By Paula Jensen

Intuitive decision making is based on gut feelings, past experiences, and personal judgment. It involves using our instincts and emotions to decide, without relying heavily on data and analysis.

Data-driven decision making is based on objective data and analysis. It involves collecting and analyzing relevant data to identify patterns, trends, and insights, which are then used to make informed decisions.

Let me share a small-town leadership story.

About three years ago, I was in a board meeting with an economic development organization discussing their need to attract workforce for about 90 local job openings. The economic development director shared a couple recent stories about how limited housing stock was a big barrier for attracting more workforce. After a short discussion, one of the board members stated firmly, “I’m a realtor. We do NOT have a housing problem! There are currently twelve homes for sale and multiple apartment vacancies.” At that point, the conversation stopped.

Both people were accurate in their reports, yet in hindsight what was missing from the conversation was some quality secondary data available from their local housing study. The Housing Study, completed by a third-party, stated:

“The community has a stock of older, lower valued homes, of which 59% need minor or major repairs and another 3% are dilapidated. Our analysis of sales activity indicates that approximately 50% of the homes are valued less than $75,750. As some lower valued homes come up for sale, they may not be attractive options for potential home buyers because of the amount of repair work that is required.” In addition, the housing study recommended, “approximately 10 to 15 additional rental units will be needed over the next five years to replace lost units. This replacement is appropriate due to the deteriorating condition of older, substandard rental housing that should be removed from the occupied stock.”

Data can open conversation to new possibilities

In the story above, the economic development director’s intuition was indicating that housing was a strong barrier to workforce attraction. But imagine if that intuition had been backed up with the data from the housing study? That data could have opened the conversation about quality housing being the issue, not the number available units.

I am happy to report, three years after this initial conversation the economic development organization is using intuition (knowing their community) and data (their updated housing study) to move toward solutions that will ultimately address the housing quality issue and attract workforce.

Combining the two approaches of intuitive and data-driven decision making can be very powerful. Intuition can provide a valuable starting point, helping decision makers to identify potential options and narrow down choices. Data analysis can then be used to validate and support these options, providing objective evidence to back up intuitive decisions.

By uncovering the story told by the data, it can also help us see patterns, understand the meaning behind the data, and become more proactive rather than being reactionary to issues as they pop up.

Ultimately, the best approach will depend on the specific situation and the decision being made. In some cases, intuition may be more important, while in others, data may be the key factor. The most effective decision makers can balance both approaches, using intuition to guide them, and data to validate and support their decisions.

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How do we as parents set our kids up to lead into the future? Photo via USDA

By Paula Jensen

It seems I have almost always been interested in leadership.  My parents modeled leadership as I was growing up through their active roles in community, church, and school.  I joined 4-H at the age of eight, was called a “ring-leader” as an elementary student (which I don’t think this was a compliment) and continued to take on leadership roles throughout high school, college and beyond.  But my most important leadership role is as a parent. Through this role I’ve learned that all the wisdom and love in the world doesn’t necessarily protect any of us from parenting in ways that could potentially hold our children back from thriving, gaining independence and becoming the leaders they have the potential to be.

I was intrigued as I read an article by Dr. Tim Elmore and learned about how we as parents are keeping our children from becoming the next generation of leaders that are needed in this world.  The article shared seven harmful parenting behaviors that keep our children from becoming leaders – of their own lives and of the world they will live in:

