Jason Saul was by far one of the most interesting speakers that I had an opportunity to listen to at Net Impact this year. His new book – Social Innovation Inc – emphasizes his message that instead of using business to drive social change, companies need to use social change to drive business.
As business leaders we need to be part of the solution! Its businesses, and not government or non-profit groups, that should lead the effort to eradicate global injustices such as poverty. Our society values social outcomes and there is now an economic incentive to address social issues. We need to find the economic possibilities within social issues. While charity and accountability are “nice” things to do, they do not have any business value. Right now businesses donate money with funds that are available after they have made all of their strategic decisions – but we need to ask ourselves, “ how can we solve social problems with leftovers?” This strategy is not designed to produce value and we have set the bar too low. Instead we need to change the paradigm of what we’re thinking because right now corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a support function and not a strategic function. To win, we need to fundamentally rethink social strategy.
Here is the big shift…
The Social Contract:
-Are we being responsible? Managing risk. Philanthropy. Support function. Leveraging the business to drive social change.
Social Capital Market:
Are we generating value? Impacting the bottom line. Social innovation. Strategic function. Leveraging social change to drive the business.
This creates a new definition of social innovation: an intentional business strategy, leverages the core business, creates economic value and positive social change. We should ask ourselves how do we expand the market?
1) Backdoor Market Entry
2) Pipelining Talent
3) Submarket Products – need to address an unmet need
4) Emotive Customer Bonding – people value impact
5) Reverse Lobbying
In order to leverage social change to drive business companies need to identify the pure business objectives, research the social change that will influence those outcomes, analyze their core competencies and assets, and then revolutionize business solutions to social problems. This requires a leap of creativity and innovation in order to find new ways to solve social problems.
