Stephanie Strom’s article (NY Times October 5, 2010) headlines Hybrid Model for Nonprofits Hits Snags. Of course it has - It’s a relatively new business model, at least here in the United States, and it has hit snags. It’s cutting edge. If it were simple we’d be doing it already. And look where simple has gotten us.
Our traditional business model has one simple measure of success – profits to shareholders. This approach focuses on the bottom line to the detriment of us all. It creates externalities that are killing us but which have no place in the simple business model. Externalities such as depleted natural resources, diminished air quality, over fishing, and climate change. With this simplistic business mindset it makes sense to outsource and offshore work. In the name of profit companies have cut everything to the bone, and dispensed with loyalty, common sense and decency, all in the name of the clear mission that Mr. Hussy the “no-nonsense investor” speaks of. Clearly our traditional business model has hit some snags too.
Social Enterprise solutions are springing up everywhere from the nonprofit end of the spectrum to the market oriented domain. Social Enterprise, for those new to the term, is any organization structured to use the free market to make a social contribution. For the nonprofit sector social enterprise offers a path to become self-sustaining - an attractive alternative to any organization now relying on the dwindling beneficence of public and profit sectors. For the more tradition businesses it offers a way out of the soul numbing world of business as usual and offers an opportunity to use ones business to make a difference.
There are a lot of questions to be answered and a lot of problems to be ironed out for sure. But let’s not wave the white flag yet. Creating investment vehicles for these new structures is one of the key areas for development. Traditional investors are out to maximize their return. Social Investors are willing to take less of a monetary return in exchange for a larger social return. Involving traditional venture capital in a social enterprise is like asking a fox to manage a chicken orphanage. Chances are the fox sees a meal rather than an opportunity to contribute. No one should be surprised at the outcome.
Describing the hybrid as a pushmi-pullyu is a wonderful analogy but perhaps the more descriptive picture is that of the typical human being with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Everyday we’re faced with decisions of me versus we. Should you turn in the wallet you found on the sidewalk, should you lie on your expense report or cheat on the exam. Should you use the emergency lane to get around the traffic jam at rush hour. We make these complicated decisions daily, jumping over the mental hurdles of conflicting goals of maximize personal gain with something more beneficial to the whole. It’s what we do as human beings functioning in a society. We compromise and cooperate.
The news isn’t that we’ve hit snags. You don’t see the headline “Search for Cancer Cure Proves Difficult.” The news is that we’re trying brave new approaches and the intrepid explorers like the founders of GlobalGiving, Unitus, and Freelancer’s Union should be applauded for venturing out into this new terrain.
There will be failures and there will be setbacks. But progress is being made and will continue to be made until someday, like the hybrid car, the hybrid business becomes ubiquitous and we’ll wonder what all the fuss was about. We’re inching forward, mistake by mistake, and that is how evolution works.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Jessica Jackley on poverty, money, and love
Listen to the co-founder of Kiva.org talk about how we can participate in community and help each other through micro loans and love. It's a beautiful and inspiring 18 minute talk.
Jessica Jackley: Poverty, money -- and love
Video on TED.com
Jessica Jackley: Poverty, money -- and love
Video on TED.com
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The flawed logic against Social Responsibility
In his Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility (Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2010), Aneel Karnani questions the efficacy of social responsibility, saying the idea that companies should act responsibly and will profit from it is fundamentally flawed. This is true, but the flaw is in his vision.
Today, as Karnani indicates, any officer of a publically traded company is legally bound to maximize shareholder profit. Given this mandate morals, ethics, and good conscience are (must be) shunted, unless of course they can be rationalized as being in the shareholders’ best interests. And it is often true that more profits can be gleaned, at least in the short term, if a company is willing to forgo the niceties of social responsibility.
Karnani goes on to explain that regulators, watchdogs, and advocates should play the role of pulling in the reins on companies that would otherwise run amok and destroy us all for the sake of quarterly returns. And if we could ensure that these roles were played by uncorrupt, impartial, and passionately just persons perhaps we wouldn’t be in the pickle we’ve found ourselves in today. But given what’s happened this solution seems a bit dated or naïve… been there, done that.
But where his logic and his vision really fails is when he says that “In the end, social responsibility is a financial calculation for executives,” because it assumes that we must always continue to based everything on financial calculations. I think the world is opening up to some other options.
Social Enterprise is one of those options and it’s catching on. A Social Enterprise is any venture that is structured to use market forces to make a net positive social impact. Social Enterprise, can be seen as a step back to a time when social responsibility was part of the nobles oblige pact that successful company founders made with the communities in which they lived, brought up their children and left their legacy. Or Social Enterprise could be seen as a step forward in our evolutionary development as a species beyond selfish greed and toward a more just and compassionate society.
Either way, it is enables businesses to form based on the premise that purpose, people, and planet come before profits, and that while profits are an important metric of health, they do not have to be the raison detre for a company. This is the free market at its best. Not only are all of us free to pursue happiness, but we can each determine what happiness means.
As a Social Enterprise, the company that I founded over 25 years ago is required to act in a Social Responsible way (in other words we are required to avoid doing harm whenever we can). We are required to be transparent, and engage in participative governance, and any profits that we distribute have to be split equally among employees, investors, and the community. To ensure that this pact isn’t undone at the whim of a future majority shareholder we’ve created a separate class of preferred shares that are held by a nonprofit reSET(Social Enterprise Trust) which has as its mission to “promote, preserve, and protect social enterprise.” This class of stock doesn’t give reSET any day to day control of our operations, but it does give a majority vote to reSET on any changes to the Social Enterprise status of the company. This protects and preserves our Social Enterprise structure and while it may reduce the sale value of the company, it makes it much more satisfying to me as the owner wanting to leave a legacy that’s greater than the sum of my balance sheet.
The main difference between a Social Enterprise and a traditional business is that the Social Enterprise exists to make a contribution, while the traditional business exists to make a profit for its shareholders. Two different games, two different sets of rules, and the great thing is we don’t have to choose one or the other. In a free market there’s room for both.
Can these Social Enterprise ventures scale? Ask Muhhamed Yunus, nobel prize winning father of micro finance who started Grameen Bank as a Social Enterprise, not to get rich of the backs of the poor, but to make a difference, which he has done in the lives of millions through the almost 9 billion dollars that have been loaned out. Yes they can scale, and as an investor it’s where I would put my money every time: One, because it feels better to me, and two, because in the long run I think that will be the better investment.
Karnani says social responsibility is “ an illusion, and a potentially dangerous one.” On the contrary, I think believing that we can continue to let GDP and other financial metrics define success for us a company or a country is an illusion and clearly a dangerous one.
The exciting thing is that what America has always stood for is initiative and creativity. We’re great at innovation. We got ourselves to the moon. We created the first PC and the rolling suitcase. It feels like we’re the crew of Apollo 13 and we’ve been handed a cardboard box of odds and ends and asked to cobble something together to save our butts. To stay on course is not an option. To freak out and dive for cover is an understandable but not particularly helpful response. Time is not on our side and we don’t have a lot to work with. But we have brains and hearts of many passionate people. I think we can do it.
