Back in July, at this year’s American Chamber of Commerce Executive’s (ACCE) Convention in Pittsburgh, I had the opportunity to appreciate the variety of challenges faced by chambers of commerce. I came away from that event with a renewed commitment about a game-changing program that chambers can help to spearhead: a unique opportunity to accelerate local economic development. Allow me to share some of my observations with you.

First, we share a common vision of strengthening business growth in America – even during the tough times we’re confronted with now. There’s actually good things that come from crises: they force us to make choices, sometimes, tough choices. Crises force us to make a choice between vacillating among options, and taking action.

When faced with increased global competitiveness and economic uncertainty, it’s vital that we focus on developing a better way of managing our businesses. Indeed, “if nothing changes, nothing changes.” More specifically, we need to create both new business opportunities and accelerate existing business development, especially among small and midsized companies. History shows us that it’s these organizations that are the drivers of our local economies, responsible for the overwhelming majority of economic and employment growth.

To support this assertion, the SBA published a new report in June 2008: High-Impact Firms: Gazelles Revisited. This new study revisits and expands upon some of the conclusions about rapidly growing firms conducted in the 1980s. Specifically, the report examines firms with significant revenue growth and expanding employment.

The revealing research findings about “high-impact firms” are summarized as follows:

• They are relatively old, rare and contribute the majority of overall economic growth.
• They exist in all industries, in almost all regions, states and counties.
• They represent only 3% of all firms, yet they account for almost all private sector employment and economic growth in the economy.
• On average, it takes a company almost 20 years to enter this high-impact stage.
• In the four years after a high-impact firm undergoes its high-growth phase, 75% of them fail to sustain their high-impact status.

For chambers that have a strategy focused on an economic development platform, the implications and benefits of acting on this data are significant. Those who do will recognize the value of cultivating high-impact firms as well as accelerating the consistent performance of existing businesses in your communities.

Following are some game-changing implications for your chamber to consider:

• Why is it that every business – even the best ones - struggle so much to sustain growth and profitability?
• Why is that only 3% of businesses drive the overwhelming majority of economic growth and job creation in any given community? Why does it have to be only 3%?  Can’t we do any better?
• What kind of impact could your chamber have on your community’s economic development if you could help to cultivate and accelerate the number of local high-impact firms from say, 3% to 4%, or perhaps even 5%?
• What if your chamber could recommend systematic approach to enable companies to get to the high-impact stage sooner — and stay there longer?
• Perhaps more importantly, what are we going to do about accelerating economic growth for the other 97% of businesses?

During challenging times like we’re in now, what we don’t need is more rhetoric. What we need is a specific, actionable plan for changing the game by accelerating beyond the 3% “speed limit” and offer a revolutionary new approach for the other 97%.

Now, consider these observations:

• Even the best performing organizations (the high-impact firms) are guaranteed to experience bigger challenges tomorrow, compared to today. The same holds true for the other 97% of businesses.
• We’re fifty years into the Information Age, yet we’re still managing our greatest assets like we were back in the Industrial Age.
• Because of advances and innovation during the past 30 years, we’re on the cusp of a radical shift—a revolution— in how we’ll manage the performance of our workforces.
• Without the innovative synergies in quality programs, coaching, strategy formulation, business intelligence, personal productivity tools, business process best practices, and the Internet—this revolution would never have started.
• The result of these advances and innovations is a next-generation approach for how organizations will plan and execute their strategies more consistently and predictably.
• There is a leapfrog opportunity, particularly for small and mid-sized businesses, in the way they can finally choose to approach the biggest challenge in business - planning and executing strategy.
• This leapfrog opportunity is already upon us, and those who choose to ignore it—will be left behind.

A revolutionary, innovative approach to accelerate the economic growth and development of our local business communities is one that will occur — with or without us. Chambers that have a strong strategy based on an economic development are uniquely positioned to cultivate high-impact firms: getting them to the growth stage sooner, and getting them to stay there longer.

Chambers are also uniquely qualified to help accelerate the performance of the “other 97%” of existing businesses. It’s simply not enough to offer the occasional business seminar or development workshop, in hopes that it will ignite a spark and transform the company into a major growth contributor. How can we possibly hope for a new outcome, using the same old kind of thinking?  Hope is not a strategy. It’s time for chambers to take an aggressive attitude toward accelerating economic growth in their communities, and choose to actively participate in the Execution Revolution that is already underway.

That’s why I’m launching a 50-city “Economic Acceleration Tour: Breaking The 3% Speed Limit”.  For details on how your chamber can get involved and bring the Economic Acceleration Tour to your community, visit www.GaryHarpst.com/tour.