Talent remains the top priority for Memphis.
It requires us to align our energies and our strategies, but we run the risk of our penchant for big project answers to our problems – whether it is downtown redevelopment, neighborhood revitalization or economic growth – to keep us from the hardest work to create, attract and retain talent.
It’s easy to build big projects. It’s not as easy to build the creative ecosystem, the culture of innovation and the connectivity that joins creatives into a force for a stronger future. That’s why we have a tendency to oversimplify what it takes to attract and retain talent.
Not too long ago, a business leader ascribes to the new Memphis Greenline, formerly the CSX railroad line, the power to attract college-educated 25-34 year-old workers to our city. Previously, in other op-ed columns, it was Shelby Farms Park, the riverfront, arts and culture, and more.
The Thing
Here’s the thing. These outdoor recreational opportunities are important, but they won’t magically pull or keep people in Memphis.
They are just markers, the assets that have to be in place to even get Memphis onto the list of cities that are attractive to 25-34 year-old college-educated workers. But markers only keep us in the game. After all, young professionals say they are looking for a city that is green. This doesn’t just mean we do it with a new walking/biking trail and a new park. It also means that we have to exhibit green behavior, sustainable practices, less sprawl and better transportation policies.
That’s why Memphis has reached the point where everything that we do needs to be evaluated within a lens of talent, every investment needs to be analyzed to determine if it creates or attracts talent and every new program needs to be weighed by its impact on retaining talent.
In other words, talent is the great issue of our city today, and we’re not just talking about Coach Josh Pastner’s recruiting class for the coming basketball season, although it does remind us of how hard we have to work to keep talent that the whole country is competing for and to attract similarly talented people.
In today’s highly competitive economy, the single most important indicator of success for a city is the presence of talent – college-educated talent. To some, this is interpreted as meaning that we should recruit and attract more of 25-34 year-olds to Memphis.
Losing The Game
That’s one piece of it. But the truth is that in the battle of talent, we are having problems competing.
The better option for us is to play to our strengths, and that’s why creating talent in Memphis is more important than attracting talent. We have talked earlier about Memphis’ distinctive bulge in students when we are compared to the 50 top metros in the U.S. In other words, while other areas of the country in the coming decades will be facing serious workforce shortages, we will not have that problem…if – and it’s a big if – we can move these students to a line receiving a college degree and into the economic mainstream.
In the end, Memphis City Schools isn’t in the school business. It’s in the talent business.
There are serious reasons that we need to be focused on the 105,000 students in its classrooms – religious reasons, charitable reasons, and social reasons – but set all that aside in favor of our own self-interest. We can increase the percentage of college-educated Memphians by only 1 percent and it creates $1 billion in economic impact. If we had a $1 billion company knocking on our doors and talking about coming to Memphis, we would give them tax incentives, we would romance them, and we would beg them to move here.
We have a $1 billion opportunity right in front of us — if we can only get one percent more of our people out of college. Besides the city and county school students, it’s worth keeping in mind that we have about 125,000 people in our community who have attended some college but did not graduate, so perhaps we can start with them for a short-term win while also concentrating on the students in our city schools classrooms.
#1 – Talent
While we talk often about the four dimensions of successful cities — distinctiveness, innovation, connectivity, and now talent – the truth is that talent is the thread that holds our competitive fabric together.
Every city is fighting for 25-34 year-old college-educated workers. This group is highly coveted, not just because they are highly educated but because they are highly mobile. And cities like ours who want them and want to keep them have to prove that they have the kind of quality of life that these talented workers say they are looking for – clean, green, safe, and tolerant.
It’s easy in our city to feel overwhelmed by its challenges and undervalued as sources of change. But we are the ones we have been waiting for. The most exciting things happening in Memphis today aren’t coming top-down from leaders of government, the Chamber of Commerce, or high-profile civic groups. Rather, the best reasons to be excited about Memphis are the number of grassroots and neighborhood programs begun by people like you who care about their city and are determined that it can be better.
It’s what Commercial Appeal Geoff Calkins called “Memphis’ special gift.”