1. We don’t let our children experience risk – We live in a world that warns us of danger and mistrust at every turn. The “safety first” preoccupation constantly reinforces our fear of losing our kids, so we do everything we can to insulate them from healthy risk-taking behavior and it’s had an adverse effect. Kids need to fail a few times to learn it’s normal. If parents remove risk from children’s lives, we will likely experience high arrogance and low self-esteem in our growing leaders.
2. We rescue too quickly – Today’s generation of young people has not developed some of the life skills kids did 30 years ago because adults swoop in and take care of problems for them. When we rescue too quickly and over-indulge our children with “assistance,” we remove the need for them to navigate hardships and solve problems on their own. It’s parenting for the short-term and it sorely misses the point of leadership—to equip our young people to do it without help. Sooner or later, kids get used to someone rescuing them: “If I fail or fall short, an adult will smooth things over and remove any consequences for my misconduct.” When in reality, this isn’t even remotely close to how the world works, and therefore it disables our kids from becoming competent adults.
3. We rave too easily – Kids quickly observe that Mom and Dad are the only ones who think they’re awesome when no one else is saying it. They begin to doubt the objectivity of their parents; it feels good in the moment, but it’s not connected to reality. When we rave too easily and disregard poor behavior, children eventually learn to cheat, exaggerate and lie.
4. We let guilt get in the way of leading well – Your kids will get over the disappointment of you telling them “not now” or “no”, but they won’t get over the effects of being coddled. Let them fight for what they really value and need. As parents, we tend to give them what they want when rewarding our children, especially with multiple kids. When one does well in something, we feel it’s unfair to praise and reward that one and not the other. This is unrealistic and misses an opportunity to enforce the point to our kids that success is dependent upon our own actions and good deeds. Be careful not to teach them a good grade is rewarded by a trip to the mall. If your relationship is based on material rewards, kids will experience neither intrinsic motivation nor unconditional love.
5. We don’t share our past mistakes – Healthy teens are going to want to spread their wings and they’ll need to try things on their own. We as adults must let them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help them navigate these waters. Share with them the relevant mistakes you made when you were their age in a way that helps them learn to make good choices. (Avoid negative “lessons learned” having to do with smoking, alcohol, illegal drugs, etc.) Also, kids must prepare to encounter slip-ups and face the consequences of their decisions. Share how you felt when you faced a similar experience, what drove your actions, and the resulting lessons learned. Because we’re not the only influence on our kids, we must be the best influence.
6. We mistake intelligence, giftedness and influence for maturity – Intelligence is often used as a measurement of a child’s maturity, and as a result parents assume an intelligent child is ready for the world. That’s not the case. Some professional athletes and Hollywood starlets, for example, possess unimaginable talent, but still get caught in a public scandal. Just because giftedness is present in one aspect of a child’s life, don’t assume it pervades all areas. There is no magic “age of responsibility” or a proven guide as to when a child should be given specific freedoms, but a good rule of thumb is to observe other children the same age as yours. If you notice that they are doing more themselves than your child does, you may be delaying your child’s independence.
7. We don’t practice what we preach – As parents, it is our responsibility to model the life we want our children to live. To help them lead a life of character and become dependable and accountable for their own words and actions. As the leaders of our homes, we can start by only speaking honest words – white lies will surface and slowly erode character. Watch yourself in the little ethical choices that others might notice, because your kids will notice too. If you don’t cut corners, for example, they will know it’s not acceptable for them to either. Show your kids what it means to give selflessly and joyfully by volunteering for a service project or with a community group. Leave people and places better than you found them, and your kids will take note and do the same.

Raising children who are strong independent leaders is not about their happiness today, but about their readiness for their many tomorrows. The truth is, parents who are able to focus on tomorrow, not just today, produce better results.

How can we as parents move away from these behaviors that are holding our children back?

It’s important for us as parents to become exceedingly self-aware of our words and actions when interacting with children. Care enough to train them, not merely treat them to a good life. Coach them, more than coddle.  And try these 10 ideas as a starting point:

1. Talk over the issues you wish you would’ve known about adulthood.
2. Allow them to attempt things that s-t-r-e-t-c-h them and even let them fail.
3. Discuss future consequences if they fail to master certain disciplines.
4. Aid them in matching their strengths to real-world problems.
5. Furnish projects that require patience, so they learn to delay gratification.
6. Teach them that life is about choices and trade-offs; they can’t do everything.
7. Initiate adult-like tasks such as paying their own bills or making business deals.
8. Introduce them to community mentors in an area of interest to them.
9. Help them envision a fulfilling future, and then discuss the steps to get there.
10. Celebrate the progress they make toward independence and responsibility.

Video: Connecting with Kids

SaveYour.Town created a video to show how they connect with kids and help them to play a role in shaping the future of their town. The Connecting with Kids video is available at SaveYour.Town.

