Sustainable Activity

For years our leaders have been telling us “If you want something done, give us more money public or private. We know what to do and will do it for you.” And for years they put together a strategic plan which gets packaged nicely and put on the shelf next to all of the other strategic plans. Occasionally we listen to someone who tells us that he can think out of the box and will do the right things for us. He ends up making the decisions for us and we gain no capability for sustainability because we have not increased our own abilities.

Occasionally someone comes in and listens to us and our ideas and then goes off and picks what he feels are the best ideas, decides what to do, and tells us to do it. There is a tremendous value placed upon both the people and organizations with money and the money itself. We need to enlarge our thinking to place a greater value on brain power of each of us. We need to value more the individual efforts of smaller organizations working together. We have non-profit organizations that are jockeying for control, growing or sustaining their own fiefdoms. They are spending their energies and monies on protecting themselves rather than furthering their missions.

We need to listen to the wonderful ideas that are being put forward. Then we need to align the ideas in focused initiatives. Empowering all to work together behind these initiatives creates the ability to move forward with lower cost and greater speed. Building trust in getting initiatives done builds sustainability. Sustainability builds a stronger economy.