Video of ITT watermark launch

On 18 September, I helped launch the ITT watermark initiative at World Water Week, Stockholm. In headlines, ITT is committing $3 million over the next three years to bring safe water, sanitation and hygiene education to 300 schools in water-stressed regions of the developing world — a pledge that should ultimately help improve the lives of more than 100,000 children and their families. The initiative is being developed jointly with Water For People, with the work kicking off in 40 schools in West Bengal, India; Quiche, Guatemala and Yoro, Honduras. A video of the launch event, including the panel debate in which I took part, can be found on the ITT watermark site.

AmEx nurtures non-profit execs — some reflections

This week’s issue of Business Week (August 11) included an interesting article by Alison Damast entitled ‘American Express Nurtures Nonprofit Execs’. The piece reported on an initiative spearheaded by the company to work with selected nonprofit employees to improve their leadership skills. The initiative is a response to the growing concern in the US that by 2016, more than half a million new senior managers will be needed for these charities — and AmEx is not alone in doing something about this. Others include IBM and Bank of America.

There is no doubt that the non-profit sector all over the world needs the kind of expertise that is readily available in the business world, including general management, market research, strategic and financial planning, human resource management, internal and external monitoring and evaluation systems, marketing and communications, legal advice, accounting and auditing, information systems, to name a few. In fact, Volans offers to match corporate employees with specific business-related skills with high impact social enterprises needing such skills for a specific period of engagement. And so we applaud the initiative taken by AmEx in that regard.

But let’s be clear. What AmEx is doing is more about management and business skill development than leadership. In fact, we posit that Fortune 500 companies would be much better served in the area of staff leadership development by sending their middle and senior staff to spend some time working with social entrepreneurs and their organizations than by shuttling them to off-site leadership seminars run by expensive consulting firms equipped with batteries of tests and games of dubious medium and long term impact.

As Kouzes and Posner have noted, “Contrary to the myth that only a lucky few can ever decipher the mystery of leadership, our research has shown us that leadership is an observable, learnable set of practices” (The Leadership Challenge, Jossey-Bass, 2007, p. 16.) But to observe leadership, you have to be with leaders and be exposed to circumstances that call upon you to draw upon your own leadership capacities. You need to have a safe environment to practice these new skills and approaches.

And the need for leadership at all levels of a company is as urgent as the need for management skills in nonprofits. In fact, in the 2008 survey of CEOs by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the top qualities sought in employees after business and technical expertise are experience of overseas and global markets followed by leadership capabilities and creative thinking. Where are those opportunities to develop leadership and creative thinking plus lean about new market opportunities?

Based on our extensive evidence, we strongly believe they lie in the world of social enterprise. Indeed, we have found that those corporate professionals who have had their personal and professional skills tested in the complex and challenging world of social enterprise have gained considerably more self-confidence, self-mastery and new insights than had they attended a host of well designed leadership workshops in cloistered conference settings. The benefits of developing leaders through secondments to social enterprises will echo throughout the company as these leaders bring their learning back into the organization.

Pamela Hartigan in Social Innovations Conversation

Host Sheela Sethuraman interviews Pamela Hartigan, the founding partner of Volans Ventures, about her new book titled The Power Of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World. Pamela addresses several questions related to the book — Why are social entrepreneurs considered ‘unreasonable’? What are the different kinds of social enterprises? How does one measure impact of a social cause? Why is it necessary to for social entrepreneurs to create partnerships and device new funding mechanisms? How are social entrepreneurs different from business entrepreneurs?

For full article, click here.

Brazil’s Globo News program ‘Conta Corrente’ interviews John Elkington

Brazil’s Globo News program ‘Conta Corrente’ interviews John Elkington on the evolution of CSR, globalization and current issues and trends driving companies to address environmental and social issues
Link to TV interview , Brazil, May 2008