Leading Local examines entrepreneurial leadership & innovation
By Stephanie Dubbs
Session Reporter
Leading Locally met at the Library for the seventh session on March 5. Our program for this month was "Entrepreneurial Leadership & Innovation."
Connie Reimers-Hild, with UNL-Extension of Nebraska City's Kimmel Education & Research Center, was our presenter.
Gwen Hein was the facilitator for this month. We were split into two groups to do an icebreaker. We had to come up with as many words or thoughts that we could to describe "Entrepreneurial Leadership."
Reimers-Hild had us introduce ourselves, share something fun about ourselves and what we wanted to get out of the class that day.
One of the first questions we were all asked was, "Who do we see as leaders?" Of course we answered: the president, city officials, county officials, etc...
Reimers-Hild said that we should think of ourselves as leaders - that is why we are participating in this class.
The first step in our journey of leadership is to understand the importance of entrepreneurship. We learned that an entrepreneur is someone who starts and grows a business and they are important because they keep communities growing; bring money and new ideas to our communities. Some of the key characteristics of entrepreneurs are: They realize they control their own destiny, are strong leaders, are resourceful, independent, are calculated risk-takers and are achievement oriented.
Entrepreneurial Individuals are a little different than entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial Individuals are innovative people who are open to change and recognize and pursue opportunities irrespective of existing resources, such as time, money personal support and/or technology.
Innovation was the other area that we discussed at length during our session. Innovation is coming up with new ideas, products, collaborations, service and solutions that can be used. We learned that it is important to have innovation in a community to keep it successful. Innovation is what can bring people together during down times. Innovation is creativity to do something different that works for the betterment of a community or organization.
We then had a few questions to answer about our own community. Most of the class participants rated David City a 3 on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being extremely entrepreneurial.
We also were asked the questions: Are people in your community learning to be more entrepreneurial? Is innovation a priority in you community? Again, the class ranked David City somewhere in the middle. Can you recite the vision statement of your community?
None of us knew if there was even a vision statement for our community. Does your community connect residents or employees with their passions and their personal vision of the future?
We didn't really think that anything was in place for this. The final question: Is your community developing and leveraging the human and social capital of its residents?
We discussed how important it is for people in a community to feel like they have a purpose or they won't stay in that community.
Entrepreneurial Leadership and Innovation are supported by creating and communicating a Relevant Vision, motivating and empowering individuals, leveraging human and social capital (who we know and what we know), developing a global mindset that embraces change and values diversity and cultivating continuous innovation.
Our final project in class was to split into groups and create an atmosphere in our community that encourages and supports continuous innovation with words and pictures. One of the themes from this project was getting the community involved and having them educated on innovations that need to be accomplished in the community. By ourselves we are a branch - together we can become a blossomed, full-grown tree.
We enjoyed lunch provided by the Butler County Chamber of Commerce of barbecue beef sandwiches, veggies and chips. We enjoyed goodies from the morning as our dessert.
After lunch we listened to our Community Asset, Louise Niemann, with the Rural Food Connection. She shared with us how every week volunteers collect food from various places that would otherwise go to waste.
They take this food and make it useful for those who need it in our community. Louise shared that they have given 7,034 pounds of food over the past five years, served 1,149 families and had 389 volunteers. She shared some touching stories of the shoppers who come in, and the things they really look forward to taking home. Louise said they haven't turned any donation away - they will take anything from a package of buns, to fruit, to leftovers you may have from your business meetings.
Rural Food Connection is based out of St. Luke's Church every Thursday unless there is a holiday, and then they have it on Friday.
Leading Locally will meet for it's last class on Wednesday, April 11th at the Library. The class will participate in a graduation at the Butler County Chamber Member Luncheon at noon. The chamber sponsors the Leading Locally course with financial support from the Butler County Area Foundation.