The Relevance of Community Strategic Planning in Corporate Location Decision-Making

In recent years, many communities have been encouraged to invest in “greenfield” development sites as a way to attract large manufacturing and distribution operations. This is also taking place at a time when such businesses are changing the way they make decisions about where to locate and expand. These business decisions have far-reaching implications for communities. Some businesses may decide to visit and negotiate for community incentives; others may want to know what communities are doing to improve the business climate. However, these incentives alone may not secure a relocation or expansion project for the community. It is becoming apparent that businesses are also interested in the contents of a community’s strategic plan.

A community’s strategic plan might not seem important. However, when it considers things such as a community’s workforce, business attraction and retention approaches, and an integration of economic and community development, the plan can be very helpful in expediting the site selection process.

How can strategic planning help businesses decide where to locate?

Companies look for employees with experience in cutting-edge manufacturing, robotics, and other fields. A strategic plan enables community leaders to bring existing key business and educational institution leaders together to discuss each other’s needs and find solutions for them.

Community members participate in community strategic planning process

Community members share in the community strategic planning process.

Although attracting new businesses is a common economic development strategy, research indicates that about 80 percent of all new jobs in a community come from existing businesses. A strategic plan that takes into account the need to retain and expand a community’s existing businesses may indicate to potential new businesses that the community is dedicated to assisting its businesses to become more competitive.

Companies want to see how communities foster social and economic integration by the way they plan to address local issues such as housing, education, healthcare, and cultural diversity. They also want to see how all stakeholders — residents, community-based organizations, public agencies, and the private sector — work together to promote residents and community quality of life.

Fayette County, Ohio recently revised and updated its strategic plan to provide a vision and a vehicle for creating short- and long-term community and economic growth for residents and businesses in the community. The vision considered all the vital elements: workforce, business attraction and retention, and importance of integration of economic and community development. The community’s workforce plan involves implementing youth workforce programs, including a Manufacturing Day Tour and a Career Expo for high school students.

The community’s business retention and expansion strategies support and develop existing businesses. This pro-business attitude can add to the attractiveness of the community as an excellent environment for new businesses. Most importantly, the community has nearly 1800 acres of “greenfield” development acreage (1,600 acres for the county and 200 acres for the City of Washington Court House). These “greenfield” development sites have infrastructure, including utilities and water, available on site for investors seeking a business location.

Community strategic planning has helped in Fayette County. How might it help in your community?

Reference:

http://www.areadevelopment.com/corporate-site-selection-factors/Q4-2017/importance-of-community-strategic-planning-location-decision.shtml


Apaliyah, GodwinGodwin Tayese Apaliyah is an Extension educator in Fayette County.

Doing and dreaming: A good plan makes a space for both

“Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.” You might be wondering what this quote from Ludwig van Beethoven has to do with community development.  What I hear in the musical master’s words is the process of creating order from chaos; he is crafting incredible harmony from a storm of strong, independent, unconnected notes. To me, that’s an analogy for good planning – strategic planning.

In fact, developing and implementing a good strategic plan can help an organization take control of the chaos and set itself on a path of identifying and achieving its goals. In addition to goals, most successful plans have a few common elements, including a vision and a mission.

Why does an organization need both a mission and a vision? Aren’t they really the same thing? Well, no, they’re not – and they’re both an important part of successful planning and work.

North Star

All the stars of the northern sky appear to rotate around the North Star.

A mission is a concise statement that explains why the organization exists, answering some basic questions: What do we do? Who do we serve? How does that improve things? Tapping into the passion of the employees, volunteers, and partners, a mission statement reflects why this organization and its work is important. Much like the North Star, a mission statement is always visible, allowing the people of the organization to continually realign themselves to remain on the right path. A mission statement expresses the work that the organization is doing today.

A vision is less about doing and more about dreaming. Vision statements outline the desired future, as expressed by the organization. Possibilities, hopes, innovations – these are the lifeblood of vision statements. A vision should be aspirational and reflect a world that is possible (by the good and successful work of the organization) in the future.

Here’s another way to consider mission and vision statements. Think of a missionary. The work of a missionary is immediate, on the ground, working directly with people and communities to improve their situations. The missionary knows his/her purpose and is directing energy into achieving that objective. Conversely, a visionary is someone who focuses on the future –envisioning what could be. While a visionary is aware of the current situation, he/she is contemplating the best-case possibilities that may exist in the future.

Does your organization have some chaos it would like to tame? OSU Extension has skilled facilitators to help your team create a strategic plan that has its feet firmly in the present and its eyes focused on a hopeful future. For more information, visit go.osu.edu/seekexcellence.


Becky Nesbitt is an Assistant Professor and Extension Educator in Community Development with OSU Extension.

Considering Perspective

My brother Bill’s birthday is approaching. He’s three years younger than I am, but probably 10 years wiser. He’s my best friend… and often keeps me balanced when things get crazy. (Think: overscheduling, kids driving, etc.) In addition, he is really good at bringing perspective.

three dimensional drawing

A three dimensional drawing suggests depth or distance.

