Controlling Your Community’s Future

Stephen R. Covey, in his bestselling book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, speaks of the concept of two spheres that he refers to as the Circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence.

Covey submits that from the perspective of an individual, people can be concerned with a variety of issues that they may or may not have any ability to influence or control. Furthermore, Covey states that effective people focus their energies upon efforts and issues that they can control and positively affect.

The same is true for communities.

That is, communities, seeking to improve their economic condition and overall quality of life, will frequently engage in an economic development strategic planning and implementation process.

Communities that focus their efforts on their own Circle of Influence rather than their entire Circle of Concern will be the communities that are the most successful.
Every day, communities face trends and dynamics that they cannot control: prices for fuel and energy, federal policies on land management, international tariffs affecting commodity prices, etc.

Communities that spend time working to influence the largely uncontrollable factors will find their time wasted. Rather, communities should focus upon strategies and implementation activities that they can positively influence: the quality and attractiveness of local public facilities and amenities, the capacity of local infrastructure and land availability, and the approach in which a community purposefully presents and markets itself, for example.

In his upcoming book, Building Communities: 25 Strategies to Advance America, author and economic development specialist Brian Cole presents an entire economic development methodology totally controlled by community leaders.

“In this day and age of globalization, high unemployment rates, and economic uncertainty, it is good to know that local communities still can define and enact a positive future,” said Cole. “The Building Communities methodology does just that.”
Cole presents 85 key success factors for successful economic development.

Communities assess whether they have a comparative advantage with respect to each of the factors in order to identify economic development strategies that they can successfully implement under their own control.