Separating the dancer from the dance

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Photograph by Soki

Photograph by Soki

Joshua Prager is a hemiplegic journalist. On a recent TED Talk in which he shares the story behind his accident, he revives a century-old discussion: how can we separate nature from nurture (the dancer from the dance)? And why does it matter?

Susan Cain is a former lawyer and she advocates for a better integration of introvert’s talents in our extraverted-biased society. In her work she separates and nuances another similar discussion, one that has antagonized psychologists for the past 50 years: Do personality traits exist? How can we separate the effects of the environment from our temperaments? Is there even a true self or are we just a sum of social masks we choose to wear ?

This animated debate launched by Freud and Jung gains momentum as the science of psychology evolves and as we peak into the neuron firings inside the human brain or the nucleobases that compound our genes. Underneath it all rests the unsettling question: How much free will do we really have?

“I don’t like to put people into boxes”

This is not an uncommon reaction to personality tests. In fact, what we mean when we say this is “I don’t like to be put in a box”.

We all prefer to believe in complete free will. We prefer to believe in our ability to master with the same ease as the next man any competence we set our minds to. The problem is that compelling evidence suggests just the opposite: our very personal inborn temperaments, genes, physiology, neuron wiring and current state affect our behaviours and ability to acquire new skills more than we wish to admit.

In order to respond to this complexity, we increase our efforts in studying human behaviours. We aim at discovering the perfect split between personality and environmental effects for each possible act. Just like salt is 23/58 Sodium and 35/58 Chlorine, it should also be the case for our tendency for introspection, caring or aggression, right? This knowledge would give us more insight where our efforts would yield better results. It would be the victory of pragmatism and performance!

The truth is, each one of us is neither a snow flake that is completely unpredictable nor a soulless collection of reactions to genes and external stimuli. All in all, both these extremist views are a diversion from encountering and tending to our true selves.

If any given personality test can indeed oversimplify the richness within us, combining several ones provides us with a rather insightful understanding of how we are in a large variety of situations. More important than that, it allows us to discover the other through different lens, to understand that we don’t see the same events the same way and understand the advantages and limitations of each of our life goggles.

The answer to the oversimplification of any psychometric approach is not abstinence but diversified exposure.

Intergenerational training

Intergenerational and intercultural seminars stimulate similar discussions.

“How can we simplify every individual behaviour to a birth period or to a national origin?” The answer is clearly “we can’t!” However, this does not mean that we should throw the baby with the bath water.

Serious studies on both fields provide us with a deeper understanding of cultural perspectives. The “dance” part of a person’s experience is a thug of war of several sociological and psychological influences: socio-economic conditions, family upbringing, culture of origin, environment, generation, amongst others. Generational approach is just another face of this large diamond of influences. Sometimes the light shines through that face, sometimes through another.

Another question I hear often is “Will Gen Y become like the previous generations as they age?” Again, the answer depends on another question: “In which aspect?”

Your experience (and reaction to life) is influenced by the moment in History in which you were born and grew up. Local and global events, especially during our formative years (that last up to 19 or 25 years-old), strongly affect our perception of the world: how we view and experience work, how we set priorities, how we communicate to each other and how we integrate technology to our lives. These are called generational factors.

On the other hand, since the dawn of mankind, the developmental order of the individual from infancy to maturity has been extremely constant and richly documented. Teenagers today rebel against their parents and still will do so in the years to come (the only thing that might change is the duration of each developmental stage as we live longer or the manner in which they do so). These are called age factors.

The challenge of a generational expert is to understand which behaviours are affected by generational factors, which are affected by age factors and which are affected by a mix of both. With time, generational factors tend to remain imprinted as deep-seated values, whereas age factors evolve.

The goal of diversity trainings should not be to predict future behaviour, “put people into boxes” or create dissent. The goal is to open us up to other ways of making meaning of ourselves and the world around. It gets us out of our heads and offers us the opportunity to experience other ways of thinking, feeling and expressing ourselves.

