Archive for Leadership for a Better World

All eyes are on the Middle East. Just last month, protests broke out across Egypt against the 30-year presidency of Hosni Mubarak. He resigned from his post on February 11th. Egypt’s proverbial tip of the iceberg resulted from the so-called “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia, where after 23 years, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was forced out of office after street protests erupted against his leadership. These events, as well as further evidence of political and social dissatisfaction throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, may very well change the Arab world. » Continue reading “Egypt Inspiration”

Last night I went to see Waiting for Superman, the new documentary by Davis Guggenheim about the tragic state of the US school system. The film follows five kids in different urban centers across America as they seek a better education than is being offered by the public school system. The education system in America, the film exhorts, is broken. It can be fixed, insist school reformers, if we decentralize and shift the focus from teachers and what they want to children and what they need. “Superman,” it turns out, is a symbol of the change we wish would happen—some outside force that we hope will swoop in and save the day. However, what the film wants us to realize is that as stakeholders in society, we (you and me) have the power to save our schools—and in so doing, can save our kids and communities.

The movie is one more feather in the cap of Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media, which aims to make films with a conscience. If you’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth, North Country, Darfur Now, or Fast Food Nation you’ve seen a Participant movie, notable for the fact that they educate as they entertain.

America is not alone in sounding the alarm about the state of the education system. What seems universal is the realization that we can no longer wait for “Superman.” Smart, but uneducated parents around the world know that the only way out of poverty and into a better life is through school. And, they are no longer content to settle for the status quo of teacher absenteeism and mediocre lesson plans. » Continue reading “Waiting for the World to Change”

Zara Khan, the Beyond Profit DC representative, reports from Leadership for a Better World.

With the recession still looming in the background, many recent graduates are looking towards “socially responsible” businesses rather than Wall Street. If job security is widespread across industries, then why not do something “good?” But what happens when everybody wants to do something good?

Socially responsible businesses are receiving record applications from often times overly-qualified individuals. It is becoming more difficult to land the less risky job with an established, socially responsible blue-chip firm. And thus the opportunity cost social entrepreneurship has decreased. But does that mean that there will be more social entrepreneurs? Not necessarily, because it is not willingness to take risk is that separates a social entrepreneur from an overachiever, but rather optimism according to Professor Paul C. Light, Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Servie, Wagner School at NYU.

He defines social entrepreneurship as “innovative activity designed to solve an intractable problem.” So is one born with this entrepreneurial ethic, or does it develop over time? “Sometimes you just know it when you see it. Sometimes it comes from being oppressed within an organization,” says Light. Regardless of where it comes from, social entrepreneurship is a continuing battle. “The trick isn’t to innovate once, but twice, three times and continue onward adapting and changing.”

Zara Khan, the Beyond Profit DC representative, reports from Leadership for a Better World.

In a world of SuperCorps and Honest Teas, it is clear that greed is no longer good on Wall Street. This trend is no recent phenomena – the Body Shop in the mid-seventies was a pioneer in establishing and adhering to core social values. And the socially-conscious consumer is increasingly becoming a major force in business and capitalism as we know it. Did we reach the tipping point because of the technological innovations like the internet which have increased our awareness of the other half that lives on less than $2/day? Or was it because of the need to find more meaning in life while facing the worst recession in modern history? Regardless of the source, social entrepreneurship is here to stay.

Consumers are willing to pay a premium for organic, but how do you know that you get what you pay for? How organic is organic? Is “free-range” just a euphemism for Alice-in-Wonderland-esque miniature cage doors? Our current market system allows us to quantify the bottom-line, but not the higher purpose. Our economic system has not adapted yet to quantify the value of social entrepreneurship. How do we know which companies are really doing “good?” The infamous dolphin-safe tuna fish example illustrates a commonly occurring dilemma – we cannot measure the success of social entrepreneurship.

However, despite these shortcomings, consumers and corporations are still willing to pay a premium for a higher purpose. Are we moving towards a more formal system of recognizing the value of social entrepreneurship – towards a social stock exchange?