Editor’s Note: I’m not Lennon’s biggest fan but I love the thought “nothing’s going change my world”.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
After twenty years of thinking about it, I’m finally writing my first book.
Editor’s comment: The soft side of business is the most difficult for most people, including me. And yet, the two most successful companies I’ve been involved in demonstrated exactly what Lenioni describes in his book , The Advantage. He writes like a consultant, which is annoying at times, and yet the book’s point is crystal clear and should be read by every organizational leader, no matter what type of business they are involved in.
Editor’s note: Okay, it’s soupy, but I selected it because I played and sang it to my wife, Alice, some 37 years ago at our wedding. Through a lot of thick and a lot of thin, she’s still my best friend.
Editor’s Note: If you notice, all of this month’s reference material comes from the 10th anniversary issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review (www.ssireview.org) from whom I have learned a lot. If your interest is keen on social innovations, I recommend you subscribe and support their efforts. This article from Jacqueline Novogratz of the Acumen Fund is essentially the “dream come true” I began pursuing in 2005, when my favorite MBA professor, Jay Dial, said “Government and NGOs are doing the best they can to solve social problems but need business to take their appropriate social responsibility in order to succeed long term”. Amen, Jay, and amen Jacqueline for describing Acumen and other’s progress the last ten years.
The Business of Good serves those who serve the poor.
Editor’s Note: The founding chair of Big Society Capital explains how the UK’s social investment bank will harness entrepreneurship and capital to solve societal problems.
