The pyramids are crumbling

Fresh from a fine performance of Macbeth at The Hartford Stage I am struck  by the leadership lessons Shakespeare gives us on the corrupting nature of power.  But perhaps it isn't power per se that corrupts as much as it is the leadership paradigm from which that power emanates.    Perhaps it is the militaristic, paternalistic, hierarchical model that ultimately leads to madness - call it the Pyramid model.  But there is another model which is even more powerful, and much less prone to corruption - call it the Circle model.

As the industrial age continues it's fade to a dusty death, I look forward to seeing the pyramidical leadership style, full of sound and fury but ultimately a poor player exit stage right.  It has strut its hour upon the stage.  It's time for a new leader.

Circle leadership has a very different emphasis and is less about the leader and more about the community which makes up the circle.  The implications are huge:

Pyramid leadership is built on hierarchy... Circle leadership is built on networks.
Pyramid leadership is top down...  Circle leadership starts at the center.
Pyramid leadership is about power... Circle leadership is about support.
PL is combative... CL cooperative
PL is agressive... CL is mindful
PL ranks... CL links
PL dictates... CL listens
PL issues commands...  CL builds consensus
PL is based on control... CL on trust
PL breeds compliance... CL creativity
PL demands results... CL - purpose
PL loves efficiency... CL - meaning

I could go on but you get the idea.  Circles are everywhere and the pyramids are crumbling.  Some day we will look back and realize this old power play was a tale told by idiots - ignorant players who kept thinking they could change the outcome of this tragic power play.  But until the fundamental leadership structure changes we're simply changing the cast rather than the script.

I say Out, damned pyramid!

Hartford Has it!!! Young graduate travels the world but returns to Hartford for all the right reasons!

FRESH TALK
Done London, Cape Town — But Hartford's

Related Content

By JEFF DEVEREUX | FRESH TALK, The Hartford Courant

7:49 pm, October 22, 2013

I am 24 years old, and I just decided to move to Hartford.
It would seem that is not a normal thing to say, or at least many find it to be a surprising choice. The reasons I decided to move here — move back really — would benefit from some context.
I am not new to the Hartbeat. In fact, in May 2012, I graduated from Trinity College. So for the previous four years, interrupted only by long summer breaks back home in suburban Boston and five months studying abroad in London, I got to know this city bit by bit.
After I graduated, I had an amazing opportunity to spend 13 months working for an organization called Grassroot Soccer that uses sport-centered interventions to help stop the spread of HIV in southern Africa. I was based in Cape Town, South Africa, and there I saw a great many young people using their creativity to start their own businesses in the vast open landscape of post-apartheid South Africa.
My closest friends, knowing how much I loved spending the time I did in global hot spots such as London and Cape Town, are almost always surprised when I tell them I have moved back to Hartford. I most often get in response, "Hartford?"
I really did make an effort to get off campus to see and get around all different parts of the city when I was here. I am aware that this does not match the reputation of Trinity's student body. Good friends and I would go on long exploratory runs throughout the city. On a given day we might cross the jail-cell-like pedestrian bridge over I-91 in the North Meadows that takes you away from a cracked parking lot and drops you into the beautiful riverfront park, or we might weave among and between the then mostly empty buildings of the former Colt Armory manufacturing complex.
In the five years since I was introduced to Hartford, my fondness for the city and the reason I am drawn to it continues to grow. What I found while exploring was not much, but what I saw while exploring is why I have come back. What I saw most was tremendous opportunity.
That opportunity is why I have decided to return. Maybe within the capitalist ecosystem we live in it is just my mind's entrepreneurial spirit that sees opportunity where others might see a boarded-up brownstone, or a poorly kept park. I am not alone, however, in seeing this opportunity for Connecticut's capital. In the year I have been gone, support for entrepreneurs and new businesses has blossomed and this support was an extra impetus to return.

