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2001 Conference - Rotorua
Peter Kenyon - Keynote
Address
Learning Regions - Building
Enterprising and Sustainable Regions through Collaboration and
Partnership
>>Presentation Notes
 Contents
Introduction - Hon Dover Samuels
It is a pleasure to be here today at this international forum in
my capacity as the Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Minister of
Economic Development.
I also extend a warm welcome to one and all here today and trust
that the last few days have been an inspiration to you all. This
conference provides an important platform for individuals and groups
to work on steadily improving the growth and development of our
country's regional economy. Empowering our regions will lead to
strong national economy.
I now have the honour of introducing Peter Kenyon to you, but
before I do, allow me the grace of informing you as to what this
bloke is about. Peter is a social entrepreneur and community
optimist and I'm sure he will explain what that means to you in his
speech. He is committed to the goal of building resilient and
healthy communities. Over the last decade Peter has undertaken
assignments in over 600 communities throughout Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa and the USA. He worked on the design and
implementation of the Community Employment Development Unit in New
Zealand, the forerunner of Community Employment Group. In Northland,
which is the region I represent, we have long recognised the
importance of the community and how we make things change in terms
of our own economic development future.
There is a small town in the far north - and I am sure that many
of you have passed through that town - and the town is called
Moerewa, and I know that you have passed through it to come up to a
paradise in the far north called Matari Bay. So if you ever come up
there make sure you stop off and have a look at Moerewa and you will
see the major changes that community has brought about in terms of
the challenges and in terms of their contribution of their community
to uplift, not just the cultural aspects or social aspects of that
community, but in fact to create jobs for themselves.
With the initiatives that are provided by the Government, that
community is a model to communities which in the past I believed
were depressed. It is a predominately Maori community and perhaps
sometime when you are up, call in and talk to the people and you
will see the changes that have been brought about in that community.
Peter Kenyon is the founder and director of the Bank of Ideas in
Australia. I asked him where he was from and he told me that he was
from a special place in western Australian and I said to him well
I've been there, I was in Australia for 21 years, and I said I am
happy to have you back here and I am happy to share Australian ideas
with tangata whenua. The Bank of Ideas supports and facilitates
programmes in the fields of local economical development, small town
vitalisation, youth participation and enterprise. Peter has also
recently completed his fourteenth book in the field of community and
economic development, namely The Small Town Renewal Kit.
Peter seeks fresh and creative ways to stimulate and inspire novel
approaches to community and economic renewal. Today I am sure he is
going inspire and challenge us with his ideas.
Introduction
I really don't come here with any particular expertise in the
area of regional development. I happen to be just a bloke from a
small country town in Western Australia. But what I am very, very
committed to and passionate about is what we are doing, certainly in
rural, remote and regional Australia. I love in particular to always
start off with a little bit - particularly when there is government
conference - of anti-bureaucracy humour. And I love this particular
farm humour: [Cartoon of farmer leaning on fence and man in suit
getting out of a car] "Good morning I'm Alex Lowe I'm seconded
special project liaison officer in the regional coordination
statistic unit of the rural research division of the department of
agricultural" - "Yep and I'm Bill". And I really just
want association with Bill in this particular kind of cartoon.
Can I say I am really excited to be here, to be speaking about a
theme that I believe passionately in. And that's very much: how do
we start to build enterprising and healthily communities and
regions? I believe it is one of those themes that certainly is
addressing both leaders of our nations, certainly in my country.
Regional development has taken off in a major way as a national
focus. Just recently we have had the launch of what's called the
Stronger Regions Package - and that builds upon the whole series of
initiatives the current Government put in place over the last three
years. We have regional action programmes that have put in place
area consultative committees now in 57 of our regions across the
country, where people from the community and from industry are
coming together to put in place the whole series of initiatives.
Urban Drift
I suppose the thing that I am still amazed at, is simply the fact
that there tends to be a lack of freshness in many of our ideas. We
tend to continue, in regional Australia, to do what was always done.
