Cultivating Economic Growth through Culture Development

With the political season in full stride–or perhaps full tilt depending on your perspective–it’s hard to get away from the varying and often divergent ideas about how best to cultivate economic growth for the next decade. It’s appropriate that the public debates focus on regulation, taxes, trade agreements, and the like. It also reminds me that there is a lot we can do inside the business community which has little to do with a discussion about policy. Cultivating economic growth through culture development is one thing business communities should do.

Small business/entrepreneurship is one area where I hope we will continue to look for creative solutions. Any way you slice it, small business is enormous. It comprises more than half of U.S. jobs and about two-thirds of job growth over the last four decades (stats from U.S. Small Business Administration). What can we do to accelerate growth in this sector, and who can cultivate these efforts? Where are the grassroots solutions?

Doorways into this community often include the chambers of commerce, the tech and entrepreneurial incubators, and the economic development associations, among others. This is a place to start.

One year ago, the Baker Strategy Group surveyed over 2,000 members from +150 business associations (mostly chambers of commerce) spread across the US and Canada. The survey asked participants about a wide range of factors that might help to foster economic development. The 2016 results pointed to these four as the best predictors of a positive economic outlook:

• At the company level, articulating a vision of the future
• At the company level, setting a culture that is an example of high performance
• At the regional level, a culture that embraces entrepreneurship
• At the state level, a vibrant surrounding economy

Bad news, individual companies can’t control their regional culture and state economy, at least not directly or on a daily basis. Good news, they can set a clear vision and develop a productive culture inside their own businesses. And research is quite clear about the positive impact this can have. For example, did you know that a vision which creates excitement and motivation is the single best cultural predictor of how engaged employees are (see Research by Denison)?

Good leaders know this intuitively, but most aren’t born ready to communicate their vision in a way that inspires others. Leaders often need coaching to do this well. Plus, a vision on its own, without a corresponding business plan and the systems for managing performance, can be easily dismissed by employees as ‘pie in the sky’. Leaders often need guidance to do these things too.

Following from these insights, perhaps business communities and associations should get more active in providing culture development services to their member organizations. Some already are, such as the Pittsburgh Technology Council (PTC), which serves as a central hub for +1,000 tech firm members–small, medium, and large–in the greater Pittsburgh region.

Michael Couch, Ph.D., a recognized thought leader and culture consultant, who is working with the PTC in support of their culture program, described how “the PTC can support culture development by starting a conversation with its members about high-performance culture–what it is and what it isn’t–and championing culture benchmarking.” He hopes that, over time, the program “will allow for a community in which to share culture success stories that can help individual companies to implement thoughtful actions that drive business performance.”

It would seem that communities supporting the tech industry, inclusive of councils like the PTC as well as tech towns and incubators–could be a receptive petri dish for experimenting and scaling effective culture-focused solutions. After all, fostering a culture that supports the business strategy seems more reachable after charting a course to Mars or putting driverless cars on the road!

The same could be true of regional chambers of commerce, which could serve as access points to resources, education, and networking around culture development.

Paul Wright, Ed.D., three-time chamber President in the Bay area, described how getting intentional about culture development could allow the chambers to be more relevant when it comes to helping members to grow their business. “It’s all about value. With social media, it’s gotten harder for the chambers to compete purely on the benefit of networking and business development. If they could help their members see that culture matters–factually and quantifiably–and then become a platform for developing their cultures, that would be remarkable!”

Paul also reminded me that chambers too are organizations, and that there has always been tremendous power in their leading and teaching others through their own example. “It’s one thing for the association to go out and say to members, you should do this. It’s another for them to set the tone by taking steps to improve their own culture and the service provided to members.”

...

On November 9th, we’ll all wake up and decide to keep on trucking, whichever way it goes down. Most of the business people I know will continue to look inside themselves and their companies at what they can do to cultivate growth. When it comes to culture, wouldn’t it would be cool if they could also look to their business community?

.....

If the survey data cited in this article is of interest, please stay tuned for the results of the 2017 economic outlook survey, scheduled to launch data collection on November 15, 2016. For more information, contact David Baker and visit www.outlooksurvey.com