It is because we study separately the technique of the dancer and the rhythm of the dance that we’re able to marvel at the whole, without worrying so much as which gets the credit.

What are your views on intergenerational or intercultural trainings?

The Greatest Generation and active ageing

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In times of austerity reforms, delayed retirements, fiscal cliffs and economic crisis who in the Western world really thinks about those who (might) have already left the business ranks? In a Me-First world, in which “never enough” is the mainstream culture, how could we ever find the time to connect to our elders?

This blog is no different! It’s embarassing to say it took me 40 posts about strategy, communication, meaning and psycho-sociological analysis of intergenerational collaboration to get to the eldest of the five generations sharing our planet today: the Greatest Generation (also known as Traditionalists or Silent Generation)!

I’ll spare you the long History lesson. You’ve all heard about the despairs of the Great Depression, the unimaginable atrocities of the Great Wars and the impact they had on the psyche of this generation of heroes rising to the occasion. They’ve not only endured long periods of hopelessness, but have also silently and steadily rebuilt their world over and again. To achieve this rebirth, Traditionalists main resources were reliability and self-sacrifice for the common good. In some regions of the planet, they’ve raised Baby Boomers in times of increasing hope and have witnessed more than any other generation on Earth the dramatic change of life in the cities, for better or for worse.

In the Western world, is it only selfishness and lack of respect that stop us from having meaningful conversations with our elders? I dare to say the discomfort we experience when considering connecting to them lies in the confrontation of our own ageing (in a world dominated by an obsession with youth) and finitude.

Moreover, those who venture in those conversations discover a different period, a period of unarguably heroic deeds and extreme courage. How could one not experience emptiness when comparing those stories with their daily lives? Despite the frequent superhero movie remakes, it has become clear that we now live in a time where heroism has acquired subtler tones.

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For 2 years, I’ve volunteered within a ONG that provides psychological support to people in need. From the wide array of callers, the majority were in their 70s and 80s. Contrary to our societal assumptions, what scared them the most was not dying, but living. Living in solitude, after the loss of a loved one (with which they’ve built half, if not more, of their lives) and after the loss of a sense of utility.

This is a generation that was never taught to age! When they were young, life expectancy was only half of their current age and back then surviving was more important than planning. No one warned them they were to work their whole lives only to find themselves with a second life: retired, often lonely and trapped inside their homes (for mobility or fear-related causes) and with few options to contribute to a society that rejects them.

More dramatic yet, as they disappear, so do their stories and their legacy of suffering and growth. Will textbooks suffice in the years to come to guide us through the ever challenging changes of our post-modern world? Can we spare receiving and passing on this wisdom, as so many tribes have done for millenia?

But there’s hope!

Ski-champion Jeremy Bloom’s Wish of a Lifetime Foundation  not only rewards seniors with a wish, but more importantly restores the lost caring bonds between elders and young generations

By putting portraits of men and women of different age side-by-side, Belgian photographer Edouard Janssens’ «1-100 Years» project invites us to reflect upon a new life expectancy and our assumptions about age, vanity, happiness and accomplishment


I agree the discussions about retirement age and social security are essential for a society. At the same time, it’s about time we get into the difficult conversations about what happens then, not only materially or physically but mainly psychologically and spiritually. It’s about time we make some new choices on how we will live the second part of our lives, while empathizing and creating conditions for participation for those who are already there.

It’s about time we, as a society, choose new values to live by other than immediacy, beauty and youth, and stop wasting away our human potential. It’s about time we inspire ourselves from the incredible adaptability of the Greatest Generation and teach the future generations to embrace their elders and a longer life span with wisdom.

What have you learned from your last conversation with an elder?

The problem with “Follow your passion”

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Y living in the momentIn the face of adversity, a highly recognizable trait of Generation Y is their ability to make use of creative resourcefulness to go around obstacles. It is indeed through this ability that they make sense of a constantly changing world and obtain an adaptative edge over their colleagues from other generations.

