From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneur John Marks developed a set of eleven working principles that have become his modus operandi and provide the basic framework for his new book, “From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship," from which a series of three articles is adapted. While Marks applied these principles in nonprofit work, he says they are also applicable to social enterprises—and to life, in general.

PART TWO

PRINCIPLE #4: KEEP SHOWING UP. It has been said that 80 percent of success in life is showing up. For social entrepreneurs, this means continuing to stay engaged without dabbling or parachuting. Like a child’s toy windup truck that moves forward until it hits an obstacle and then backs off and finds another way forward, social entrepreneurs should be persistent—and adept at finding work-arounds. They must be willing to commit for the long term. I found that this was particularly important when working with Iranians, who tend to view the world in terms of centuries and millennia.

Starting in 1996, Search for Common Ground, the non-governmental organization I founded and led, sponsored a series of highly confidential meetings between prominent, non-official Americans and Iranians. We were still at it 13 years later when we had amassed sufficient contacts and credibility to make a substantial difference in the relationship between the two countries. Notably, shortly after Barack Obama’s inauguration as President, we held unofficial meetings in Europe and New York between former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry and Ali Akbar Salehi, then the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization. Both men had access to top-level officials. We never learned specifically what Salehi reported to Iranian policymakers, but we heard directly from Perry that, as a result of these sessions, he personally told President Obama that nuclear agreements between the two countries were possible. This was apparently a key step in moving the United States toward nuclear talks with Iran.

Even after Search became a multilayered organization with hundreds of employees, I personally stayed engaged in the details of our Iran work. I knew that management experts would advise me, as head of a relatively large organization, to delegate the operation of such a project. Regardless, direct involvement helped me avoid being crushed by administrative demands. I absolutely loved being able to shut my office door; put aside questions of finance and logistics; and game-plan how to improve US-Iran relations. Indeed, I would advise all social entrepreneurs to retain some hands-on functions.

PRINCIPLE #5: ENROLL CREDIBLE SUPPORTERS. Social entrepreneurs, by definition, operate outside the proverbial box. Thus, they are often perceived as fringe players, and they should strive to project credibility. To that end, having prominent backers, while not indispensable, can be helpful. Credibility is best established by consistently delivering high-quality work. However, social entrepreneurs can increase their odds in favor by borrowing credibility from prestigious individuals. At the same time, social entrepreneurs should be cautious about bringing in outsiders who are not aligned with their vision. Particularly perilous are individuals with strong minds and time on their hands. As the head of another nonprofit warned me about prospective board members, “Be sure to stay away from people who don’t have enough to do.”

PRINCIPLE #6: EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED. Social entrepreneurs must be prepared to deal with high levels of uncertainty. If they find it distressing not to know the outcome and cannot deal well with the unexpected, they should probably consider a different career choice.

Social entrepreneurs frequently intervene in complex situations and systems, often encountering unanticipated problems. Even when they do thorough research and ask all the questions they think are relevant, issues are likely to emerge that should have been considered but were not – because they didn’t know that they didn’t know. The only defense is to realize, in the words of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, that there are going to be “unknown unknowns.” Social entrepreneurs need to be agile enough to minimize damage when these inevitable challenges arise.

For instance, just as we at Search and our partners at Children’s Television Network (makers of Sesame Street) were about to start production in Macedonia of a children’s TV series to encourage inter-ethnic cooperation, unanticipated armed violence broke out in neighboring Kosovo. As a result, Macedonian state TV reneged on its agreement to provide us with production facilities and broadcast our series. Obviously, an unforeseen event like the war in Kosovo could have been a disaster for us, but we did not give up. We were sufficiently nimble to build a soundstage in an empty warehouse and to cobble together a network of independent TV stations. Nevertheless, things certainly would have been easier if we had had in place a Plan B. But we didn’t know that we didn’t know.

(Picture: Macedonian and Albanian boys appear in Search's TV Production)

PRINCIPLE #7: MAKE YESABLE PROPOSITIONS. As Roger Fisher and William Ury wrote in their seminal book, Getting to Yes, it is desirable to make proposals to which others say “yes” and which are both in their interest and that of the other party. The concept of a yesable proposition is so straightforward that many people dismiss it as childish. Nevertheless, when someone—whether a child or an adult—internalizes this idea, the results can be life-changing.

A prime example of how we at Search put yesable propositions into play occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—a country which had become known as the rape capital of the world. Many, if not most, Congolese soldiers acted from the mistaken belief that females were a rightful part of war plunder. Our country director, Lena Slachmuijlder, was able to convince the leadership of the Congolese military to implement a training program to change soldiers' attitudes and behaviors toward abusing women. Our methodology included sensitization training, radio and video programs, participatory theater, and instructional comic books. Whenever possible, we included soldiers’ wives in our trainings. Many wives suffered from both spousal abuse and the stigma of being married to military men, whom the general population often held in low esteem. We ultimately provided training to virtually the entire Congolese army—more than 100,000 soldiers.

When I asked Lena how she was able to get the DRC military to say “yes” to our groundbreaking initiative, she said she took advantage of the fact that outsiders had regularly condemned the Congolese Army due to its predatory behavior. Faced with a steady stream of criticism, the army usually reacted with defensiveness and denial. To her credit, Lena recognized that there were people inside the ranks who wanted things to change, and she made a decision to work with the army—not to accuse it—even if a large number of soldiers were guilty of horrible crimes. As Lena put it, “I didn’t need to denounce the soldiers – nor would it have helped.

The remaining four principles of social entrepreneurship will be described in the next and final excerpt from the book, “From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship.”

In addition to founding and heading Search for Common Ground, John Marks is a NY Times best-selling and award-winning author, who most recently started the Pro Bono Litigation Corps in partnership with Gary DiBianco under the auspices of Lawyers for Good Government.

Part 3