Is Your Community Change-Ready? Eight MORE Questions Leaders Should Ask Themselves (Part 2 of 2)

Previously, we talked about laying the groundwork for revitalizing your community. Change readiness is crucial for success in this area. I have always believed that life rewards action, but it also rewards preparation. When you spend enough time thinking through and anticipating issues beforeyou take action, you set yourself up for success.

Our earlier post covered some questions community to get leaders thinking about their change-readiness. Here are eight more questions for leaders to consider:

Are we reinventing the wheel? Know what right looks like, and when you find it in another community, harvest their best practices. Pensacola leaders visited Asheville, NC, which has a thriving downtown, and learned how they did it. They also benchmarked Charleston, SC, Greenville, SC, Savannah, GA, Beloit, WI, and Portland, ME.

Are we trying to do too much at once? Being passionate about change is great, but better to start small and slowly build momentum. When a community moves forward with small methodical steps, those add up to what Malcolm Gladwell calls the tipping point—that point where a series of small changes becomes big enough to cause a larger, more meaningful change.

Do we have the right leadership team in place? Identify key players in the community and get clear on their roles. Choose residents who have skin in the game. Look to those Jim Clifton, author of The Coming Jobs War, calls “tribal leaders.” These are the people who may not have a formal position but are seen as leaders in a community: attorneys, architects, accountants, religious and civic leaders, and so forth.

Do we have a burning platform? Even the most compelling data won’t inspire people to act. They make decisions with their heart, not their head. A community must find the burning platformthat compels citizens to act. In Pensacola it was, How can we keep our children and grandchildren from leaving home?Once leaders framed issues this way, they finally got enough people behind the needed changes to achieve critical mass.

Have we done everything possible to engage citizens (and, even more important, KEEP them engaged)? Engaged citizens are far more likely to trust you, get behind initiatives, take ownership, and make change happen. So think of ways to educate, include, and communicate with citizens. Studer Community Institutecreated the Pensacola Center for Civic Engagementto teach them how government works and how to advocate for change. It also joined forces with thePensacola News Journalto create a speaker’s series called CivicCon—short for “Civic Conversation”—featuring leading thinkers and experts on community building. Each one attracts thousands of attendees and viewers.

Are we committed to inclusion? Make sure people of all races, genders, sexual orientations, ages, and economic levels are part of the decision-making process. This improves buy-in and across-the-board engagement, which is necessary to create vibrancy. Economic inclusion is also important. For example, Pensacola used a Covenant for the Community to guarantee that contractors would use local minorities in the revitalization of downtown.

Have we taken steps to galvanize our small business community? Don’t just make it easy to start a business; also help new owners keep it going. Communities can bring businesses together to teach and learn from each other. Pensacola holds monthly training and development workshops, small business “roundtables,” and even an annual business conference (EntreCon). Once you galvanize the army of citizens who are business owners, they’ll be your catalysts for change and your sustainers.

Do we have a solid plan for creating a vibrant downtown? Typically this is “ground zero” in a community’s revitalization. To attract businesses and talent, you must have a walkable, livable, vibrant downtown with lots of great restaurants, shops, fun activities, and trendy residential areas. Young people, in particular, want to live, work, and play in the same area. When you start by revitalizing your downtown, it gets people activated and sparks growth in the rest of the community.

These aren’t all the questions you need to explore, but they’re a good start. They’ll get you thinking and problem-solving early on, rather than jumping in, hoping for the best, and (inevitably) having to fix mistakes that could have been avoided.

When you do the thinking and the strategic work up front, things get rolling and sort of take on a life of their own. There’s nothing better than watching a community come to life and seeing people get excited about the future.