And we are continuing to get what we have always got. Currently 12%
of our population living outside the capital cities live in areas of
declining economic activity. That is one in eight people who live in
rural Australia. In terms of the demographics we are seeing
phenomenal shift and movement out of regional Australia into the
cities. A hundred years ago when we celebrated federation, in fact
55% of our population actually lived on farms and in small towns and
only 37% of our population lived in what is now the state and
national capital. But over 100 years we have seen a 180-degree spin,
and today less than 12% of people actually live in outback and rural
Australia. In fact 71% of Australians now live in ten cities. We are
the most urban country in the world after Belgium, and 80% of our
population in Australia actually live within 50 km of the coast. We
are just urban and are increasingly becoming a coastal community.
And certainly the challenge is there for us in terms of how we think
things through - and I particularly find conferences like this a
very important time to come together and really reflect on where we
are at and where we might go.
Young Flight
I love this quote from Hoffer: "In times of change, it is
the learners who inherit the future. Those who have finished
learning find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer
exists". And certainly for us in regional and rural Australia
the future isn't what it used to be. We have gone through phenomenal
change and we continue on a very rapid path in terms of that change.
In particular, our young people are deserting the regions in numbers
that we have never seen before. And fundamentally it is about
economics and jobs. It is simply about the fact that many of our
regions cannot continued to provide the type of diversity of
employment opportunities that our young people are particularly
seeking. But let me say it is not just economics - it is also to do
with the level of accommodation that is provided; it is to do with
transport issues; and above all it is to do with how young people
feel as members of these communities, and their overall lack of
participation in terms of what is going on.
Looking at what's been happening in Australia just between the
last two census over the five year period between 1991 and 1996, and
at our current census which will come out in the next few months,
you will see it reinforces that this trend has continued. Young
people in that critical 15-24 age group are deserting in numbers we
have never seen. And certainly there is not a trickle back. In fact
if you look at central and western Queensland, central and western
New South Wales and the western district of Victoria you can wipe
south Australia totally off the map. If you go back one more census
to 1986 in a ten-year period alone we have seen the proportion of
young people drop from 12% of the population down to 7% of the
population. And the average age jumped from about 31 to 35. To me
this is the greatest challenge that we actually face in terms of
regional and rural Australia.
Youth Challenge
The simple challenge is that we really do need to give these
young people some reason to want to return back into these regions.
And I suppose that is the issue that I am particularly interested
in. What is it that we need to do in these rural communities and
regions to make them places where young people will want to either
stay or return back to after education and work experience, and
start to create entrepreneurial opportunities, start to want to
raise families, start to want to contribute to rebuilding these
communities?
This year I have had a wonderful opportunity to be able to wander
around Australia interacting with a whole series of communities and
regions who seem to be getting their acts together. And the exercise
I was enabled to do through the Federal Government was to really
look at fourteen rural communities who, over the last decade, had
managed to revitalise themselves, to renew themselves, to start to
reverse the downward trend in terms of population and service loss
and youth loss and start to begin to grow again.
And the questions we are interested in are: What did they have in
common? What was it that helped in that process of community renewal
and revitalisation? Certainly as we look at these communities and
regions what comes through is kind of like a portrait, and what I
refer to as a healthy and enterprising community.
If you want more details of the particular studies the
publication is called The Small Town Renewal Kit. A
collection of publications is available from RIRDC, our rural
industries research development council - www.rirdc.gov.au - and you
can actually download that particular publication. And what it
captures is a series of case studies through the words of people who
live out there, and what we have been able to do is to build up what
I call a portrait of what is fundamentally a healthy and
enterprising community.
I would like to focus particularly on this theme of cooperation
and partnership. I want to share with you this ten-point portrait,
then I want to dwell on four or five of the key points. The ten
points are:
- Understands, accepts and embraces change
- Focuses on the sustainable triple bottom line - economic
vitality, environmental integrity and community well being
- Encourages broad-based participation, social connectedness,
inclusiveness and diversity of thinking
- Acts in an opportunity-obsessive manner, seeking
diversification and multiple options
- Knows and builds upon the community's assets, capacities,
skills, competitive advantages and points of difference
- Stresses local investment and local ownership
- Continually renews and builds a diversified leadership base
- Commits to long term and continuous community dialogue,
planning, action and evaluation
- Values collaboration, networking and clustering
- Champions passionate and entrepreneurial attitudes and
behaviours
Welcoming Change
Firstly, a willingness within these regions and communities to
want to embrace change. Certainly in regional and rural Australia
our biggest problems are not the declining commodity prices, not
de-regulations, not the loss of services, it's what I simply call
change resistance. Change resistance supported by cynicism and
negativity, to me tend to be the three major problems that we have
to deal with out there in rural Australia. One of the things that we
are starting to learn and realise is the communities and community
leaders need to begin to welcome change, to embrace change, and to
become proactive in the process - and that's a difficult task in
many traditional communities.
