Every quarter, the Board of Trade hosts chamber of commerce executives from across the region for a conversation on shared priorities. At our last chambers’ meeting in July, Sheree Anne Kelly, CEO of the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, graciously presented her organization’s research on diversity and inclusion programs. Her insights are drawn from leading studies as well as the successes of ACCE members from around the country.

I interviewed Sheree Anne on how organizational leaders should approach a diversity and inclusion effort so that our members could also benefit from her expertise on this critical topic.

Social inclusion is a big topic. How do you define it?

Sheree Anne Kelly: The easiest definition is for organizations to try to make all types of people and all groups of people feel valued and heard in whatever ecosystem they are in. But there is an interesting and worthwhile distinction among diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Here’s a simple way to illustrate the difference: “Diversity” means that everyone gets invited to the party. “Equity” means that everyone can contribute to the playlist. “Inclusion” means that everyone can dance.

The nomenclature matters because a lot of people will say, “my focal point is diversity,” which means they are concerned with whether the individuals present are diverse. But if you want to dig deeper, you have to look at things like equity and inclusion. You can have diversity, but it means nothing if they can’t participate.

They all go hand in hand, but in general you want to move in a trajectory towards equitable and inclusive decision-making.

Why is it important that organizational leaders pay attention to diversity and inclusion?

The statistics show that demographics are changing rapidly in many of our communities. As a business leader, you want to think about your organization changing and adapting to address that. If you’re not tracking data that’s available in your community, you might not be getting ahead of those trends. For example, is your community gaining more immigrants? From where? Are older adults seeking to return to the workforce after they retire? Or are parents looking to return to the workforce? What are you doing to make your business an attractive place for these people to work or become customers?

Of course, making your business more inclusive is about doing the right thing, but it’s also really good for the business bottom line. Studies show that diverse and inclusive businesses have a higher net income than their counter parts that don’t. On a macro scale, other research shows that communities do better when there’s diversity and those different groups get along.

How have corporate diversity programs evolved over the years?

One change I’ve seen is in how we define diversity. Historically, it was focused on race and ethnicity but now leaders are increasingly looking at gender, age, sexual orientation, geographic location, opinions, talents, backgrounds—a much broader definition, which makes it a better conversation when you’re looking at driving outcomes within your own organization.

Another big change is that this effort is moving away from being a separate department. Diversity and inclusion increasingly create a lens through which you view all your business activities. It’s less about numbers and counts and quotas, which was a hot topic a few years ago. Now it’s about looking at your staff, your governance, your leadership, the speakers you bring in for events, your vendors, your suppliers, your customers, and asking, do these stakeholders collectively represent the diversity of our community?

What common mistake should leaders try to avoid when attempting to create a more inclusive workplace or business?

I get very frustrated by diversity for diversity’s sake. If you say, “I’ve hired a fill-in-the-blank person,” that’s not enough. You have to think about your needs and your community’s needs. You have to have a more holistic view.

Also, even if leaders have a diverse team, they have to ask themselves if the whole team is empowered. Are everybody’s voices heard? Can everybody affect change? Again, diversity doesn’t mean much if each segment doesn’t have the same ability to affect change.

What sign should leaders look for to know that their organization is as inclusive as it should be?

Here’s a big one: does your organization embody a learning culture? You need to constantly be asking for feedback and using that feedback to adapt. Are you asking your employees for their perspective? Are you training your team on areas that are shifting in your community? If you’re being nimble, that’s a great sign. That means being nimble internally and externally—how you work with your staff and how you work with your community. If there’s a good pace of change, that’s a good sign.

How can an organization develop that kind of learning culture?

It has to start from the top. If senior leadership isn’t willing to be challenged, it’s not going to work for the rest of the organization. Management has to create a safe space where staff can feel comfortable voicing disagreements and bringing up challenges.