Of course we also invented the Stop Sign and the Revolving Door. But I think Social Enterprise will prevail. I think we will prevail. Winston Churchill once said: “Americans always do the right thing, but only after exploring all the alternatives.” Our hearts are in the right place, but we’ve got to open our minds to other possibilities.
Today, as Karnani indicates, any officer of a publically traded company is legally bound to maximize shareholder profit. Given this mandate morals, ethics, and good conscience are (must be) shunted, unless of course they can be rationalized as being in the shareholders’ best interests. And it is often true that more profits can be gleaned, at least in the short term, if a company is willing to forgo the niceties of social responsibility.
Karnani goes on to explain that regulators, watchdogs, and advocates should play the role of pulling in the reins on companies that would otherwise run amok and destroy us all for the sake of quarterly returns. And if we could ensure that these roles were played by uncorrupt, impartial, and passionately just persons perhaps we wouldn’t be in the pickle we’ve found ourselves in today. But given what’s happened this solution seems a bit dated or naïve… been there, done that.
But where his logic and his vision really fails is when he says that “In the end, social responsibility is a financial calculation for executives,” because it assumes that we must always continue to based everything on financial calculations. I think the world is opening up to some other options.
Social Enterprise is one of those options and it’s catching on. A Social Enterprise is any venture that is structured to use market forces to make a net positive social impact. Social Enterprise, can be seen as a step back to a time when social responsibility was part of the nobles oblige pact that successful company founders made with the communities in which they lived, brought up their children and left their legacy. Or Social Enterprise could be seen as a step forward in our evolutionary development as a species beyond selfish greed and toward a more just and compassionate society.
Either way, it is enables businesses to form based on the premise that purpose, people, and planet come before profits, and that while profits are an important metric of health, they do not have to be the raison detre for a company. This is the free market at its best. Not only are all of us free to pursue happiness, but we can each determine what happiness means.
As a Social Enterprise, the company that I founded over 25 years ago is required to act in a Social Responsible way (in other words we are required to avoid doing harm whenever we can). We are required to be transparent, and engage in participative governance, and any profits that we distribute have to be split equally among employees, investors, and the community. To ensure that this pact isn’t undone at the whim of a future majority shareholder we’ve created a separate class of preferred shares that are held by a nonprofit reSET(Social Enterprise Trust) which has as its mission to “promote, preserve, and protect social enterprise.” This class of stock doesn’t give reSET any day to day control of our operations, but it does give a majority vote to reSET on any changes to the Social Enterprise status of the company. This protects and preserves our Social Enterprise structure and while it may reduce the sale value of the company, it makes it much more satisfying to me as the owner wanting to leave a legacy that’s greater than the sum of my balance sheet.
The main difference between a Social Enterprise and a traditional business is that the Social Enterprise exists to make a contribution, while the traditional business exists to make a profit for its shareholders. Two different games, two different sets of rules, and the great thing is we don’t have to choose one or the other. In a free market there’s room for both.
Can these Social Enterprise ventures scale? Ask Muhhamed Yunus, nobel prize winning father of micro finance who started Grameen Bank as a Social Enterprise, not to get rich of the backs of the poor, but to make a difference, which he has done in the lives of millions through the almost 9 billion dollars that have been loaned out. Yes they can scale, and as an investor it’s where I would put my money every time: One, because it feels better to me, and two, because in the long run I think that will be the better investment.
Karnani says social responsibility is “ an illusion, and a potentially dangerous one.” On the contrary, I think believing that we can continue to let GDP and other financial metrics define success for us a company or a country is an illusion and clearly a dangerous one.
The exciting thing is that what America has always stood for is initiative and creativity. We’re great at innovation. We got ourselves to the moon. We created the first PC and the rolling suitcase. It feels like we’re the crew of Apollo 13 and we’ve been handed a cardboard box of odds and ends and asked to cobble something together to save our butts. To stay on course is not an option. To freak out and dive for cover is an understandable but not particularly helpful response. Time is not on our side and we don’t have a lot to work with. But we have brains and hearts of many passionate people. I think we can do it.
Of course we also invented the Stop Sign and the Revolving Door. But I think Social Enterprise will prevail. I think we will prevail. Winston Churchill once said: “Americans always do the right thing, but only after exploring all the alternatives.” Our hearts are in the right place, but we’ve got to open our minds to other possibilities.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Running with bugs
I began my run of the first mild day of spring light of step and full of joy and was immediately welcomed by the season’s first black fly. Soon two, four, ten were buzzing around my face in tight formation, and by the time I reached to top of our driveway these first scouts were joined by the whole squadron of killjoy.
Happiness gave way to panic. My arms began to windmill. Shooing and swearing had no effect whatsoever, flapping and slapping worked to a degree. When the next wave of hungry bloodsuckers descended, I picked up my pace hoping to outrun them. Flailing while running is great exercise and within minutes I was taking deep heaving breaths - inhaling bugs by the battalion. Not up for the triathlon of running, flailing, and coughing, I came to a retching stop, which gave even the slowest recruits time to catch up. What started out as such a promising run was instead sucking the life from me (literally) and threatening my sanity.
Running a business is often like this. There are cold, harsh winters when it’s all you can do to keep it together, followed by spring and the promise of easier times. Then, when the halcyon days arrive, you barely have time to celebrate before the bugs show up. And in business, the bugs are everywhere: The client that refuses to pay, the unexpected bill, rising taxes, economic collapses. Some bugs are big and ugly, but even the little ones, when they come in clouds, can drive you crazy.
So here’s what I’ve learned from running with bugs:
Stay calm – running faster, and working up a sweat just makes you more attractive to their blood sucking ways. Instead, run calmly at a steady pace and you’ll outpace most of the rascals while maintaining your dignity and composure.
Practice restraint – there’s something deeply satisfying in crushing the carapace of a deerfly that’s been dive bombing you for miles, but showing restraint is a powerful feeling too. Buddhists are taught to honor all life, even the life of a bug and I respect this, but at the same time I also respect my instinct to swat. (I rationalize it this way: I’m doing the bug a favor - sending it sooner to its next and hopefully more elevated incarnation). So swat if you must, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re going to kill them all. And know there is power in choosing when to swat and when to let it be.
Practice patience. Bugs exist. This is life. They come and they will go. After the bugs of spring there will be the heat of summer, followed by the wonderful gift that is running through crisp falling leaves. This will naturally be followed by cold and ice and the dream of another spring.
Practice gratitude – Even bugs serve a purpose (no bugs, no birds for instance). In every season there are things to feel grateful for and things to annoy you. Whether you feel blessed or drained is often a matter of what you pay attention to.
Practice joy – With every annoyance challenge yourself to think of three things for which you are grateful. Celebrate these things and feel the joy.
Practice resilience -Don’t give up. The only way to avoid bugs is to stay inside and then the bugs win. So head out into the challenge. Pay attention to your form – head high, chin tucked, core engaged.
And don’t forget to smile… with your mouth closed of course.