Sustainable Bottom Line
Secondly, the need to focus on the triple bottom line. Try to get
that right balance between economy, environment and community
well-being.
I think we have probably done pretty well in the economy area,
while we struggle always in the environmental area and have had no
idea about community well-being, or the type of indicators that can
judge that.
Again, we are starting to see the importance of all three.
Breakdown in one certainly effects the other two.
Inclusiveness
Thirdly, this whole issue of broad-based participation,
inclusiveness. How do we involve marginal people? In my own work
I've probably run community planning processing now in well over 150
Australian rural communities and I can count on one hand how many of
them have been able to engage their indigenous population in the
process. We are just failing miserably in that area.
Also, it is very rare to find anyone under age 25 engaged in any
of these activities. Those are some of the things we need to change
- we also increasingly see that we tend to run many of our rural
communities a little bit like how play Aussie Rules, where 30,000
people needing the exercise turn up and watch 36 players who don't,
and we tend to run these communities and regions a little bit like
that. I appreciate some of you don't understand what Aussie Rules
means, I think you play this thing called rugby here where eleven
people try to push seven guys up the arse of one guy.
Opportunity Antenna
Fourthly, this whole issue of becoming really very
opportunity-obsessive is one thing we find is vital in the process.
Communities and regions need to constantly have their ears to the
ground and their antennas up, constantly seeking diversification in
terms of what is going on within their economies and in terms of
their social lives.
Asset Development
Fifthly, a checklist, and I wonder if I am describing your
community and your region: it knows and builds upon its community
assets, its capacities, its skills, its competitive advantages, its
points of difference. I think for 50 years in regional Australia we
tempted to build these communities through what I call
deficiency-orientated approaches. We are focused on what we haven't
got and we are focused on weakness and we have used silly processes
like SWOT analysis to remind people of what their threats are and
their weakness. What we are beginning to discover it that you can
never build a community or region on deficiency; you can only build
on capacities, on assets, on the skills it has got to build on - and
we are starting to see a fundamental change in many of our planning
processes in terms of communities starting to particularly engage in
what is called asset-led development.
Local Ownership
Number six, the whole need for communities and regions to start
to build their own financial and technical base. We have had so many
of our communities and regions who can't move unless they get a
central or state government grant to do things. We are beginning to
realise that cavalry isn't coming these days from Canberra or Sydney
or Melbourne, and many communities are beginning to realise that if
things are going to happen then they themselves need to begin to
take the responsibility. And part of it is in beginning to invest
their own resources in that process. We are beginning to see some
incredibly exciting models at the local and regional level of people
starting to build, at that level, some exciting financial basis.
Renewed Leadership
Number seven, we think a healthy and enterprising community is
one that continually renews and builds a diversified leadership
base. What we increasingly see at the heart of regional development
is leadership, and unless we begin to invest in leadership and in
the renewal of leadership, and develop leadership strategy and
create leadership budgets in these communities, you aren't going to
see much change. And some very exciting new leadership development
type programmes are emerging in regional Australia.
Commitment
Number eight, certainly in enterprising and healthy communities,
is long-term commitment to the continuous community dialogue of
planning action and evaluation. We are beginning to see communities
starting to develop indicators, starting to be able to develop check
lists, beginning to look where they are at and where they want to
be, and helping in monitoring that whole process.
Interaction
Number nine, a healthy and enterprising community is one that
values collaboration, networking and clustering on a whole range of
fronts; in terms of industrial collaboration between business and
industries - and inter-community collaboration, where communities
are starting to hold hands with each other.
I come from a small town of York; we literally hate people in the
town of Northern up the road, mainly because of a grand final back
in 1972, which we never got over. But again, how do we start to
break down that parochialism and how do we start to build community
collaboration? - again some exciting new initiatives in terms of
that. And the whole of intergenerational collaboration - how do we
begin to bring together all age groups in terms of focus of their
communities?
