See my op-ed that just started running today in the Puget Sound Business Journal about the need for Economic Development Agencies to Learn to Work Together. All these same principles fit in our work of emergency management. If you don't know where to start, I recommend joint planning to get the ball rolling toward the process of building trust. And, there is plenty of planning that needs to be done!
I've learned that the link above is "behind the subscriber wall" so I'm copying the text into this blog post. See below:
Regional Trust Is Lacking
By Eric Holdeman
Anyone who has worked on developing regional partnerships that include public and private sectors and those that are governmental and inter-jurisdictional knows that before there can be cooperation or even coordination, there must first be trust between the parties.
There has been a recent effort led by former Gov. Christine Gregoire as CEO of Challenge Seattle to suggest a merger of the various economic development organizations that span the Central Puget Sound. That message has, in general, fallen on deaf ears and has had outright rejections by at least two of the economic development organizations.
Exactly what defines a region — geographically? I believe it is one that has a shared population, shared businesses and industry along with shared critical infrastructures, all of which seamlessly function on a day-to-day basis. The Central Puget Sound counties, with over half of the state’s population, meets this description. However, there are artificial, man-made, jurisdictional boundaries that inhibit regional coordination.
There is a long history of counties in this region competing for new businesses. This includes the cities of Seattle and Tacoma. The former rivalry between the two Ports of Seattle and Tacoma was legendary. Each trying to steal business from the other. It took both ports over 95 years to come to the realization that these behaviors were more destructive to good business practices than they were helpful to building up the economic infrastructures of their respective ports. Thus, they formed the Northwest Seaport Alliance back in 2015. More on that relationship later in this piece.
Over 20 years ago when I as the director of the King County Office of Emergency Management reached out to my counterpart in Pierce County and suggested that we team together on regional disaster mitigation projects for which we had each received federal grant dollars in equal amounts. My suggestion was initially rebuffed. Over coffee and donuts there was a frank discussion of the issues. Big Bad King County had over the years established a reputation for treating “partners” not as equals when it came to decision-making. Certainly, a legacy of mistrust had been established.
With this information in hand I went back to my boss and suggested that we take our King County $300K grant and transfer the funds to Pierce County for us to jointly administer the funds. With control of the funds guaranteed by Pierce County, we were able to move forward. Together we hired just one program coordinator (being efficient and saving tax dollars) and mutually established regional projects that we worked on individually and jointly. Our working bond and trust levels became very high and the results were nationally recognized.
I believe that the concept of combining the economic development efforts is a good one, but the idea of consolidating the organizations was doomed to failure without trust being in place. Instead, I recommend that an effort be made to combine the work of all the organizations and first move toward a planning and information-sharing relationship. I have found joint planning to be the catalyst for building trust for the long term. What would really sweeten the pot and get things rolling is for Washington state to create a fund, jointly administered by the participating organizations, for projects and efforts that are a coordinated effort between the economic development organizations.
As for the Northwest Seaport Alliance, men and women know that “getting married” and “being married” are two different things. As they move forward, they need to be thinking “as one” and not as “two separate entities” who are just cooperating with one another. While progress in their inter-port relationship has been made, true collaboration is not a shake-and-bake process. Trust is built over time between individuals, who then bring their organizations along with them.
You cannot rush the trust-building process; it is something that Chris Gregoire is quickly learning the hard way.
Eric Holdeman, is director of the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience and is a nationally known emergency manager and blogger. He was previously director of the King County Office of Emergency Management. You can read his blog at www.disaster-zone.com
