A story I heard in Chattanooga still influences how I help organizations introduce new ideas through Clayton Rose Group.
In 2011, our first InterCity trip took us from Longview to Chattanooga, Tennessee. One of the most memorable lessons came from the mayor. He told us he had participated in the Chattanooga Chamber’s first leadership trip.
He recalled Walter Cronkite’s national coverage of Chattanooga’s pollution and how devastating that reputation had been for recruitment. The city needed to change both its conditions and how people saw it. He described annual leadership trips as part of the effort to learn from other communities and consider a different future.
Participants came home recharged and excited about what Chattanooga could become. They had seen possibilities they wanted to pursue and were eager to share their discoveries.
Then came the response at home. As the mayor told it, when they shared those ideas with business and community leaders, they faced major pushback from some of the city’s captains of industry.
That part of his story has stayed with me. Before asking people to support an idea, we need to consider what they will need to understand and where they can contribute.
Bring people into the learning
This applies when a business leader returns from a conference, a nonprofit board explores a different way to serve its community, or a leadership team visits another organization. The people learning firsthand may come home ready to act. Others need an opportunity to work through the idea themselves.
Before the learning begins, ask whose perspective needs to be included. What are we assuming about the problem we want to solve? Who will be affected by a change? Invite those people to help shape the questions we take with us.
As we learn, we can share observations and ask for reactions. Explain what caught our attention and what we still need to understand. That gives others a chance to raise questions while our thinking is still developing.
When we return, the way we present information deserves just as much care. People need to understand why an idea matters to this organization, what it could require, and what remains open for discussion. A useful question is what would have to be true for this approach to work here.
We also need to test how we are explaining it. Ask a few people what they heard, what concerns them, and what information is missing. Their response can help us improve both the proposal and the conversation.
Testing assumptions belongs throughout the process. A question or concern may reveal a practical issue we have overlooked. We need enough patience to understand it and enough flexibility to adjust what we are proposing.
Chattanooga became a destination community through years of hard work. Its transformation required people to navigate relationships and stay with decisions long enough to change the place itself.
That is the lesson I carry into my consulting work. When leaders return excited about a possibility, I want to help them create room for others to examine it and have a part in shaping what happens next. The mayor’s story reminds me to prepare for that conversation from the beginning.