Some groups will train their staff on unconscious bias, which can be very effective at showing how it’s innate in our nature to have unconscious bias towards certain segments of society. Just recognizing that can help people adjust the way they approach their colleagues and the rest of the community. It’s also useful to have conflict management training. Investing in these kinds of development opportunities can go a long way towards helping a team deal with diverse opinions and get to an optimal decision.

How can organizations increase internal diversity?

A lot of companies complain about not being able to get a diverse enough pool of candidates or potential board members. I always ask them to reconsider their outreach processes. Perhaps they need to explore new places to post their open positions. For the board, companies tend to ask their current board members to bring in people they know—which usually means you get more of the same kind of people. Companies should challenge themselves to reach beyond their own network and cast a wider net to find new talent.

United Airlines moves over 20,000 people through its hub at Washington Dulles Airport on an average day, giving the company a unique perspective on our market and how it has evolved over time. I spoke with Evan Koppel, regional sales director at United, about the company’s experience and how it has seized opportunities through partnerships.

How has the Greater Washington market changed over recent years, from the perspective of an airline?

This region has a very strong demand for travel, thanks to the large corporate base, federal government, and tourism to the National Capital region. But another trend is driving more visitors to the Washington region in particular—the influx of cyber security and tech companies setting up shop here, including West Coast tech companies, which has generated a lot more demand.

Over the years, the cost of doing business at Dulles has fluctuated. When we made it one of our East Coast hubs, it was not expensive for airlines to operate there but the costs went up at the airport, which increased our cost of doing business.

Luckily, over the past few years, MWAA (the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority) has been a great partner and has focused on bringing costs down at Dulles and working with us to improve the airport experience for passengers. We’re happy with how things have evolved in recent years and excited to see continued growth. Additionally, the completion of Phase 2 of the Silver Line next year will provide Metrorail access to customers traveling to/from DC and around the region.

I understand that MWAA is a key partner for United in this region. Have you learned any lessons from that partnership that you can share with other Board of Trade members who may be exploring cross-sector partnerships?

MWAA represents Reagan National and Washington Dulles International airports, and we work with them at both but especially at Dulles since it’s one of our hubs. We want to serve more customers and give those passengers a good experience.

MWAA is a fantastic partner. They are open to new and creative ideas. They support us on marketing and events that promote Washington Dulles, such as the Board of Trade dinners that we’ve co-sponsored. They also proactively help us identify new domestic and international markets that could help us grow our hub.

The partnership works great because we collaborate and communicate frequently. We meet regularly and keep each other informed on our respective strategies for growth. We both have a very clear shared goal of increasing customers on United; having a good cadence of communication enhances this relationship and sets clear direction.

United recently invested in a new Polaris lounge at Dulles. What motivated United to make this investment?

We found that lounges are a point of competition for airlines. They make a difference to a customer’s travel experience. We researched and invested significant resources to rebrand our business class product as Polaris and build Polaris airport lounges for international business class travelers.

These lounges provide a great award-winning product in our hubs where other United Polaris lounges are already in place, and we’ve seen and heard how it positively affects our customer satisfaction scores and enhances the whole experience. In fact, our San Francisco Polaris lounge was just named the best airport lounge in the world! In the soon-to-come Dulles Polaris lounge, passengers will get full-service dining that brings in local flavors and cuisine. There will be showers and places to relax or take a nap. It will be a unique experience for our international business class customers.

The Polaris lounge at our Washington hub is currently under construction and slated to open in 2020. This investment excites us because Washington has a very large transatlantic footprint – the second largest number of flights to Europe behind our Newark hub. We also have flights to Asia, South America, and we recently started service to the Middle East with our new route to Tel Aviv, which we launched in May. It made sense for us to make this significant investment.

What is the most important thing that the Board of Trade community can be working towards to strengthen this market?

We have a great relationship with the Board of Trade and we applaud their efforts in the many areas where we align. We have a beautiful region with great scenery, culture, restaurants and shopping, but some of the infrastructure, including bridges and roadways, may need some attention. In addition, any initiative the Board can focus on to drive more business growth and connectivity is welcomed.

