Stop making self-centered, losing arguments for your projects.
Welcome back to the Arc of Outrage series, exploring the predictable cycle of public opposition now rising around data centers—and what leaders must do to soften, shorten, and survive it.
I can relate to the data center outrage. Tech CEOs have spent the last year painting a bleak picture of the future: aggressive data center build-out requiring unprecedented new energy all resulting in economic disparity and job loss. Why would anyone voluntarily sign up for the end of the world as we know it?
We need better leaders. Better narrators of the future that we can create. And better collaborators with the rest of us who have to live in that future, too.
Instead of that dystopic tech future, we can and must use this generational build-out of data and energy infrastructure to create the communities that we want our children to come home to.
That’s where you come in. But how do you lead into a future we all want to create?
Both of these things are true:
- We need to build energy and data infrastructure at a scale and speed not seen in generations.
- For these projects to create the next generation of systems, they must be in service of the next generation—not the abstract and selfish visions currently on offer.
The future has the right of way
On my favorite single-track trail near where I live, there are two days a week when no bikes are allowed. On those days, it is packed with runners. The trails are steep, and it’s an unwritten rule that the runner going uphill has the right of way—and that’s important. The unwritten rules of the trail create a functioning system that benefits everyone, where everyone knows when to move forward and when to defer to others. When I’m running uphill, I don’t have to awkwardly stop and then try to regain my momentum. When I’m running downhill, I happily perch on the mountainside and offer encouragement: “Nice work!”
The rest of the week, the trail traffic would be mayhem, but we have rules for that, too. You may have seen the yield diagrams: Bikes give way to hikers and horses; hikers give way to horses. These are informal rules of respect. They are reinforced and strengthened by greetings and good manners.
Getting to the other side of the Arc of Outrage requires you to recognize a similar system of deferment, which also values mutual respect (and reintroduces good manners). The question is: During the Arc of Outrage, who bears the responsibility to yield?
The arguments you’re making for your projects are losing ones
Data center proponents are fretting about the momentum behind Arc of Outrage (and understandably so—it’s intense!). The executives I talk to tell me that they are making this case: Data center build-out is essential to American ingenuity and innovation, geopolitical security and leadership. Similarly, energy infrastructure executives tell me they are committed to providing the energy lifeblood for this build-out, which they say must happen quickly and at scale.
But these needs are abstract to a county commissioner, a city planner, or a parent. That’s why they’re falling flat. You—the infrastructure leader—are asking these people to take on significant local impacts for a broad set of common goods and common benefits that are ill-defined and poorly understood. That’s a losing case.
So then project proponents make a local case: Their projects will create jobs. The tax base will grow. Economic development will have knock-on community benefits. The demand is urgent!
Community members can accept the national and local benefits as true and still reasonably ask: What future are you building here? And will my children want to come home to it?
In the Arc of Outrage, the wrong answers to these questions mean disaster for your project.
Understand this: You’re not deciding alone what the future will look like
We must take this opportunity to build the next set of systems. The build-out opportunity underway is not ordinary but extraordinary: power generation, digital infrastructure, pipelines, and power lines. It can and must support the technologies and industries that will shape the next generation. It cannot just chase today’s load. What would the communities look like that parents believe their children will want to come home to?
That’s a question for you to facilitate—not answer. Companies do not get to decide alone what the next-generation systems look like. They may support vocational training that connects young people to skilled work. In one community, better schools, parks, and roads may be the priority resulting from any build-out. A rural county may want to focus on emergency services, a local medical center, or housing capacity. Everyone will want infrastructure that improves quality of life, empowers local entrepreneurs, and allows kids to come home to create fulfilling lives of their own.
So who yields? Projects defer to communities. Communities defer to the next generation. And your planning, ultimately, must defer to both.
What yielding to communities and the next generation looks like in your work today
To make it through this Arc of Outrage, bring next-generation thinking into your project planning today. Start early enough in communities that their engagement with you can change something real. I know that you can’t give away so much that your project is economically or technically infeasible. So be candid about what is set in stone and where you can co-create. Listen as local leaders tell you what they oppose; then ask what they want to create. They may not know; perhaps this kind of generational opportunity has never been floated for their consideration before.
You’re going to need talented, charismatic, thoughtful operations leaders to do this community outreach. And you’ll need to build the internal capacity to show up and stay. The people who operate the project should be able to explain how it works, hear concerns directly, keep commitments, and make course corrections throughout the process.
This is the way your projects will get built.
Seize the day
The Arc of Outrage is fueled by fear—fear that a future people never imagined five years ago is now arriving without their consent. Don’t kid yourself that you can bulldoze your way over that fear, or stonewall it.
The way you get through the Arc: Design your project so that it draws communities in—not in a cynical, superficial way, but so that they can feel the project is theirs and mirrors their aspirations for the future.
Need help? I’m providing limited executive and board briefings—reach out to request one.
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The future has the right of way. Build accordingly.
Tisha