More Than Lip Service
He said that what he loved about this city is that “people care and look out for each other. Sometimes in the midst of the drumbeat of fear and negativism here, I have to stop and remind myself what I love about Memphis: the opportunity is there for all of us to shape Memphis. Every one of us can make a difference. It’s not that we have an obligation. It’s a gift. It’s an opportunity that doesn’t exist in other places. You can easily get involved in what gives your life purpose and meaning.” That, too, is a theme for this day. In fact, it’s the theme for this year.
We are our leaders. We are uniquely prepared to know what levers for change we need to address. We are the people we’ve been waiting for.
It’s time for us to make the main thing the main thing. It’s talent.
We are encouraged by the progress being made by Leadership Memphis and by MPACT Memphis, but it’s time for the rest of us – including those in elected office – to give them more than lip service. It’s time to give them the resources – financial and civic – to achieve that $1 billion economic impact.
“Here’s the thing. These outdoor recreational opportunities are important, but they won’t magically pull or keep people in Memphis.
They are just markers, the assets that have to be in place to even get Memphis onto the list of cities that are attractive to 25-34 year-old college-educated workers.”
Playgrounds in schools, especially PUBLIC SCHOOLS especially schools with outrageous budgets of $10,000 per child per year, are not just markers.
A well designed playground is the beginning of openly, publicly, and seriously supporting creative thinking in children.
WE DON’T HAVE PLAYGROUNDS AT MOST MCS ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS.
I know, a billion dollars a year for less than 100,000 students (and declining every year) doesn’t get you a playground.
Private schools cost less and do a better job.
Why?
Because someone has authority to do something to make sure that is so.
Here we have an MCS school board doing the work and heavy lifting for the white supremacist movement, funny thing is, most of the school board members doing it are colored!
No one can stop them though.
“A well designed playground is the beginning of openly, publicly, and seriously supporting creative thinking in children.”
Much agreed.
I would add taking taking P.E more seriously to the need for more playgrounds. P.E. is marginalized in public schools these days yet recent studies show that the smartest kids are the healthiest kids.
The N.Y. Times published some findings from a couple of research teams that demonstrated that a moderate cardiovascular workout in children promotes higher ordered thinking and a higher I.Q. So not only is creating a healthy city a marker and a marketing tool to for attracting the creative class, it’s a major investment in the education and development of our city youth. So give your kid’s P.E. teacher a pat on the back next time you see him/her. They are playing a big part in giving your child a brighter future.
>>>get Memphis onto the list of cities that are attractive to 25-34 year-old college-educated workers
A relative recently graduated from Ole Miss. ONE classmate she knew moved to Memphis! One … from Ole Miss! Memphis should target the low hanging fruit: graduates of Univ. of Memphis, Ole Miss, Miss. State, etc. … others may follow, but just those grads would be enough for a good mid-size city like ours.
>>A relative recently graduated from Ole Miss. ONE classmate she knew moved to Memphis! One … from Ole Miss! Memphis should target the low hanging fruit: graduates of Univ. of Memphis, Ole Miss, Miss. State, etc. … others may follow, but just those grads would be enough for a good mid-size city like ours.
This is bout the smartest thing I have read in awhile.
Why waste your time with MCS kids… the problem is making the city attractive for kids that will graduate from college not trying to turn kids that will drop out and join a gang into staying through high school and then continuing through college (let me know how that goes).
ONE ole miss grad? I didn’t even hear burger king was hiring!….
Tom, a mild dissent. Through no fault of theirs, the “creative class” or the “young and talented” or whatever has been hitched to the burden of high expectations and high praise. Some of them may well earn it, or have already earned it. But I notice at public meetings, the bulk of the audience (and the people behind the desks and mics) comes from the senior class or the working class. Ultimately, this is where a lot of the sausage gets made and the work gets done.
John Branston
If we don’t focus on retaining the talent we have now, all the Gates and RTT money in the world won’t save our city. Unless we start building the kind of city those graduates will want to live in (and we need to start now – things move slowly in Memphis), today’s children will high-tail it outta here as fast as possible. They will go to the cities that were willing to make the investment – cities perceived as hip, connected, and full of other young professionals.
The educational opportunities in Memphis are greater than I ever imagined for my city. Just a few years ago, it was hard to conceive of the possibilities that are very real today. I have true hope that we might truly be able to give our children the education they deserve. And then they will move away.
