economic development leader; and 4) change-making has its place; that is you can't be stirring the pot all the time; and 5) if you want to be a successful change-maker you must be a good change-manager.

I have watched economic developers and their leaders over the past 30 years and I absolutely agree with the woman who told me that change-making, as a leadership style, requires skill. From my experience in working with Penn State University with its new Leading Change Program (a leadership training program for rural economic development leaders), I believe that most economic developers and their board members could stand to brush up on their "working with people" skills.

Stay tuned.