We want to create a positive view of our community to visitors. We all have a role in this area. We each can play a part in contributing, supporting, and influencing changes to our business environment and infrastructure and promoting this great region. The Board of Trade has been invaluable in helping encourage Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia to dedicate additional funding to the Metro system last year, and there are many other areas where they have successfully spearheaded change. We should keep up support for that kind of important work.

The Washington, D.C. area is admired around the world for its parks, monuments, stately architecture, and attractive urban spaces. But the region would look very different if it were not for the bold, innovative thinking that guided its planners nearly 120 years ago.

At the turn of the 20th century, American cities typically grew in market-driven, haphazard spurts. Water and sewage systems were managed by public authorities, but few other aspects of urban development were subject to any coordinated planning.

Washington became an exception. In 1900, the Board of Trade organized a lavish event to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the District becoming the nation’s capital. This was an inflection point for the city, which had become a source of national pride. Prominent Washingtonians asked themselves, how could the city better represent the culture and values of the United States?

At the time, the American Institute of Architects believed that the capital should be shaped by the nation’s best architects and artists. They envisioned grand, beautiful, and aesthetically unified buildings and public spaces. They sought the “American Renaissance” style, which embodied public order, progress, refined taste, patriotism, national wealth, and power.

Meanwhile, the Board of Trade pushed a strategy focused on parks. A large and well-maintained network of parks would ensure that individuals and families had access to natural spaces as the city grew in population. Indeed, our region’s park system has had a positive effect on air and water quality, public health, social ties, and even our local economy by making the region a more attractive place to live, work, and visit.

In 1900, Senator James McMillan introduced a resolution in the Senate that would accommodate varying viewpoints on design improvements to the capital. With the support of the Board of Trade, the resolution called for the president to appoint a panel of professional artists and architects who would work together to design the National Mall as well as a system of parks within and around the District.

The result was the radically comprehensive Senate Park Commission plan, also known as the McMillan plan, which guided continuous development of the nation’s capital over many decades. The plan transformed the Mall from a disjointed collection of smaller parks into a grand grassy lawn surrounded by historical museums, elm trees, fountains, and monuments. It replaced miscellaneous red brick buildings with stately white neoclassical ones. It removed a railway station on the Mall and replaced it with a large, modern station north of the Capitol Building—which is now Union Station. It called for new office buildings for federal agencies to be built in Lafayette Square and Federal Triangle. It included the Memorial Bridge across the Potomac River. And it established a huge network of public parks, playgrounds, and other public outdoor amenities, all connected by a series of parkways and extending out as far as Rock Creek Park, Great Falls, and Mount Vernon. Residents and visitors now enjoy these unique places and resources, most of which are maintained for all Americans through the stewardship of the Department of the Interior.

The scope of the McMillan plan was massive, which was not originally the objective. Senator McMillan had asked the team of architects to put forward a preliminary plan outlining incremental improvements to the area because those were more likely to get funded by a fiscally conservative Congress. But the team didn’t listen. They instead laid out their vision for the whole region and sought both function and beauty. They designed for the whole, not just the parts. Their bold, innovative thinking made the Senate Park Commission plan one of the most influential urban plans in American history.

This story is a reminder to think big. Local politics, funding concerns, and competing interests can marginalize great ideas. Our tendency to label bold visions as unrealistic dissuades us from thinking ambitiously. In recent years, this has held our region back from tackling tough problems related to transportation, housing affordability, social inequities, and other factors that impact quality of life.

The Greater Washington Smart Region Movement is our next chance to think big. Our vision is for a region that seamlessly uses digital technology to operate more smoothly while making life better for the people who live, work, and play here. To get there, we’ve formed an exceptionally inclusive coalition of organizations—nonprofits, companies of all sizes, academic institutions, government agencies—to design a strategy that serves the whole region. It will be a long and complicated process and we sincerely appreciate the dedication and support of our members and the broader community.

