"Quick Wins" vs. "Thought Leadership"
Several years ago, I started out with the explicit goal of learning as much about the CSR field as I can, in order to figure out the greatest point of leverage - then jump in somewhere specific, where I can make a difference. This has been a great strategy, because I've learned a lot and I'm narrowing in on some things as having more potential than others, but at the same time it's been some years and what have I done?
Not a whole lot. I didn't actually bring anyone out of poverty. I didn't plant any trees. I didn't clean up any waste sites. I've started being more meticulous about my own recycling, buying fair trade products, and supporting local businesses - but those things are more along the lines of reducing my own negative impact rather than creating any real positive value. Everything is abstract, far-off in the future, intangible... and potentially an illusion.
So I've recently decided that while I do need to learn, to advocate, and to think of the big picture, I also need to devote at least a sufficient minimum of time do doing tangible things to make private enterprise more sustainable, in both the environmental and social sense of the word. I need some "quick wins."
Others need the same thing, I believe. A former colleague told me that in her new job, no longer a "CSR job," she isn't engaged in "thought leadership" like she used to be - but she found she just wasn't getting anywhere before. Recently, she succeeded in convincing her organization to budget for carbon offsets of staff travel - and that, she feels, may be the most valuable thing she's done in her career. What a statement.
Next month I'm going to organize a workshop via Boston Net Impact for people with whom this idea resonates, and who want to work on quick wins of their own - we'll brainstorm, share advice, create a plan and some personal accountability, and hopefully come up with a system to support each other over the weeks or months that follow. If you're in Boston and you'd like to join, please send me an email and I'll loop you into it.
Or just skip the talking, and do something. ;)
Not a whole lot. I didn't actually bring anyone out of poverty. I didn't plant any trees. I didn't clean up any waste sites. I've started being more meticulous about my own recycling, buying fair trade products, and supporting local businesses - but those things are more along the lines of reducing my own negative impact rather than creating any real positive value. Everything is abstract, far-off in the future, intangible... and potentially an illusion.
So I've recently decided that while I do need to learn, to advocate, and to think of the big picture, I also need to devote at least a sufficient minimum of time do doing tangible things to make private enterprise more sustainable, in both the environmental and social sense of the word. I need some "quick wins."
Others need the same thing, I believe. A former colleague told me that in her new job, no longer a "CSR job," she isn't engaged in "thought leadership" like she used to be - but she found she just wasn't getting anywhere before. Recently, she succeeded in convincing her organization to budget for carbon offsets of staff travel - and that, she feels, may be the most valuable thing she's done in her career. What a statement.
Next month I'm going to organize a workshop via Boston Net Impact for people with whom this idea resonates, and who want to work on quick wins of their own - we'll brainstorm, share advice, create a plan and some personal accountability, and hopefully come up with a system to support each other over the weeks or months that follow. If you're in Boston and you'd like to join, please send me an email and I'll loop you into it.
Or just skip the talking, and do something. ;)
posted by Melissa Paschall at 10/26/2006 11:28:00 PM
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