Entrepreneurs are famous for viewing crisis as opportunity, of turning problems into solutions. Instead of focusing their attention on their concerns, they focus on their influence. They start with whatever they can, and as they stay inside this circle of influence it grows and they can influence more and more.
With the enormous social and environmental challenges we face, there has never been a more fertile field to grow companies and organizations that can rise to the challenge and innovate solutions to our most pressing problems.
Wilford Welch and David Hopkins are a dynamic intergenerational duo that are evangelizing the rise of the social entrepreneur. Together they wrote a book entitled, Tactics of Hope: How Social Entrepreneurs Are Changing The World. I heard a recent talk they gave where they put some flesh on the oft used term Social Entrepreneur.
Aside from harnessing the effectiveness of business and technology to solve problems, there’s a deeper shift that’s taking place in the very consciousness and values of these leaders. These shifts are what are guiding and informing their decisions and business models.
Wilford identified 12 values that helped create the present, unsustainable state, and then gave examples of how each of these values is evolving into a value that can help create a sustainable human presence on the planet.
Old Values Sustainable values
More is better ----------- Enough is enough
Me ------------------------- We
Transaction -------------- Relationship
They must solve it ------ I am the solution
Growth/profits ----------- People Planet and Profit
Take from nature ------- Learn from nature
Money is power --------- Money is energy
Isolate and solve ------- Systems thinking
Top Down ---------------- Bottoms up/top down
Knowing it ---------------- Living It
It’s important to note that there’s nothing wrong with the previous value systems. They arose at a time to address the problems of their era and did a fine job at it and now It’s time to upgrade the operating system. One could even go so far as to say that if we hadn’t gotten ourselves into this mess, we wouldn’t have had the proper motivation to create such elegant solutions that are capable of helping humanity find it’s long term ecological niche. In the next cycle, I’m sure these values will have created a host of problems for future generations to solve. Our job is to work like hell to ensure that future generations have a chance to have their own problems.
