Tag: opportunities

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Corporate Social Responsibility, Innovation, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Do corporations treat innovation as a “virus”–a threat?Even a virus can look beautiful. Chanvge the perception of yur inovationn form a virus to a beautiful opportunity.

That’s the intriguing question Stowe Boyd asks in today’s newsletter. Along with Seth Godin, Stowe often helps me start my day.

Never Under-Estimate the Immune System | John Hagel warns us of the almost reflex rejection of new ideas by the innately conservative culture of organizations, and which may be the central weakness of organizations to the world of today:
Every large and successful institution has an immune system– a collection of individuals who are prepared to mobilize at the slightest sign of any “outside” ideas or people in order to ensure that these foreign bodies are neutralized and that the existing institution survives intact and can continue on course. Just like the immune system all organisms have, this institutional immune system is adept at recognizing foreign bodies as soon as they appear and very effective at protecting the institution from infection. It is in fact what has helped large institutions to survive – they are in fact “built to last.”
But here’s the paradox: the immune system that has given large institutions extraordinary resilience in the past may be the very thing that makes these institutions so vulnerable today.

I clicked through to the original article. Hagel continues:

In more stable times, institutional immune systems are very effective at keeping institutions focused and on course, resistant to the distractions that might lead to their downfall. In more rapidly changing and volatile signs, this same immune system can become deadly by resisting the very changes that are required for the survival of the institution…

I’ve been involved in large scale transformation efforts for decades now and there’s only one lesson that I really have to share from all that experience: never, ever under-estimate the power of the immune system of a large existing institution…

[W]e need to craft approaches to transformation that have the ability to respect the power of the immune system and find ways to minimize the risk that the immune system will mobilize to crush the transformation effort. [emphasis in original]

Pointing out that threat-based change increases resistance, Hagel lays out a detailed transformational change action map that positions change as an opportunity. It’s worth reading.

Progressives and environmentalists often try to motivate negatively: through guilt, shame, and fear. And as I think about it, I realize the Right also uses negative motivations, notably fear and greed. Both sides are Chicken Littles, screaming that the world will end. So the far-Left gets people sunk and worried that the world will end, while the far-Right gets people on a treadmill of hatred, xenophobia, etc.

Neither of these approaches create positive social change. But Hagel’s focus on showing the opportunities does.

Boyd focuses on workforce issues, Hagel apparently on organizational transformation. My own focus is on opportunities for transformational social/environmental change to intersect and overlap with business profitability. In my own work, I often talk about the need to motivate positively. I’ve spent the last five years demonstrating those opportunities. I show business how to identify/create/market profitable offerings that turn hunger and poverty into abundance, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance–not through guilt, shame, and fear, but through enlightened organizational and personal self-interest. Thus, my speaking and writing focuses on building profitability through those social and environmental change products and services. A successful initiative:

  • Finds money in making the world better
  • Creates brand loyalty leading to repeat and ever-larger purchases
  • Encourages customers to spread the word about your good work, inspiring an army of unpaid brand ambassadors
  • Reduces operating costs and internal resource consumption (in keeping with Hagel’s challenge to avoid igniting the corporate immune system by minimizing new initiative’s need for resources )
  • And of course, actually does improve things for those suffering the consequences of crises like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change

Want to know more? Please visit https://goingbeyondsustainability.com

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , ,

“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world.” —Archimedes, 230 BC.

All of a sudden, it seems like the universe is dropping a lot of opportunities in my lap. The last few weeks have brought me these and other possibilities (all tentative):

  • A chance to speak in a country I’ve always wanted to visit
  • Working partnership with a startup that could very quickly scale up to be a major force in the environmental movement
  • Several big potential clients, including one who was recommended to me by someone who heard me speak and bought my book at the Sustainable Foods Summit in January, and whose CEO is an actual rock star
  • A remote, long-shot possibility to travel throughout Asia, Africa, and South America, making a movie and a book on sustainability (the longest of long shots, but I’m hoping!)
  • Agreement in principle from a new magazine in Asia to start running one of my new columns; that will make the third continent where a media outlet is running it.
  • An ongoing partnership with someone who has bought a quantity of one of my books in the past, and who wants not only to buy a few hundred of guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, but also to work with me on some ongoing speaking opportunities (for which he gets a nice commission, and therefore is likely to make it happen)

    • As you might gather, it’s been a pretty exciting few weeks.

    So…if you believe in Law of Attraction (LOA) stuff, you might be asking what I’ve done to create this torrent of abundance. I’m not sure, but I have some thoughts.

    I’ve made two big shifts in the last few months, and have another one pending.

    First, I’ve launched my two columns, Green And Profitable and Green And Practical—and set a specific monetary goal and a timetable to achieve it that would convert these columns to the primary revenue stream in my business. It has been a dream since my teen years to be a syndicated columnist, and I’ve made a couple of rounds over the years pitching the big syndicates. I decided that the most likely way it would finally happen would be if, rather than waiting for a big syndicate to pick me up, I did it myself. And I’m doing it!

    And second, I’ve set myself a time management regime and have been pretty good at sticking to it.

    Thirdly, I am moving forward on a new way of structuring my business that will free up significant time for me to focus on the parts of my business I most want to build (writing and speaking).

    And while I’m far from an LOA junkie, I do believe that the things we choose to focus on tend to dominate our lives. I’ve been focusing on these deep goals and I think the universe is responding by showing me enough opportunities to convince me I’m on the right track.

    And I also have a Great Big Goal: making a lasting and significant impact on the world and helping to shift planetary consciousness to create a healthy, just, and peaceful planet. Yes, I’ve learned to think big. I have seen big ripples from the little things I’ve done, and I want the columns to provide me a big enough platform that I could, like Archimedes with his giant lever, move the world.

    It’s going to be a wild ride…and I’m ready!

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