Happiness gave way to panic. My arms began to windmill. Shooing and swearing had no effect whatsoever, flapping and slapping worked to a degree. When the next wave of hungry bloodsuckers descended, I picked up my pace hoping to outrun them. Flailing while running is great exercise and within minutes I was taking deep heaving breaths - inhaling bugs by the battalion. Not up for the triathlon of running, flailing, and coughing, I came to a retching stop, which gave even the slowest recruits time to catch up. What started out as such a promising run was instead sucking the life from me (literally) and threatening my sanity.
Running a business is often like this. There are cold, harsh winters when it’s all you can do to keep it together, followed by spring and the promise of easier times. Then, when the halcyon days arrive, you barely have time to celebrate before the bugs show up. And in business, the bugs are everywhere: The client that refuses to pay, the unexpected bill, rising taxes, economic collapses. Some bugs are big and ugly, but even the little ones, when they come in clouds, can drive you crazy.
So here’s what I’ve learned from running with bugs:
Stay calm – running faster, and working up a sweat just makes you more attractive to their blood sucking ways. Instead, run calmly at a steady pace and you’ll outpace most of the rascals while maintaining your dignity and composure.
Practice restraint – there’s something deeply satisfying in crushing the carapace of a deerfly that’s been dive bombing you for miles, but showing restraint is a powerful feeling too. Buddhists are taught to honor all life, even the life of a bug and I respect this, but at the same time I also respect my instinct to swat. (I rationalize it this way: I’m doing the bug a favor - sending it sooner to its next and hopefully more elevated incarnation). So swat if you must, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re going to kill them all. And know there is power in choosing when to swat and when to let it be.
Practice patience. Bugs exist. This is life. They come and they will go. After the bugs of spring there will be the heat of summer, followed by the wonderful gift that is running through crisp falling leaves. This will naturally be followed by cold and ice and the dream of another spring.
Practice gratitude – Even bugs serve a purpose (no bugs, no birds for instance). In every season there are things to feel grateful for and things to annoy you. Whether you feel blessed or drained is often a matter of what you pay attention to.
Practice joy – With every annoyance challenge yourself to think of three things for which you are grateful. Celebrate these things and feel the joy.
Practice resilience -Don’t give up. The only way to avoid bugs is to stay inside and then the bugs win. So head out into the challenge. Pay attention to your form – head high, chin tucked, core engaged.
And don’t forget to smile… with your mouth closed of course.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Is your business for-profit or for-purpose?
The fact that we divide our world into business and nonprofits says a lot about our priorities. The word “business” dates back to the 14th century and pertains to purposeful activity. This differentiated it from “desport” (later shortened to sport) which referred to leisure activities. So the Executive Director of a homeless shelter is engaged in business (purposeful activity) every bit as much as our Wall Street friends. It’s just that one is focused on making a contribution to society while the other is focused on making a profit.
There are a number of problems with bifurcating the business world this way. First and foremost it introduces the strange misconception that a nonprofit business doesn’t need to be or even shouldn’t be profitable. I heard our town Zoning Commissioner light into the Executive Director of a local museum for operating a revenue-generating farmers market “You’re not acting like a nonprofit – you’re acting like a business.” This confusion is understandable given the nomenclature. If this were really the differentiating point then a friend of mine would be right when he called his auto-body shop a nonprofit – he admitted that had started it as a for-profit but it just didn’t turn out that way.
It’s interesting that while every nonprofit will declare itself as such early on in its mission statement, rarely do you hear the non-nonprofit describing itself as “for profit” anywhere. Maybe they think it just goes without saying, but I suspect there’s a touch of guilt in the omission. So Merk, the Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company says its purpose is “preserving and improving human life,” when the unspoken truth carries a significant modifier of that loftier goal.
My problem is not with the “for profit” moniker -I just think it should be required to be included in the for-profit’s mission statement in the name of full disclosure. Merk’s purpose would be restated as “our purpose is to make a profit from selling things that will hopefully preserve and improve human life.” I realize it goes without saying, but why aren’t we saying it? Other than it’s not as picturesque. Like asking Miss America to describe what she thinks is important in life and having her answer “Gee, well, the most important thing for me, of course my looks. I spend a lot of time at the gym and in front of a mirror to make sure I look my best. Then if there’s time left over, and that’s a big if (smile) then I’m all for volunteering to help save the world. (teeth).” The truth may set you free, but it may not win you the PR contest.
My bigger problem is why those businesses who have as their purpose making a contribution to society have to walk around with the label of nonprofit. It’s like “disabled” or “nonwhite” or “non[fill in your religious affiliation]” It just carries a stigma. There’s a value judgment inherent in the orientation. We create a certain filter for ourselves when we describe the world this way and it says a lot about our priorities.
First of all – it’s always a bad thing to label yourself as what you are not. It’s just so negative. I’m a middle-aged, quiet, laidback, sensitive, spiritual, mother and business owner. It would be equally true to describe me as nonyoung, nonreligious, nonmale, nonurban, nonfashionable, and nongregarious. But please don’t.
So let’s get away from what it’s not. The universe we’re talking about consists of people organized around “purposeful activity”. For some the purpose is profit. For others the purpose is to make a contribution – to have a positive net social impact (PNSI). So why not call them For Profit and PNSI organizations? I think it’s important to be clear and upfront about your purpose.
It makes a difference. Purpose matters.
What’s your take on the over-muscled body builder who spends all day at the gym watching his biceps grow? Now what if I told you Mr. Universe was an EMT and regularly used his strength to rescue people and animals from tight situations and that once he single-handedly lifted a semi-tractor-trailer off a car which had been pinned, allowing his team mates to rescue a woman and her baby from the car before it burst into flames. Muscles with purpose are so much sexier.
At least if we define the universe as For-Profit and PNSI we’ve more correctly divided the universe. But aren’t profits a contribution? Depends on how they are used. Providing a return to investors is positive. providing a return to employees is positive. Providing a return to community and planet is good. And providing needed goods and services to customers is good. But if you harm any of these stakeholders while serving the others this creates negative impact. It’s important to look at the whole equation. The danger of focusing on any one piece is that the others get lost. And when we look only at profit there’s danger ahead.
Here’s an experiment you can try at home. Bring up one of your children as Forprofit. Let him know that the single most important thing is how much money he earns. Don’t let a day go by without asking him whether he’s earned anything, and give him a quarterly report card on what his worth is as measured by the money he earned over the expenses of keeping him in your house. When he does make money be lavish with the praise, tell the neighbors, and write about it in your blog. Give him a bonus, and suggest that with some small percentage of his earnings he may want to think about giving back. Whatever. When he has a bad week, use it as a learning opportunity. Explain how the free market works and the importance of having revenue exceed expense. Don’t listen to the sorry excuses of having spent time or money helping a friend. Suggest he stop feeding his dog, or better yet selling it. If he continues to over spend or under earn threaten to trade him in for a kid that can do better.
Raise your second child to focus on her PNSI (positive net social impact). Explain that every one of her actions has an impact on the PNSI and that her goal is to maximize it over the years. Tell her that earning money, sharing, helping others, and being a steward of the planet all add to the positive and that being greedy, reckless, lazy, and abusive of others or the planet create a net loss. Tell her that happiness- hers and others’, is important and that true happiness doesn’t come from stuff but from our ability to be grateful for and find joy in what we have right now. Tell her to work hard, laugh often, and never to lose focus on her PNSI. Tell her it’s important to be grateful, to share, to give, to make a contribution.