How can elected officials and board members be more open to new ideas and more effective? Photo by City of Bryan, Texas.

By Paula Jensen

Having a passion for rural community development and leadership is what drives my personal and professional life. My personal vision statement reads, “I will be a clear voice for rural people and places by mobilizing and empowering rural changemakers to build vibrant communities.” It has taken me a number of years, a lot of support, much personal and professional growth, and many mistakes to realize that vision.

A turning point for me as an emerging rural community leader was in 1999 at the age of 32 years old when I was sworn in as the first woman to ever serve on the city council in my hometown’s 113 year history.

Serving as a Trustee and Mayor of my community allowed me to organically develop leadership and management skills. I was empowered by the knowledge and understanding I was gaining. As a learner, I sought innovative ways to accomplish things in our community by engaging residents and seeking new resources which often created challenges with my fellow trustees, yet they permitted me to try and supported our successes as the community was developing and growing.

I am grateful for those five years of opportunity in city government because they built my foundation as an emerging leader. I was given new opportunities that allowed me to graduate from Leadership Plenty, co-found a regional economic development organization, start a community daycare, co-create a community foundation, and craft a new career for myself as a grant writer and community & economic development professional in the nonprofit sector.

Engaged, diverse, and collaborative leadership are essential components of vibrant communities, they are also the missing link in many of our small rural communities. In order to keep those small communities vital and advance the future of rural, there must be a focus on building our local leadership capacity.

Statistics show that the prospect to serve as a rural leader in South Dakota, where I live, is 1:27, as compared to 1:57 in our urban centers. However, the current scenario of rural leadership can be described by this familiar story:  Someone has a great idea for engaging in a community project, but no one wants to take the lead toward accomplishment and success. Too often all they get out of these great ideas are a few working group meetings and many frustrated residents that profess, “Nothing ever gets done!” When this destructive cycle is set into motion, it is difficult to get people involved and excited about the future of their communities or rural places as a whole.

The need for new rural leaders to rise up is great. According to the Center for Small Towns, South Dakota needs 357 new leaders every year. When we identify good leaders in a community they are priceless, and often depleted to the point of burnout. Therefore, we must have continuing support, tools and resources available to the existing leaders while simultaneously developing emerging leaders.

Another important next step toward developing emerging leaders in our rural communities is to cultivate a leadership philosophy centered on community building and shared leadership for two major reasons: 1) the growing complexity of problems in rural communities does not lead to easy solutions. One leader cannot filter all the information available to address problems, therefore, they need to rely on the experience of other community leaders; and 2) a growing number of people in communities are no longer content to behave as followers, but want to share in the responsibilities and decisions.

We must all believe that each of our rural communities have unique flair, history and culture, economic opportunity, neighbors who care, a great quality of life, leaders that believe in strategic thinking, ideation and innovation, stimulating conversation, engaged residents, strong asset base, and understanding that leadership development begins at home. #Iamrural

Learn more about how local officials can be effective shared leaders and how the community can support them in our current video Idea Friendly Officials and Boards.

We tried it once. Does that mean we can never try it again? Photo by Becky McCray.

Guest Post by Paula Jensen

When was the last time you heard someone say, “We tried that before and it didn’t work!”  In my early days as a local leader those words spoken by an experienced leader often stopped me in my tracks. Their words indicated to me that they had the experience of knowing what worked and what didn’t work in the community.  Sometimes I would ask, “Why?” and rarely get a strong explanation about the failure that occurred, which left me determined to learn more.

My confidence as a leader has grown over the years and I have gained much more experience. Now when someone says, “We tried that before and it didn’t work!” my response is…”and, what did you learn from that?”

Learning about failed attempts, missed opportunities, and community history requires honest and focused conversations with local leaders. I strongly believe that as current leaders, we must know the history of things tried in our community, the work that has been accomplished and why decisions were made.  So often, the reason history repeats itself is that leaders don’t own their part in the community’s history. We must look back and own our part of history to move ahead.