Passion and Excitement
And finally the key thing we are discovering in all of our work
is that if you haven't got passion you are stuffed. If you haven't
got leadership that is exciting, if communities and regions continue
to be led by ageing males who have had a charisma by-pass at some
stage in their life - there isn't much hope. And increasingly we
recognise the importance of this whole issue of passion and
enthusiasms and people having a bit of "can do" spirit,
and willingness to take some risk, willingness to explore new
thinking, new opportunities and so on.
You know we are increasingly encouraging local government - don't
appoint CEOs who are Chief Executive Officers, appoint CEOs who are
Chief Energising Officers. Appoint people who excite and enthuse and
begin to realise that this whole thing of passion and having
entrepreneurial attitudes is fundamental to the survival and to the
renewal of those communities.
Let me focus on a couple of those areas, such as broad-based
participation. At the heart of that I think is the discovery in
Australia - and it has been very recent I think here in New Zealand,
many of you have been talking about it longer - this thing called
"social capital". The person who popularised this is a guy
called Robert Putnam. In fact the term has been around for over 80
years, but it was Putnam, a Harvard sociologist, who had the
ultimate job - could you imagine wandering around Italy for 25 years
trying to work out why they have got dynamic regions like Bologna
and some of the poorest regions in all of Europe in the south of
Sicily? You can imagine after 25 years and all that red wine he had
to come up with an answer, and after those 25 years he said,
"you know in the heart of it is this thing called social
capital," and he referred to it as the fabric that actually
holds a community together. He talked about Bologna not being a
civic place because of its rich, but it becoming rich because it is
highly civic. There were strong levels of community participation,
high levels of involvement, leading to strong levels of trust within
those communities. What he has done is to remind us of the
importance in our planning to build these things into it.
Healthy Communities, Healthy Economies
Many of us have come from quite a narrow economic development
focus, and we are increasingly beginning to realise that unless you
build healthy communities you will never have healthy economies.
It's important that we begin to look at how we begin to build these
things into our communities and foster them. Certainly, Putnam has
made us aware that in the United States the levels of community
participation by its citizens are on rapid decline. Certainly his
figures and his research are reflected very much in Australia. But
what we are beginning to discover is that Putnam is able to
effectively show us that social capital is vital to the building of
health communities and healthy regions, and we should notice his
famous comment there about it being it at the heart of what is
happening within our communities.
We have had a Conservative Government for the last six years and
unfortunately we are stuck it with for another three years; but even
our Prime Minister who for years refused to use the term social
capital because he thought it had something to do with socialism, at
last was able to make this type of reference within the context of a
major economic forum event. I think it shows the change that is
happening in our country to see the connection between social
capital and economic and social vitality.
Diversification
I would like to dwell on the fourth point that I mentioned, that
about being opportunity obsessive, and constantly looking at how we
diversify the economic and social base. I love Maslow's comment -
see every problem as a nail - because I think it can be applied to
economics people, who are only good with hammers, and it seems to me
that in many of our communities we tend to be very much focused on a
narrow approach.
Certainly what we are beginning to discover in Australia is the
importance of having a diversified approach to economic development.
We are particularly beginning to discover that well over 70% of all
new jobs that were created in regional Australia last year didn't
come from new business start-up, didn't come from BHP lobbying in
the backyard of one of our communities or regions, but came from
existing businesses already there, doing better and growing and
taking more people on. The whole area of business retention and
expansion has become a major focus of much of our regional
development. In fact we have adopted one of the major American
strategies called business retention expansion - in terms of
communities and volunteers going out and talking to their business
community about what it is like to run a business in this community
and what helps you and what hinders you, and what do we need to make
it better, and through that the development of a community economic
strategy.
Focus on Assets
The fifth characteristic that I talked about was this whole thing
about becoming asset focused; really very much focusing on what we
have got there rather than what we haven't got. I love this quote
from Proust : "The real voyage of discovery consists not in
seeking new landscapes but having new eyes." We need fresh eyes
to look at what we have actually got there.
It is amazing to see the importance that heritage is now starting
to play in terms of economic development. People are beginning to
discover their stories and their heritage background, which can be
such a vital linking in terms of building, for example, a whole new
tourism industry.
