: social entrepreneurship :

... I have been reading How to Change the World : Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.

Bill Drayton is one of the world's more recognized social entrepreneurs, often given credit for coining the term ( which he didn't, by the way ). He is the Founder and CEO of Ashoka, a pretty cool global outfit. Chapter 5 of HtCtW:SEatPoNI talks about his influences as a young student, one of them being Martin Luther King Jr's adaptation of Gandhi's non-violent change approaches/tactics. Just give this a read for your thinking ...

" ... over the years Drayton came to believe that Gandhi's greatest insight was recognizing, early in the 20th century, that a new type of ethics was emerging in the world -- an ethics grounded not in rules, but in empathy. It was a change that was necessary as human society grew increasingly complex. In the past, when people lived in homogeneous communities, and rarely moved far from their birthplaces, rule-based ethics had been adequate to govern human relations. But the world had become too fast-paced and interconnected for rule-based ethics. There were too many interactions in which rules were outdated and belief systems clashed. The new circumstances demanded that people become more ethically self-guiding: people had to be able to put themselves in the shoes of the others around them. Those who could not navigate situations in which rules were changing or could not master the skills of empathic understanding would find themselves unable to manage their behaviour(s) wisely and ethically; increasingly, Drayton asserted, they would be seen as 'loose cannons' and marginalized within society" ...

The line "those who could not navigate situations in which rules were changing or could not master the skills of empathic understanding find themselves unable to manage their behaviour(s) wisely and ethically; increasingly, they would be ... marginalized within society" kind of jumped out at me. Between all the work done by people like Peter Senge, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Goleman, Otto Scharmer, Dee Hock, Meg Wheatley and others ... there is a common theme, this common denominator ... understanding systems, understanding organizations, understanding yourself ... and coming to a mature contributing mindset where your awareness, your emotional intelligence, your worldview ... is both empathic and ethical. I wonder what that looks like? Thankfully some very, very smart and motivated people are working towards that goal. We need to be listening to them ...

dlc