Then wait 20 years and let me know.
How do you measure PNSI? Unfortunately it’s not as simple as Revenue-Expenses, nor can it always be measured in dollars. But we’re clever people we’ll figure out a way. The first step is realizing that profit is only part of the equation.
There are a number of problems with bifurcating the business world this way. First and foremost it introduces the strange misconception that a nonprofit business doesn’t need to be or even shouldn’t be profitable. I heard our town Zoning Commissioner light into the Executive Director of a local museum for operating a revenue-generating farmers market “You’re not acting like a nonprofit – you’re acting like a business.” This confusion is understandable given the nomenclature. If this were really the differentiating point then a friend of mine would be right when he called his auto-body shop a nonprofit – he admitted that had started it as a for-profit but it just didn’t turn out that way.
It’s interesting that while every nonprofit will declare itself as such early on in its mission statement, rarely do you hear the non-nonprofit describing itself as “for profit” anywhere. Maybe they think it just goes without saying, but I suspect there’s a touch of guilt in the omission. So Merk, the Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company says its purpose is “preserving and improving human life,” when the unspoken truth carries a significant modifier of that loftier goal.
My problem is not with the “for profit” moniker -I just think it should be required to be included in the for-profit’s mission statement in the name of full disclosure. Merk’s purpose would be restated as “our purpose is to make a profit from selling things that will hopefully preserve and improve human life.” I realize it goes without saying, but why aren’t we saying it? Other than it’s not as picturesque. Like asking Miss America to describe what she thinks is important in life and having her answer “Gee, well, the most important thing for me, of course my looks. I spend a lot of time at the gym and in front of a mirror to make sure I look my best. Then if there’s time left over, and that’s a big if (smile) then I’m all for volunteering to help save the world. (teeth).” The truth may set you free, but it may not win you the PR contest.
My bigger problem is why those businesses who have as their purpose making a contribution to society have to walk around with the label of nonprofit. It’s like “disabled” or “nonwhite” or “non[fill in your religious affiliation]” It just carries a stigma. There’s a value judgment inherent in the orientation. We create a certain filter for ourselves when we describe the world this way and it says a lot about our priorities.
First of all – it’s always a bad thing to label yourself as what you are not. It’s just so negative. I’m a middle-aged, quiet, laidback, sensitive, spiritual, mother and business owner. It would be equally true to describe me as nonyoung, nonreligious, nonmale, nonurban, nonfashionable, and nongregarious. But please don’t.
So let’s get away from what it’s not. The universe we’re talking about consists of people organized around “purposeful activity”. For some the purpose is profit. For others the purpose is to make a contribution – to have a positive net social impact (PNSI). So why not call them For Profit and PNSI organizations? I think it’s important to be clear and upfront about your purpose.
It makes a difference. Purpose matters.
What’s your take on the over-muscled body builder who spends all day at the gym watching his biceps grow? Now what if I told you Mr. Universe was an EMT and regularly used his strength to rescue people and animals from tight situations and that once he single-handedly lifted a semi-tractor-trailer off a car which had been pinned, allowing his team mates to rescue a woman and her baby from the car before it burst into flames. Muscles with purpose are so much sexier.
At least if we define the universe as For-Profit and PNSI we’ve more correctly divided the universe. But aren’t profits a contribution? Depends on how they are used. Providing a return to investors is positive. providing a return to employees is positive. Providing a return to community and planet is good. And providing needed goods and services to customers is good. But if you harm any of these stakeholders while serving the others this creates negative impact. It’s important to look at the whole equation. The danger of focusing on any one piece is that the others get lost. And when we look only at profit there’s danger ahead.
Here’s an experiment you can try at home. Bring up one of your children as Forprofit. Let him know that the single most important thing is how much money he earns. Don’t let a day go by without asking him whether he’s earned anything, and give him a quarterly report card on what his worth is as measured by the money he earned over the expenses of keeping him in your house. When he does make money be lavish with the praise, tell the neighbors, and write about it in your blog. Give him a bonus, and suggest that with some small percentage of his earnings he may want to think about giving back. Whatever. When he has a bad week, use it as a learning opportunity. Explain how the free market works and the importance of having revenue exceed expense. Don’t listen to the sorry excuses of having spent time or money helping a friend. Suggest he stop feeding his dog, or better yet selling it. If he continues to over spend or under earn threaten to trade him in for a kid that can do better.
Raise your second child to focus on her PNSI (positive net social impact). Explain that every one of her actions has an impact on the PNSI and that her goal is to maximize it over the years. Tell her that earning money, sharing, helping others, and being a steward of the planet all add to the positive and that being greedy, reckless, lazy, and abusive of others or the planet create a net loss. Tell her that happiness- hers and others’, is important and that true happiness doesn’t come from stuff but from our ability to be grateful for and find joy in what we have right now. Tell her to work hard, laugh often, and never to lose focus on her PNSI. Tell her it’s important to be grateful, to share, to give, to make a contribution.
Then wait 20 years and let me know.
How do you measure PNSI? Unfortunately it’s not as simple as Revenue-Expenses, nor can it always be measured in dollars. But we’re clever people we’ll figure out a way. The first step is realizing that profit is only part of the equation.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
It's not the economy stupid
Carville’s famous sound bite, which may have helped Bill Clinton win election in 1992, like karma, has come back to bite us. Now - it’s the economy that's stupid. What else can you say about an economy that causes us to forget our principles and ignore the pain being inflicted on people and our planet in the name of profits. We’re paying for having lost our way to an extent which makes the aforementioned president’s peccadilloes seem quaint.
It’s a stupid economy that has us thinking things which can’t be measured, like love, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, and neighborliness are somehow less valuable simply because they cannot be monetized. It’s a stupid economy that has us thinking the only way to get back on our feet is to consume ever more crap, spurring the use of our ever dwindling resources, and accelerating the degradation of our ever more stressed planet. It’s a stupid economy where those at the top make billions in bonuses for having screwed millions of honest people who trusted them. It’s a stupid economy when this type of behavior becomes business as usual. It’s a stupid economy when companies and their leaders are rewarded by Wall Street for laying off thousands and shipping jobs overseas. It’s a stupid economy when companies cannot legally do the right thing out of a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. It’s a stupid economy when no value is registered if you volunteer to help solve some of the world’s problems, stay home to raise a child or take in a shelter dog bound for euthanasia, but which registers positive growth if you spend your time at the mall, put the child in day care or have the puppy destroyed; where building bombs and jails adds to our national bottom line. It’s a stupid economy where in the name of free trade, corporations are given the rights of citizens, but bear no responsibility for the damage and death they cause. It’s a stupid economy that forces companies to take unacceptable safety risks for the sake of profits. It’s a stupid economy that asks us to check our ethics, our values, and our hearts at the door of businesses which are likely to lay us off if we can’t continue adding to the bottom line by working harder for less (and probably even if we do).
Fortunately we’re beginning to wake up. We realize that it’s not about the economy or the bottom line. It’s about people, planet, and purpose. And we’re not calling anyone stupid.