Certainly what it is about, is trying to get people who live in
these regions to look at the glass and instead of looking at it as
half empty, beginning to look at it as half full. Beginning to focus
on what we have got rather than what we haven't got. Also, it is
about very much engaging all people in that process.
I can count probably on one hand how many Australian communities
I know who have ever done a skills audit within their community.
Have you ever gone out and found out who lives there and what types
of work experience they have had and what types of hobbies and
interests and what would they like to contribute to their community?
I saw an incredible study the other day about why people volunteer
within their community; 82% of people said because someone asked.
That's pretty basic stuff. It seems to me that so often we get
preoccupied with the big factory stuff that we forget about some of
the very simple juices that make these communities and regions
happen.
Young People
As I have already mentioned, the most important asset that we
have out there are young men and women. I have already inferred that
in Australia we have failed miserably in terms of engaging them in
the future of where rural and regional Australia is going. In a town
called Maraboon on the Tablelands of Queensland, 45 seconds after
the question was asked, "How many of you see yourself having a
future - a long-term future in this town?" not one hand went
up. That same exercise was repeated in three other states over the
last three weeks, and in all of our meetings with young people we
found either nil or one or two young people actually saw themselves
having a long-term future within their community.
But asked how many of you would like to have a long-term future
in this community, what we found was that between 40 and 60% of
people put up their hands.
And what the people who did not put up their hands were saying
was that things need to change - if things were different we would
actually feel very different about the whole thing. One of the very
exciting things happening now in regional Australia is a whole
series of initiatives and strategies, tools and programmes that are
engaging this group in the economic future of their community. The
starting point for that is for adults to begin to realise what it
was like to be young. I think all of us tend to find it so easy.
I would be interested in this audience: "How many of you are
under 20 here today?" - not who would like to be - "How
many people here are under 25?" - two or three; "How many
are under 30?" We have got about 1% of the population.
"How many people are under 90?" makes everyone feel at
home. One of the things is that we do forget what it is like to be
young. I saw a wonderful quote the other day that inside every older
person is a young person wondering what the hell happened and I
think that is a good one. Also, I don't know you are aware where the
word "teenager" comes from. It actually comes from the
Latin word tiora; it means grief, strife and misery.
It seems that what we have failed to do - certainly in rural
Australia - is to really see the incredible contribution that young
people can actually play in terms of their communities. Let me say
young people bring fresh perspectives, young people are much better
collaborators than adults, and I tell you what - young people drive
the dollar far better.
Two days ago I had to address a whole series of foundations in
Sydney about the role of young people in philanthropy, those in
their own job, and yet our education system has prepared them to
work for other people. Again we are seeking to change that through
some of these activities, and one of the exciting things is the
whole area of philanthropy.
We have now got two regions in Australia with funds of $80,000
where young people, if they come up with an idea or project that
would make that community or region a better place, see if they can
get some funding to make it happen out of their pot of $80,000. A
small step - but an exciting step, and we are seeing some fabulous
stuff. We had a group of 20 young people the other day build a house
in three days and sell it and make $50,000 profit to create a local
fund to help young people to develop the type of skills and support
to be able to come back to that community to start up their own
businesses. That's the type of thing we are starting to see happen
in many of these communities.
Regional Development in Canada
Recently I led an Australian delegation to Canada to look at
Regional and Rural Development in Canada. One of the programmes that
really impressed me in Ontario was the bi-partisan approach that
involved the Premier and the Opposition Leader together with the
business community and many community leaders. The whole programme
had been de-centralised into regions and communities through the
province of Ottawa, where they have made five promises that they
would give the young people, and now they are having to deliver. And
what I loved is number five, a chance to make a difference, and I
think that needs to be one of the real challenges in terms of
regional development. I think Carter got it really well when she
said, "really the task is to provide young people with roots
and wings." I think some of our regions are just starting to
discover that.
Community Foundations
Another area where we are seeing some exciting developments is in
this whole area of regions starting to develop their own economic
bases in terms of financial support and so on. A couple of things in
particular I think are incredibly exciting and worth New Zealand
looking at.
