CSRwire Talkback

By Professor Costas Markides

Social entrepreneurship was “big” in Davos this year.

Everybody seemed to agree that the world is now facing some serious problems: Climate change, persistent poverty and inequality, the failure of financial systems, environmental degradation, the impeding exhaustion of cheap minerals and oil and so on. 

And everybody seemed determine to provide solutions to these problems.

Prominent among these proposed solutions: Social entrepreneurship. Several prominent social entrepreneurs—including Muhammad Yunus—were given the floor to explain how they were helping change the world.

Davos: Solving Social Problems with Passion

While these stories of ordinary individuals who succeeded in making a big difference are inspirational, they do give the impression that all that is needed to solve complex social problems is passion, enthusiasm and persistence in the face of obstacles. 

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

You can hit your head against the wall with as much passion and determination as you can muster but it won’t knock the wall down. More than passion and determination, we need to know how to go about introducing change. 

Change Management: What the Books Don’t Prescribe

There are obviously many good ideas on how to introduce change successfully. For example, approaching the task in a creative way is important. So is the ability to think strategically about the issues and to use well-known and accepted principles of good management (such as having allies or a compelling vision).

Any book on change (and there are hundreds of them!) can give you a huge list of ideas and suggestions on how to introduce change successfully. But when it comes to social problems we need more than the wonderful advice contained in all these books on change.

Social problems differ from other problems in several subtle ways. These differences make them unique. As a result, they require a different change process from what we normally advice people on. Three areas of difference in particular stand out:

1. Social problems tend to be complex beasts.

They are the natural outcomes of entrenched systems that are made up of numerous interdependent actors, all behaving according to their own interests. These systems have developed over long periods of time and are not only firmly ingrained in our cultures but also protected by strong vested interests.

Changing them seems next to impossible.

Therefore, unlike books on change that emphasize the total overhaul of the status quo with something new, the change process required to solve social problems must accept the fact that these systems are here to stay and must, therefore, attempt to achieve significant improvements in how people behave within the constraints of the existing system.

The goal is not to overthrow the existing system but to achieve significant change in behaviors within the existing system. This is not easy! It is a delicate task, requiring our focus on changing efforts on high-leverage points in the underlying structure of the system and pushing for holistic changes without producing unintended consequences.

Management literature has developed many ideas on how to achieve effective change in such constrained environments and we need to use these insights to implement change in social systems.

2. It is highly unlikely that a single individual will be able to change social systems singlehandedly.

God-like creatures able to achieve such a feat do not exist.

Nor is it logical to expect that these systems can be changed in a centrally planned, top-down process. The systems that give rise to big social problems require a different change process—not a top-down process driven by one heroic individual but a bottoms-up, decentralized process, driven by hundreds of individuals.

Then, rather than push change through, the change agent puts a system in place that pulls multiple change-agents into the fray. Through constant experimentation (within parameters developed by the change agent), deep change is brought about not by a single agent but by multiple agents. 

In short, social problems require a change process that replicates how the capitalist system operates (as opposed to the communist system). This is a fundamentally different change process from the one described in most books on change. 

3. Social problems are global in nature.

This implies that local solutions are not enough to achieve a significant improvement in a social problem. Just because a social entrepreneur came up with a good solution to (say) drug-related crime in a certain region doesn’t mean that we have solved the problem across the nation.

Unlike change at the company level that has the luxury to remain local, change in social problems must be scaled up if it’s to have a big enough impact. This doesn’t happen automatically. Just because an idea is good doesn’t mean that it will spread or diffuse on its own. The sad truth is that even the best of ideas will not diffuse and scale up unless someone undertakes the difficult task of scaling-up the idea.

Once again, management literature has developed many ideas on how to scale up innovative ideas. What's needed is the strategic use of these insights to develop new ideas on how to scale up local solutions to global problems.

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Costas Markides is Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and holds the Robert P. Bauman Chair of Strategic Leadership at London Business School. A native of Cyprus, he received his BA (Distinction) and MA in Economics from Boston University, and his MBA and DBA from the Harvard Business School. His current research interests include the management of diversified firms and the use of innovation and creativity to achieve strategic breakthroughs.