Even more from Australia – Part 4
The last of lab director Ed Morrison’s thoughts from Australia (catch up with Parts 1, 2, 3)
The Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane, includes a number of small towns. It’s a village of villages. not surprisingly, each of these towns has a Chamber of Commerce. The challenge, of course, involves bringing these chambers to give it to work collaboratively for the benefit of the entire region. This idea has bounced around for over a year, but until we conducted a Strategic Doing workshop the chamber representatives were not making much progress.
In the space of a couple of hours, we defined a strategic agenda with outcomes and Pathfinder Projects. More importantly, we outlined a set of behaviors that the participants expect others to follow as they join the Chamber Alliance. Setting up these rules is important, because it enables members to focus on complex thinking, rather than being distracted by individual agendas. the drafting of a Statement of Mutual Commitment takes less than a half an hour. it follows the first rule of Strategic Doing: create a safe space.
Equally important, the chamber representatives align their agenda with a broader set of organizations all focused on making the Sunshine Coast the most entrepreneurial region in Australia. To further this work, we connected them with our partners at the Charleston Digital Court, where we will be conducting a training in February on how to create an innovation ecosystem.
Liz shepherds the expansion of the Lab’s programming and partnerships with other universities interested in deploying agile strategy tools. A co-author of Strategic Doing: 10 Skills for Agile Leadership, she also focuses on the development and growth of innovation and STEM education ecosystems, new tool development, and teaching Strategic Doing.