This past Sunday morning I was watching “This Week with Christiana Amanpour” on television. She is an excellent interviewer when it comes to foreign policy, global issues, political regimes, etc.  During one segment of the broadcast, she was interviewing Former US President Bill Clinton about the upcoming conference of his CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE.  Unemployment is not just a US problem so CEOs from around the globe will be brainstorming ideas to create more jobs.

President Clinton provided about a dozen examples of places with lower unemployment rates and more resilient economies.  Every example involved collaborative effort.  San Diego has a successful technology initiative.  MIT and other institutions are working together and getting results around Boston. He mentioned Austin, Texas and finished the list with Mayor Bloomberg’s idea for New York City to establish a technology research center on unused land on Governor’s Island.

And then today, I was interviewing Dave Clements on my weekly talk show. He is the Director of the Lacrosse Convention and Visitors Bureau in Wisconsin. The subject of today’s broadcast was “What Presidents of Midsized Businesses can learn from an Executive of a Nonprofit Organization.”  Sure enough, Dave talked about collaboration.  They squeeze lots of wonderful events out of their $800,000/year budget by doing strategic alliances, joint ventures, and bartering. He also shared advice about how to get the most out of employees, how to position your organization as a hub of positive activity, how to win despite the perception that you are up against a large well financed competitor, why to never turn down media interviews, and how to turn liabilities into assets.  The primary message was collaboration.

And last week, I proposed an idea to an association that involves collaboration among members. At first, the idea doesn’t seem possible to business leaders who are hearing nothing but bad news. After all, each person is very busy handling the impact of the bad economy.  Why would anyone want to collaborate?   Frankly, during tough times, I find that people also need to feel a sense of progress.  If there is a project for which each person is asked to play a small part and it somehow adds up to a positive change, most people will give it a try….if negative people don’t kill their enthusiasm. 

Aldonna R. Ambler, CMC, CSP has earned the right to be called THE GROWTH STRATEGIST™. She has won over 2 dozen national and statewide “entrepreneur of the year” awards for the resilient growth of her international businesses across 4 recessions.  Her midsized BtoB service, technology, and distribution clients get on…and then stay on…the published lists of the fastest growing privately held companies. All of her own service businesses (strategic planning, executive advisory, growth financing, talk show, speaking, search) help privately held midsized companies achieve accelerated growth with sustained profitability.™ Ambler is in her 7^th year hosting a weekly peer-to-peer-to-peer on line program at www.Business. VoiceAmerica. com and www.growthstrategistshow.com that features interviews with CEOs/Presidents of midsized companies (typically between $20 and 200 Mil/yr) sharing success tips about the growth strategy-of-the-week. Family owned businesses are being emphasized in 2011. Ambler is in the process of launching her 8^th enterprise. She can be reached toll free at 1-888-Aldonna or at Aldonna@AMBLER.com.