It’s a stupid economy that has us thinking things which can’t be measured, like love, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, and neighborliness are somehow less valuable simply because they cannot be monetized. It’s a stupid economy that has us thinking the only way to get back on our feet is to consume ever more crap, spurring the use of our ever dwindling resources, and accelerating the degradation of our ever more stressed planet. It’s a stupid economy where those at the top make billions in bonuses for having screwed millions of honest people who trusted them. It’s a stupid economy when this type of behavior becomes business as usual. It’s a stupid economy when companies and their leaders are rewarded by Wall Street for laying off thousands and shipping jobs overseas. It’s a stupid economy when companies cannot legally do the right thing out of a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. It’s a stupid economy when no value is registered if you volunteer to help solve some of the world’s problems, stay home to raise a child or take in a shelter dog bound for euthanasia, but which registers positive growth if you spend your time at the mall, put the child in day care or have the puppy destroyed; where building bombs and jails adds to our national bottom line. It’s a stupid economy where in the name of free trade, corporations are given the rights of citizens, but bear no responsibility for the damage and death they cause. It’s a stupid economy that forces companies to take unacceptable safety risks for the sake of profits. It’s a stupid economy that asks us to check our ethics, our values, and our hearts at the door of businesses which are likely to lay us off if we can’t continue adding to the bottom line by working harder for less (and probably even if we do).
Fortunately we’re beginning to wake up. We realize that it’s not about the economy or the bottom line. It’s about people, planet, and purpose. And we’re not calling anyone stupid.
Monday, June 28, 2010
June 28th is Social Business Day!
June 28, 2010. Social Business Day will celebrate Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus’s concept of social business and its implementation on the ground. A social business dedicates itself to address humanity’s most pressing concerns.
A social business is defined as a non-loss, non-dividend company dedicated to meeting social needs; such as ensuring affordable healthcare for all, promoting better nutrition for children, creating employment for the unemployed, moving towards a safer environment, enhancing the process of women empowerment and providing safe drinking water.
In social business, the investor gets the investment money back over time, but never receives dividend beyond that amount. All profits of the social business go towards improving the product or service provided, and increasing its reach.
Social Business Day will:
· encourage the participants to discuss the critical features of social business, merits, achievements, and challenges of social businesses;
· discuss the plans for upcoming social businesses
· explore future social business opportunities
· and inspire individuals, entrepreneurs, students, foundations, and companies to create their own social businesses.
Social Business Day this year will also be an occasion for the launching of Professor Muhammad Yunus's latest book, Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs, in Bangladesh.
http://muhammadyunus.org/the-first-annual-social-business-day/
A social business is defined as a non-loss, non-dividend company dedicated to meeting social needs; such as ensuring affordable healthcare for all, promoting better nutrition for children, creating employment for the unemployed, moving towards a safer environment, enhancing the process of women empowerment and providing safe drinking water.
In social business, the investor gets the investment money back over time, but never receives dividend beyond that amount. All profits of the social business go towards improving the product or service provided, and increasing its reach.
Social Business Day will:
· encourage the participants to discuss the critical features of social business, merits, achievements, and challenges of social businesses;
· discuss the plans for upcoming social businesses
· explore future social business opportunities
· and inspire individuals, entrepreneurs, students, foundations, and companies to create their own social businesses.
Social Business Day this year will also be an occasion for the launching of Professor Muhammad Yunus's latest book, Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs, in Bangladesh.
http://muhammadyunus.org/the-first-annual-social-business-day/
Friday, June 18, 2010
Big Society Bank
In England next year, Social Entrepreneurs will have access to growth capital, when they open the Big Society Bank in April, 2011. They will use money from dormant bank accounts and other sources to provide funding for social investors.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Beyond Business as Usual - Breakfast Forum
Over 250 people came from all sectors of the state to find out more about Social Enterprise at our Beyond Business as Usual Breakfast Forum. Many of the attendees were very excited about the idea of working to make Connecticut a hub of Social Enterprise and signed up for a follow-up meeting to be held on Wednesday June 16th at the LOB in Hartford.
For more information or to register
Dan Haar wrote about the event in today's Hartford Courant
For more information or to register
Dan Haar wrote about the event in today's Hartford Courant
reSET and Social Enterprise Model in the news
In a recent article in the Hartford Courant Dan Haar discusses Social Enterprise as a new business model.
http://www.courant.com/business/hc-biz-haar-column-0609-20100608,0,45902.column
http://www.courant.com/business/hc-biz-haar-column-0609-20100608,0,45902.column
Friday, June 4, 2010
Lessons from the chickens and the fox
Chickens don’t seem to learn much from experience and sometimes I think we don’t either. My eleven year old son, Dave, raises bantams; a small, happy, egg-laying breed. He lets them free range in the daylight hours and at night they put themselves to bed. He heads out after sunset to shut and lock the coop door and in the morning let’s them out again. We lose a few over the course of the summer to hawks but we believe our chickens would subscribe to the New Hampshire motto of Live Free or Die.
Given Dave’s track record for remembering to bring home his trombone, or to practice, or to get his reading log signed, it is remarkable how diligent he is in remembering to shut them in at night. Even when he sleeps at a friend’s house he calls around dusk to remind us to put the chickens to bed.
It all seemed rather idyllic until the fox got wind of our bounty and one sad evening we heard a ruckus that became more familiar with time. The ducks and the goose began to honk mightily as they jumped into the pond. The roosters flew up to the coop roof to screech encouragement to the troops. The dog began to bark, and Dave leapt into action. But the hens mostly ran in circles and the two slowest members of the flock were taken before Dave and Hannah arrived on the scene.
It was the beginning of escalating ugliness. Having tasted both the chicken and the challenge, the fox grew greedy. Watching the pig fest on Wall Street I should have known what was coming. At least the fox had a reason: I knew she had a litter of hungry pups to feed and I’m sure our yard looked like a perfectly stocked pantry. Soon she was making regular pilgrimages. Dave reported seeing her on his way down to the coop almost every night. He, in return, was even more religious about getting them to bed before the sun went down. Then one fateful day while we were away and Hannah was off duty the fox came by in broad daylight and destroyed 19 birds in one gory swoop.
19 bantams! There is no reasonable explanation for this slaughter. It was as if the fox thought simply because she could, she therefore should, (as in “I’m entitled to”) take a 19 bantam bonus. It reduced our flock to one ornery rooster (who after that day was no longer so ornery, but followed the ducks around wishing he could swim), so not only was it a gross display of over-kill; the carnage left several chicken carcasses to rot, it was just plain short sighted: A little more restraint could have ensured generations of future meals from this flock. It was appalling, disgusting, discouraging, and just plain sad.
One might be tempted to blame the chickens; you’d think they’d learn. But a chicken has a small brain and an incredibly short attention span; within hours of an attack they are back to business as usual. In their defense, they’re used to four legged creatures like Hannah who mills about but never interferes with chicken business, and the cat who lurks but never lunges. Still, you’d think the harrowing experience of one or two fox attacks would drive home some semblance of wisdom. Chickens seem unable to learn – maybe it’s simple lack of brain power or the fact that they don’t usually live long enough to pass on whatever knowledge they’ve gained to future generations.
