Continued Self Discovery
As I continue to take one step at a time to try to do my part to impact the world as much as possible I learn so much about myself, my needs, my wants and what I am truly capable of. Over the past 20 years I have thrown so many ideas against the wall to see what will stick. In the past 2 to 3 years, our business, 4-Profit, has started to mature and there is less and less opportunity to be creative. For a while that was starting to frustrate me, but not anymore.
Our business needs stability and more certainty for many of our team members, which is important moving forward. Structure, predictable results and an organization that has very little noise. The frustration came because I need to be creative and and I need to push the envelope or I won’t be happy. The discovery that I made this week is that I can be the stable force that 4-Profit needs as long as I have a place to unleash my creativity and I have found that place. The social enterprise community is so early in its development and it needs people with my experience to help accelerate change and impact. The coolest part is the training I have received in entrepreneurship over the past 20 years is so relevant to this conversation.
For example, the biggest challenge that we notice in our clients is the ability to recruit and develop talent. Well, these social entrepreneurs have it even harder. Not only don’t they know how to recruit talent, they couldn’t afford them if they tried. So, there are dozens of amazing organizations that I have met over the past year or so and many of them would benefit greatly from having someone on staff who knows how to build a business. The outcome from this week is to create something called a COO for Change Fellowship.
This project would look to highlight the people that really make businesses successful. Our culture always promotes the leader, the one in front of the audience pitching the concept who has the dream. But most of these people have a very hard time building a business. If you could partner them with a smart business person, maybe someone later in life who wants an encore career, or a 30 something that wants to transition from a job they hate to one that could change the world, they could have an amazing impact on the right organization. By creating a contest for a fellowship we could identify the best and brightest that want to change the world and pay them to move their immense skill set into this sector. That would be amazing!
There are numerous steps to get this concept moving forward, and I will not be the person to run it, I just want to socialize these ideas and make sure someone else takes them forward. I already have a business to run and that is enough, but I do need to express my creative juices and this is how I will do it. This clarity allows me to have new dedication to my business and a vehicle to use my creativity in ways that I never dreamed of. This is getting fun!
‘Til next time ……..
This entry was posted in Social Change.
Larry Kesslin 