Now that I'm back, I have joined other like minded individuals in reSET's Social Enterprise Accelerator program located on Pratt Street. Its "mission is to promote, preserve and protect social enterprise, and to help entrepreneurs leverage the power of business to create public good." All of the individuals in the program are attempting to start businesses that both make a profit and create a social benefit. These types of businesses are needed in Hartford and all over the world.

I could have gone anywhere in the world. I chose to come to Hartford because I saw real opportunity here. I will stay because the community continues to support the opportunity that Hartford offers.

Crossing the Threshold

I was asked to contribute a guest blog for Jesse Lyn Stoner's Leadership Blog The Value of Vision series.  Jesse asked each of us whether we thought Vision was still relevant today.  Here are my thoughts... 

 

Last month reSET opened its new social enterprise incubator and co-working space.  At the Open House, seeing the space full of people, energy, and ideas I realized we had crossed the threshold from vision to reality.

Fifteen years ago it was just a thought.   The Walker Group, was strong and growing, but something about “business as usual” was starting to bother me. I began to see that a single minded focus on the bottom line was taking us down a dark and dangerous road, environmentally, economically, and spiritually, and I started wondering - what would a business look like that wasn’t totally focused on profits. Why not have a business that declared itself up front to be about making a positive difference in the world.   At first the vision was fuzzy, it was more of a dream, but I kept asking the question, and it became a compass setting putting me on the path I needed to be on and kept me walking in the right direction.  And as I walked it transformed me and a clearer vision emerged.

Ten years ago, as a result of this vision I decided to transform Walker into a social enterprise. We increased transparencies and participative governance, decreased the potential for egregious discrepancies in pay and restructured the company so distributed profits would be split, with one third going to employees, one third to the community, and one third to shareholders.

Six years ago we formalized our structure legally and put protections in place to ensure that Walker will remain a social enterprise even after I am no longer the majority common shareholder.

Five years ago I started the Social Enterprise Trust, a nonprofit with a goal of promoting social enterprise.  I donated preferred shares in my technology company to ensure that its social enterprise structure is protected in perpetuity.

Three years ago we held a conference for over 200 people to learn about social enterprise.   We talked about making Connecticut a hub of social enterprise.  Over 70 people came to a follow-up meeting to figure out how to make that happen.  We decided that one important component would be an incubator to provide space and services to new social entrepreneurs.

Last year with funding from the State of Connecticut, Connecticut Innovations, The Walker Group, Boehringer Ingelheim and many others we were able to turn that vision into a reality.

On June 27^th we celebrated the officially opening of the reSET Social Enterprise Incubator and co-working space.

Without that initial “question turned dream turned compass turned vision” none of this would have come to pass.  

Today more than ever, with seismic changes happening ever more frequently all around us, vision is critical.  My own personal experience has taught me that vision allows us to rest in the uncertainty of chaos and move forward in a meaningful way.  Vision allows us to pivot, dodge, and even to retreat, knowing that all of these actions can ultimately lead to progress if we know where we’re headed.  Without vision, detours and distractions become destiny.

Old whippersnappers lead the way in social enterprise

Don't write off the old geezer sitting next to you, or the one facing you in the mirror just yet!

Whitney Johnson,  author of Dare-Dream-Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream reports in her HBR blog that research data shows that the average age of a successful startup entrepreneur in high-growth industries is 40, and that the highest rate of entrepreneurship in our country is now in the 55-64 age group.

And most interestingly, she notes that "the over-40 crowd is also more likely to do work that matters not just for themselves, but also future generations."  In other words - they are more likely to be social entrepreneurs.

Read her full blog article here.

http://blogs.hbr.org/johnson/2013/06/entrepreneurs-get-better-with.html?utm_content=buffera09ba&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

Interview on social enterprise with John Dankosky on WNPR's Where We Live

A great interview with John Dankosky! 

Featuring:

Robert Egger - Founder LA Kitchen
Cary Wheaton - Executive Director of Billings Forge Community Works
Charlotte Creech - Co-Founder of Combat2Career
Leslie Krumholz - Founder of Good Streets
Nora Duncan - State Director of CT AARP

And yours truly

Thanks to the callers too - what an unexpected gift!