Dave was heartbroken. He couldn’t believe a fox would deviate from the rule book and strike mid day. As my Dad would say, “I guess she didn’t read the rule book!” Apparently unlike the guileless chickens, fox brains are better at adjusting to circumstance and bending the rules to take advantage of new opportunities. It was a hard lesson for Dave, but he too has learned. His current plan is to keep the new flock in the run during the ugly month of May.
If an eleven year old can learn so quickly, it’s curious to me why we grownups, have so much trouble catching on. Why, for instance, after experiencing the recent Wall Street massacre unleashed upon us by masters of unbridled greed, we are looking no smarter than chickens, venturing happily back out into the sunlight to peck around for scraps hours after the slaughter of flock mates, even as the Wall Street foxes with their billions in bonuses craft ever more wily plans for future mayhem.
Here’s what I’d like to say to the chickens: You need to learn the difference between a Labrador and a fox. There’s no point in trying to understand why or talking sense into them, just teach your friends and family to run like hell when you see one coming. Squawk all you want but do it while you run. Better yet, practice flying.
Here’s what I’d like to say to the fox: Shame on you. I understand the laws of nature, and I don’t begrudge your need to feed your family. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And a 19 bantam bonus should make you as sick to take as it does us to hear about. A 19-chickens kill is a disgrace. Even for a fox.
Here’s what I’ve said to David. You’re a good person. I like the determination and humility with which you shoulder your responsibility as protector of the chickens. Please stay in touch with your heart and your head and someday please help teach your children to be neither chickens, nor foxes, but evolved human beings with the potential to demonstrate through intelligence, compassion, and creative innovation that we can leave a positive legacy for future generations.
Given Dave’s track record for remembering to bring home his trombone, or to practice, or to get his reading log signed, it is remarkable how diligent he is in remembering to shut them in at night. Even when he sleeps at a friend’s house he calls around dusk to remind us to put the chickens to bed.
It all seemed rather idyllic until the fox got wind of our bounty and one sad evening we heard a ruckus that became more familiar with time. The ducks and the goose began to honk mightily as they jumped into the pond. The roosters flew up to the coop roof to screech encouragement to the troops. The dog began to bark, and Dave leapt into action. But the hens mostly ran in circles and the two slowest members of the flock were taken before Dave and Hannah arrived on the scene.
It was the beginning of escalating ugliness. Having tasted both the chicken and the challenge, the fox grew greedy. Watching the pig fest on Wall Street I should have known what was coming. At least the fox had a reason: I knew she had a litter of hungry pups to feed and I’m sure our yard looked like a perfectly stocked pantry. Soon she was making regular pilgrimages. Dave reported seeing her on his way down to the coop almost every night. He, in return, was even more religious about getting them to bed before the sun went down. Then one fateful day while we were away and Hannah was off duty the fox came by in broad daylight and destroyed 19 birds in one gory swoop.
19 bantams! There is no reasonable explanation for this slaughter. It was as if the fox thought simply because she could, she therefore should, (as in “I’m entitled to”) take a 19 bantam bonus. It reduced our flock to one ornery rooster (who after that day was no longer so ornery, but followed the ducks around wishing he could swim), so not only was it a gross display of over-kill; the carnage left several chicken carcasses to rot, it was just plain short sighted: A little more restraint could have ensured generations of future meals from this flock. It was appalling, disgusting, discouraging, and just plain sad.
One might be tempted to blame the chickens; you’d think they’d learn. But a chicken has a small brain and an incredibly short attention span; within hours of an attack they are back to business as usual. In their defense, they’re used to four legged creatures like Hannah who mills about but never interferes with chicken business, and the cat who lurks but never lunges. Still, you’d think the harrowing experience of one or two fox attacks would drive home some semblance of wisdom. Chickens seem unable to learn – maybe it’s simple lack of brain power or the fact that they don’t usually live long enough to pass on whatever knowledge they’ve gained to future generations.
Dave was heartbroken. He couldn’t believe a fox would deviate from the rule book and strike mid day. As my Dad would say, “I guess she didn’t read the rule book!” Apparently unlike the guileless chickens, fox brains are better at adjusting to circumstance and bending the rules to take advantage of new opportunities. It was a hard lesson for Dave, but he too has learned. His current plan is to keep the new flock in the run during the ugly month of May.
If an eleven year old can learn so quickly, it’s curious to me why we grownups, have so much trouble catching on. Why, for instance, after experiencing the recent Wall Street massacre unleashed upon us by masters of unbridled greed, we are looking no smarter than chickens, venturing happily back out into the sunlight to peck around for scraps hours after the slaughter of flock mates, even as the Wall Street foxes with their billions in bonuses craft ever more wily plans for future mayhem.
Here’s what I’d like to say to the chickens: You need to learn the difference between a Labrador and a fox. There’s no point in trying to understand why or talking sense into them, just teach your friends and family to run like hell when you see one coming. Squawk all you want but do it while you run. Better yet, practice flying.
Here’s what I’d like to say to the fox: Shame on you. I understand the laws of nature, and I don’t begrudge your need to feed your family. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And a 19 bantam bonus should make you as sick to take as it does us to hear about. A 19-chickens kill is a disgrace. Even for a fox.
Here’s what I’ve said to David. You’re a good person. I like the determination and humility with which you shoulder your responsibility as protector of the chickens. Please stay in touch with your heart and your head and someday please help teach your children to be neither chickens, nor foxes, but evolved human beings with the potential to demonstrate through intelligence, compassion, and creative innovation that we can leave a positive legacy for future generations.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Spring Break
A week without meetings! What could be more heavenly? Like taking vacation, it introduces a mini-mental-health break into the schedule. At Walker we’ve been looking at ways to improve the balance in our lives at the office, and one of the things that get us all down is meetings. Especially those days where you’re scheduled for meetings all day long, and find yourself at 5:30pm wondering when you are going to possibly be able to follow-up on all the emails and phone calls that accumulated while you were in meetings, never mind when you’ll be able to address all the great ideas that came up during those meetings. As the days and the meetings pile up it can get suffocating.
Enter Spring Break. The rule is that there will be no meetings scheduled for the whole week and only critically important meetings should occur. Two weeks before Spring Break we had to set up a meeting for training that would only be offered once a quarter and I thought it might be the beginning of the end of the sanctity of that week, but it ended up being the only thing scheduled. There were some impromptu discussions, but for the most part everyone honored the Break, and the result was wonderful. Things got done. People unwound. A calmer atmosphere prevailed.
And like vacation, everyone came back feeling a little more relaxed and on top of things. It was a simple gift to each other. Needless to say, Summer, Fall, and Winter Breaks have already been put into the calendar. Try it and watch your company breathe.
Enter Spring Break. The rule is that there will be no meetings scheduled for the whole week and only critically important meetings should occur. Two weeks before Spring Break we had to set up a meeting for training that would only be offered once a quarter and I thought it might be the beginning of the end of the sanctity of that week, but it ended up being the only thing scheduled. There were some impromptu discussions, but for the most part everyone honored the Break, and the result was wonderful. Things got done. People unwound. A calmer atmosphere prevailed.