Let’s begin by asking a question – How do we start an honest and focused conversation with community leaders about what has been learned in our past?

4 Steps to Learn from “We Tried That Once!”

There is an art to initiating and carrying out a conversation that creates positive results.  Here is a 4-step method that enables your conversation to flow from surface to depth. You can lead this conversation through a series of questions at these four levels:

• Step 1. Objective Level – Begin with the data, facts, and external reality. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What did you actually see, hear or read?” or “What surprised you?”
• Step 2. Reflective Level – Next, ask for immediate personal reactions, internal responses, emotions or feelings, hidden images, and associations with the facts you discussed in step one. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What was your gut reaction?” or “What were your biggest frustrations?” or “What has worked well?”
• Step 3. Interpretive Level – Then, draw out meaning, values, significance, and implications. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What are your hopes and dreams?” or “What would you say were your most significant contributions?”
• Step 4. Decisional Level – Lastly, bring the conversation to a close, seeking resolution and enabling the participants to make decisions about the future. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What do you think we should do?” or “What steps could we take to move forward?” or “Who else should be involved in local leadership?”

The results of focused conversations can help develop awareness to accept the things that have been done in the past and follow the lessons learned from each situation to move our work forward. When a leader starts asking “How can we learn from this?”, automatically it affects the future of the community. Having focused conversations is a transformational process that starts with one person wanting to learn more and ends with moving toward a more positive future by learning from the past.

As a local leader I want to empower younger generations to take their ideas and act on them. I want to be asked about successes and failures from the past. And lastly – I, Paula Jensen, vow to never say the words, “We tried that before and it didn’t work!” #Iamrural

Changing your questions can help you change the leadership of your community, empowering a new generation to lead. Photo by Becky McCray.

Guest Post by Paula Jensen

Leaders are the essence of small towns and rural communities. The success or failure of any housing, community or economic development efforts in the places we call home often rests upon the level of engagement and investment of local citizen leaders. Yet, in so many communities I work in across South Dakota there is an invisible divide holding back the development of a strong leadership base. I hear experienced leaders saying, “Young people just don’t want to be involved in the community!”  and I hear emerging leaders saying, “The people in charge won’t let us try anything new!”

So, I am asking you, “How can we empower more people to lead in our rural communities?”

To begin searching for a solution to this question, I want to help you understand two community leadership systems that exist:

1. Most community leadership systems currently operate in a traditional hierarchy – meaning top-down (like a triangle) – the board’s officers propose ideas to the members based on their knowledge of what the community needs. Then, following a decision of the board, the tasks gets allocated to the members who carry out the projects with board supervision. Traditional leadership systems define levels of authority and decision-making within the organization and invite you to join the work they are currently doing.
2. The non-traditional community leadership system being implemented by some rural communities has a core leadership team that is structured as a network – meaning connected (like a circle) – with the basic goal of allowing distributed decision-making to empower and raise up resident leaders while giving everyone in the community the opportunity to identify priorities and go to work on projects they are passionate about. The non-traditional community leadership system can be chaotic and allows community leaders to collaborate, innovate, dream, and experiment which creates increased optimism and hope for new possibilities within the community.

The two systems listed above are quite different, yet if we are going to show emerging leaders that they do have the power to innovate and have real impact on the community, then we need to begin transforming the community’s leadership structure.

Experienced community leaders can initiate this process by asking good questions, listening with curiosity, and taking new ideas seriously. Below are some sample questions to help these transformational conversations begin.

Questions to transform rural leadership:

• Open Ended Questions – What needs to be done?
• Challenge Status Quo – Why must it be done that way?
• Learner Mindset – What is good or useful about this?
• Forward Looking – What possibilities does this open up?
• Optimistic – What can we learn from this?
• Empower Others – What are you trying to accomplish?
• Build Relationships – How solid are our connections with others?
• Understand Self – What do I need to reflect on to move us all forward?
• Deal with Dependency – Would you like people to solve their problems rather than coming to you for answers?
• Serve Humbly – How can I help you?
• Encourage Action – What will you commit to do by when?
• Evaluate – What does our leadership team do that gets in the way?
• Listen – Are we listening to each other with curiosity?
• Involve All Stakeholders – What are our common areas of interest?
• Enable Change – What will you need from us in the future?
• Develop Vision and Values – Are we being honest with ourselves?

