Tasmanian Economy - an Inspiring Island - 50 years on....

Using Requisite Principles for Building an Island State - Tasmania 50 years

I have read the November Tasmanian Business Report (TCCI - its online) with interest, specifically the Jobs Forum Report Back. 

We need a game changer.  We need to shift our entire state game a level of complexity up.  The state government is not going to rescue Tasmania… it is hopelessly outgunned in the economic and global competitiveness sphere.   Trying to create abundance and wealth by playing the same game harder is as we can all see, not going to produce the desired results.

I was recently invited to attend a Sustainable Living Tasmania Economy discussion group on “Our (Tasmanian) Economy”.  Great session, great ideas, passion but like many other talkfests, not a game changer. To change the game we need to change the rules and this is what leadership does.  After all we are only the size of North Sydney, so we are still small enough to be agile and flexible. 

I am convinced that Tasmania could reverse its gloomy trend with high level leadership and broad support.  In order to do this new ways and tools are needed to engage with the social commons in order to define and achieve shared ambitions and goals. Maybe that’s the place beginning point.  If we can galvanise popular appeal by building on its own unique brand, we might create the attractors for well-being and abundance.

I would suggest Tasmania act like a 21st century social business enterprise - a “not for loss” on a state wide scale. Assuming we get that right, here is a possible sequence of events to design and operate Tasmania Pty Ltd;

1. Where are we going?   Leadership needs to create platforms to allow a vision of Tasmania 50 years’ hence to emerge.  A bold game plan is needed (imagine we lost the GST revenue…) to create an umbrella vision.  Scenario planning experts could facilitate this.  An outcome might be “a world class example of a self-sustaining, compassionate and entrepreneurial  island"

This builds on our strengths – after all we are a state of small businesses and the self-employed, we strive to be a civic society (consider our volunteer base, our community concern, we have a global reputation for environmental awareness and action), we are all consumers (we can use our buying power in whatever way we choose) and we so desired, we could change how things work (revenue flows and power structures) in state government and business at tweet speed. 

Our  vision needs to be an attractor for all sorts of galvanising activities, paid or not, commercial or not, but which are all geared around achieving that vision and which allows for state, private and public sector collaboration for an integrative, non-zero sum game. 

2.  How are we going to get there?   What might be our strategies to deliver?   We need new bold broad rallying strategies, linked to tangible and measurable outcomes, not the old tired and zero game strategies currently being played.     

3. How will we organise ourselves? -     An “organisational restructure” is needed to make us purpose fit.   All major corporations do this regularly.  We need to take a considered look at how would government and our existing infrastructure support or hinder the delivery of our vision.

4. What Work Actually needs to be done?  We need to be really clear on what we want to achieve. How might such a vision apply to some of the 13 major recommendations from the Job Forum?

•             Driving Tasmania Tourism – people would come to visit us to see how an island has made itself sustainable – across agriculture, energy, construction, transport, manufacturing, while encouraging and building local community based resilient economies..   We measure ourselves on the happiness index.  We do things differently.  Far-fetched?  One small Eco village in a remote part of Scotland generates £20 million pounds per annum for the local economy and is the single biggest employer after the RAF base closed down…

•               Skilling up for the Future - we have created new markets and new industries to become self-sufficient.  Our educational sector is world renown for research and teaching in sustainable living and technologies.  We EDUCATE, EDUCATE our own population and encourage entrepreneurship and living cooperatively and sustainably.   For example, we have built through public private partnerships a rail network and electric car infrastructure that develop apprentices  and employ tradies. We have reinvigorated our manufacture base by building and exporting electric vehicles and revitalise old trades and the new. 

•             Cutting Bass Strait Freight Costs - Our ship building industry builds high tech wooden clipper ships work that ply the Tasman.  We have built an independent transport and energy network - lets face it transport and energy costs in the old system are never going to decline, the future is here already. 

•             Understanding the Needs of the Aged.. we have created a caring compassionate island which stimulated a property boom, bringing  money and talented retirees here to join multi generational co housing and Eco villages groups that were build with supporting planning permissions.  People select the care they need and are able to die with dignity in their homes or  in their community, choosing euthanasia if they wish.  There is a boom coming in age care…

•             Reforming Government structures… unnecessary levels of government reduced and key priorities supported developing sustainable local communities, (people, food, water, power and business) all empowered to control costs and be self sufficient.

•             Costs of Doing Business in Tasmania - by localising and creating alternative energy grids we have future shock proofed ourselves and created jobs.  I recently read the City of Hobart report - how it would benefit from an overarching vision of becoming the most sustainable city in the world.  Why should Hobart City Council not adopt a 15 year challenge of becoming a renewable and sustainable city?

5.  Recruit and Attract people who are in flow with the work challenges.  Requisite  practices have proven that to develop/grow you need to attract high level talent and stock your “outer edges” with that talent.  Tasmania has developed and attracted people who  live differently and are passionate about game change…  they changed the old power structures from the bottom up....

There are three other points for designing and operating a business that would be important for Tasmania Pty Ltd… namely setting authority and accountability limits and ensuring Effective leadership through common frameworks of how things are done….we need to have effective policies and systems and not mindless or petty revenue generation approaches.

So in conclusion, I hope this letter encourages us to think differently about 2014 and the coming election.  How about players such as TCCI, SLT and other join forces to host a strategic visioning exercise to deliver outputs which can then be tested amongst the broad population and to which we can attach real strategies and real work?

An Abundant Festive Season. 

Andrew Olivier 

Acknowledgements & References
1. To my friend Graham Harris - for his ideas on harnessing the social commons, tweetspeed and who stimulates me to think about things from different perspectives.
2. Tasmanian Business Reporter, November 2013. Issued by the TCCI.
3. Our Conversation: Tasmania's Economy. Uncovering a shared positive vision of our future.  1st November. 2013. Hosted by Sustainable Living Tasmania.