Solving Problems Requires a New Definition of the Social Good

I have an absurd question: What’s so revolutionary about doing good?

I don’t mean enlisting someone else do good. I’m talking about you changing your behavior and getting directly involved in solving problems. And, by “you,” I mean individuals, corporations, charities, and government alike.

Somewhere along the way, we accepted the idea that individuals are incapable of meeting our own personal and community needs. Instead, we have allowed ourselves to become disconnected from the people around us and dependent on distant abstract entities to solve our problems for us.

In a misguided search for meaning and purpose, we have sought to define ourselves by the brands we consume—corporate, charitable, political, and religious.

Instead of rolling up our sleeves to help those in need and changing our personal behavior, we have found it easier to wear a ribbon or a wristband, buy a product that will trigger a corporate donation, vote for a charity in an online contest, or send our money to someone else to do the hard work.

We are eating up this cotton candy and expecting it to satiate our innate desires for community.

The Real Costs of Disconnectedness

We have an untold amount of crude oil and toxic dispersants “missing” in the Gulf of Mexico. One out of five Americans lives in a state of severe financial insecurity. One out of six Americans doesn’t know when the next meal will come, while two out of three Americans are overweight or obese.

Foreclosure rates continue to soar because we made it easy for credit to flow to people who couldn’t afford home ownership while allowing financial firms to bet on the failure of their own mortgage investments and then shift the losses to the large institutional funds.

The answer most nonprofit groups have for solving these problems? Send us more of your money. The answer most corporations offer? Buy more of our products so we’ll donate more money. At this rate, we won’t just have to explain to our grandchildren how we squandered their future, but we’ll have to have the same conversation with ourselves in the mirror.

Leading The Great Reset

If we truly want to solve these myriad problems, we need to seize upon what Richard Florida calls the “great reset” and create new social structure designed for the current realities, not for the past.

It means going beyond marketing and committing more than money. It means moving away from building e-mail lists and social-media followers and instead focusing on creating meaningful relationships and functioning communities of citizens. It means questioning why we do what we do and not being afraid to put ourselves out of a job by solving those problems.

No single organization, sector, or individual will solve these problems alone. Instead, we need to reframe the conversation and bring together those who are outside the circles of the usual suspects to create new expectations and standards for success. Specifically, we need to expect ourselves and each other to act as citizens, not consumers.

An Outdated Framework

Over the past two weeks, an op-ed debate between those scoffing at corporate social-responsibility efforts and those defending the concept has played out in the Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post

These writers build their arguments around an ideological framework that believes the free market is superior to government regulation. Further, they argue that corporations exist to create value for their stakeholders first, not solve the world’s problems.

But for this era, we need to reframe the debate around the idea that our increasingly interconnected world is fueling the need for a new era of real citizenship.

Shaving With a Face Full of Novocain

It is no longer possible for companies to create shareholder value by destroying the environment, extracting value from the many to enrich the few, and ignoring basic human rights and other social ills.

It is no longer OK for charities to accept the oversize checks in prearranged photo opportunities. We need to stop acting like a man shaving with a face full of Novocain, fully unaware of the damage he is causing.

Umair Haque, a prominent media consultant, nails it with his view that the disconnectedness and opaqueness of the 20th century is giving way to an era that will reward handsomely those willing to add value, not extract it. Increasingly, individuals expect more from the companies and charities they support.

While we may very well allow these same technologies to make us even further disconnected, you and I can make the decision to use them to drive greater connectedness with those people around us. I recognize we’re still a long way from a utopian world, but it is much harder to hide the destructive by-products of how a company generates its revenue, a nonprofit group’s lack of tangible results, and the government’s ineptitude.

Your Call to Action

Corporations cannot ignore these trends and operate with a narrow focus on creating value for shareholders. If consumers are unable to afford and consume products and services, corporations cannot survive. On the contrary, the savvy corporations will recognize the competitive advantage of embracing corporate citizenship in a strategic, authentic fashion. At the same time, nonprofit groups and government cannot hide behind the curtain either and will need to embrace new structures and approaches that are now possible.

Whether you work for a corporation, a nonprofit group, or the government, the time has come for you to exert yourself as a real citizen. You can begin to seize the opportunity by changing how your organization operates and addresses the problems that matter most to its stakeholders. In doing so, you will help us define “the great reset” as a turning point away from the perils of disconnectedness and to a period of great meaning and purpose.

Scott Henderson is managing principal of CauseShift, a consulting company with offices in Boston and New York. He has worked with Procter and Gamble, Unicef, and wecanendthis.com, a yearlong effort to spark innovation in efforts to fight hunger. He is publisher of the blog rallythecause.com and writes the Profit and Purpose blog with his partners, Anne Mai Bertelsen and Brian Reich.