“Getting Beyond Better”: Framing Your Thinking of Social Entrepreneurs
Hi Beholders!
In January, I could only get through one book: “Getting Beyond Better” by Roger L. Martin and Sally R. Osberg. I was required to read this for my social entrepreneurship class and while I’m sad I didn’t get a chance to read more, I’m happy that I can now devote an entire post to this book and the concept of social entrepreneurship.
“Getting Beyond Better” is a quick read that focuses on the stories of social entrepreneurs, essentially making the case for why you should become one and the steps you need to take to achieve that goal.
Social entrepreneurship is a newer concept and an emerging fourth business sector. It essentially is an innovative business venture that encourages change. It’s similar to a non-profit in the sense that it strives to benefit society, but it is for profit. B-corps are some examples of this type of business. Another interesting aspect of social entrepreneurship is that corporations aren’t about social justice or short-term relief such as food pantries. They strive for systematic and permanent change. They act directly to create a product or service that creates long-lasting change.
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie is my favorite social entrepreneur addressed in the book and we discuss him in my social entrepreneurship class often. Carnegie made a public library system and this system made education more public and mainstream. From his system also came the Carnegie Formula which outlined the requirements that towns needed to have to receive funding for a library. This consisted of demonstrating the need for a public library; providing the site for the library; committing to raising money for the library by allocating or raising taxes; and promising free service to all. Carnegie was a pioneer in social entrepreneurship and creating public libraries has proved to have a significant impact on society.
While I talk about sustainability a lot, this is a great example of social change that you may not have considered as much. Education is a pressing issue in many places and Carnegie made it accessible to so many people by creating these libraries. The significance of public libraries has been overlooked by many people including myself. As I continue to learn more about social entrepreneurship, I’m exposed to so many ventures that aim to fix a social problem that I had never considered before.
Four main steps for becoming a social entrepreneur
- Understand the world.
- Envision a new future.
- Build a model for change.
- Scaling the solution.
The book emphasizes these steps on becoming a social entrepreneur and while I know most of you aren’t going to go on and become social entrepreneurs now, I still think these steps are great for framing your thoughts on what sets a social entrepreneur apart from other entrepreneurs. I also believe that this framework is great for how you may think just on a day-to-day basis. You don’t need to be a social entrepreneur to create change in the world or even just want to create change in the world.
Why do I care?
One reason that this book stuck with me especially, is because both my parents are entrepreneurs. However, I wouldn’t consider them social entrepreneurs. I’m not trying to bring them down here. I completely appreciate the time in which they started or took over their businesses (social entrepreneurs are a newer fourth sector of business). Still, I do want everyone to consider why they aren’t shifting their businesses to benefit society more or even whether they’re supporting social entrepreneurs or not. For example, my dad has a commercial interior design company and he uses some manufacturers such as Interface, to purchase carpets. Interface is a company that strives to restore the health of our planet and use sustainable business practices. Good job for working with Interface, Dad 
Aside from applying social entrepreneurship to my parents and their businesses, I hope to work for a social entrepreneur in the future or maybe one day be one and I encourage you all to strive for the same. There are so many people out there trying to create social change, whether it be for the environment, poverty, education, anything. We all feel passionately about something and there is someone out there working towards the change you want to see most in the world. With a little bit of research, you can pinpoint that person or company and support them in creating this change.
Without being too mushy, I hope I was able to inspire some of you with this post.
Sending virtual hugs and high-fives,
Chlo
Yes, the creation of the public library system by Andrew Carnegie was a wonderful contribution to America and to all Americans. It should also be pointed out that Andrew Carnegie was a very vocal proponent of the idea that wealth should be concentrated in the hands of a few immensely rich people so that they could do things like the library system, and that government could not be trusted with such things. Fine if the immensely rich person does such a thing. But of course not all of them will. In addition this concentration of wealth in a few hands leads to the large have and have not income gap that we are seeing today in America. The alternate possibility is for heavy taxation so that the government could fund such a library program and that the income gap would be less.
The country is depending on your generation to set an example and improve life for all our citizens. I think while we became too materialistic and self absorbed so much talent has been wasted and many people hurt and forgotten. Your work and interests give me hope..
It is definitely heartening to hear you touting the good which a business can do for society — if it chooses to.
Such an endeavor requires great strength from the entrepreneur, because they must fight against their baser human instincts, and investors which would rather the business make more money for them instead of doing good, and laws that inhibit them, and activists who’s politics run counter to doing good.
If it were easy, 99% of corporations would be doing good. While we should applaud the contributions of families such as Carnegie, we should never forget times when these robber barons were weak and thereby chose to do bad, see: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-american-oligarchy-why-is-american
Think of what a nation we would be if more businesses were good, and this good improved the lives of more people, subsequently enabling them to be more educated, smarter, innovative, constructive and productive. We could have both a library system and wide-spread prosperity.
Yes, the creation of the public library system was a commendable accomplishment for America and Americans. Andrew Carnegie was also a very vocal voice that said wealth should be accumulated by a few people so that they could do good things because the government was unable to perform such tasks. This, of course, leads to great income inequality (the beginnings happening today in America). It also assumes that all rich people will give their money money away. I doubt that even Andrew gave all his money away and that neither he nor his decedents actually saw the other side of the wealth gap.