Taking Charge of Change

April 15, 2021
A global business consultant highlights 30-odd mostly young people who are making a difference in the world by breaking the old rules. Shoemaker, founding president of Social Venture Partners International, highlights "rebuilders," entrepreneurs he likens to the engineers we need to mend our decaying infrastructure. Indeed, his subjects are bridge builders of a sort, possessing "a combination of qualities and skill sets that will enable them to effectively address the accelerating economic, social, and health disparities across an increasingly uneven, siloed America." A case in point is Rosanne Haggerty, who launched a nonprofit dedicated to ending chronic homelessness; by Shoemaker's account, one of her winning qualities is "a Generosity Mindset," committed to achieving buy-in from all the constituents and to appreciating differences of opinion among people. The author writes that the best rebuilders have experience in the for-profit, nonprofit, and public sectors, but generosity is an essential ingredient in building working communities and cultures and doing away with the impediment that is the zero-sum game. So, too, is the ability to understand and interpret vast bodies of data--as with the social worker who manages garbage truck drivers for the city of Phoenix while building "a culture that doesn't just embrace data but empowers people through the data." Mental agility helps, as does a willingness to do things differently from eras past. One example is switching the focus of social services to be not on the program itself but instead on the consumer, as with a former business executive who is now committed to ending illiteracy in the world by asking himself "what illiterate people in the world need and what products and services would best meet their needs." Shoemaker's body of case studies embraces complexity and diversity alike, speaking to the need for "cross-sector fluency" and the recognition that there's a lot of work to be done. A provocative look at the business of the future.

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