Comments on: Can You Be A Social Entrepreneur If You’re Not The Head-Honcho?

By: An Interesting Little Tidbit

An Interesting Little Tidbit — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:53:11 +0000

[...] short while ago, Beyond Profit published a piece entitled Can You Be A Social Entrepreneur If You’re Not the Head Honcho? This prompted further reflection and research from Sarah Jefferson of Ashoka Peace. She concludes [...]

By: Justice Hounnou

Justice Hounnou — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:01:19 +0000

well, this is a debatable issue but if u ask me i will say that yes u need not be the head to be an entrepreneur and the fact also that you are working as part of such team does not neccesarily make u one. i believe there are some who are born entrepreneurs and others also learn to become one.it takes a disciplined person to adhere strictly to his or her own principles and set goals and standards aiming at a definate result in the near future.

By: Bharat Bongu

Bharat Bongu — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:58:13 +0000

Hi I am Bharat Bongu,I am part of a 4 member team at SourcePilani, A Village based BPO in Rajasthan, India. I strongly believe that for a social organization to do well its very important that its management team members are highly motivated and are ready to face any challenges that come their way. Having the same sort of commitment from all the team members is quite essential. I think Adrienne has quite correctly mentioned the same.

Regards
Bharat

Do visit our website to know more : http://www.sourcepilani.com or email to info[at]sourcepilani.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRGnDjaxGLg (watch our video on Youtube)

By: Bob Stilger

Bob Stilger — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:08:28 +0000

This is a rich topic for me.

First off, I’m one of the thousands of people who simultaneously invented the term social entrepreneur back in the seventies. I think many of us came to this description because we saw that we were using the same creativity, initiative and bootstrap energy that was getting noticed in the mainstream economy. It gave us a way of explaining our pioneering efforts. We didn’t anticipate the unintended consequences of use of this term which including appropriating a whole set of values, norms, structures and principles which don’t necessarily fit very well.

I am increasingly dubious about use of the term “social entrepreneur.” I think it is used indiscriminately and doesn’t really provide much guidance in terms of working from that sweet spot of where my passion meets the world’s needs.

The second comment I would make starts with substituting the word leadership for social entrepreneur. At Berkana we believe effective leadership is always both an individual and a community phenomena. We say a leader is anyone who wants to help and that leadership is abundant, not scarce. We need to create the conditions for leaderful communities to emerge.

Those who think of themselves as social entrepreneurs who are doing it on their own either quickly burn out or sink into a lament about how they can’t get others to assume leadership. This is because of the way they hold their own leadership and consciously and unconsciously always pull the spotlight to themselves rather than to others. To be sure, catalysts and visionaries are critical in getting anything done. But we should recognize that life is a dance or big moments and smaller ones. We need the space for each of us to step forward with our vision and for each of us to catalyze action. We need conditions which build communities of support and of action.

You can see some of our work at http://www.berkana.org and some of mine at my new website (very much beginning stages) http://www.resilientcommunities.org.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 08:31:26 +0000

The energy of the social enterpreneur is a unique thing. Different to the average business development driver, this entrepreneur is always aware of social mission and balance sheet and their focus is 100% in moving people to deliver against both. It is a unique viewpoint, strength and understanding of what can be achieved through business and as an employee under someone with this unique viewpoint, I can only say it is an inspiration to work towards his vision.
Richard Litchfield is a social enterpreneur extraordinaire and has designed and implemented products and programmes that are innovative and impactful. Eastside is an organisation with an enterpreneur who plays to the head honcho status but his purpose makes this drive essential.
Thanks for the article
Rachel
Eastside Consulting; making social enterprise happen

By: Jeff Mowatt

Jeff Mowatt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:33:54 +0000

The business model and pioneering efforts of P-CED are very much the achievement of our founder,who put the concept of a business focussed on a primary social outcome first in a white paper, and then free to use on the web 12 years ago.

http://www.p-ced.com/about/background/

He’s never referred to himself as a social entrepreneur, neither would I. We operate as a people-centered business, which as the name suggests, has the objective of serving people. Like any business, it depends on the individual talents of each participant to function.

As a “profit for social purpose” business, our own definition, we fit within the general classification of a social enterprise as defined by UK government, although the model goes beyond this to include the fundamental ethical predicate that people are not disposable.

By: Mark Waterfield

Mark Waterfield — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:02:13 +0000

You are quite correct with your view that in start up enterprises all team members are forced to be entrepreneurial in their thinking and their actions.

I most certainly do not think that you need to be Head honcho to be a social entrepreneur.