Good Generation

Key Questions in this Post:

• How does ego act as a driving force behind some of today’s social entrepreneurs?

• What are the contributing and inhibiting effects of ego on progress in social innovation?

Last time, I got interested in thinking about the role of ego in social entrepreneurship based on a tangentially related idea in Weekly Ponder #5, where I wondered why so many (social) changemakers tended to prefer to reinvent the wheel on social business models instead of more actively replicating successful other ones. One interesting thought was how much ego had to do with this tendency instead of other reasons. At the time, it felt useful to think a little bit more about this. But in order to do so, we had to spend some time pondering the nature of ego itself before we could make sense of it in the context of social entrepreneurship.

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about some basic definitions we wanted to use to discuss the pros and cons of having a strong ego, mostly from the broad perspective of how a healthy or unhealthy ego can contribute or take away from our general happiness. We also started to talk about why the discussion of ego might be timely. I believe it’s not just timely but necessary to understand that in the domain of social innovation and entrepreneurship, there exist some deep-seated cultural and attitudinal differences between people who came into the space from the charity/NGO space and those who came from the “business” world. For all the talk and excitement about what can be achieved when the two come together, we woefully neglect to talk about all the interesting differences we encounter between these well-meaning people – and from which we can arguably learn a lot.

And one of these differences, finally, is in my contention that while some (smaller) group of people are driven by a “purer” sense of altruism, many more are likely driven to an important degree by ego to engage in activities that are supposed to have the same outcome – the service to others. What happens when you look at two ways of motivation for the same good cause? How does this play out in various settings?

This I would like to at least touch on in this Part 2.

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Key Questions in this Post:

• What is the nature of ego and how can it affect our happiness?

• How does ego differ as a major force of motivation to “do good” from more conventional philanthropy or altruism?

In Weekly Ponder #5 I asked the question why so many changemakers seem to prefer reinventing the wheel rather than to replicate existing ideas in closer collaboration with (and knowledge of) those that came before them. I wondered why so many people feel they need to start social enterprises (just like in the world of NGOs) with their own brands, their own way of doing things, oftentimes without having researched much of what has already been done. Inevitably, the suspicion of ego as a driving force came up in some of the ensuing conversations I was part of in various online forums.

Ah, ego. I love this topic. I love to admire people who use it for productive contribution to the world. At the same time, I love to hate people who get carried away with themselves (and showing it), get in the way of others’ (more important) work and in the end, not achieving much anyway in the process. Pricks. In a way, ego is that 800 pound gorilla in the room that few people talk about when it comes to social innovation and entrepreneurs. Yet it probably has a central place at the table when especially some of the more recent social entrepreneurs with roots from the business world decide to make their mark on the world. I have not seen many studies or surveys on the role that ego plays in pushing the social sector forward… or inhibiting it from promoting the social change we supposedly all seek. So I thought I’d think about it a little here.

Today, drawing from my personal interactions with a host of do-gooders from the camps of investors, entrepreneurs and consultants, I want to first spend some time reflecting on the nature of ego itself and its contribution to our happiness. What are signs of a healthy or unhealthy ego? What’s at stake and why is this a potential hotly contested (but not openly debated) topic in social entrepreneurship?

On another day, in Part 2 of this article, I will then start thinking about the practical role that ego plays in both its positive and negative influences on the motivation and behavior of social changemakers - and try to distill what we in the Good Generation can learn from this in our own quests to make the world a better place… without being pricks.

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