I’m grateful that the Board of Trade and the team of architects behind the Senate Park Commission plan allowed themselves to boldly and responsibly envision a better future, and I know that the work we are doing now will have the same positive impact on the generations ahead.

This post was guest authored by Cathy Piche, East Area President at Crown Castle.

When Amazon first released its RFP for building a second headquarters in North America, the company received nearly 230 proposals from cities and regions across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The tech giant narrowed down the list of potential candidates to 20 locations, and it was no surprise that Washington, D.C.; Montgomery County, MD; and Northern Virginia were included as the top contenders for being business-friendly and stable environments with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent. While Amazon ultimately selected Crystal City, VA for its second headquarters, the decision was hailed as a tremendous win for the entire Capital Region.

As the Greater Washington metropolitan area prepares for the impending arrival of HQ2, local leaders must focus their attention on connectivity, one of the key requirements stated in the RFP to remain competitive today and prepare for the opportunities of tomorrow. This will require upgrading our existing communications infrastructure with fiber optics and a robust small cell network, which are small nodes that are attached to structures in the public right of ways like streetlights or utility poles. This infrastructure will bring fast, reliable wireless connectivity to Washingtonians.

The Capital Region continues to grow, and so does the demand for more data, in more places, at faster speeds than ever. In a world where smartphone traffic is expected to increase 12 times by 2021, small cells add much-needed capacity and coverage in highly-populated areas. This is especially important for public safety given 80% of 911 calls are made from wireless phones.

Small cells will pave the way for next-generation networks such as 5G which promise to deliver smart city innovations, including autonomous vehicles and citywide data sharing. 5G will also unlock economic benefits. As CTIA estimates, “Over the next five years, the U.S. will see benefits across the country, including 3 million new jobs, $275 billion in new investment, and $500 billion in economic growth.”[

Crown Castle applauds the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, and the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area for collaborating to shape and advance the smart region plan. Crown Castle looks forward to working with local leaders and stakeholders to prioritize the deployment of fiber optics and small cells solutions and better connect the Capital Region. As the nation’s largest provider of shared communications infrastructure, we are committed to keeping people connected and safe, helping our partners set the stage for the future, and ensuring that businesses and communities thrive.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 70,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market.  This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.  For more information on Crown Castle, please visit www.crowncastle.com.

Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) published What Our Region Grows, an assessment of the state of agriculture in the region. We interviewed Lindsay Smith, regional food systems value chain coordinator at MWCOG and author of the report, on trends in this sector.

When people think of this region, they think of the federal government, our history, and increasingly a growing technology sector. Why is agriculture important to Greater Washington?

Agriculture generates jobs and revenue for the region, but there are a lot of indirect benefits as well. For example, by preserving land for the sector, we are better incentivized to use smart planning on other land used for residential or commercial purposes. Montgomery County is a great example of how making a commitment to land preservation plays a role in limiting low-density development over time, concentrating new growth and redevelopment into communities that can be easier to service with transit, made more walkable, etc.

That preserved, agricultural land is also a sound long-term investment because you can get these benefits without huge costs to the jurisdiction. Unlike residential development, agricultural lands don’t put the same demands on police, fire, EMS, or schools, so there’s long-term fiscal impact of stronger, preserved agricultural regions.

Farms also boost livability. Increasingly, the metro area is known for great restaurants. But we also have great wineries and opportunities to pick your own food. There are all types of agricultural tourism opportunities that farm business owners are taking advantage of, including in our more urban communities. Longer term, could our region have the same kind of reputation as the Hudson Valley, but with our own unique landscape and culture and all the wonderful things that means for different food traditions? Could we as a region connect the dots between businesses, restaurants, farms, and great places, and create one more reason why this is an attractive place to invest?

I’m hopeful that the region can come together and collaborate in a more strategic way to support the agricultural sector. There are just certain things we need to have as a society to function well, and agriculture is one of them. There’s a resiliency angle here, too—do we want to increasingly rely on other places for our food, or do we want to have a viable food system that can also provide nutrition?

