Mitch Frazier: Let’s define growth, then make it happen

Growth is a near universal ambition.

In companies and organizations, teams rally to fuel growth. They create products and services that uniquely meet market needs, and the teams are rewarded with increasing sales, gains in market share and an increasing ability to serve customers’ needs. Durable companies go one step further and find efficiencies, making growth both a top-line and bottom-line result.

The same is true personally. We read books, exercise and seek counsel to improve our ability to meet the needs of an ever-changing world. While results might come in terms of finances, much of our personal growth shows up in everything from parenting to fitness, with growth measured in minutes saved and miles logged.

This insatiable appetite for growth has fueled humans for generations, including those charged with leading the very economies that make the markets that move our world.

Much like business leaders measure financial growth as a proxy for an organization’s ability to uniquely serve an unmet market need, government leaders measure growth in terms of gross domestic product to identify economic performance. Relative GDP growth signals strength in a given geography, its operating environment, the health of its economy and the momentum that may be building.

Indiana’s GDP growth story is compelling when evaluated against its neighbors’. Gov. Mike Braun cites recent data that finds Indiana’s GDP grew at roughly double the rate of Ohio’s and Illinois’, nearly triple the rate of Kentucky’s and more than six times the rate of Michigan’s. These are impressive results made possible by years of deliberate focus on the part of leaders in business, government, philanthropy and education who have worked together to strengthen Indiana, its economy and its operating environment.

Indiana’s enviable position of growth in the Midwest is unique, but it faces challenges.

Too often, economic development projects aimed at fueling economic growth in the state face opposition from parties that appear unwilling to discuss project details and balance objections with alternatives. Public discourse and debate are critical in any public process, especially economic development. It’s in these conversations that insights are uncovered, concerns are voiced and mutual understanding is achieved. All of these make projects better.

Respectful opposition creates the conversations that enable all sides of an issue to contribute to a shared vision for the future. However, these benefits and a project’s potential economic growth are stymied when opposing positions refuse to engage and help craft a compromise.

Not all economic development projects are a fit, but rejecting all growth is not a viable strategy for long-term economic strength. Business leaders, community members, economic developers and elected officials must work together to develop a definition of growth that meets the desires of the population, builds upon proven strengths and creates a future that capitalizes on a community’s market position and delivers durable, differentiated growth.

Growth will take many forms and will likely look different in communities and regions across the state. For some, growth might look like housing, technology incubators, and office and light industrial development. For others, growth might look like manufacturing, life sciences laboratories, agricultural processing and logistics operations.

Now is not the time to universally oppose growth. Nor is it the time to blindly accept it. It is the time to define the growth Indiana needs and relentlessly pursue it with the same zeal that earned Indiana its position of strength.•

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Frazier is president of IBJ Media.