The 30% plan

Creators, strategists, and tinkerers. We need them to make our cities and neighborhoods thrive.

Collaborations that work are intentional in creating tables with a mix of creators, strategists, and tinkerers. The change necessary for cultivating thriving places requires all three types who vision-cast, draw up plans that put the collaboration on the growth track to achieve quick and long-term wins.

It’s what I call the 30% plan.

It is enough to cast vision but not finished. It allows critics, tinkerers, and improvers to do what they do best. Then, the plan starts to come alive. Finally, people begin to see the result and good that will come with plan implementation.

The next time someone asks you to collaborate, you will ask for the ratio of creators, critics, and tinkerers in the room. It will give you a clue as to whether the thriving place we seek to make is genuine or leads us down roads already traveled with outcomes none of us like or want.