Firstly, the whole area of community foundations, where local
people, and people with a sense of attachment to that region or to
that community, help to contribute to build a corpus of funding
through gifts of various kinds. That money is invested and the
interest is given back to their communities in terms of needs, and a
local board determines what the contemporary needs and opportunities
are in terms of where those monies can go. I know you have got an
exciting history here in terms of creating trusts when you have sold
off assets and whatever, I am not talking about that - I believe
that could provide a basis for a community foundation - I am talking
about a foundation where community members are challenged to give to
it on an ongoing way. Not where someone drops dead and leaves you
something, or an asset is sold and creates a one-off trust, I am
talking about an exciting process of where communities are
continuing to build that corpus in terms of what it can do.
When you look overseas, some of the impact that's actually having
in places like Canada and the United States is phenomenal. We were
just stunned with what we saw in Canada; the city of Vancouver for
example (which would be much smaller than Auckland) this year gave
out $34m in one community alone, for that community's social and
economic development. Small rural towns are starting to create their
own foundations and the growth is just phenomenal. And when one
looks at what is happening in the United States it is absolutely
unbelievable, it shows the fastest growth in philanthropy giving in
the world. In Australia we are finding places like Bendigo, Meldura,
and Ballaratt are all in the process of creating these types of
foundations.
Community Banking
The other exciting initiative is the growth of community banking
in Australia. In the last ten years we have actually lost 1500 bank
branches from the traditional banks in rural Australia. Not just the
loss of a service but with it 10,000 jobs, many of these being youth
jobs, with few white-collar job options like this in many small
towns. What I find exciting though, is that we were beginning to
realise how dumb we were. Why didn't we intervene earlier? The bank
has always been the most profitable retail business in any town.
Where I live we have had six bank branches close; not one of them
was making less than $200,000 profit a year. In fact one was making
$600,000. The question is, why did they close it? They can make more
money by getting people onto internet banking, regionalising, and
cutting staff. What we are starting to discover are that communities
are waking up to it and by June of next year we will have 80 rural
communities owning their own banks. The little town of Lang Lang,
population 900, has had a community bank now for two years; it is
generating back $10,000 profit a month back to the community of 900.
What a fabulous cash flow to be able to engage in development work -
the mayor of this particular town captures the spirit that we are
starting to see.
Leadership
An equally exciting area is leadership. Again, this is one of the
most important areas of collaboration for civic infrastructure
development. The most impressive regional development we have ever
done in Australia is the McKensey and Co Report done in
1994. We spent $1m on that report and have a look at their
conclusions - after spending $1m this was the conclusion: Given the
task of rejuvenating a region and the choice of $50m or $2m and 20
committed local leaders we would choose the smaller amount of money.
Almost every regional development report since has highlighted
that the heart of development of these regions must be leadership.
We are seeing some exciting initiatives. One of these is the
Community Builders' Programme that was taken out of Nebraska in the
United States, where a cluster of communities enter a team in a
programme that works across a region, with a group of clustered
towns that have things in common. A grass roots programme, it is
very much dealing with those people who makes things happen in the
towns - particularly those women in that 30-50 age group who
fundamentally are making things happen in rural Australia. What the
programme does is to seek to give people the motivation, skills and
knowledge base to be able to be more effective. One of the exciting
collaborative spin-offs is seeing the development of the peer
friendship base across our towns, and a sense of collaboration
starting to happen through the peer support programme that emerges.
We would probably now have close to 180 rural communities in
Australia with teams in this programme, particularly in the states
of Western Australia and South Australia.
Many of our regional development authorities are beginning to see
the importance of mounting at the regional level a high-powered,
well-resourced leadership programme. We probably now have at least
20 of our regions in Australia, as part of their economic
development programme, offering this type of experience. This is the
norm in the United States and Canada.
Network, Collaborate and Cluster
The whole area of collaboration and networking needs to be
something that really does require a focus. I was interested to see
that your recent report that came out from your Innovation Advisory
Council really emphasises that among the key challenges were these
words - network, collaborate and cluster. I think that in Australia
we are just starting to learn the importance of those processes in
terms of regional and community development. I think also we are
starting to see the importance of breaking down the type of
parochialism that is actually operating, and again we have been
particularly influenced in the State of Western Australia by the
State of Nebraska. We have been influenced by how they have handled
regional and rural development: the way they have a rural
development commission; the way they have a collaborative mechanism
there that involves different levels of government, private sector
and communities all coming together to look at how they, as equal
partners and collaborators, make it happen. Unfortunately in
Australia many of our government departments have acted like a
collection of warring tribes in terms of how they operate. I know
that would not happen in New Zealand, but it seems to me that it is
vital that we start to learn new ways at all levels of
collaborating.
