1. Courtney Kounkel spoke in personal terms about the magnetism of Kansas City and its ability to retain talented workers. | 2. Other successful cities had long relied on imported talent to maintain their vibrancy, Rich Reda said. | 3. Austin, said Richard Wetzel, has been able to develop its creative classes even without a Stanford-level university. | 4. Cliff Stubbs said one way to ensure young leaders emerge is by pushing leadership down within organizations.

 

The need for future leaders is one reason why the law firm of McAnany, Van Cleave & Phillips has engaged in structured efforts to push leadership down, said partner Cliff Stubbs. “If we’ve got new associates starting, they’re going to be involved in something in the community; it’s just expected,” Stubbs said. “Anything they want to do, it’s going to be supported.” That’s important he said, because “when you look at the next group of companies that I think are going to be successful and be the next large players in town, they’re invested in the community and their core aligns with Kansas City’s core, and that’s why they’re successful.”

Equally important, said Rich Reda, a producer for Lockton Companies, is the need to actively recruit out-of-state talent. “When we talk about leadership, we all acknowledge the need, but almost nobody talks about importing leaders,” Reda said. As a road warrior who does a great amount of work in other cities, he often deals with people who are imports to those cities, as well. “There are some things we can do to help out importing some of that talent and not have such a trade deficit of leadership.”

One of the challenges cited was the need to build a “cooler” Kansas City—something that would attract younger workers and foster entrepreneurship. But, as anyone who struggled with a cool-deficit in high school might recall, if you need to be cooler, you probably don’t have what it takes to actually become cool. Asked what kinds of communities have successfully culled that imagery, several participants in unison chimed in: “Austin!” And yet,
it wasn’t always the case there, either.

“UT is a great university, but it’s not Stanford,” noted Richard Wetzel. But state and local incentives are in place, he noted, to attract and retain high-energy startups here. “Our company is moving in the next few months, and we got tax credits from the state of Missouri to help. That kept us in the Crossroads. But a lot of companies are so busy selling their product or services, they don’t know to knock on the door in Jefferson City and say, ‘Do you have anything available for me?’ ”

That, said Debbie Bass of the Foundation for Shawnee Mission Medical Center, gets us back to the communication gap. “People get excited when we talk about KC and we love our city, we love the Kauffman Center, we love the Zoo, we love the new Legoland, we love Crown Center—we can go on and on of the wonderful things that we have to tell,” Bass said. “We just need to do a better job of touting those.”


A 40 Under Forty Evolution

Joe Sweeney, who has been involved in the selection of each of the 600 people honored by 40 Under Forty since 1998, posed the question of whether the leadership criterion for selection should be retained. Often, he noted, extremely accomplished young business figures are passed over for consideration for a lack of involvement beyond their businesses and families. How important is the aspect of being involved on non-profit boards, acting as a volunteer through schools or churches, taking fund-raising roles, mentoring youth, serving on church committees or coaching youth sports?