As I dig into the research on organizations changing lives for the better, it’s only fitting last month’s UN theme was Human Rights. Uniformly, I find thriving businesses and charities championing human rights (e.g., economic inclusion, physical safety, or personal autonomy) put one thing at the forefront of the work.
Their humanity.
What better way to move the needle on global challenges than to remember our own humanity? The more founders embrace who they are, and infuse themselves into their work, the more traction and attention their work gets.
It’s easy to see why that happens. Humanizing our work builds culture, and it’s the culture that creates loyalists and communities invested in our success. The social capital that comes with community investment beats out tote bags and hashtags any day.
As you put your own solutions out into the world, I challenge you to remember a few things:
In the world of decks and pitches, there’s a ton of pressure to have the answers and execute.
Thing is, you’ll never have all of the answers. Even worse, if you preoccupy yourself with finding answers, you’ll miss some pretty interesting problems.
Move yourself and your team away from the need for certainty, and embrace the humanity of evolving. Curiosity is one of the best ways to explore empathy, and empathy is how you get to the root of a successful solution.
Build in a student mindset, and I promise you’ll see new ways of integrating clients, engaging beneficiaries, new solutions to problems, and identify growth opportunities that fit who you are and who you serve.
Don’t mistake this for prattling on about yourself. What draws people into supporting you is an understanding of your relationship to, and passion for, the problem. Why is the problem so important to you and your team, how are you touched, and what have you experienced?
Talking about your interest(s) in the problem creates transparency, trust, and humanizes it for the listener.
People move when they are moved.
So, we’ve all read the same twenty or so startup books with the same advice and mantras. When you copy and paste these into your pitches, donor materials, or projects, they don’t stand out because we’ve all seen it before.
Even worse? When we co-opt personality based on the lens of another, there’s almost always an incongruence between who we say we are and what we do.
Make it easy and be yourself. Infuse your values, mission, and vision into all you touch. If democracy and inclusive discussion are paramount concerns to you, your legal business structure should reflect that. If you support wealth-generation and equity, your supply chain should reflect the local economy. If you want to fundraise in a way that builds wealth and equity, think about the implications of venture capital versus a crowd-fund.
If we look at a list of your dreams, mission, and vision, then look at your business operations, model, and recruiting, there should be alignment between the two. Take a few minutes to look at your own. Are you aligned?
The research is in, and it turns out we as humans like to be liked. There are several historical and anthropological reasons for this, but the bottom line is it’s uncomfortable to be different. Which is why some impact organizations feel a gut inclination to apologize for not fitting neatly into boxes the philanthropic, corporate, or startup venture worlds create. These organizations either squeeze themselves in or erase their distinctive nature.
But projects solving the world’s largest challenges are complex and messy because the WORLD is complex and messy. Organizations moving the needle understand this and embrace it.
The next time you feel the need to apologize because someone doesn’t understand why you do what you do, fight the urge to apologize and translate instead. How does your business model educate and promote more charitable behavior? What are the economics behind inclusion and mental wellness?
Don’t shrink when confronted, expand.
I’ll end with saying, not everyone’s dreams will be your dreams; nor should they be. There are milestones startup media heralds as indicative of “success.” Thing is, those milestones may not work for you and what you’re doing. Organizations solving the problems others haven’t dared touch must define what success looks like for them.
I truly believe running a business, charity, or project should never require we co-opt someone else’s experiences or discard any parts of our own. The best way to have a positive impact and move us all into change is to embrace that you have a perspective and experience that no one else has had or will have again. Use that to your advantage and see how much progress you make.
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