Have you noticed the number of publications hitting newsstands this month highlighting the need for more effective collaboration? What is behind this latest obsession with collaboration in business, politics and education?
It may be that tough times shift our mental models to reflect new shared realities. Perhaps, at some point, competition over a shrinking pie ceases to be a superior strategy to collaborating to grow the pie. Whatever the reason, something seems to be changing.
We might be tempted in good times to put our heads down, focus on the issues in front of us, and wait for notable things to happen. In difficult times, however, the “Lone Ranger” strategy fails to deliver sufficient innovations (without support from Tonto). This is true for both companies and communities. As Ted Abernathy, executive director of the Southern Growth Policies Board, points out, collaboration across sectors and regions is key to new jobs, investments, and economic opportunities.
In the coming months, IEI will be asking North Carolinians to collaborate to identify new pathways to opportunity for Generation Z. We will follow the footpath set by 2011 Emerging Issues Forum speaker Clayton Christensen and his coauthors in the book The Innovators DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators.
• Associating — drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated fields
• Questioning — posing queries that challenge common wisdom
• Observing — scrutinizing the behavior of others to identify new ways of doing things
• Networking — meeting people with different ideas and perspectives
• Experimenting — constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge
I am optimistic about what we can accomplish together, and ask that you begin by taking a moment to answer the questions in this brief survey on Generation Z.
There is still plenty of debate on whether collaboration is a boon or bane within and across organizations. Even when it works, we know it takes work: a willingness to listen, trust, patience and a commitment to see it through. While collaboration may be all the rage these days, we must not pretend it is easy. Then, why take the time? To leave a legacy of stronger, more comprehensive, and enduring solutions.
Anita
Learn more about collaboration’s benefits from Ted Abernathy.
On August 18, the Institute for Emerging Issues held a Business Focus Group with human resource professionals of companies representative of the Research Triangle Park Region. The goal was to gain insights into how employers are preparing for Generation Z as they begin to enter the workforce.
Generation Z will be age 18-30 in the year 2020, comprising a significant portion of the workforce, but focus group participants are already noticing generational differences in the workplace. Generation Z uses social media regularly, and seeks information through crowd sourcing with little regard for privacy between their personal and professional lives. They aren’t content with simply accomplishing tasks; Gen Z needs to understand how their work fits into the larger corporate vision. They are not particularly interested in doing things the way they have always been done, and look for new ways to solve old problems.
In a recent paper, IEI Faculty Fellow Terri Manning of Central Piedmont Community College identified several these workforce preference trends. Collectively, these trends indicate that companies can anticipate questions about their culture and work styles, and will need to think about how it might be adapted to keep talent.
Given these generational shifts, companies will have to develop new strategies to recruit, manage and retain their future workers. Focus group attendees noted that 50 percent of their workforce will likely retire in the next 10 years, and be replaced by this new generation. As skill requirements also change, employers will need to anticipate how to prepare and integrate Generation Z into their workforce.
In the months ahead, IEI will begin to wrestle with these issues, culminating in our 27th Annual Emerging Issues Forum on February 6-7 at the Raleigh Convention Center.
Stay tuned.
North Carolina continues to face significant fiscal challenges in the wake of the Great Recession. With limited resources for the foreseeable future, we must be thoughtful about our priorities and where trade-offs can be made. You can be a part of this conversation thanks to a new survey conducted by the Southern Growth Policies Board, National Association of State Budget Officers, and Southern Consortium of University Public Service Organizations.
Please take a few minutes to make sure your voice is heard on this issue affecting the future of North Carolina: take the survey.
Explore the issue further with IEI’s interactive North Carolina Tax Calculator and learn how our state’s budget challenges are being made worse by an outdated tax system.
The Institute for Emerging Issues’ work on creativity continues to resonate with communities throughout North Carolina. Over the past year, IEI along with N.C. Cooperative Extension (NCCES) and Regional Technology Strategies Inc. (RTS) engaged in a pilot project to strengthen the creativity economy in rural Anson and Stanly Counties. Citizens and community leaders are now taking action to develop a Taste of the Pee Dee Festival and encourage visual and performing arts venues in the region.
People from around the state have taken notice of this project and are energized by the potential that exists within the creative assets of their own community. In response to this high level of interest, IEI, NCCES, and RTS recently hosted a webinar for cooperative extension agents as a first step in replicating this initiative in other regions of North Carolina.
Over 40 people participated in the learning event representing a diverse cross-section of counties from Caldwell to Currituck. IEI explained the importance of creativity to economic development especially within the context of North Carolina’s future in the global economy. Participants also heard from extension agents and citizens who are directly working on the project in Anson and Stanly Counties.
The webinar is only the first step in bringing this type of project to other regions of the state. In September, NCCES is hosting a training session in Statesville to teach extension agents how to identify creative assets in their county and organize local leaders and citizens to build upon those assets in order to create jobs. IEI’s Creative Conversation Guide and RTS’ creative asset mapping handbook are important tools supporting this work and allowing individuals to translate ideas into action at the local level.
Learn more:
• IEI’s Work on Creativity
• Download IEI’s Creative Conversation Guide
• Anson-Stanly County Project Blog
The cost of healthcare is weighing down household and county budgets across the state. On Friday, August 19, IEI moderated a session, Better Health for a Better Bottom Line, to more than 40 county leaders at the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners annual conference in Concord, NC. The purpose of the session was to make the business case for better health (presented by IEI Faculty Fellow and health economist, Dr. David Chenoweth) and highlight successful strategies for improving health behaviors and outcomes in county worksites and communities (presented by Evan Sloan, Employee Health Promotions Coordinator for Nash County government, and Jackie Sergent, Health Promotion Coordinator for the Granville-Vance District Health Department). View session slides
IEI also demonstrated an an interactive county health tool, Community health: Raising the Bar, that can assist policy makers in determining where to best allocate limited resources for greater economic – and health – impacts.
North Carolina League of Municipalities Annual Conference
When: Saturday, October 22, 2011 – Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Where: Raleigh Convention Center
More info: http://www.nclm.org/meetings-training/Pages/Annual-Conference.aspx
If you go: Be sure to check out IEI’s presentations at two of the concurrent sessions: “Making Sense of the Census” and “Creativity as an Economic Development Strategy”
Each week, IEI will be hosting a discussion on Twitter with, and about, Generation Z. Join us: #NCGenZ