Place matters. This city matters. I would hate to see Memphis squander such a phenomenal opportunity by creating export-graduates instead of a college-educated, passionate, rooted workforce.
There is a lot of low-hanging fruit, very realistic “easy wins.” But even the easy stuff takes money. I love my city, but not enough to work for free, or even for peanuts.
Investing in grassroots work to retain the talent we have also sends a pretty powerful message – this city is committed to you, and we really want you to love our town and put down roots. (Note: This is not intended to inspire anyone to create a bumper sticker.) Telling someone (and backing it up with action) that they’re valued is one of the first lessons in leadership 101. If you don’t care about me, why should I care about you?
Let’s take the talent we have, tell them they’re valued, engage them with each other and the community, and unleash one of the most energetic generations in history. Like adding turbo boosters to the rocket we’re already on.
On the flipside Gwyn, I think it’s healthy regardless of where you live to leave your hometown and go to college elsewhere. I have told a number of youth in our neighborhood to move as far away for college as possible. It’s a rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see something different, to have your worldview reoriented and then come back home fired up to help improve your community.
I guess the question is how many come back after living in a different place?
|”The most exciting things happening in Memphis today aren’t coming top-down from leaders of government, the Chamber of Commerce, or high-profile civic groups. Rather, the best reasons to be excited about Memphis are the number of grassroots and neighborhood programs begun by people like you who care about their city and are determined that it can be better.”
Exactly! Which is why what Gwyn said, means something to me.
|”Investing in grassroots work to retain the talent we have also sends a pretty powerful message – this city is committed to you, and we really want you to love our town and put down roots. (Note: This is not intended to inspire anyone to create a bumper sticker.) Telling someone (and backing it up with action) that they’re valued is one of the first lessons in leadership 101. If you don’t care about me, why should I care about you?”
Thanks Gwyn! These two statements are the only two things I’ve not heard people saying for the last 10 years. Some of the stuff in this article Carol and Tom pointed out years ago. When will people actually wake up, listen and most of all do something about this?
Talent will come or stay here when there is opportunity. Let me clarify, not just open opportunity but opportunity for support of the creative.
These two paragraphs are the core of everything wrong in Memphis. With a supportive, creative environment open to new ideas, you can address any issue or problem in the city.
To start this process, combine music, film, art, business and the environment equally under Memphis economic development, creating a unified brand, message, and incentive packages for creative projects that address the Triple Bottom Line… people, planet, profit.
!!!
Grassroots is great and it shows that the true will of the people is absolutely not represented in any way buy “leadership”.
If grassroots goes on too long unsupported by “leadership”, it dries up, lack of funding. That tells you what “leadership” is really up to, cheapening the workforce, not adding value or supporting a valuable workforce. What do they know that we don’t? What don’t they know that we do?
Make a two column list, a powerpoint, explain the benefits, and have a meeting with them. Find out what you’re up against for real as far as money trying to push things the other way and who’s funding that effort and why. Don’t rush to judgement. Find out if you can come up with an inclusive strategy that includes them and makes them not only more valuable by making the workforce more valuable but everyone wins.
People here are being required to work for less than should be legal seriously, and time is up on that crap.
We really can make everyone win, but, not by condemning one over another, but, by working together with an eye toward a solution that can be planned designed to work out and conceded as such by all parties.
John-
Perhaps that is because as a group they are more likely to be actually working at 5:30- a common start time for many “public” meetings in Memphis. When you have nothing to do all day or you are in the type of job that you punch out on your time card at the sausage factory at 4 pm, it becomes pretty easy to see why one group would be overrepresented at such meetings.
Then again, you might have also concluded that the limited number that show up at such meetings actually represent this city’s poor performance record in attracting such individuals. I can also speak from personal experience and say there are more than a few of us here that have totally given up trying to discuss issues with our elderly set and within the existing government structure in this city. Both groups have shown themselves as shallow and disappointing on too many occasions. Instead you hear the same grinding response- “I’ve lived here for ‘nigh on 50 years and that will never work and I won’t support it”.
You will instead find us grouped through organizations like Livable Memphis and privately organized groups actually accomplishing goals instead of wasting our time trying to convince some 60 year old, life-long Memphian about the good that is being accomplished in other cities.
Gwynn got it, we need to pick our own fruit, and we do that, but, it’s not enough.