And like vacation, everyone came back feeling a little more relaxed and on top of things. It was a simple gift to each other. Needless to say, Summer, Fall, and Winter Breaks have already been put into the calendar. Try it and watch your company breathe.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Celebrating Business as Art
Running a business is as much art as it is science and we can learn from the masters. When you look at a beautiful painting you’ll find repeating patterns - shapes, lines, and tones that develop an underlying melody for your eye, setting the overall mood and pace and helping you move through the piece. And then there will be little surprises that delight you by momentarily breaking the pattern. These little surprises give the painting both depth and soul. The same is true in any art form whether it is gardening (look for repeating leaf shapes, and textures, with the occasional splash of an unexpected color), sculpture, music, poetry or dance. Too much repetition becomes monotony. Too little and you have chaos. The art is in the balance.
A painting teacher once told me that accidents happen to all artists - the genius is in knowing when to leave them be. The true artist can strike a beautiful balance between control and energy, form and freedom, perfection and surprise, and it is this balance that keeps us interested, entertained, and often deeply moved. Whether you see your business as a canvass, a garden, or an orchestra, you as the master craftsman must constantly search out this same balance.
With the industrial revolution we lost sight of one side of this equation. We fell in love with machines and the Siren song of perfection through control and precision. We developed a fantasy of the ultimate business machine, with perfectly predictable, repeatable processes churning out perfectly predictable, repeatable profits just like the new machines were churning out perfectly predictable, repeatable parts and products. Surprises and accidents (even happy ones) became the enemy. We came up with ways to crush them in their infancy with proactive, preventive maintenance. We automated and mechanized to eliminate the messy human factor and when the actual human being could not be eliminated, we worked to make them as machine like as possible. With each punch-card, policy manual and procedure we tried to codify everything. We compartmentalized jobs and people in an effort to remove any opportunity for improvisation. And we didn’t pay attention to the price we were paying.
With the age of technology we’ve been able to take this idea to a new level and today we find ourselves with our messy humanness getting increasingly squeezed out of the market place. We have come to accept this as natural, normal, and even reasonable. It started in the factories with automating the assembly lines. You see it today in the auto-attendant responding to your phone call which makes you talk like a machine to a machine and press endless commands while your blood pressure soars. You find it at the doctor’s office when the receptionist doesn’t even look up when she says “name and birth date” in that same machine like tone you heard on auto-attendant.
The last time I went to AAA to renew my driver’s license I still remember being bowled over by the woman who processed my renewal. I was second in queue at her station, but she acknowledged me with a smile and said she’d be right with me. I watched as she helped the man in front of me, making friendly eye contact and saying something funny about his photo. I thought maybe she was flirting with him, but then it was my turn and she gave me the same genuine warmth and attention. It made me feel like we were two human beings connecting. It felt wonderful - like getting a massage. I asked for her card and wrote her boss to say how impressed I was. Clearly part of what struck me was how very rare that type of exchange is today. But why? It costs nothing, and here I am two years later remembering it fondly and telling everyone about the exceptional service I received at AAA in West Hartford, CT. You can’t buy that kind of advertising. Why wouldn’t every company make this happen?
The Siren call of perfection has lured us to founder on this almost perfectly souless island of our own creation. In making machines act like people and people act like machines we may have gained efficiencies but we’ve lost our humanity and any sense of artistry along the way. So maybe it’s time to reintroduce the quirky edgy, funny, lovable human being back into the mix and celebrate the result.
Begin to pay attention to where you may have tipped the scales a little too far toward the machine model and think about how you can reintroduce the human being into your business. Make sure if a client presses zero they will talk to a human being. Realize the way you treat your staff will be the way they treat your customers. Have an Artistan’s Award to celebrate the people in your company who think out of the box in their passion for what they do, why they do it, and who they do it for. Think of it as the ultimate Diversity initiative. Make room for the human being in your company!
A painting teacher once told me that accidents happen to all artists - the genius is in knowing when to leave them be. The true artist can strike a beautiful balance between control and energy, form and freedom, perfection and surprise, and it is this balance that keeps us interested, entertained, and often deeply moved. Whether you see your business as a canvass, a garden, or an orchestra, you as the master craftsman must constantly search out this same balance.
With the industrial revolution we lost sight of one side of this equation. We fell in love with machines and the Siren song of perfection through control and precision. We developed a fantasy of the ultimate business machine, with perfectly predictable, repeatable processes churning out perfectly predictable, repeatable profits just like the new machines were churning out perfectly predictable, repeatable parts and products. Surprises and accidents (even happy ones) became the enemy. We came up with ways to crush them in their infancy with proactive, preventive maintenance. We automated and mechanized to eliminate the messy human factor and when the actual human being could not be eliminated, we worked to make them as machine like as possible. With each punch-card, policy manual and procedure we tried to codify everything. We compartmentalized jobs and people in an effort to remove any opportunity for improvisation. And we didn’t pay attention to the price we were paying.
With the age of technology we’ve been able to take this idea to a new level and today we find ourselves with our messy humanness getting increasingly squeezed out of the market place. We have come to accept this as natural, normal, and even reasonable. It started in the factories with automating the assembly lines. You see it today in the auto-attendant responding to your phone call which makes you talk like a machine to a machine and press endless commands while your blood pressure soars. You find it at the doctor’s office when the receptionist doesn’t even look up when she says “name and birth date” in that same machine like tone you heard on auto-attendant.
The last time I went to AAA to renew my driver’s license I still remember being bowled over by the woman who processed my renewal. I was second in queue at her station, but she acknowledged me with a smile and said she’d be right with me. I watched as she helped the man in front of me, making friendly eye contact and saying something funny about his photo. I thought maybe she was flirting with him, but then it was my turn and she gave me the same genuine warmth and attention. It made me feel like we were two human beings connecting. It felt wonderful - like getting a massage. I asked for her card and wrote her boss to say how impressed I was. Clearly part of what struck me was how very rare that type of exchange is today. But why? It costs nothing, and here I am two years later remembering it fondly and telling everyone about the exceptional service I received at AAA in West Hartford, CT. You can’t buy that kind of advertising. Why wouldn’t every company make this happen?
The Siren call of perfection has lured us to founder on this almost perfectly souless island of our own creation. In making machines act like people and people act like machines we may have gained efficiencies but we’ve lost our humanity and any sense of artistry along the way. So maybe it’s time to reintroduce the quirky edgy, funny, lovable human being back into the mix and celebrate the result.
Begin to pay attention to where you may have tipped the scales a little too far toward the machine model and think about how you can reintroduce the human being into your business. Make sure if a client presses zero they will talk to a human being. Realize the way you treat your staff will be the way they treat your customers. Have an Artistan’s Award to celebrate the people in your company who think out of the box in their passion for what they do, why they do it, and who they do it for. Think of it as the ultimate Diversity initiative. Make room for the human being in your company!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Run Your Business Barefoot
Recent studies have shown that the more you spend on running shoes, the more likely you are to sustain injury. Apparently, the more you swaddle and coddle your feet the more they will eventually let you down. This Sneaker Paradox was uncovered by a few crazy runners who decided to listen to their feet rather than the marketing messages of large shoe companies, and found they ran further, faster, with fewer injuries when they ran with little or no support. Barefoot running is a growing movement.
