Yesterday, in a conversation with a friend, I had a chance to recall how some of the basic practices of Strategic Doing emerged from my work in rural counties in Kentucky and Louisiana.
By the mid-1990s, the pressures of globalization were hitting rural counties hard, especially in the South. The reason was simple. In the first wave of industrial decentralization after World War II, manufacturers moved from major urban centers to low-cost locations, mostly in the rural South. (This migration actually started during World War II, but the construction of the Interstate Highway System accelerated the move.)
In the early 1980's U.S. multinational companies began developing global manufacturing networks. (During these early years of the 1980's, I was working for a corporate strategy consulting firm, and much of my work with clients like General Electric involved shutting down U.S. plants and moving them to low cost locations, like Mexico.)
By the 1990s, the inexorable pressures of globalization pushed more of these manufacturers to even lower-cost locations offshore. Southern counties saw an accelerating loss of shoe, textile and apparel plants, in much the same way that the New England states lost their manufacturing base a generation earlier.
For seven years, beginning in the early 1990s, I led an initiative for the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, called their community assessment program. Under this initiative, we assembled teams of volunteer economic development professionals to conduct two-day assessments in Kentucky's poorer counties. These were places left largely untouched by the prosperity emerging in Kentucky's metro areas.
We conducted 3 to 4 assessments a year. We would move into the county for two days and compile a strategic action plan. Six months later, we scheduled a follow-up visit. Over the years, we conducted 23 assessments. The Cabinet later determined that 18 of these assessments led to measurable progress.
We were successful because we focused our strategies on the basic principles that now shape Strategic Doing. First, we leveraged the competitive strengths of the county. We started our assessment with a focus on assets. We built our strategies around people with a track record for getting something done.
Second, we quickly defined clear outcomes, measurable results, and next steps. Our assessments were not "visioning" sessions. They were strategy sessions designed to focus on a limited number of potentially transformative initiatives.
Third, we built a narrative. Stories help us understand the complexity we face. Building a strategy really amounts to telling a story. We designed these narratives quickly -- over a period of two days -- to demonstrate that the process of developing a strategic action plan does not take weeks or months. The authenticity of these narratives played a large role in keeping people focused and moving forward.
So, for example, in Estill County, we identified the importance of strengthening the leadership base within the community. In Spencer County, we brought together a new network of leaders determined to preserve the rural character of the county against the relentless pressures of ex-urban sprawl.
In Lewis County, Kentucky we confronted the very serious problem of a shoe factory closure which left largely illiterate factory workers unemployed. In Pike County, we leveraged the strength of the regional hospital to develop new initiatives for transformation. In Ohio County, we confronted the challenge of strengthening the civic habits of collaboration without which not much is possible.
Throughout these experiences, I confronted the gritty details that often determine whether a strategy works or not: a self-absorbed county judge, an economic development professional with a drinking problem, business leaders unwilling to talk to each other, political leaders trying to undercut each other, tightfisted elites unwilling to change.
I took many of the lessons that I was learning in Kentucky and applied them to my work in Louisiana.
- In Ascension Parish, Louisiana, the strategy process focused on building momentum for the enactment of parish wide zoning. To cut through the fear that surrounded enactment of a zoning ordinance, we defined clear outcomes.
- In West Feliciana Parish, we addressed the challenge of an outdated parish government largely controlled by the descendants of the planter class.
- In Ouachita Parish, we confronted the racial challenges of crafting a shared strategy. Through it all, I learned that -- now matter how desperate the situation appears at first -- you can find the threads you need to weave a new picture of the future.
Here is an example of the strategic action plans that I generated with my colleagues to give you some sense of the rural roots of Strategic Doing.
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