It has been more than a month since LeBron took his ball and left town. Yet there I was at a dinner party arguing about whether Dan Gilbert should have written the letter that earned him an NBA fine (Dear Dan, I loved it). It will take a long time before we get over LeBron’s devious deed.
What concerns me most about our behavior (mine included) is not whether we’ll ever field a winning team again — we will — but that we acted as if we had lost the only thing we had going for us.
All my life there has been talk of our inferiority complex, something I’ve never bought into. But this may be our low-water mark.
At the same dinner party, we also argued about which event took us lower, the Browns’ hijacking or LeBron’s betrayal (which is my pick). Having been raised by parents who taught their children what to do when handed a lemon, I have spent some time thinking about how we can turn this lemon into
lemonade.
I believe I have a plan that not only solves the problem of making up for the financial loss to the community caused by LeBron’s departure, but more importantly, provides much-needed emotional support.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could turn LeBron’s loss into our gain? What if we could use LeBron’s departure to motivate us to improve our lives. To my way of thinking, this would be the ultimate act of revenge — something none of us will ever admit we want, but of course we do.
What I propose is to use LeBron as an example of what it takes to succeed in the world today. I call it the Post-Lebron Plan. It is a step-by-step program to advance Northeast Ohio’s economy to a level never achieved before. That means, of course, more and better jobs and all the benefits that go along with a growing and prosperous economy.
The first step in my plan asks us that when you think of LeBron, think two thoughts: world class and free market. These are the two realities we’re going to use to build our new globally competitive economy.
Cavalier fans now have a good understanding of free market realities. LeBron has the right to make a choice based on factors that mattered most to him: price, comfort and winning.
Economists don’t agree on much, but they do on this: Our economic future will be a world of businesses interacting with other businesses for mutual financial gain. In this new world, businesses that are the most competitive will win more.
LeBron — and his push to brand himself globally — is the perfect example as we focus on multiplying the Northeast Ohio companies doing business outside the U.S.
Is this important? Brookings Institution, the Washington think tank that has provided valuable research to Great Lakes cities, recently released the statistic that in the new global economy, 95 percent of the world’s customers live outside the United States. Now is the time to double our efforts to compete in this new world economy.
The second step is to use LeBron as an example: To compete in a world economy, we need to be world class.
For some reason we have no trouble believing LeBron is a world-class athlete, but we struggle with Northeast Ohio’s place on the world stage.
Yet our region is full of companies, universities, hospitals and research centers all competing successfully in the world market.
Consider the Cleveland Clinic, which has consistently ranked among U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals. By opening the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas earlier this year, the hospital hopes to expand its reach not just in the Southwest but also in China, Japan and South Korea.
And that’s just one example.
But if we don’t acknowledge our world-class assets, how can we promote them accordingly?
That is why we need a third step. As the saying goes, never expect if you don’t inspect.
If we expect to take our economy to the next level, we need to monitor our progress. And that’s what we’d like to do. With your help, we would like to make a list of Northeast Ohio’s world-class assets and track their growth.
Sure, there will have to be some judgments made as to what exactly “world class” means and how to track our progress, but even making the criteria more tangible has value.
We’d like to debut the Inside Business World-Class Asset Index early next year. So I’ve started my list, and I want to see yours. E-mail them to me at harmon@glpublishing.com.
It will serve as visible proof of our world-class companies and institutions, showing that many remain even if one (like LeBron) chooses to leave.
And it will also remind us that the more companies we have competing successfully in the new global economy, the better off we’ll be.
And finally, it will teach us the value of turning lemons into lemonade because we will have used LeBron to improve our own lives — certainly a happy ending for both parties.