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Is ‘scaling up’ socially responsible effort really the key to improving society (as #PaulPolizzotto suggests in Forbes)?
No. Increasing effort doesn’t necessarily enhance impact. Even when a small-scale test seems promising, growth can destroy benefits.
I struggle with the challenge of ‘scaling up’ myself. My wife would kill me for sharing this, but my house is a mess. Two toy trucks and a dozen Lego pieces are strewn across the playroom while last-night’s polka-dot pajamas lie on the stairs.
I call my three sons for a meeting. “Mommy gets back from her trip tomorrow, and we need to get the playroom cleaned up . . . fast! Four sets of hands are better than one.”
Activity immediately ensues, but not impact. My oldest son, Devin, carries books from the middle of the room to a bookshelf. My middle son, Rayden, un-does the work by carrying the books back from the shelf to the middle of the room. Meanwhile, my youngest, Reuben, watches quizzically and then picks lint from a pillowcase. We’ve scaled up our efforts, but we’re no closer to a clean home.
Business leaders also falsely assume adding resources improves outcomes. The so-called “Bible of Software Engineering” (The Mythical Man Month) explains the seemingly counterintuitive reality for the case of digital technology: adding new engineers to an overdue programming project delays the project further. When you add new people to a team, you need to share the project’s vision and then integrate new and old team-member efforts. Such added overhead outweighs the benefit of more collaborating hands.
Social responsibility is the same. Insights, tools, and strategies must highlight all of the elements necessary to deliver meaningful change, and efforts must be aligned. A massive, complex problem like climate change does require more resources than cleaning up a local park. Yet adding resources to incomplete or incoherent efforts won’t improve results.
So don’t throw resources at a problem. Make sure your efforts answer the right questions. Ensure you understand the subtle nuances, complex interconnections, and human failings that created the issue to begin with. Then apply the appropriate resources to deliver a meaningful solution. With this mindset, you’ll realize that you can change society no matter how small, or large, you are.
Do you sometimes feel too insignificant to deliver meaningful change that will benefit your own organization and society?
Please share your thoughts in the comments or by sending me an email: info@RodWallacePhD.Com.
Our society cannot just survive. For the sake of our children, it must thrive.
Rod
Dr. Rod Wallace is an economist, consultant, and speaker who helps businesses make more money by solving society’s problems. A Fulbright Fellow, he has led multi-organization billion-dollar initiatives worldwide and partnered with a Silicon Valley pioneer to explore the impact of Artificial Intelligence on society.
Rod speaks about how to integrate social responsibility into business to maximize profit and purpose. He highlights digital technology’s impact on society and the strategies and tools with which business can solve our big, systemic problems.
Contact Rod at info@RodWallacePhD.com.