How to sustain a Social Enterprise - In search of ideas that work | Is structure a prerequisite to building and sustaining culture? (Part 2 of 3)
Part 1 of this 3 part series on sustaining a Social Enterprise touched upon generosity, abundance and volunteerism. Successful social enterprises have a sound volunteer network and ethos.
In this part article I will share my thinking about the practical aspects of running a social enterprise – focusing on structure and how it impacts the culture of the enterprise.
I am heavily biased due to my ‘lived experiences’ of running #thrivewithmentoring. And I am reminded of John Dewey’s warning against an unreflective tendency, which he termed a ‘lust for action’, and I will be the first to admit that I have an ‘action bias’. Dewey says that 'if our default is to understand experience as a problem to be hammered into shape, then we rush on from one experience to the next without stopping to reflect. Each event is only experienced on the surface and with a particular end in view. We develop a superficial response to life and a diminished repertoire for what may be required of us'. These articles are my attempt to share my reflections as I grow with #thrivewithmentoring and more importantly an invitation for a dialogue with my fellow passengers on this journey, the members of the leadership team or chapter leads or mentors/mentees for whom Thrive catalyzed a relationship.
Culture is essentially the set of beliefs, assumptions and environmental cues that guides employees/volunteers to behave a certain way, both at a conscious and an unconscious level. A social enterprise has an evolving workforce, as a continual inflow and outflow of volunteers is expected. Having a steady leadership team is desirable, but not a given. In my corporate experience as a Talent Management leader, I have often lived through how ‘what good looks like’ changed when leadership changed. To avoid this trap, I am keen that the structure of the social enterprise needs to be less connected to the individual ethos of leaders, and instead defined by the ‘principles aligned to the WHY, to the social mission’ of the enterprise. Easier said than done.
The structure of a social enterprise plays a huge role in building the culture and the future of the institution. The values held by leaders, volunteers and stakeholders who engage with the social cause have a disproportionate impact on the culture. As the ‘give and take’ of the participation in a social enterprise is intangible, especially as the enterprise tries to reinvent itself – I am learning that alignment of values in the leadership team becomes critical to sustain energy and momentum. A true spirit of partnership and openness is needed with the multiple stakeholders that the social enterprise works with and defines and redefines its structure.
Here’s my invitation to you as you think about ‘STRUCTURE’ for a social enterprise:
“HOW should WHO lead WHOM to do WHAT and WHEN?” The clearer you are in answering those 5 questions, the better prepared you will be to build a sustainable structure that is the foundation of the culture of the enterprise. Let’s look at these questions which are essentially ‘thinking lenses’ :
HOW: How does one take lead ? Which leadership style is congruent with the needs of the enterprise? Do different functions need different styles to become successful? Depending on the cause a more deliberate, consensus driven style may be necessary where many things are discussed – or may be an agile style is a better fit – where there are small teams who decide, and ‘fail or succeed fast’. Technology becomes a key pillar for information flow and access to data and decisions can have positive or detrimental impact on the nature of output.
WHO: Who will assume leadership and in which form? Who are the sorts of leaders that thrive in the context of a social enterprise? What sort of experience and values must they embody? How do you decide who’s responsible for what? What’s the role skill and will play in your choice of leaders? Should leaders be chosen deliberately or you let them emerge from the system? What kind of approvals are need to be in place before embarking on a project?
lead WHOM: What is the nature of membership of the enterprise? How does one grow membership? Which biases can be at play, consciously or unconsciously? How can these be actively addressed?
do WHAT : The vision/mission and purpose play a major role to define the ‘WHAT’. It serves as the sieve to keep in what you should focus on, and what is ‘nice to do’.
WHEN: The question of timing and sequence is pertinent in terms of sustainability of an enterprise. A for-profit enterprise goes through predictable life stages (Adizes Life cycles : link below in comments) - I am curious to think through how these pan out for a social enterprise.
The insights as we respond to these questions will help people to better communicate, work together, manage, be managed and resolve conflict more effectively.
For a social enterprise to bring about sustainable change and impact, its structure needs to find a way to tap into the individual values that volunteers hold dear and crystallize those into action. So the typical recruitment tools such as competencies and behavioural event interviews are often not enough. Unlike in corporate jobs where people may stay in roles they dislike and work with people they don’t enjoy being associated with – ‘to get the bills paid’, a social enterprise will only sustain membership of those who believe in the cause and are aligned to the values of generosity and abundance for instance. Being aware of one’s own values is a long journey of self-awareness, let alone discovering those in others. No wonder that volunteer engagement remains the holy grail of successful social entrepreneurship. Again this is where the responses to these 5 questions can be an important step.
People get drawn to social enterprises due to their deep-rooted beliefs or feel for a cause; often this is emotional in nature. For logic to be a part of highly emotional and passionate conversations, the structure can become a proxy. It can give you a way forward through all the ambiguity and uncertainty.
What is your thinking around structure? And around those questions?
