Beyond Nonprofits: A Different View

A young man asked me recently, “How hard is it to start a business?” He explained that he had a dream of building a few businesses that allow him to put money into social causes.

Here are a few of my observations.

First of all, opportunity matters far more than skill or work ethic, although those do still matter.

Going deeper, however, this young man seemed to view business as a means to an end. The danger is that he may very well waste time on something that he’s bad at or dispassionate about, in hopes that it will bring him to what he really wants.

This can be a simple matter of avoidance. “I don’t think there’s a path from where I am to where I need to be, or it scares me. Here’s where I stop.”

This can happen to us anywhere, anytime. I had to face this head on last week in my business.

This gets unraveled when we start unpacking what we’re really after, finding out the true essence of it, what needs to be kept or what can be changed, then putting it all back together into something that can work in the real world. (This is really difficult when you try to do it by yourself, by the way.)

My final thought:

The best way to bring social change in business, in my opinion, is to find a great business opportunity, then build an exceptional culture. Not only will that culture do more to drive change than many social causes, but it will also help fuel the growth of the business.

To be clear, I’m not against charitable contributions and social causes. I don’t think everything should be done with a profit motive. I’m convinced capitalism is not the answer for everything.

But I do believe that well run, highly profitable businesses are positioned to do a lot of good in the world.

Just curious…

If your work could bring one change to the world, what would it be?