However, like any other behaviour, the excess and all-purpose application of going around obstacles is not without a cost. Its cost lies clearly in the helplessness some Gen Y members feel in the face of obstacles which one can only go through. This uncomfortable helplessness is often translated into behaviours that attest for a lack of perseverance and resilience.

No other generational slogan epitomizes more this behaviour than “Follow your passion”. On his HBR article “Solving Gen Y’s passion problem” , Cal Newport show the explosion of this sentence as a widespread career advice during Gen Y’s formative years.

Born from a mix of well-intentioned parenting and a general lack of meaningful work (a research from Georges Washington University professor Amitai Etzioni indicates that in the period of 1976 and 1986, two thirds of the 500 largest american organizations were engaging in varying degrees of illegal activities), this sentence was transformed by some Yers into a “noble” shield, protecting them from confronting adversity altogether.

An enlightening analogy can be made when one ventures out of the professional spheres into the more personal realm. Although any wise adult would not wait for Prince Charming (or Beautiful Princess), it is precisely during the same period of “Follow your passion” (80s-00s) that divorce rates doubled and first-mariage age increased by 4 years. Put together, this data attest for a well-known behaviour of job (or relationship) hopping on the first sign of conflict, that is not only characteristic of Gen Y but also of the times we live in.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m the upmost supporter of following one’s heart, whether in work or love. However, the assumption that there’s such a job or person ready to understand us entirely and delight us forever is a lure. There is no such thing as a fulfilled life, because meaning and happiness cannot be found in the destination, they’re a consequence of the path we trail.

In our hunger for connection, achievement and meaning, we read “Follow” in the imperative as an obligation to be met, a box to be checked, and, most importantly as something lying out there, in the outside world, waiting for us to claim. Pushing this logic further, if our “Passion” is already out there, then it precedes the encounter (with the job or the person) and one should be able to love it from day one.

And it is in this final deduction that lies the biggest problem with “Follow your passion”. By assuming it’s out there, then how can we not love it from the start? Conversely, if we can’t immediately and constantly take joy out of a particular job (or relationship), then it mustn’t be our passion. Hence the aimless hopping.

The hard truth is that more often than not love and passion develop slowly, through complex and unexpected paths. Except for a few lucky ones that meet early on their vocation or lifelong companion, most of us will get there after awkward, uncomfortable and frequent encounters with ourselves. Our passions are not found, but revealed to us, once and again, as we create the conditions inside us.

And even when they’re revealed to us, it doesn’t mean they’re any easier. The instant gratification and understanding of our impact are not in arm’s reach every single day, the fear of failure (or worse yet, the fear of success) haunts us, and the gremlins in our mind comparing our choices with the alternate path return when times get tough.

In summary, living your passion is exhilirating and liberating, and it also hurts. As poet David Whyte once said “There’s no path you can take without getting your heart broken, so why just not get on with the job and make sure it’s broken in a direction that’s worthwhile?”

The human adventure (and Gen Y’s challenge) is not finding your passion, but having the perseverance to live through it. For those who do, a broad range of feelings and experiences await. It is precisely in this movement that hides the essence of meaning.

“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches”― Rainer Maria Rilke

To understand Gen Y, work with them

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A little less than a year ago, I’ve embarked on the genYus journey into the essence of human interaction and motivation. Part of this journey included a personal tansformation from the role of the manager to the role of the coach. Another part included taking a helicopter view to speak from a place of expertise about intergenerational relations. This meant going to dozens of conferences and through dozens of books (as well as hundreds of articles and research papers).

Since last May, I’ve been co-organizing a TEDx event with a friend (TEDxLouvainLaNeuve). With only 4 months to D-Day, last week we started recruiting for a team of student volunteers to help us out. In other words, I jumped back into the role I had left behind: the manager’s.

The recruitment process we put in place was a reflection of what we (as Gen Y ourselves) expected from a recruiter. We explained our vision, shared passionately what we want to achieve (namelly, to start a community and spread inspiring ideas), clearly stated our high level of demand, told about our live’s stories and then listened to them. No crazy requirements about years of experience, languages spoken or previous work for a “blue chip” company.

