Unquestionably, you have probably
heard of the Starfish Story by Loren Eiseley: A man, walking along a shore
filled with dying starfish, noticed a boy picking them up and gently throwing
them back into the ocean, one by one. Realizing that there are miles and miles
of beach and hundreds of starfish, the man approached the boy and contended
that he would not be able to make a difference. Yet, the boy continued throwing
a starfish back into the ocean and asserted, “I just made a difference for that
one.”
Growing
up listening to the famous Starfish Story, the mindset of ‘One can make a
difference’ is cultivated in many of us. Consequently, we may not know, the
story has also triggered the mindset of an inappropriate social entrepreneur
movement – the power of one.
Looking
into Indonesia, even though number of companies and individuals involved in
social entrepreneurship is on the rise, the widening social gap within the
growing middle-class is not shrinking but expanding. Having social
entrepreneurs who work in isolation is one major factor that brings about this
circumstance in Indonesia. Cases of Indonesia social entrepreneurs refusing to
collaborate with one another and share their secret sauce are a commonplace.
This in turn causes social entrepreneurs to face difficulties in enhancing and
expanding their business to meet the needs of the sizable population.
According
to Mr. Aaron Maniam, chairman of the National Youth Council Academy’s Advisory
Panel, pointed out that, “Social entrepreneurship is about drawing from the
strengths of all to create a cohesive whole. The ability to do this is
critical. ”
As
a matter of fact, real world problems typically stem from a broken ecosystem
and lasting change involves collaborative efforts to tackle the root of the
problems. For instance, if actions were not taken to act upon the key reason
which caused the starfish to dry up on the beach, the starfish would certainly
be washed ashore again. Indeed, time and again, without doubt, as social
entrepreneurs, our own way of doing does make a difference. Yet, what many of
us not realized is that the social impact we have pulled off is only on the
surface. Holding on too tightly to our simplistic solutions, we have often
failed to realize the bigger picture – the complex nature of the social
problems we deal with to solve the problem wholly.
Mr
Mechai Viravaidya, founder of Thiland’s Population and Community Development
Association emphasized that, “Rather than simply donating money to
causes, corporate could achieve sustainable good more effectively by
investing in social enterprises set up and run by young people, and helping
train future social entrepreneurs.”
Similarly,
starfish throwing akin to philanthropy is not bad. Yet, it is not a sustainable
solution to bring about a lasting change to the world’s social issues. As social
entrepreneurs, we must be courageous, look beyond the present situation and
challenges in taking the lead for sourcing ways to create lasting change – to
do more than throwing starfish.
References
Anonymous. (2012, May 19). More firms involved
in social entrepreneurship: Experts. The
Jakarta Post. Retrieved May
20, 2012, from http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/05/19/more-firms-involved-social-entrepreneurship-experts.html
Hi Jiahui!
ReplyDeleteI read your post. However it has left me a little confused with the way you view the real social enterprise/business world.
Unfortunately Social enterprises are businesses aimed to make profits, I believe that it thus justifies them being protectionist in their policies and their practices. It is also hard for SE's to cooperate in Indonesia because of the vastness of problems plus the size of the country. SE's as we have established are usually small in nature and reach out to beneficiaries majorly on a grassroot level. Hence to cooperate with other SE's, we can see that the little profits SE's make will be reduced further due to profit sharing.
Lastly I believe that SE's are not in the position to dig into problems and to change the eco-system (although we can be a catalyst for change.) Ultimately the community has to decide progress and develop in order to break out of the "system" it's in. Thus the saying "You can bring the Horse to the water, but you can't make it drink". Hence i believe that SE's should still continue to throw starfishes back into the sea so that the stars can go back and be the shining example of survival and be a beacon of change. Because as the industry develops, SEs cannot change the root of the problem without interacting and putting importance with the "surface".
However I agree with you that cooperations and governments have to support more SE's to be the catalyst for change in the societies it touches!
Let us bring the horse to water and show the horse how tasty the water is, much akin to how SEs should continue to throw as many starfish back into the sea
cheers
-S.Pong (ladiesman25222)
Tan Jia Hui5 August 2012 at 04:04
Hi Sean,
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you that the collaboration of social enterprises would lead to reduce of profits.
Social enterprises work to better the world while meeting financial objectives. Collaboration of social enterprises will help to broaden their reach, deepen their impact and extend their growth to better improve the society. Moreover with constant, accelerating change, social enterprises can definitely grow smarter, achieve more and add more social value every day through collaboration as they share, refine and reuse business information and knowledge, etc.
According to the Harvard Business Review, from collaborative relationships, a simply 5% increase in customer retention can eventually bring about 25% to 95% increase in profits. This further indicates that social enterprises must seek ways to drive additional profits and transformative social change through increased collaboration.
Cheers,
Jia Hui