Reflection on Social Entrepreneurship and Responsibility

Question of the Day: Simply Irresistible

One quote says that “The job of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.” You might be able to think of social entrepreneurs as artists as well, who are making and selling products and services to generate a social return. But social entrepreneurs may also be considered to be selling ideas. They’re selling the idea that organic products are good for you, that helping kids get through school is a worthwhile use of your time, that helping poor areas experience economic development is good for the larger economy. Sometimes, it’s not enough for a business idea, or the ideas on which a business is founded, to be merely good ideas. It’s simply not true that good ideas sell themselves. You must sell them. So my question to you is: how can you make your business or organization’s idea and mission irresistible?

🔴 PART Two

Question of the Moment: Pushback and Unintended Consequeneces

One criticism of social entrepreneurs (or would-be social entrepreneurs) is that that sometimes they can be arrogant or disconnected from those they are trying to impact. Here’s a brief article about free trees in Detroit. The city sponsored free trees so that people could have them in their yards. And it made sense: these beautify the city and are good for the environment. So why did people turn them down? And what lessons should the city of Detroit learn (and what lessons should you learn) from this story? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-11/why-detroiters-didn-t-trust-city-tree-planting-efforts

🔴 PART THREE

Question of the Moment: Quitting

In the course of your career, and in the life of your business and social enterprise, there will be times where you ask yourself: is it worth it? Should I keep going? Is it time to quit? But quitting is also underrated. Some studies show that strategically knowing what to quit and when to quit can be a smart thing to do. The saying is “quitters never win, and winners never quit,” but while persistence and determination are important, there are also examples of things businesses stopped doing that led to success down the road. Let’s talk about quitting.

I have four questions for you–feel free to respond to any or all of them.

1) Why do some entrepreneurs keep going when they’re tempted to quit? Phil Knight, founder of Nike, writes in his memoir Shoe Dog about just how many times Nike almost didn’t make it.

2) What is something that you felt (or feel) like quitting, but you kept (or keep) on going forward? What kept you going?

3) What is something that you quit that you’re GLAD that you quit? Or what is something that you’re doing now that you might need to quit?

4) What is something that you quit that you wish you hadn’t given up on? Why?

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