Action Steps for Implementers

Cultivate resilience. McKinsey’s America at Work report defines a location’s resiliency along five key dimensions: ability to innovate, rate of economic development, production base, population capacity to participate in the workforce, and level of human capital.¹ Activities that improve one or more of these factors increase a new idea’s chance of success and contribute to a region’s response to automation.

Be specific. When considering automation-response options, communities often shied away from specific, well-articulated ideas (for instance, designing an entrepreneurial training program for a vulnerable population) for fear of being too narrow. But narrow ideas give other stakeholders something to react to and advocate for and against. Sometimes the most specific ideas got the most traction in discussions and program design.

Vision matters. From ASU president Michael Crow’s idea (to provide step-by-step coaching to all incoming students) to South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg’s initiative (use of the public library as a community technology development site), the ability to see and communicate a new way of organizing resources matters a lot.

Work together. One of the most common refrains in idea design days across all three cities was, “I had no idea [x] leader operated here, or that our work overlapped so much.” Educators, employers, city leaders, and workforce advocates repeatedly found that they had had no idea how siloed they really were.

Create new choices. The end goal of any project connecting workers to new opportunities is for the workers themselves to feel that they have more control and choice in how to earn income. Whenever possible, seek to show community members emerging job possibilities and pathways to achieving them.