The questions we’ve asked to all of them were:

- What do you love to do? (as opposed to What can you do?)

- How will you bring what you love into this project?

- What do you want to personally take away from this experience (and how can we help you get it)?

It is possibly luck but by the end of one day of interviews we had filled all 10 positions with highly motivated volunteers, who will be working on what they love and what stretches them. The best part is that yesterday all of them came and participated with excitement to a 3-hour meeting.  They aren’t paid a dime and it was a Sunday afternoon! Who said Gen Y was not a committed cohort?

What made this recruitment and meeting a success? Trust and belief.

We’ve showed interest for the human beings they were, shared parts of ourselves, created a space where everyone’s ideas are welcomed and disclosed confidential information. My ego would like to think they came for us but, as Simon Sinek elegantly puts it, in truth they came because “they believe what we believe”.

Given the 10-month hiatus, I was worried before the meeting of not being enough of a manager. It is easier to be the expert that dissects human interactions, the consultant, sociologist or psychologists taking notes behind a glass wall than it is to be the man in the arena, the one whose every word and act has the potential to generate an impact inside the group.

Will I be able to keep this team engaged and committed through all the hardships? Will I be error-free after reading and writing so much about Gen Y? I sincerely doubt so! But I’m convinced that as long as trust and belief are present, we will be able to advance and grow together, both as individuals and as a team.

More than the conferences, the books, the gourous and the experts stopped in time, dare to face the challenges of leadership with an open heart. By doing so, you’ll learn more about people than any of them can teach you.

What challenges are you facing in your work today that no book can help you with?

21st century entrepreneurship

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spiritgames.co.uk

Meet Rachel Lowe.

One fine day, Rachel had an idea and a desire: to launch a board game that would compete against the 7-decade top-seller “Monopoly”. She researched the market for a few months before she pitched her plan to experienced venture capitalists. The result was a resounding “No” as her inexperience (she was 27 years-old then) and lack of long-term plan got in the way.

Rachel’s pitch on the Dragon’s Den gets to the core of what the shifts of the 21st century are all about.

In a predictable world where “stability leads to growth”, the way to approach business was quite straightforward:

1)      You research the market (eg. Porter’s 5 forces) and forecast how the future will be (with a little error margin)

2)      You lay out several strategies, choosing the optimal one (that maximizes your profits)

3)      You gather resources, mostly by pitching your 3-year plan to investors

4)      You work very hard and become a “winner”

In such a world, the only possible endpoint was achieving your goals.

The problem with that approach is that there’s very little that is predictable or certain about the 21st century. Just the simple exercise of Porter’s 5 forces becomes a nightmare in the face of the complexity and interconnectedness of the stakeholders’ network.

To provide a solution to this frustration, Leonard Schlesinger and Charles Kiefer met serial entrepreneurs to understand how they approached uncertainty. The result is a very interesting book called “Just Start” that outlines the principles of what they called “Creaction”.

1)      Start with desire. You don’t need to be passionate about your business in the beginning, just have enough desire to give it a try.

2)      Act quickly by taking a small smart step (that is within your acceptable loss) with the means at hand. A healthy step would be to enroll others in your idea, to multiply resources, and dilute risks. The question should be “How much am I willing to put in to see how it’ll play out?” instead of “How much will I make at the end-point of my venture?”

3)      Reflect and build from the lessons learned from that step. Reality-check is a gift and both positive and negative results give you an opportunity to adapt your aim for the next step.

4)      Repeat until you’ve succeeded, exceeded your acceptable loss, proven yourself it can’t be done or changed your mind.

Back to Rachel, Creaction was exactly her approach. She started with desire. Then, she tried to enrol others to gather resources (money and experience) by focusing her attention on the next step (the launch at Hamley’s Toy Store). She was not as concerned with the long-term plan of her venture, as she understood that trying to become the first competitor of an established brand was an unpredictable scenario. She defined her acceptable loss and built on what she has learned from the dragons and the launch.