Perspective is defined as “a particular way of regarding something.” In drawing or painting, it’s a way of portraying three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface by suggesting depth or distance.

In our often complex Extension work, perspective is a tool that can yield valuable, tangible results if we employ it correctly. For example, let’s say we’re helping a small business, non-profit, or local government agency do some strategic planning. Our very presence brings an outside perspective—an “etic” as defined in the social science research literature (see Pike, 1967). This perspective contrasts with the “emic” (or internal view) that people, groups, and organizations inherently hold. Morris, et al (1999) described the emic/etic perspectives in terms of cultural phenomena. But the construct holds in strategic planning which is, of course, set within an organization’s culture.

In practice, some consultants will (falsely) jump to the conclusion that the emic perspective is clouded by insiders being too involved to clearly see and articulate a solution (e.g., not being able to see the forest because of the trees in the way). But be cautious of this thinking. It can land short. The consultant might advise the organization to abandon “process X” in favor of “process Z”… wreaking havoc at multiple levels.

Instead, I suggest a combined approach. Use your outside etic perspective to gather data, observe systemic processes, and look for solutions to suggest. But first, ask your client for their internal emic view. Then, you can overlay your perspective and co-construct a better overall solution together.

References:

Morris, et al (1999), Views from Inside and Outside: Integrating Emic and Etic Insights About Culture and Justice Judgment. Academy of Management Review. 1999, Vol. 24. No. 4, 781-796.

Pike, Kenneth Lee (ed.) (1967), Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of Structure of Human Behavior (2nd ed.), The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton.

Perspective figure source: Creative Commons https://mrsswansonsclass.wikispaces.com/Perspective


Brian Raison is an Assistant Professor & Extension Field Specialist in Community and Organizational Leadership. Brian Raison

15 minutes could save your … strategic plan

We’ve all experienced it, or heard about it. A team spends weeks or months developing a strategic plan, and nothing happens with it after the glossy document gets printed. Why does this great new plan just sit on the shelf gathering dust? Business scholars over the past two decades have been researching why plans fail to be implemented.1 The overarching theme of their conclusions: people resist change. How do we address this challenge? Through a structured plan for execution. Your team needs to commit to the plan, yet they are busy with their daily duties (the “whirlwind”) and they don’t take time to focus on the strategic plan.

WIGs 2018-02-04An effective execution plan starts with committing to a series of 15-minute segments on planning and implementing the strategic plan. Franklin Covey’s 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX)2 is one formula to follow. The four disciplines are:

  1. Select one or two “wildly important goals” (WIG) that drive your strategic plan and can be measured and tracked.
  2. Identify the activities that lead to achieving the WIG(s), ones that your team can influence.
  3. Create a compelling scoreboard: simple, visible to the team, shows the lead and lag measures, and tells immediately if you are winning.
  4. Establish a weekly cadence of accountability in which each team member commits to working on one or two of the lead activities as well as reports on the efforts toward the WIG.

This 4DX plan is easy to implement by committing to 15-minute segments for each discipline:

  1. 15 minutes to identify and establish your WIG from your strategic plan. If you need two WIGs, spend another 15 minutes on the second one.
  2. 15 minutes per WIG to list all of the leading activities required to meet your WIG.
  3. 15 minutes to determine how you will show (scoreboard) the team’s progress toward leading activities and WIG and where it will be displayed.
  4. 15 minutes per week – the same day/time each week – for the accountability meeting.

We facilitated a strategic plan for one of our clients a year ago. After following up with them to see their progress, they reported that the leadership team implemented a few goals but felt they needed our help to really drive the plan throughout their organization with all employees. They embraced 4DX and are starting to see results.

This works! Try it, and let me know how it works for you.

If you need help in setting up your 4DX plan, the Alber Enterprise Center can show you how. Call 740-725-6325.

(Submitted by Myra Wilson, Program Director, Alber Enterprise Center at Marion)

1:

Govindarajan, V., & Trimble, C. (2010). The other side of innovation: solving the execution challenge. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Gudmundsson, H., Ericsson, E., Tight, M., Lawler, M., Envall, P., Figueroa, M., et al. (2012). The role of decision support in the implementation of “sustainable transport” plans. European Planning Studies, 20(2), 171-191.

Hahn, W., & Powers, T. (2010). Strategic plan quality, implementation capability, and firm performance. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 9(1), 63-81.

Kotter, J. (1996). Leading change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Larian, L., Day, M., Backhurst, M., Berke, P., Ericksen, N., Crawford, J., et al. (2004). What drives plan implementation? Plans, planning agencies and developers. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 47(4), 555-577.

2:

McChesney, C., Covey, S., & Huling, J. (2012).  The 4 disciplines of execution: achieving your wildly important goals.  New York:  Free Press.