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Blueprint for Achieving Regional Results > Do It All Over
Do It All Over Again: 
Repeat, Rebuild and Renew
Regions that have been at this process the longest point out that the most important part of sustaining change is actually in restarting the change process. As the flywheel starts to turn and the context changes, leaders need to recognize new gaps between current reality and desired future. Even as they recognize success, regional stewards agitate to do even better.
Celebrate Success and Capture Lessons. Celebrate success, both in high profile public events and by setting and revealing new goals. As important as it is to celebrate, it is also important to capture the lessons of why the success occurred and to share those lessons with other leaders in the region as well as other regions nationally. This task is particularly valuable for educating new leadership about the region?s past success and challenges.
Measure Regional Progress. Communities develop indicators to measure how their region is progressing toward its desired future or how it is doing relative to other regions. Indicators help leaders and citizens determine if their region is moving in the right direction. They use indicators as a basis for celebrating success and rallying around deficiency. Indicators reports are also a powerful tool for public education about the region.
Prepare the Next Generation. Though practical experience is a powerful teacher, a common concern is that the current preparation of leaders is insufficient to meet today?s complex regional challenges. As one leader explained, ?On its own, leadership training inside the corporate, government, or grassroots world is inadequate for regional leadership. For example, leaders who are used to directly controlling resources in organizations can get frustrated by messy civic change processes. To succeed in the regional civic space, leaders need new frameworks and skills, new mentors and best practices. And they may actually need to unlearn some things and change some perspectives.?
Build and Renew Regional Civic Institutions and Alliances. Leaders create new regional civic organizations and alliances to help institutionalize new practices. These institutions play a key role in ongoing accountability; civic institutions with a responsible portfolio command more consistent behavior from people, including elected officials. They give cover for leaders to do things that otherwise might be too risky personally or politically. And they are the strategic scanners and conscience that prod leaders when they are too passive or tuned out to act.
The short story of engineering regional change is that it?s not easy, but it can be done! In the ARS Network are civic activists and change engineers who have achieved once in a generation changes that leave their regions vibrant and globally-competitive: multi-billion dollar transportation systems that direct rapid growth in a way that increases regional quality of life; new public funding streams that sustain regional assets like the arts, parks, libraries, and open space; tax policies that direct new growth to blighted urban communities and preserve farmland and open space; new structures that bring local governments together as collaborators, not competitors; major investments that give new life to struggling communities.
None of these changes happened by accident. They are a product of vision, disciplined thinking, energy and enthusiasm, and an unwavering commitment to see the challenge through. Our hope is that by identifying and teaching these practices, practices that produce results, ARS will enable other regions to seize the opportunities that their future will present.
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