As it turns out, Rachel’s product was an outstanding success, debunking “Monopoly” from the top-seller position already in its first year. She has then brought others along by establishing partnerships with Disney and Warner Brothers (a Harry Potter’s version) and has now sold 26 different versions of her game.

The road was not failure-free as she filed bankruptcy during the 2008 crisis, but in every  step she built from what she has learned from reality. Eight years down the road, Rachel has gained the experience of a serial entrepreneur. She knows what works and what she likes. She has saved money and has created successful opportunity-based partnerships. Had she adopted the Predictive model, her reality would have been nothing more than a line on a regret list.

The reason I’m sharing this story here is not to tell you how Generation Y is chosing entrepreneurship as an alternative to meaning inside the traditional workplace, or to explain how rampant youth unemployment (around 1 out of 3 young individuals in Europe) has contributed to the rise of entrepreneurship, or how the resources in the Idea Era have allowed individuals to express their creativity and innovation. You know this already!

Sharing stories about the many Rachel’s in this new world is essential if we’re going through and out the many crisis in our societies. Whether you’re researching about a topic with an endless list of resources (like generations at work) or jumping into 21st century entrepreneurship, your first and foremost challenge is leaning into the discomfort of uncertainty. Those who accept to let go of control and create a space that welcomes chance opportunities will be the global leaders we need so much.

How are you doing on letting go of control?

Generation Y, money and career orientation

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Generation Y and education work satisfactionAt a moment when the youngest members of Generation Y graduate from high school, it would be interesting to address a somewhat common complaint about the young population starting their first job experience: “They only think about their salary”.

Far from me to engage in a polemic discussion about the correctness (or not) of this rather unalluring statement. It is my belief that in all generations, we’ll find people adopting this behaviour and its opposite, and any generalization would only fuel controversy. However, I invite you instead to join me in an empathic exercise on the root causes on why this statement is heard so often lately and add some nuance to the debate.

a)      The age effect

By definition, the end of adolescence is a period in which young individuals thrive to obtain both a place in an enlarged social group (by joining a company) and financial autonomy. The reason these goals are sought after is that they embody society’s representation of adulthood: social responsibility and autonomy.

Since this is a period of great confusion about one’s own singular identity and the disruption from the peer group can be sudden, young adults tend to cling to parental representations and projections for their future, while at the same time seeking physical separation from them.

b)      The context effect

It is precisely on these 2 last points where the current context has seen significant changes in the last decades.

From Traditionalists’ to Boomers’ time, though family expectations and social class limited the career choices, the easiness to acquire a job facilitated the expression of natural inclinations. There was a focus on career orientation that was first talent-based and then limited by social status. Back then, house mortgages were reasonable even on sprawling cities and young adults were able to leave their parent’s homes quickly and constitute family.

With the oil crisis and the massive lay-offs, we’ve entered the age of diploma “overbidding” to land a first job. Not long after that, city realstate prices skyrocketed and haven’t stopped since. These 2 factors combined were responsible for a delayed adolescence period and de-nesting process of Generation Y.

At the same period, corporate raiders changed the way the general population viewed the business world: from a community of engaged individuals with a common goal to a profit-based dehumanized structure. The speech given by Boomers and early-Xers parents, teachers and career counselors about the job market became quite different. Concerns about financial stability and social de-classification gave rise to a message of caution: “focus on market needs and on studies that pay well”. Career orientation became first financially driven and then socially driven. Vocation and meaning were to be pursued outside careers.

c)       The generational effect

Pressured by social demands of financial autonomy, most Yers followed this terrible advice and redirected their passion to family, friends and volunteering.

After gaining work experience and attaining the coveted financial independency, many Yers in their early 30s discovered themselves severely dissatisfied with a job or profession that never passed the personal alignment test.