It's wonderful to be surrounded by such a supportive community and watch it grow.   Five years ago (pre crash) when I spoke to people about social enterprise, as often as not I would get a confused look - like why do we need to change anything?  It's all going so swimmingly!   Today it's a different story and everyone (well almost everyone) gets the fact that we need to try something new.



Social enterprise interview on WNPR's Where We Live

Envision the Calvary

A group from around the state met Friday to talk about how to make Connecticut a healthy innovative ecosystem that attracts entrepreneurs who will in turn create Connecticut companies and jobs.  We need new businesses and we need new jobs.  As if it weren’t already abundantly clear, a recent report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis has rubbed our nose in the fact  that our state was dead last year in economic growth. 

Part of the loss is due to shrinking government.  Governor Malloy warned us back in 2011 that closing the deficit would take sacrifice, and went on to say,  “There is no cavalry – except us.”  So here we are, and now we need to think about how private industry is going to come to the rescue. Casino revenues are shrinking.  I’ll refrain from commentary on whether that was a horse we really wanted to hitch our economic fortunes to anyway, and just stick to the fact that this gravy train has moved on.  Other states have opened their doors to casino dollars and our piece of the gambling pie has and will continue to shrink as a result.   We may still be the Insurance Capital of the world, but that’s another fading star.  The large financial and insurance companies that were our mainstay have been shedding jobs for a while and there’s no reason to expect a reversal there.

OK - Problem defined.  What we need now is a vision.

How do we get our state on the right track, creating a healthy ecosystem that attracts business and grows jobs?  We’ve got an industry sector vision.  Making Connecticut a magnet for health and bioscience works.  It builds on what we already have to offer.  It creates a niche market to focus on and stand out in, building on our strengths rather than trying to copy another state’s success story.  This focus has helped to make us attractive to companies like Jackson Labs, Boehringer Ingelheim, Pfizer, and Protein Sciences.  It encourages the creation of support organizations like CURE and the MetroHartford Alliance Health Council which will amplify the activities and success of what’s being done in this area.  It helps provide structure and focus for educational and governmental efforts all of which add to the momentum and will help create the cavalry that is us.

We need the same vision for attracting entrepreneurs. What does the CT entrepreneur look like?

Most of us can picture the young techie growing the next google out of his dorm room, but when we’ve hatched them here in CT we too often lose them to Boston, New York, or California.  The young, they tend to roam, and they like to go where there’re lots of others like them.  But!  And this is important… They often return.  They come back when they have kids.   CT is a great place to raise a family.  Connecticut – Home of the Family Entrepreneur.

And even entrepreneurs who aren’t planning families find CT a great place to move to when they tire of the hustle, bustle, bright lights, and bars of the big city.  They return to be closer to parents, community, and the land.  We have open space.  Close enough to the big city to avoid becoming bumpkin, but far enough away to breathe.  Not too hip, but not too hick either.  Connecticut -  Home of the Comfortably Cool Entrepreneur.

And not all entrepreneurs are the 18-25 hipster set anyway.  An increasing number of entrepreneurs are in their 30s, 40s and beyond.  In fact retirees are a growing demographic on the entrepreneurial scene.   Connecticut – home of the Mature Entrepreneur.   

And Connecticut is a socially innovative state.  We have reSET working to make us a hub of social enterprise - a growing international trend.    The idea of building businesses that solve community problems is one whose time has come.   Our schools are graduating kids who want jobs with meaning, careers that makes a difference, and entrepreneurial types who have ideas for how to solve big problems.  Let’s keep them here.  Connecticut – home of the Social Entrepreneur.

We know the industries we’re trying to attract.  Let’s learn more about the entrepreneurs we’re trying to lure.  Capitalize on our strengths and what is already in place.  Create an infrastructure to support these entrepreneurs and the businesses they’re building and we’ll have a healthy, viable, enviable ecosystem that attracts the engine drivers of our economic future.   With a vision we can build it.  And then they will come.  

Connecticut – home of the New Cavalry.