The first step in regional economic development is getting community leaders together to discuss a common issue. Somewhere along the way, community leaders decide the sum efforts of A plus B will give them a greater chance of success. Woods said once community leaders realize the need to work together, the most common obstruction to regional economic development is a lack of organizational procedure. Unfortunately, too often the situation deteriorates to where individual concerns override the development of a group agenda. The initial enthusiasm withers under the lack of a cooperative, cohesive effort and the project dies a slow death.
Communication is the key to making a group agenda work.
As with any organization, generally there is a leader or group of leaders who are committed to a project. However, leadership changes over time. It may be a new elected official, a new executive officer of the chamber of commerce or the loss of a volunteer community leader. Sound record keeping is one way of reducing the incidence of disruption of meeting long-term goals. New leaders can get a better understanding about the ideas, plans and desires of previous leaders.