Earlier this year I saw a credible example of what collaboration
can actually do. In North Carolina I saw, in a very depressed part
of the Appalachian area, 22 counties came together to look at
generating new jobs - particularly in terms of what they can do to
build upon their culture and their heritage. It is amazing to see
the result in a two-year period, when those 22 counties came
together and collectively put in place an incredible programme of
collaboration.
Towns as Businesses
I go back to a point that I stressed right at the start, and that
is the whole issue of championing passionate and entrepreneurial
attitudes and behaviours. It needs to be a primary function of
leadership at both the regional and local level, and we need people
there who really do start to talk up these communities rather than
allowing the mindset to talk these places down.
Probably our most respected regional development advisor in the
country is a guy called Roy Powell, from the Centre for Agricultural
and Regional Economics in Armadale. I don't think I have seen a more
accurate summary of the difference that I am seeing in different
communities and how he captured it. He said nowadays towns are
really not so different from businesses; they need to keep
recreating themselves. Not so many years ago country towns were
subject to general trends, they would all do well or would all do
badly. The picture now is very uneven. The successful towns - and I
think we can put regions into that as well - are likely to be driven
by people who are passionate and creative, who see an opportunity
and go for it. You need communities with a bit of get-up-and-go
spirit; some have it and some don't.
I think ten years ago I saw in Christchurch exactly that
happening through the efforts of Mayor Vicki Buck, the importance of
that type of passion and that type of leadership. I love this
particular quote, "when facing a difficult task act as if it is
impossible to fail. When going after Moby Dick bring along the
tartare sauce". Unfortunately I addressed a group in Auckland
and Margaret Crozier, the head of Greenpeace, was in the audience,
and Margaret was not impressed with that particular quote. I will
never forget ten years ago hearing Vicki Buck use this quote, and I
know one council in Australia has some of Vicki's comments on a
brass plaque in their council offices: "I think negative people
should be taxed. They require an incredible amount of energy. They
are like corgis nibbling at your ankles and I'm sure they exist to
show us the difference between heaven and hell". I am not quite
sure of Vicki's theology, but the sentiment is certainly there.
Tom the Baker
I have a story about a guy who, to me, epitomises what is
happening and what needs to happen in regional Australia. He's my
hero, he is a baker, in fact he is not just any baker. In a small
town of 3,000 people on a road to nowhere 3.5 hours from a capital
city he runs the biggest turnover retail bakery in the southern
hemisphere. In a town of only 3,000 people he actually employs 67
staff, in a retail bakery. This year he had 670,000 customers go
through his shop; amazing story. But when he started that bakery
only 16 years ago, it had a turnover of $100,000 and he employed
five part-time staff. I was in a regional centre of Wangarratt a
month ago and went into two bakeries on Sunday, one had one customer
and the other had two customers. I drove to Beachworth and Tom
O'Toole had 210 customers in the shop when I walked into the
business. What's the difference? How do you do it? And when you
actually look at what he has achieved in regional Australia on a
road to nowhere in a town of a mere 3100 people - and 200 of those
are prisoners in the local jail so they are not likely to be down at
his bakery. And the simple thing I have asked Tom is: Tom, how do we
make dough your way? You seem to have the recipe.
Here is a guy who left school at age twelve, still can't even use
the calculator, and yet he has that incredible turnover. It is
interesting to have a look at his formula for success - this is his
recipe, and it seems to me that if we are interested in economic
development these are the simple formulae and processes we need to
put in place. He provides outrageously good customer service and yet
it is in stark contrast to what much of regional Australia is on
about. His staff are so out there in terms of dealing with people -
yet the Chinese warned us a long time ago that a man without a
smiling face must not open a shop. Certainly regional Australia
hasn't learnt it.
Ban the Bland
Tom the baker says you can't afford to be bland out there in
regional Australia. He has pipes running from his bakehouse to his
veranda and fans on his veranda pumping out hot bread smells up and
down the main street. The study shows that 82% of people in
Australia buy hot bread because of the smell. It is smart business.
