Yes, I’m interested in this too. Some things are win-win for a business, some things are win-lose. It’s easy to talk about social innovation when “more social / environmental impact = more profit”. But not every scenario fits this bill. What do we do with the win-lose things?
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A2:
Great question—how much time do wee have?!?! No seriously though, it’s often what you would expect of ANY change introduced to an organization and to people in general… uncertainty, and risk of failure (however real and tangible failure might be defined, or more often than not—just the mere concept of ‘failing’ is enough to quash a spark of innovation.
Innovation by definition means taking risks and the realization that not everything goes as planned. THAT’S INNOVATION. Corporations (and the private sector—relatively speaking) are legendary for claiming to be very innovative. BUT, companies—especially big ones-- are actually, IMHO, relatively risk averse when thinking about their peers in other sectors as well as smaller organizations. So really, a culture where experimentation and the ‘failure’ that inherently comes with it, is a pretty important condition to stimulate social innovation. That’s something leadership needs to fully embrace and support. Again, I’m proud that @JohnFallon and the leadership team at @Pearson embrace this view of innovation.
@FightPoverty and @SocIntLeague co-led production of a fantastic piece of research last year that I would also highly recommend. Check out “ The intrapreneurship ecosystem: Creating the conditions for social innovation to flourish in your company ” at this link: https://www.bifprogramme.org/ib-boost/intrapreneurship-ecosystem
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It’s a real dilema…no profit to be made = no social impact. I’m really interested in some of the early employee activism initiatives we’re seeing coming out of Silicon Valley. Through sheer force of numbers, they are forcing the hands of CEOs in spit of the profit imperative
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A2: Looking across our Inclusive Business Boost reports a number of challenges appear again and again. Lack of organisational buy-in and inappropriate management practices to support inclusive business persist. Profitability of inclusive business initiatives is also an issues. Risk-adjusted returns are not matching company expectations because projects are either reaching profitability too slowly or have inherently lower margins than companies need in order to meet investment hurdle rates. Finding and supporting people with the right skills and experience for inclusive business is also a common challenge in MNCs and, related to that, not knowing when to look outside the organisation for solutions.
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There has to be a way to move away from Return on investment in the traditional sense of financial return. We need to change the conversation Tom. There are so many other aspects of benefits reaped as a result of leaning in on purpose. How do we be more holistic and speak in the right language. ROP is a new way of looking at this - a new currency
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A2: Of course the dichotomy between short term and long term value is a huge challenge. CEO lifespans in role are short and the market incentivises profit this quarter over innovations that deliver significant value in the long term.
CSR Baggage is another challenge (no offence to any of you that work in this space!). Too often commercially viable social innovation is wrongly dismissed as just more CSR and not taken seriously by leadership who see the world in binary terms – doing business versus doing good. Of course these must converge.
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This came out in our research with DFID and again this week at a meeting with the European Commission. Root cause = narrow definition of value and profit. Focus on short term. We explored the role of policy in shifting incentives. What if companies and shareholders were legally accountable for achieving mission and impact alongside profit? BCorp and others are putting pressure in this space.
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Sorry for joining the thread late - technical issues! The point about leaning in on Purpose is key: In Unilever we believe the starting point is our enduring purpose at corporate level (“to make sustainable living commonplace”) and across our brands. With this in mind there should be no question whether social innovation serves core business interests, in the context of the SDGs and our purpose it is a business imperative.
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Yes. For years people have talked about the mid-level clay layer as a key barrier to Intrapreneurship. But what if we flipped this around and asked how this mid-level could become an enabling layer? We came across many inspiring examples in our research and would be awesome if this fed into business school and exec education curricula.
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We see “profit” as just one part of the Return on Investment metrics that we use, and therefore when we report on our propositions we also report on their social impact, brand impact, client engagement and colleague engagement. I have some examples of this if you want to discuss further!
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The key issue beyond budget is to leverage the wealth of knowledge across the organisation, and to allow the business and the innovation teams to efficiently work together. Social innovation can create scalable opportunities when challenging the imbedded ways of consuming / working. Forming a team with the top down authority, and the time/budget to provide the necessary infrastructure is essential.
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Hi to all panelists!
At Yunus Social Business, we are currently building on the work of Business Fights Poverty and researching how social business initiatives within corporates actually transform corporates as a whole (e.g. decision making process, …)
I would love to hear your thoughts on that — and if you’d like to talk about it more in detail, we’d be super happy to jump on a call with you!
Lorelei
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Legally accountable ? Wow. V interesting way to look at this. I’m looking at positive ways to encourage people but i’m finding it often falls on deaf ears. The stick is more impactful than the carrot in some instances - trying to find a middle ground
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I echo you Gib. I think short-term investor pressure is the Achilles heel. The tension between long term and short term is always present in the discussion. Social innovation doesnt have space to “breath” for this type of ideas to flourish and have some “air-cover”.
At the Centre for Intrapreneurship LOI & FDC in Brazil, we have 7 partner companies exploring their intrapreneurial cultures and accelerating intrapreneurial projects and this is repeatedly coming as the KEY ISSUE for the teams.
There is a critical role of performance metrics in incentivising social innovation. If all decision and incentives are shorter term focus, it is hard.
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there are a lot of great examples where social innovation serves as a ‘tip of the spear’ of innovation in the organization-- testing the bolder and riskier opportunities. This yields a lot of ROI to the organization that is not necessarily an immediate conversion to direct revenue though. Another key development… increaasingly, larger organizations recognize and invest in the innovation (social or ‘otherwise’) that nimble startups ‘own’ for proximity to market and customers-- hyperlocal ‘intimacy’ of market and customer insight… increasingly, these are blended models and offerings that are as much “social” as ‘traditional’ business.
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I like mid level clay! but I recall Erik Simanis - of TIL - says that social initiatives need to be owned in the place that best matches organizational priorities, which is perhaps another way if looking at it
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A2: Generative thinking is in organisations but it’s often buried due to incessant demands of the ‘day job’. Intrapeneurs need to be given time/ space and be actively supported in their efforts to ideate. Firms need to quash this notion that this work is ‘extracurricular’ and celebrate it as a core tenet of any role. So often this work is happening in the shadows and almost in secrecy. Companies need to celebrate this work and bring it into the mainstream. Talk about it and use it to inspire others to do the same.
Silos need to be busted to allow for collaboration, companies need to support this ‘title-less’ mindset where anyone can be a part of the solution. So often radical collaboration thats required cross-functionally isn’t supported or you run into various blockers in trying to pull together your team of ‘avengers’.
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Please do share, Daniel!
@MaggieDP I see this as less of mid-level professionals being a barrier and more that they are not empowered to push new ideas forward. The culture/system within the companies where they are employed either explicitly or implicitly do not allow for them to enable transformational change. This is often the case with sustainability seen as a leadership initiative for marketing/blue washing purposes and not embedded into the core of the company.
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conicidentally, Lorelei, am talking to Saskia right after this session! 
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