Raise your hand if you absolutely, deep down to the depths of your soul could not STAND group work in school. 🙋‍♀️

Oh…only me?

You might a dirty liar. You also might be the one in the group who benefited from overachievers like me.

You'd think based on past experience, I’d never “people” again just as a matter of principle.

It’s true.

Working with others on projects can be a total nightmare.

There’s the whole “too many cooks in the kitchen” notion and yes, it can, in fact, “spoil the broth”.

But, when it comes to growing a small town, or frankly, ANY organization whether a business, company or church, they will be better off when the people inside it embrace the art of collaboration and actually practice how to allow everyone to not only help with the doing of the thing but also help build the pathway to help make the thing happen.

People support a world they help create. (Or in this case…a thing.)

So, big deal, right?

Working together doesn’t sound like that hard of a task, especially when we’re in a small town.

I mean, you’d think that because we’re smaller, we’re less siloed up and more open with each other, right?

Because we know each other well, it shouldn’t be hard to access your leaders, right?

We all love our small town, so it shouldn’t be hard to move things forward that are good for the town, right?

RIGHT!!?!?

Yes, one would think but in my experience, that is not, always, if even rarely, the case.

Today, we want to share our best experiences with working together and some different ways to bridge the apparent gaps in our communities.

First off, I feel like I maybe still have a little persuading to do to prove that working together is worth pursuing. (Because that group work pain is no joke for the overachievers in the place, amirite?)

WHY COLLABORATE?

• Multiple perspectives generally yield better results

We only know what we know through the lens we currently have and sometimes, it’s amazing how biased we each can be. When more people come together to problem solve, we get the beauty of varied perspectives along with different personalities, and that usually yields a more creative and ingenuous solution.

It’s pretty tough to get a multi-perspective result with only one person on the planning committee. Me, myself, and I get a whole lotta stuff done, but no matter how many other “hats” I attempt to put on to attack my problems, my perspective is still pretty limited.

• We get too close to our own problems

Myopia is a real thing, friends. Try to imagine the value of having people bring you the wealth of their:

1. Their professional or work background

2. Their personal life experience

3. Their personality’s viewpoints

Again, as ONE person with only one lens, it’s awfully hard to attack challenges from many angles, especially if that problem has been a persistent one.

The longer we look at it through the same lens with the same people, sometimes the more insurmountable the challenge becomes.

Also, in smaller communities, it’s not uncommon to find yourself in a bit of an echo chamber, meaning we simply repeat and parrot back to each other what we’ve already heard. Innovation is hard to hear in an echo chamber.

• Working together often reduces redundancies and lets us share stuff

When we work together, we can tap into each other’s resources, and that can be people, money, or ideas.

Sharing those things with other people helps us all win.

A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say.

OK, so hopefully, now your college angst about group work is fading into the background and you’re maybe considering the value of working together.

Here are a few ways you can specifically apply your newly found passion for working with other people.

WHO TO COLLABORATE WITH?

Since starting Growing Small Towns and pursuing this collaborative work, I started regularly saying (and still do damn near every day) the mantra “Work with the willing and love the rest.”

So before I give you this list of ways you might go about collaborating in your community, I will say this:

Don’t force yourself on people.

A. It’s NEVER attractive and

B. It’s NEVER effective.

You can’t love people out of their apathy.

If they’re not willing to work with you to accomplish things, love them right where they’re at and go find the willing. They’re out there and here are a few places to possibly find them.

• Regional collaboration

If you’re in a small town, there are likely other small towns around you. Yes, on the basketball courts, football fields, and running tracks, compete like hell and stomp all over the town a half hour away.

But leave it on the field.

On Main Street? You’re all struggling with the same things. Pick up the phone and call the people doing cool stuff in the community over and see if you can share ideas. Chances are if it’s good for you, it’s good for them. You can help each other and neither community has to feel like they’re losing. I’ll be honest…this was one of those things that I thought was going to take off more in my region when we first launched. Breaking decades of competition between communities isn’t easy but I know the value of putting smart, enthusiastic people together, and some of the people you need live right next door.

• Private and public sector

As a nonprofit, we’ve found that our best bet for making an impact in the way that we want to, is working with private sector partners that want to see the same changes we do and see the world the same way we do. As I continue to find myself in bizarre policy-related conversations in my community (and I say that only because I still legit don’t feel like I belong in economic development at all) I’m always reminded that if the public sector, specifically government agencies, are going to be asked to participate, it often helps if the private sector is pushing for it.

The public sector moves slowly and it should; if we want things to move quickly, collaborating with the public sector can be tricky, so be wary of the extra time needed to effectively work with them.

• Rural-Urban Collaboration

When we opened our doors at 510 Main Avenue in Oakes, ND on July 29, 2021 to officially launch our space and Growing Small Towns to the big wide world, we did it with a rural bus trip. We recorded a podcast episode as a follow-up to that event if you want to catch it HERE.

We invited about 40 individuals from organizations in the Fargo-Moorhead area, which is the biggest city in the entire state, to spend the day with us, learning about what innovation in small towns looks like, and of course, enjoy some time in Oakes and learn about what we were trying to accomplish.

Well, we loved the idea so much, that we did an anniversary bus trip this year on July 28, 2022.

Again, we chartered a bus from Fargo and put 40 people on a bus to travel to Oakes.

The idea of working with companies in a bigger city near you can work; there are companies that do care about the health and vitality of your community. You just need to be clear about who you’re looking for and what you hope to do with them.

It’s amazing what we’ve accomplished in just one quick year by inviting, welcoming, and speaking to the vision we want for our communities.

Look, it’s NOT easy.

There’s even an African proverb that I’ve used more times than I even care to admit: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

And it can be tricky because I’m a big fan of speed. I like to move quickly, stay nimble, and remain open to new ideas to make the idea I’m pursuing even better.

But, that speed has hurt me in the long run when I would have benefited from a broader perspective and chose, instead, to go it alone.

There are SO many opportunities for working with others in your community, and as long as you “work with the wiling, and love the rest”, you almost can’t fail.

At Growing Small Towns, we number ourselves among the willing. We know how challenging it can be to try doing cool shit in small towns.

If that’s you, have you checked out our upcoming club yet? Click HERE to get added to the waitlist (don’t worry…it’s just the place to get more information; you’re not obligated to get the matching tattoo…YET).

Awe, look at us! Working together and stuff!