Tell me about that. Why is it important for us to provide food for ourselves?

Being able to produce what we eat would be a big step forward for our resilience in the event that other regions that supply food are unable to do so. Many farmers will tell you that last year was devastating—it was the rainiest year on record here, and it ruined a lot of crops. Those kind of historically unusual weather events are happening in other places, too. So, we might not want to assume that we can always source food from the places we’ve typically sourced it from with the ease that we do today. If we diversify our food sources, we diversify our risk.

The report describes a big reduction in agricultural output in the last century, especially in the last 10 years, but our population has grown. What factors are making farming more difficult in our region?

This tends to be industry-specific, and the dairy industry has been hit the hardest. It’s not an exaggeration to say that we are losing dairy farms every month. Dairy farmers across the country are all struggling because the price of milk has remained lower than the cost of production for several years. It’s not economically viable, especially for smaller farms. Some are persisting or turning to direct markets which is great. Some are switching over to beef cattle while others are closing their doors.

Another factor is climate change. Most farmers would say that the weather in 2018 cost them something, but not all would connect it to climate change. It was a tough year. This is a humid region, which can pose challenges for growing things like wine grapes and hops. If you get too much moisture, it’s a challenge for lots of crops because it leads to fungus and disease. This year we saw some issues with outright flooding and ability to absorb more water. I haven’t heard of anyone who didn’t have a difficult weather year, outside of folks who are doing indoor farming.

Agriculture overall might be declining, but agritourism is seeing impressive growth. What’s behind that trend?

We have a growing number of innovative farmers and rural business owners who are starting new things. Some of our jurisdictions in the metro region have invested in agricultural marketing specialists who help farmers with new business ideas. Probably a growing interest in food and where food comes from is helping. Some of it may be driven by the growth in craft beverage, such as wineries, breweries, cider mills, and distilleries.

Some farms are also looking at creating a unique place and experience in addition to the products they sell. Look at Up Top Acres, for example. Part of their business is growing food and they have a community supported agriculture (CSA) program, but they also have some striking space with views of the Nationals stadium and the Capitol. It’s a space that can be used for events, whether it’s a celebratory dinner or a yoga class. So, there’s this trend with some urban farms to connect agriculture, food, people, place, and experience.

Agritourism is definitely part of the region’s future and the future of a lot of farms. Over the long-term, it can be an important business diversification strategy and another way to bring revenue to a farm and the region.

The report lists some recommendations for protecting and growing our farm sector. One recommendation is to improve public policies and regulations. Can you share an example?

The processes required by local, state, or federal regulations can be quite taxing for farmers. Most don’t have someone working full time on compliance, so whatever time they spend satisfying regulatory requirements is time they aren’t spending working their farm. Of course, we need farmers to adhere to food safety and other standards, but I’d like to see more awareness of the cost to the small and mid-sized farmer when a regulation is implemented. Can this awareness, along with greater coordination within government, drive greater efficiency in what’s required without compromising outcomes?

It’s like any industry that evolves in that the entrepreneurial action tends to be ahead of the regulatory environment. The first person to open a winery, an urban farm, or something that the community hasn’t seen before faces a longer process because they are the test case. Our hope is that if there could be some sustained, regional attention and sharing of best practices across jurisdictions, we could do our part to promote regulations that address concerns on health, safety, and welfare without slowing down innovation in this sector.

Where would you and your team like to see our agricultural sector be in ten years? What does success look like?

I would love to see that we are not losing more agricultural land, that we’re seeing growth in younger cohorts. One of the things our report talks about is that there’s a generational change that’s happening as our farmers retire. It’s not impossible but it can be difficult for new farmers to get started, especially if they don’t come from a farm family and don’t have access to land. Access to land can be a real challenge. So, we need to create opportunities for the next generation of farmers who are eager to join the industry, grow their business, and reach new markets.