In a competitive world, progress is viewed as a highly valued outcome. What encourages and allows progress to occur? What retards it or blocks it? This publication addresses these two questions.

All organizations, free to determine their own future and to define progress, will have members who concern themselves with guiding the organization forward. These are the members who want to leave a legacy of progress. This publication is created for these leaders. The targeted audience is the set of state and local elected officials and their staff, community leaders and other active volunteers, and executives of organizations and their management team.

This publication presents a model with five critical variables. The reader will learn about how the model is specified and the five key forms of capital used in sustaining progress.

Model Specification

The model was formulated after a review of the literature. The model is made up of the five key variables specified below:

Progress = f (A, V, P, R, B)

A A set of attitudes, core values and principles that shape the culture of an organization and define the character of its leaders.

V A compelling vision of an exciting future. The vision gives focus and direction to planned efforts, while challenging, motivating, and uniting team members.

P An action plan that is designed to guide the process as the vision is pursued.

R A set of resources that are needed to implement the plan.

B A set of outcomes that benefit all those involved in the process and other stakeholders.

A mathematical way to express the above generalized formula follows:

Progress = (A x V x P x R x B)

This shows that the variables in the equation compound. No progress can occur unless all variables are positive.

Five Forms of Capital

A comprehensive approach to community development is well planned with adequate resources. These resources are grouped into five forms of capital by Green and Haine.

The five forms of capital are:

1. Human Capital
2. Social Capital
3. Financial Capital
4. Engineered Capital
5. Natural and Environmental Capital

These five are defined the following way.

Human Capital is the knowledge and skills used in the production process. It includes the skills of production workers, marketing officers, financial managers, and organizational leaders. It includes the work ethic, attitudes, and values of the work force.

Social Capital is the trust and working relationships within a team, organization or a community.

Financial Capital comes in different forms to pay for tasks such as stating a business, expanding a business, or building a school.

Engineered Capital is the collection of human engineered products not already covered as human, social or financial capital. Hard-engineered capital includes physical infrastructure such as fiber optic cable, and soft-engineered capital includes the organizational and institutional infrastructure, as well as the governance of these two.

Natural and Environmental Capital includes water, mineral, scenery, and other gifts of nature.

The Role of Leadership in Guiding Change

No proactive change is without one or more champions who act as leaders in one or more phases of the process. These people are most effective if they bring positive energy to an organization or team effort. Attitude (A) values, and principles shape the culture of an organization. Key leaders bring these to the task. Ideally, leaders are positive people who have a set of values and principles that the team can easily accept and reinforce.

Leaders have to either be visionary people or be willing to champion a vision created by others within the context of the new, knowledge-based economy. The V stands for vision, and no team effort will be successful without it.

Without vision, goals, and objectives any outcome will do. A good vision statement not only focuses and gives direction to the process, but also challenges motivates, and unites the team.

Leaders have to be able to lead the process of constructing and implementing a plan (P). Action planning should be vision charged. This means that the vision is the overarching driver of the plan. Therefore, the leadership team must believe in and champion the vision in order to challenge, motivate, and unite their team. In many circumstances, the mission is to build a plan that can be implemented by other organizations and decision makers.

Plans need resources for action to begin. There are many different types of resources (R). Five forms of capital have been presented. The most important is the ability of people to lead, manage, learn, produce, and make smart decisions. These all come under the heading of Human Capital. Leadership resources are most important in the construction of the plan and implementation of the plan. Another important role for leaders is to be the knowledgeable ones who can identify, gain control of, and allocate resources.

Benefits (B) have to be real in the minds of the team and the rest of the stakeholders. Leadership must continually remind the team about the desirability of the outcomes they are working toward. Some may call these benefits the incentive that when realized makes the effort all worthwhile.

In conclusion, leaders and the leadership of a team effort play a critical role throughout the process. In fact, nothing - no plan, no actions, and no outcomes - will happen without high-quality leadership. That is why one can compare leadership to fuel. Organizations need leadership resources to operate just as engines need fuel to run. High quality leadership, just like high-quality fuel, improves the efficiency of the effort and an organization.

David L. Darling is Community Development Economist, Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University

David L. Darling, Sustainable Progress: A Model that Identifies Key Variables and Explains Why Organized Efforts Succeed and Fail
Kansas State University, August 2002
Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service.