What for previous generations is a cross to bear, for Generation Y it can’t be endured (as they grew up in a social environment in which the meaning of one’s life is determined by the individual). Some turn to psychotherapists and coachs to reconnect with their early passions and prepare meaningful job transitions. Less fortunate ones hop from a job to another in a vain hope of finding one that motivates them without knowing what values drive them in the first place. In either case, the impression they leave with those who stay at the company is one of “mercenaries”.

d)      The eye of the beholder effect

By now, you might have experienced not only the complexity but also the personal tragedy behind the origins of this loosely used statement. Empathizing with other generations is the first step to tackling the challenges of today’s world.

By looking more broadly into our societies and businesses for the kind of people we need and value, by realizing the most sought after professions didn’t exist 5 years ago, I hope that you might have realized that as a society we’ve failed in the meaning of work we’ve transmitted to Generation Y. Had the focus remained on vocation, self-discovery and meaning, the story might have been different.

In the midst of a new world crisis, we (parents, teachers and counselors) have the same question in front of us: “How do we prepare our children for entering the job market and adulthood?”  The way we answer this question will determine the way future generations will find personal fulfillment and put their real talents to the service of society.

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we should save our country.” Abraham Lincoln

How do you prepare your children for adulthood?

5 tips to shape you Corporate Social Responsibility program up

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Generation Y and Corporate Social ResponsibilityIn my previous post, I’ve proposed to look at CSR programs through a more humanistic approach. Now that I (hope to) have convinced you of its importance and you’ve bust your brain designing your own unique CSR program, it’d be interesting to go through a brief-checklist to turn it into a best-in-class model.

1) Be authentic and leverage it with your assets

There are 2 major differences between corporate philanthropy and an effective CSR program. The first one is that corporate philanthropy is unfortunately rooted in a patronizing circle of win-lose: the business gives a bit to a cause, recovers a bit from the government and a cause gets to make up a bit for government’s social shortcomings, while CSR is about creating win-win growth opportunities. It’s businesses taking in their own hands the responsibility for creating shared added-value in the society. The second major difference is that CSR engages and transforms the business from within in ways that philanthropy can’t: after all, signing a check is just another task on a to-do list.

In order for CSR to be really transformative for the business, it has to be authentic and rely on its assets. By this I mean that whichever impact the company wants to create over the community, the best one certainly is the one that motivated its founder in the first place, daily engages employees and over which the business has built experience over decades. It sounds obvious, but how many CSR initiatives are designed upon opportunistic randomness rather than reflected strategy? In other words, unless you’re Betty Crocker, you have no place in a bake sale fundraiser!

A great example of an authentic and leveraged social program is Home Depot’s “Habitat for Humanity”. The business donates materials and its expertise in their core activity (building materials) while its employees actually build homes for those without one. The end result is not only a positive impact in the community and a stronger customer link, but employee expertise building beyond any training program and a renewed engagement and sense of purpose: win-win!

2) Live it through social media and apps

Every year, 40.000 CSR reports are issued from over 9.000 corporations worldwide.

Most of them are a 40-page pdf file covered with colorful pictures of exotic places and people wearing funny hats, a few testimonies and vague business jargon to please the few shareholders that bother reading them. There’s nothing really distinctive about the way they’re presented: they’re the void politician speech, full of “what I’ve done” and of “what I promise I’ll do”; the latter being more often than not an overly optimistic estimation.

The problem with these reports is that they’re miles away from the reality of the work really done: who were the people on the field, what motivated them, what were the challenges they hadn’t planned for, and how were they overcome, how did they impact the community: then, 1 month after, 2 years after…?

If you really want to create powerful brand connections with all stakeholders and attract Gen Y talent and consumers, your CSR program has to live and breathe, continuously! Or else, despite all your efforts, everyone will just see it at best as a one-off tax advantage, at worst as Hollywood-made green washing campaign.

To achieve a strong CSR recognition, create a dedicated social media space and make a reality-show out of it (Gen Y has grown up with MTV’s shows and they’re unabashed to confess their attraction to these journey-sharing shows). It doesn’t need to (and shouldn’t) be a full-blown production (as the camera significantly reduces authenticity), just a simple journey diary fed by the participants (amateur on-the-field photos and description of daily minor event should suffice).