Apparently over 25% of the bones in your body are found in your feet. They have been finely tuned over the millennia to accommodate, adjust, and alleviate stress on the rest of your body as you cruise over the earth’s challenging terrain. But when you pad and protect them it impedes these inherent abilities, like taking a finely tuned surgical tool and wrapping it in gauze. And not only does all this protection disable your feet and invite injury, it sets up a negative spiral: Like children, the more we protect them the weaker they become, which pushes us toward more support, greater likelihood of injury, and the cycle continues.
WOW! Think about this for a minute. The market has convinced millions of us to part with our hard earned dollars on a pair of shoes that do exactly opposite of what they claim.
Where else are we being deceived?
I’m thinking that the Sneaker Paradox applies to the Profit=Success=Happiness model in business as well. It’s the fundamental premise behind our Free Market economy. Yet it has delivered exactly the opposite of what it promises. This simple equation explains and justifies the greed that drives our traditional markets and makes it possible for a small group of fabulously wealthy to feel ok about earning multi-million dollar bonuses while destroying the lives of countless others.
And yet, if a group of die-hard marathoners can discover startling truths by simply listening to their feet, so too can we by simply listening to the wisdom of our hearts rather than the market rules which have led us to the heartache and disaster we find ourselves facing now.
With many of us cutting back on stuff, we're finding out, whether we like it or not, that less can sometimes be more and that by shedding stuff we get back in touch with what actually makes our hearts happy. When we let the market tell us what we want we buy into an endless cycle of greed, grab, and regret. We want the next gadget, bonus, raise, whatever, and then we’ll be happy. For a few minutes. And then it’s on to the next gadget, bonus, raise, whatever. There’s always someone out there earning more, some other company doing better. It’s an endless game that has sucked us all in from time to time.
Most of us took some kind of hit this past year. It was difficult to watch our growth, our investments, our dreams take a hit, sometimes a very big hit. We found ourselves at the bottom of a cliff, dusting ourselves off and looking back up to where we were just months ago and wondering if we have it in us to claw our way back to the top again. Especially knowing that when we were there it didn’t seem like the top, but just another step along the way to that ever elusive peak we were reaching for.
Now might be a good time to rethink the wisdom of the market and whether the ever present promise, and ever elusive goal, of true happiness can be found following the trail we were on.
Think back to the last time you were happy. Not even a big happy - but an hour that held laughter, love, or inspirational joy. Chances are it had nothing to do with stuff. Chances are it had to do with some other being, sharing laughter or pain, helping out or being helped, sharing, caring, contributing, connecting.
This isn’t to say that profits aren’t important – they are, but as a means to an end, not the end itself. It’s like food: If you’re starving, getting enough to eat becomes the primary focus and goal. But once sated, eating more and more will not make you more and more satisfied. Yet our fundamental business model operates as if there is no end to the happiness that gluttony will shower upon us. That’s how the Wall Street fat cats have been acting. The revolting excess we’ve seen in recent years is all too clearly the result of a market that doesn’t understand that profitability should be a metric of business health not the ultimate measure of its success.
If we can muster the courage to listen to the wisdom of our hearts we will come up with our own business formulae. Here are three possible examples:
Contribution=Success=Happiness.
Great Environment=Success=Happiness.
Excellence=Success=Happiness
Maybe you have another. Maybe a blend of multiple things creates the perfect mix for you. For your business. Try some out and see how they feel.
I started running recently. It’s too cold for barefoot running, but I found the thinnest soled $19 river runners I could find, and my feet are happier than they were in my big expensive running shoes. I plan to listen to my feet and my heart more this year.
Apparently over 25% of the bones in your body are found in your feet. They have been finely tuned over the millennia to accommodate, adjust, and alleviate stress on the rest of your body as you cruise over the earth’s challenging terrain. But when you pad and protect them it impedes these inherent abilities, like taking a finely tuned surgical tool and wrapping it in gauze. And not only does all this protection disable your feet and invite injury, it sets up a negative spiral: Like children, the more we protect them the weaker they become, which pushes us toward more support, greater likelihood of injury, and the cycle continues.
WOW! Think about this for a minute. The market has convinced millions of us to part with our hard earned dollars on a pair of shoes that do exactly opposite of what they claim.
Where else are we being deceived?
I’m thinking that the Sneaker Paradox applies to the Profit=Success=Happiness model in business as well. It’s the fundamental premise behind our Free Market economy. Yet it has delivered exactly the opposite of what it promises. This simple equation explains and justifies the greed that drives our traditional markets and makes it possible for a small group of fabulously wealthy to feel ok about earning multi-million dollar bonuses while destroying the lives of countless others.
And yet, if a group of die-hard marathoners can discover startling truths by simply listening to their feet, so too can we by simply listening to the wisdom of our hearts rather than the market rules which have led us to the heartache and disaster we find ourselves facing now.
With many of us cutting back on stuff, we're finding out, whether we like it or not, that less can sometimes be more and that by shedding stuff we get back in touch with what actually makes our hearts happy. When we let the market tell us what we want we buy into an endless cycle of greed, grab, and regret. We want the next gadget, bonus, raise, whatever, and then we’ll be happy. For a few minutes. And then it’s on to the next gadget, bonus, raise, whatever. There’s always someone out there earning more, some other company doing better. It’s an endless game that has sucked us all in from time to time.
Most of us took some kind of hit this past year. It was difficult to watch our growth, our investments, our dreams take a hit, sometimes a very big hit. We found ourselves at the bottom of a cliff, dusting ourselves off and looking back up to where we were just months ago and wondering if we have it in us to claw our way back to the top again. Especially knowing that when we were there it didn’t seem like the top, but just another step along the way to that ever elusive peak we were reaching for.
Now might be a good time to rethink the wisdom of the market and whether the ever present promise, and ever elusive goal, of true happiness can be found following the trail we were on.
Think back to the last time you were happy. Not even a big happy - but an hour that held laughter, love, or inspirational joy. Chances are it had nothing to do with stuff. Chances are it had to do with some other being, sharing laughter or pain, helping out or being helped, sharing, caring, contributing, connecting.
This isn’t to say that profits aren’t important – they are, but as a means to an end, not the end itself. It’s like food: If you’re starving, getting enough to eat becomes the primary focus and goal. But once sated, eating more and more will not make you more and more satisfied. Yet our fundamental business model operates as if there is no end to the happiness that gluttony will shower upon us. That’s how the Wall Street fat cats have been acting. The revolting excess we’ve seen in recent years is all too clearly the result of a market that doesn’t understand that profitability should be a metric of business health not the ultimate measure of its success.
If we can muster the courage to listen to the wisdom of our hearts we will come up with our own business formulae. Here are three possible examples:
Contribution=Success=Happiness.
Great Environment=Success=Happiness.
Excellence=Success=Happiness
Maybe you have another. Maybe a blend of multiple things creates the perfect mix for you. For your business. Try some out and see how they feel.
I started running recently. It’s too cold for barefoot running, but I found the thinnest soled $19 river runners I could find, and my feet are happier than they were in my big expensive running shoes. I plan to listen to my feet and my heart more this year.
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