Enter entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs excel in seeing the opportunity that lies behind the challenge. They bring energy and new ideas to the fore. The drive toward purposeful business could make excellent use of those qualities. After all, “This is what entrepreneurs do: We ask questions. We challenge the status quo,” said Georgie Benardete, Co-founder, Align 17. “We prove everybody wrong.”
So how can entrepreneurs lead the way? Business luminaries at the World Entrepreneur Of The Year Forum offered some useful advice.
- Lead, don’t follow. Don’t be a follower, said Yasmina Zaidman, Chief Partnerships Officer, Acumen. Purposeful business offers a real opportunity to innovate and be a leader. You run the risk that people won’t understand. Failure is a possibility. That makes it real.
- Collaborate. Choose the harder path, Zaidman said, but don’t tread it alone. Find people who are like-minded, even if they’re outside your industry, added Say Jim Tan, Group Managing Director and CEO, IRIS Corporation Berhad.
- Be persistent. In the risk-taking world of entrepreneurship, especially serial entrepreneurship, business can seem like a sort of game: the winning companies survive, and the losers go back to square one and try again. Purposeful business involves people’s lives, said Audette Exel, Founder and Chair, Adara Group. It calls for a steadfast commitment.
Embedding purpose in your organization
Building a purposeful business is one thing; maintaining it is something else. Chapman, drawing on detailed research, listed four things that really make a difference to long-term success:
- Get the ownership structure right. Make sure your shareholders or other investors believe in your purpose. If they’re focused on returns first, your task becomes much more difficult.
- Develop a great governance system. You want to be sure that the right mindset is being applied to decisions across the business, from R&D to customer service. Making sure the decision-making process is of the highest quality is crucial.
- Implement the right operating model. Make sure it’s geared toward the longer term, and that leadership shares and promotes a long-term mindset.
- Make sure your relationships are consistent with your purpose. The organization’s interactions with stakeholders such as regulators don’t occur in isolation. All must be consistent with its purpose.
Finding value in the short and long term
Business has a key role to play in bringing about change, but the task is neither simple nor easy. Many stakeholders, including activist shareholders, remain intently focused on short-term gains. Maximizing shareholder value remains their top, if not only, priority. Long-term planning can come under intense pressure.
But those organizations that look beyond the bottom line and embrace their role as agents of positive change enjoy many benefits. In many cases, their returns are robust; their workers are happier; their customer base is expanding. They are proving that it’s possible to do well while doing good. Most important of all, they are helping to build a better world.
By taking new and innovative approaches, entrepreneurs can play a vital role in furthering the purposeful business movement. Their willingness to take risks, to try and fail and try again, could put them at the forefront of the growth of business as a force for good.
In the end, I think perhaps our World Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017 winner said it best.
“Entrepreneurs,” Al-Katib told the Monaco audience, “we are the solution.”
Summary
By taking innovative approaches and embracing risk, entrepreneurs can lead the way in a world where business is a force for good.