I like the point of this video. The point is not made with as much finesse as it could be: Cameron really goes for the entrepreneurial thing with example after example while letting the global theme sit in the background. He is advocating a different approach to learning, free from the shackles of the our industrial age education system. To my mind, it’s needed. We are creating too many scared robots for too few robot companies.
Social enterprise needs to take a similar path. We don’t have enough stories about entrepreneurial social ventures. And the ones that sound entrepreneurial often turn out to be businesses propped up (and I am not talking about investment, but ongoing operational capital month after month) by non-entreprenurial grant subsidy. In fact, I bet more than 75% of social enterprises are run by folks with little to lose except the job of running the firm. This creates a safety culture and leads to non-entrepreneurial approaches to business and social problems. I don’t think you can build a new business model, social business, without going after new ways to do things. Most social enterprises are a redux of existing businesses without the drive to be market leading innovators.
Unfair? Maybe. But, having worked with many wonderful people in social businesses across the UK, I worry that we have the wrong people or wrong situations at many of these firms. The leaders have nothing at risk and yes, without anything at risk- whether it’s part of the salary or their own money invested – it’s hard to imagine innovation or creative approaches. The alternate scenario is no better; the organisation is set up and virtually operating as an arm of the public sector. What would happen if more people joined the social business tribe who invested their own money into the business, pushed the business model to the limit (innovating, leading, or otherwise disrupting industries), or simply realised that commerciality needs to edge out social benefit (from a % of effort) in order that they create long lasting value?
The world of social business would thrive. People would be drawn to it because we would have more market makers (locally and globally). And the excitement of social business would shine through.
How could we change the social business paradigm?
With an entrepreneurial approach.
Related posts:
