Tear Down the Walls
By Mark Faust

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Editor's Note: Management consultant Mark Faust is interviewing area leaders about Cincinnati's opportunities, and what it would take to improve Cincinnati's economic and other potentials.

Ford Taylor has a unique perspective as an area leader.

After Taylor took a small business in Texas from near bankruptcy to more than $300 million in revenue, he turned several unprofitable businesses into profitable companies. But Taylor is quick to note that none of this is ever done without the help of a lot of people.

When he came to Cincinnati more than 9 years ago to lead another business, there were a few things that really stood out to him that some lifetime Cincinnatians may not see as obviously as an outsider would.

When asked what needs to be improved or changed in order for Cincinnati to realize its fuller potential, Taylor hit on three topics; racism, collaboration and rehabilitation.

When Taylor moved here, he said he went into the business where he was president, called a meeting, closed the doors and asked, "Where are all of the black people?" He was told, "They live in a different part of town."

Taylor said that when someone moves to Cincinnati from out of town, it is very obvious that this is a very segregated community.

"Although I don't know how obvious this might be to one who has lived here for a while," he said.

So how do we tear down the walls of segregation, poverty and inequality in the city?

"We need to see a collaboration of not just business leaders, but key spiritual, government, ministry and business leaders working together to tackle the top problems of this city," Taylor said.

He noted that each entity is doing a lot of hard work, but often, they are working on their own.

"We don't tap into the potential of fostering economic development until we realized how faith-based leaders, nonprofit leaders, government leaders and business leaders all overlay each other and can and should be working together," Taylor said.

Stop Giving, Start Investing

One way Taylor thinks we can make a difference is to be more holistic in our approach to helping undeveloped areas. Instead of focusing just on crime or education, we need to look at the broader picture.

"For example, in the white world we tend to think of economic development as training people, giving them money and expecting a return on investment," Taylor said. "But in predominantly African American areas like Over-the-Rhine, we might think about giving them food and clothes, and then we go back to our white neighborhood feeling good about the fact that we gave food and clothes, but we haven't really helped to solve the root problems."

Taylor believes that if we gave the same training, mentoring and financing - and had the same expectations of return on investment – to the African American neighborhoods, we would see the same results that we would expect from any community.

Economic development problems exist in all parts of Greater Cincinnati.

Taylor points out Chester Road in Sharonville as an example of a spot that's not considered to be lacking in resources and yet has several boarded-up buildings that need assistance.

"So it's not just the predominately African-American neighborhoods, but
there are other neighborhoods that need this same type of working together," he said.

"It's not just the poor or under-resourced neighborhoods, but we focus on those because that is where the most opportunity may be."

But if the community could offer the same support to all regions, Taylor said we could expect people to own their own businesses and "we could stop donating money and we could start investing money so people can sustain their own success."

Commit To Working with Each Other

Taylor also spoke of the idea of churches in the suburbs partnering with and working along side churches in underdeveloped areas to mentor, invest in, and train the young people to be better resourced. And he suggests those same churches could partner with school systems in under resourced neighborhoods to help build them up as well.

"Government is focused on crime rates and building more prisons and it may be we need more, but there is an opportunity to train these people to become a valuable asset to the community," Taylor said.

He talked about how some of his best employees have been former prisoners. And he noted that some of them have gone on to be highly successful entrepreneurs.

"When you think of the skills it takes to lead a gang, some of those skills apply to business, but too many businesses haven't made it a priority to hire and train these people who can be a resource rather than a drain."

Businesses should commit to taking advantage of this workforce. Taylor suggested companies commit to hiring a certain percentage of their new hires straight from prison, and commit to training them back into the community.

Acknowledge the Racism

Before change can happen, Taylor thinks we must first acknowledge the racism that exists.

"I tell my white friends who are focused on family values, abortion and other things that we should be concerned about those things," he said.

"But you can't expect to get the same support on those issues from people who are still focused on how they are going to feed their family.

"We first have to acknowledge that we need to do something about the racism in this city, but if we stay in denial it makes it harder to attack."

Faust is a management consultant and owner of Echelon Management. To contact him e-mail Faust@EchelonManagement.com or call (513) 621-8000.