The responsibility of building a pool of leaders in our rural communities falls to both sides. Experienced leaders must let go a little bit, and emerging leaders must build a foundation of trust. This will allow a smooth community leadership structure transformation with minimal chaos – ultimately good for the future of our rural communities.

So, if they want to lead, empower them to lead. #Iamrural

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Photo by Laurie Reyes

Guest post by Paula Jensen

The Langford Area High School boys’ basketball team made it to the State B tournament for the fifth time in the past six years. As I travel across South Dakota for my job people ask me, “How can Langford (being such a small school) continue producing winning teams year-after-year?” My answer is always, the same – it’s because of the coaches. Successful coaches realize that winning teams are not run by one individual who dominates and reduces the rest of the group to mere followers. Winning teams are more like open forums in which everyone participates in the decision-making process, coaches and players alike, until the decision is made. Then, once a decision is made, the team is motivated to move ahead and execute it.

This winning team scenario had me thinking about the community engagement work I do with small towns in South Dakota. What would happen if our small-town leaders and residents started working together as a winning team, like our high school athletes and their coaches?

If we can envision the possibility of shaping our small towns into winning teams, then the first task for local leadership is to bring together groups of motivated people to make joint decisions and move grassroots ideas to action. Successful leaders, like winning coaches, recognize that they need to become more knowledgeable and competent in dealing with and developing local people and their ideas to create a dynamic small town. This team approach is a fundamental shift from the hierarchical leadership style we are accustomed to where the one person in charge provides instruction and the others in the group follow by doing the work.

Starting this process of building winning teams through community engagement can begin with local leaders inviting all residents to take part and volunteer their thoughts, impressions, and ideas. Effective community engagement requires 1) local leaders to be idea friendly, and 2) local residents to share ideas in a friendly way.

If you are a motivated resident with a great idea to implement, then here are a few pointers to help you prepare to share that idea in a friendly way:

• Start by finding a team of residents who support the creation of this idea;
• Brainstorm with the team a list of possible outcomes;
• Document the skill sets of each member of the team and assign roles;
• Identify any gaps that exist on the team and find outside resource partners;
• Determine what success will look like and how the team will measure that success;
• Consider any barriers to success or consequences if the team doesn’t meet their goals;
• Create a method of team communication that is direct, fact-based, and flows two ways;
• Ask the team what they heard so you can be sure everyone has shared agreement; and
• Lastly, present the idea in a friendly way by explaining the why (make them care), the what (impacts to the community), and the who (team and partners) rather than bounding in to tell the how.

I can’t speak to the secret ingredient of coaching a winning basketball team. But, I am certain it is similar to the secret ingredient of a winning community which is being committed to developing people. These thriving communities create a strong sense of belonging among their residents. They are friendly to new ideas. And, they develop their residents into future leaders that will carry the winning team approach forward. #Iamrural

Small Business matters on more than just one day.

Nov. 28 is Small Business Saturday.

Small Business Saturday began in 2010. It was created to encourage people to do some of their holiday shopping at local, small businesses.

Every year, the event has grown. You will see and hear advertising for it. Social media will be full of posts and tweets encouraging people to stop in and check out their local merchants.

According to economists, small businesses are a driver for job growth. They are where most business ideas get started. Finally, they form the core of the local economy, especially in rural areas.

So why say all of this in a column focused on helping small-business owners? I want to give you a challenge.

Be the leader. Be the leader in building awareness. Plus, be the leader by your example. Make buying local, buying small a key element of your business operation, and of your personal life, if it already isn’t.

Remember, you lead by example. Those examples form who you are. They’re part of your reputation. And your business reputation is key to your business success.

Believe me, people are watching.

So engage with your community as a store owner and as an individual citizen.

Be the leader in shop local, not only on Nov. 28 but throughout the year. Your customers and community are watching.

Make “shop local, shop small” a win-win for everyone.