CSRwire Talkback

New Year’s is a natural time for people to make resolutions and for “do gooders” like readers of this site, it is often a time when we make resolutions about how we will step up to make the world (or our company and community a better place).

This last year as I worked on my newest book Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything. I interviewed people who had stepped up to create positive change and also surveyed people about why they don’t step up. The book is filled with amazing stories of people who stepped up to create change — from a middle aged shopkeeper who stood up to the Mafia to two high school kids who stood up to a bully and started an anti-bullying movement.

How To Make A Difference

The first thing I discovered about stepping up to make a difference is that intentions matter. In the book, I tell the story of Torkin Wakefield and her daughter Devin Hibbard who sat down at New Year’s in 2004 and made an intention: let’s do something for the world this year.

Something happens when we set a deep intention, whether for ourselves or our organizations.

Later that year they were in Kampala, Uganda in search of something they could do (Torkin’s husband was an AIDS doctor in Africa.) They met a woman named Mille who was living in extreme poverty on one dollar a day crushing rocks at a quarry. She showed them some beads and necklaces she had made out of recycled paper. The problem was, she had no market for the beads.

At first, Torkin, Devin and their friend Ginny merely intended to hook Mille up with a local tourist craft shop, but when they came back the next day there were forty women who all had the same story. They came back to Colorado and started showing people the beads. People loved them, but what captured them were the stories of these women’s lives.

Soon an idea hatched: Have bead parties where women in the developed world can sell the jewelry, stabilize women and families with the income from the beads, while training them to start more traditional businesses. Seven years later, that New Year’s intention has turned into BeadforLife, which has helped thousands of women escape poverty, has a Ugandan staff of over 70, and involves people from North America and Europe help women in Uganda.

Why not set an intention for yourself or for your business to do something for the world this year?

Aggregate Influence

In writing Stepping Up, I wanted to know why people don’t step up, so we conducted a survey of almost 700 people asking them why they don’t step up to create change. The most cited reason was “it won’t matter if I step up, I am only one person.”

I think we often don’t step up because our actions seem so small but there are two important principles that we forget.

The first is what I call Aggregate Influence. That is our actions seem insignificant but we forget that when aggregated with the actions of others they become very significant. One person or one company becoming more environmentally conscious may seem insignificant but imagine when these individual actions are aggregated. One company using more recycled products may make little difference, but hundreds of thousands doing so changes markets. Yet the irony is that unless each individual or company steps up, the aggregate influence never happens. Too many times we focus on worry about whether others will act instead of stepping up anyway.

The Responsibility Ripple

The other is a concept I call the Responsibility Ripple.

You see we also forget that when one person steps up it often creates a ripple encouraging others to step up. An example from Stepping Up: A group of journalists and ecologists decided to do something about the commercial whale hunt in 1974. Whales were on the brink of extinction and there was no international traction for change. When this group confronted the Russian whaling fleet in the Pacific Ocean, their pictures and videos were seen around the world. Over the next several years, inspired by their actions, people all over the world began to speak up against the whale hunt leading to a U.N. treaty banning commercial whaling.

I have witnessed this same responsibility ripple in the corporate world. When one company begins to take social responsibility seriously, it is contagious. As humans we like to be part of the herd. It is also true for companies. When one competitor gets the green religion or a leader speaks up, it creates a ripple. This often means focusing on the change that is already happening.

In the book I cite research showing that if you want to suppress voter turnout simply send the message “people are apathetic and not involved so get out and vote!” Ironically this message actually makes it less likely for people to vote. On the other hand a message such as “record numbers of people are getting involved — so get out and vote” gets people to do so. I call this positive deviance.

This New Year, let’s tell the truth. Record numbers of companies, corporate leaders and individual citizens all around the world are stepping up to create change -- so don’t get left behind.

Yes, You Can

Finally, many people said they did not step up because they did not feel qualified: “Who am I to step up”? As I interviewed people for my book, I was struck by the fact that almost everyone who stepped up to create change had those thoughts. Devin and Torkin had no retail or sales experience when they started Bead For Life.

My favorite example in the book is Ken Lyotier, who was a homeless man who had a front row seat to the massive waste in the 1990’s, when few products were in the recycling deposit program. One day he thought, “I must do something more with my life” -- an intention! He was complaining to a local minister about how much was thrown away and how poorly homeless people were treated when they returned bottles for deposit.

The minister asked him an important question: “What would you do about it?”

Ken said he would have a day when people would be paid for all the items that were not in the recycling program. With a grant of $1,500 from the local church, he organized a day when hundreds of homeless people were lined up in a four-block radius in Vancouver. Four years later he began a social venture business that has employed hundreds of street people in his bottle depot. His actions helped spur the government to greatly expand the recycling program. He did not have the right pedigree to step up but he had something more important -- an intention coupled with passion and desire!

Step Up & Make a Difference: Why Not?

 Beginning January 4^th we have launched a thirty-day campaign challenging people to step up and make a commitment/intention of one way they (or their company) will make a difference in 2012. We will feature their stories on our website SteppingUpForChange and our Facebook page www.facebook.com/steppingUpforChange. You can also see videos about Ken, Torkin & Devin, and the people who helped stop the whale hunt.

So step up — who are you not to do so?