The Best of Chuck and Quint: 9 Takeaways from This Week’s Webinar
Earlier this week, Chuck Marohn and I cohosted a webinar titled Thriving on the Other Side: How Your Community Can Recreate Vibrancy After COVID-19 and a Q&A.
It was a pleasure to be around a group of likeminded community builders and I ended up feeling very hopeful about the future. Today, I want to share with you a few points of discussion that caught my attention during the webinar and that I found myself thinking about afterward.
• A healthy community culture is paramount right now. How citizens feel about their community will likely determine their destiny. Communities need to see themselves as pioneers with opportunity, not victims. You need a healthy culture to exchange ideas if you’re to collaborate effectively. If you can’t work together you can’t possibly solve the big problems, execute on important things, or take advantage of opportunity. The stakes are too high right now for anything less.
One rule for a healthy culture: Don’t allow anonymity or accept wild generalities. Instead, make people carry their own messages. (Saying “everyone says” or “everyone feels this way” is rarely true. Keep pressing until you find out who “everyone” is. It might be two or three people.)
• If you are a leader with a message, say it 13 times. That’s the magic number (according to Chuck) that it takes for it to become embedded knowledge with people. Sometimes we get tired of saying the same things and assume that people are tired of hearing it, but Chuck encourages us to continue to repeat our messages with a high degree of humility and by starting where people are (with a realization that many are in different places).
• On the restart, be flexible and willing to experiment. Everyone realizes we’re not going back to “normal.” We have to find new and better ways to do things. Use this as a reset. Those who experiment with different ideas will likely hit on the best solution. Look at your zoning. Does it still make sense for where we are now? Take the lead from private sector and focus on innovation. Here are some ideas: Consider closing the downtowns to cars to allow for more outdoor seating, try a drive thru farmers market, turn your unused baseball stadium into the world’s largest open air restaurant…just try some things you haven’t tried before. You can always call it a “pilot.” If it doesn’t work, that’s okay.
Look to other communities for ideas. Many have gotten really creative and are doing cool things. Keep your eyes and ears to the ground so you can harvest things from other communities and be sure to share your ideas as well.
While we don’t know what will happen on the other side, we do know that people will figure out new and probably better ways of doing things (and many already are). You just need the free flow of ideas.
• Measurement really matters and communities want the tools to do it. I got several requests from people on the webinar for community assessments, our Quality of Life Survey, and other metric tools we talked about. If you can’t measure you can’t diagnose. If you can’t diagnose you can’t treat. Be sure to measure outcomes, not transactions or activity—i.e. don’t measure the number of permits issued. Instead consider measuring things like assessed property values or outside investment.
Pick the metrics that make sense for your community. It is not a one size fits all. Connect measurement to your specific goals.
Let the results speak for themselves. Don’t try to spin them. In Pensacola, our Quality of Life Survey is handled by the Pensacola Young Professionals. This gets them engaged in the community and promotes civic engagement and the community likes it because they are apolitical and it gives a different level of authenticity. After all, they are going to inherit the community, so the decisions we make now will determine what gets handed to them.
• Civic education is more crucial than ever. The only change that will succeed long term is citizen-powered change. Without widespread and enthusiastic buy-in, initiatives will fail. Civic education makes everything so much easier. It gives you a common language and helps people understand the why behind the changes you’re asking them to make.
• Healthy small businesses are the backbone of the community. Communities often chase the big whale and try to attract the big companies, but building a community brick by brick with healthy small businesses is a much more sustainable strategy. Do everything you can to help make them successful.
• People want fiscal accountability attached to government investment. They want to help companies stay afloat but want to make sure they are viable in the long run. They don’t want to bail out companies (no matter what size) if they aren’t well run.
• Communities need a leadership bench as much as companies do. Chuck pointed out that the reason Pensacola has done so well with its revitalization is that many different people have been involved in the movement. The more people involved in driving change, the better. It takes lots of minds and voices to build a strong community. Plus, it’s a big job. It’s not likely that a handful of people could really do it well.
• Being a small community can be an advantage. You can pivot more quickly and experiment with things more readily. In small communities, you tend to have better access to decision makers and can move quickly. You also have a better chance of making a difference. Small communities are also incredibly progressive. Some of the ideas I got in email feedback were things you might see in big cities. They are incredibly innovative because they have to be.
Nobody knows what communities will look like on the other side of this, but I’m incredibly optimistic. I’m already seeing innovative ideas and creative solutions being floated. Necessity is the father of invention! Things we have talked about doing for years will get accelerated and that might not be a bad thing. I’m also seeing a surge in localism, which is always good for communities and a collaborative spirit that will surely tie us together in a really productive way. Always grateful for my time with Chuck and the Strong Towns community.
Cover image via Unsplash.
About the Author
Quint Studer is author of Building a Vibrant Community: How Citizen-Powered Change Is Reshaping America and Wall Street Journal bestseller The Busy Leader’s Handbook: How to Lead People and Places That Thrive. He is founder of Pensacola’s Studer Community Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on improving the community’s quality of life, and Vibrant Community Partners, which coaches communities in building out a blueprint for achieving growth and excellence. Quint speaks and works with communities across the country, helping them execute on their strategic plans, create a better quality of life, and attract and retain talent and investment. He is a businessman, a visionary, an entrepreneur, and a mentor to many. He currently serves as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of West Florida, Executive-in-Residence at George Washington University, and Lecturer at Cornell University.
For more information, please visit www.thebusyleadershandbook.com, www.vibrantcommunityblueprint.com, and www.studeri.org.
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