The most important is to have it under a format where stakeholders can really live the human dimension on a daily basis, wonder at the evolutions in individual spirituality crossing barriers and cultures, and anticipate on the next steps in making real impact.

If you’re really innovative and wants to connect with Generation Z as well, you’ll take it a step further and create an app just for it (especially if your CSR is in community education on your area of expertise). App culture is still a forming wave, but it will certainly have a huge impact on life for the next 20 years, so you better get on the wave before it gets crowded and you can’t freely surf anymore.

3) Crowd-source improvements to your employees

Effective CSR programs not only impact the community but also increase participants’ commitment.

By all means, have your CSR program designed by those in your company with a unique transversal, strategic view and powerful socio-economic insight. It’s naïve to think that anyone could launch a program that has a real impact in our complex world.

But once the launch phase is over and the champagne bottle has been opened, crowd-source ideas for tweaks and improvements to those who will live it. Don’t allow the excitement of the launch to fade nor limit yourself to the lucky few who will actually participate in the first installments of the program.

Every employee in your organization lives in a community and has therefore inspiring ideas on how the expertise he gains at work can make an impact in the world outside, and which of his unique talent or passion can be mobilized. If you guess for him and focus solely on job contents or the company’s formal IP, it’s very likely you’ll miss the tiny detail that will make him cross from an indifferent state towards a your most energetic ambassador.

Moreover, by allowing employees to bring in their ideas and responding to them, you’ll create a culture of ownership to the profound meaning we each give to our work. This action will most certainly liberate them from the current state of victimization we witness so often in organizations these days.

4) Develop a global talent pool

Social development programs are by far the best training program a 21st century leader could have.

University, regular L&D programs and business schools are outstanding developers of the left-brain. They teach future leaders to analyze, measure and deal with all sorts of “rational”, predictable and detailed information, but they let us hanging when it comes to treating right-brain information: contextualized, implicit, evolving and paradoxical.  As markets become more complex and interconnected, as attention becomes scattered in an informational flood and as Generation Y requests for a higher part of social and emotional elements in governance, we will increasingly need right-brain educational programs that enhance comfort with ambiguity and human irrationality, lateral thinking and improved emotional management. In a very comprehensive video, psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist explains the differences between both sides of the brain.

By immersing employees in an environment of cultural ambiguity and perspective-taking that encourages both creative solution-finding and relationship-building (unencumbered by power struggles), social development programs develop precisely this part of the brain. Not using this platform to invest, test and follow-up on talent would be a seriously missed opportunity to engage your next generation of leaders.

5) Create social joint-ventures

Perhaps the most innovative (and obvious) CSR initiative is the concept of social joint-ventures.

In his HBR article “Why go it alone in community development”, Rio Tinto’s Andrew MacLeod makes the case for a renewed approach to what he calls the “billboard” model of CSR, in which each company supports one individual program. He proposes instead a “grand prix car” approach, in which a cause is supported by different sponsors, each contributing in his own expert way to the success of a venture.

Whereas a “billboard” model might work in communities with a certain amount of infra-structure, when companies decide to expand to developing countries, they’re quite rapidly confronted with complex and strongly intertwined community problems. In such regions, CSR programs that focus only on one aspect of the problem end up broken as soon as the mission is finished. This is the case of educational programs that fail to ignore transport issues or infra-structure/medical programs that underestimate maintenance limitations.

The good news is that in developing countries, the market landscape has a very peculiar structure: for each product or service available, one would often find either a multitude of small competitors or a monopoly. If non-competing market leaders in the same community joined forces instead of trying to go it alone, communities would be better served. If CSR leaders met frequently and combined their expertise in a structured program they would not only increase local productivity and consumption, but they would benefit from greater political influence, provide richer experiences to those participating in the programs and ensure that communities will remain stable even when a player leaves the scene.

What other Corporate Social Responsibility innovative ideas do you have?