This guy has a jazz band playing on his balcony all day Sunday,
which costs him $800, but he doesn't take less than $16,000 on a
Sunday. He even goes to America and gives out his shop vouchers as
tips to taxi drivers who think they are worth more than the
Australian dollar. He has a guy who drives all over regional north
east Victoria handing out these vouchers to all the B&B's,
hotels and motels; he gives them biscuits and encourages them to
give them to their customers. One in five find their way back to his
shop. He has a calendar of special events - like pyjama days - and
he thinks of new things constantly. It is that type of thing that
works. Each month he invites every primary school and kindergarten
and child care centre to come and visit what is the biggest bakery
in the southern hemisphere. You can imagine having kids make their
own biscuits - what an inconvenience. But as Tom says those little
buggers go out as ambassadors to the Beachworth bakery, and one in
five returns back with their parents within the month.
You know we are into this high profile type of stuff, but we have
got to get the basics right. This guy said it is all about
businesses collaborating and holding hands, every loaf of bread goes
out of the Beachworth bakery telling you the five things you can't
miss about Beachworth. Can you imagine if every business in every
town talked up their community through a leaflet, through a wrapper
or menu? When you are sitting there his placemats tell you what else
you must see while you are in Beachworth. Again, some of the simple
things. And what about his staff? They are incredibly motivated. Not
surprisingly, he has staff meetings with bottles of wine taped under
chairs; they all get a big bag of chocolates to take home to the
kids, and the next month the kids encourage their parents to go to
staff meetings. This guy knows the basics. He sent four staff to
America last year to do work experience and they were all aged under
25; 90% of this guy's staff is under 30. He knows how to attract and
keep young people in regional Australia. He has an exchange
programme with three bakers overseas: one in New Zealand, one in
Norway and one in Ireland where staff can, for 12 months, swap jobs,
houses, cars - keep the same partner - and have a fantastic year.
Elvis Parsley
One other guy we have in Australia reckons the best $24 he ever
spent was changing his name by deed pole. He was running a fruit
shop and it wasn't doing too well, so he decided to rename himself
Elvis Parsley - renamed his shop Grape Lands, his staff are the
Swing Zucchinis, and as you wander in there you are greeted with him
singing the King's numbers - not Viva Las Vegas but Viva Las Veges,
and he has reworded the songs. He has ten tourist buses a day turn
up, and I tell you what, those women are not interested in the
pineapples and bananas. This guy sells a thousand postcards a month
from the fruit shop. This is a town of a thousand people. He employs
up to ten staff. It is all about how we might do these things.
Tom the baker put it very well when he said passion - if your
heart is not in get out. The sky's the limit if your heart's in it.
You have got to have enthusiasm, if you haven't got enthusiasm
you're buggered. And I love that story: if you think you're too
small to be effective you have never been in bed with a mosquito.
The Future
And one last quote: "The future is not a place to which we
are going, it is the place we are creating, the paths to the future
are not found but made and the activity of making them changes the
maker and the destination". And today in regional Australia we
are seeing some incredible things happening and we are seeing some
incredible community renewal across the country.
I do a lot of work in South Africa and I will never forget
running a workshop in a town of 40,000 people, 75% unemployment
rate, and the new mayor of that town, an old black feller in his
late 80s, said: You know, today we have generated hundreds of ideas
about what we could do to turn this place around, but I just want to
remind you that we have a tradition of collecting ideas on shelves,
we need to make things happen, that's what it is all about. And he
finished with this wonderful story about what happens every day in
Africa. Every morning in Africa a springbok wakes up knowing it must
run faster than the fastest lion or it will get killed. Every
morning a lion wakes up, it knows it must out-run the slowest
springbok or it will starve to death. What was the point of the old
man's story? It was simply this: "it doesn't matter whether you
are a lion or a springbok, when the sun comes up you had better be
running."
And using his words, it does not matter whether we are a
springbok - and he was referring to his town of Reabof - or a lion
(and he saw a massive city like Cape Town as a lion), the thing we
have in common is that the global sun is well and truly up and
whether it is customers we want, whether it is visitors we want, or
people returning back to live in our regions, we are in competition
with the rest of the world. The global sun is well and truly up and
we need to be running.
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