Speaker Provided Lots of Thought Food for Community Building

Lee Bussell was in Hartsville the other day. Lee is CEO of S. C. largest marketing communications agency and an active citizen in Columbia, SC and the State. He shared some thoughts at an All-Member luncheon sponsored by the Hartsville Chamber.

We really needed to have another 50 or so people in the room to hear some of the exciting ideas that Lee shared but most importanly so that those exciting ideas could ignite some thinking that would help Hartsville better envision its growth.

I was not taking notes, so this is not a verbatim account of Lee's talk but rather some of the connections that I was making while he discussed the direction they have been taking in Columbia.

** One idea I like a lot was the "Good to Great" committee that they established. His key message here was that this committee is working toward defined metrics for committee performance and working toward defining the core idea of Columbia. If you are one of the few who has not read the Jim Collins book, his central message is for an organization to adhere to a "Hedgehog Concept." In short, this concept is to determine what your organization can do better than any other organization and focucs all activity on making that happen. I don't think we have determined this in Hartsville and would love to see that type of discussion taking place.

** Another key message that was included in this talk was the need to build from existing strengths. He suggested that most successful community building efforts are not inventing something from nothing. During his talk he happened to mention biofuels and that got me thinking about Hartsville's strengths as a community built on agriculture, manufacturing and education and how well the concept of biofuels seem to fit this core of basic strengths.

** So, we often talk about our core and our strenghts in this small town but few of us in our various organizations put these strengths (and weaknesses) on paper where we might let them mix together to help ignite some creativity. Education is one of our strengths. We have a four-year college that provides an excellent college education for hundreds of students and most of them are from this area. We have the Governor's School for Science and Math, which provides a superior high-school education for juniors and seniors from schools across the state. We are fortunate to have a strong technical college that works closely with industry and others (Florence-Darlington) and we have pretty strong support for the public education system. But, I think this is an exercise for a cross-responsible group that could determine what they were going to deliver and then deliver as the first step in laying out a VISION for our area.

** One of the quotes that often gets into talks I give around the community comes from something the former CEO of Sonoco often repeated inside and outside the company. That uote is, "When you stop getting better, you stop being good." One way that Lee Bussell highlighted this state of affairs was to note that 15 to 20 years ago Columbia, SC, Austin, TX, and Raleigh, NC, were about the same size municipalities. Can you guess which of those communities had the highest income ratio? Back then it was ......Columbia, South Carolina. Today, Columbia only wishes it could compete in the same area as Austin and Raleigh. There is a moral to that story for Hartsville and one that we need to wrap our heads and hearts around before it is too late.

** Some things are happening in this town and there are several projects that might be on the verge. Is there a connection? Is there a thread that brings them together? This is where that vision thing comes in again and while there may be a thread, it is pretty thin and not very visible to many in the community.

** Another major part of Lee's message is the same refrain we heard from Rich Harwood when he was in town to talk about the role that citizens must play in their communities. According to Harwood, it is the citizens who can make positive things and positive change happen. Also, according to Harwood and to Bussell, it is only those citizens who will make the change happen because other people have other priorities and really don't care all that much about Hartsville, or, for Lee - Columbia. So, who are those citizens who should be joining together to make things happen?

** Building community and building communities within a community is the work of the citizens of that community. It is OUR job. Let's do it!