About week ago, Jay Miller from Crain's Cleveland Business sent me an e-mail. He asked three questions about the Greater Cleveland Partnership. In the interests of promoting an open discussion about the activities of Cleveland's chamber of commerce, I reprint my responses to Jay's questions. He started by pointing out the the GCP points to NorTech and BioEnterprise and Team NEO as its economic development strategy.
JM: So I have a three-part question: Do you think those organizations (NorTech and BioEnterprise and Team NEO) are having a reasonable level of success in the areas they focus on?
EM: These organizations are having some success, but their regional impacts are relatively small. These organizations are slowly changing the dynamic of the relatively small footprint around Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.
Here is the rub. In some sense, you cannot have it both ways.
The GCP looks at these organizations and says, "Here are Greater Cleveland's economic development organizations".
The FFEF looks at the same organizations and says "Here are our regional (read 16 county) Northeast Ohio economic development organizations".
This confusion leads to misunderstanding. By "outsourcing" its economic development responsibilities to these organizations, GCP undercuts the utility of these organizations as neutral regional networks and reinforces the impression (and reality) that these organizations are "Cleveland-centric".
At the same time, there's good evidence to suggest that these organizations do not really invest much beyond a relatively narrow footprint around Cleveland. Finally, these organizations are relatively expensive to run, and not very transparent in their operations. No one is quite sure how all this fits together or what success looks like.
JM: Part two: Can GCP fairly share the credit for the successes of those organizations (or should it share the blame for their lack of success)?
EM: GCP can and should claim some success for these organizations, but that does not substitute for leadership in economic development and workforce development. The major challenge facing this region -- or any region -- is workforce development. The GCP is largely disengaged from education and workforce development. It's initiatives are small scale and hardly transformative.
At the same time, by claiming too much of the ownership of these regional organizations, GCP undercuts their regional utility. They are seen as captive to the interests of the Cleveland business community. (Out in the Mahoning Valley, they call this "Cleve-centrism".)
JM: And part 3: Is this stategy --of a central organization farming out tasks, an effective way (or the best way) for a chamber of commerce to operate (I realize as I write that that I'm not exactly sure if there is a particular role a chamber of commerce-like organization should play)?
EM: No. It's not a very effective strategy.
1. The strategy creates confusion. As I have suggested, this outsourcing approach engenders a lot of confusion in the region about these organizations. Greater Cleveland (Cleveland+) is not the region. The footprint of Greater Cleveland (Cleveland+) is Cuyahoga, Lake, Medina and (maybe) Lorain counties. (A recent Innovation Alliance between Lorain and Akron suggests that Lorain is looking more toward Akron than Cleveland.) Holding these organizations out as both Cleveland+ and Northeast Ohio (16-22 counties, depending how you count) initiatives creates a major disconnect.
Effective chambers (example: Oklahoma City, Atlanta) focus on setting a privately-led agenda for economic development and workforce development. Sadly, the GCP is not very good at doing that.
(Background: I developed the Oklahoma City Chamber strategy for economic development starting in 1994. I worked there for seven years as we implemented the strategy. OKC is now model of how a chamber should do economic development. In fact, a delegation from Milwaukee is visiting Oklahoma City this week. Learn more: http://www.okcchamber.com.)
2. The strategy is slow. The process of economic development in this region is slow. The convention center process has dragged on for ten years. The process is cock-eyed and the County has made major commitments to build a convention center Med Mart complex without a business plan in a very soft market. The GCP launched an expensive and ill-conceived effort to get casinos for a handful of Cleveland developers. That took about two years.
The idea of a design district is... well, I'm not sure where.
3. The strategy misses a major challenge in talent development. Meanwhile, major voids exist in education and workforce development strategies. The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County WIB operates with two staffs, despite a "merger" announced a couple of years ago. The GCP has no clear STEM education strategy, and no drop-out prevention strategy.
(About a year ago, I was teaching an advanced strategy lab at the Economic Development Institute. When I mentioned the problem of high school drop-outs, I noted that Cleveland's drop out rate was about 60%.
The head of economic development for the Austin Chamber was in my class. He raised his hand and asked: "If 60% does not startle the Cleveland business community, what will?")
By failing to demonstrate strong collaboration in workforce development, Cleveland lost out on the most innovative and flexible federal economic development program to come along in a generation: WIRED (Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development).
4. The strategy is not accountable or transparent. The fact that we are still spending time trying to figure out the GCP's strategy should tell you something. Leading regions publish clear metrics or scorecards telling everyone where they are heading. Transparency is important because without it, trust deteriorates.
Regions with strong networks of collaboration will be more competitive. They will learn faster. Spot opportunities faster. Align resources faster. Act faster. Transparency is critical to developing this trust.