Principles: Running your Social Sector work and life like the world’s most profitable hedge fund11/8/2023  Social Sector critics believe that if our organizations ran like the private sector, our problems would be over. This reasoning is wrong. The high level dilemmas, structures and missions are not easily comparable. Systems, and cultures are not easily interchangeable between these divergent worlds.
The exception to this rule is when the high level essence of an idea surpasses the domain where it was developed. When an idea or an approach becomes a macro level principle, it can apply across every scenario. This post is about one of these high level operating systems that emerged from the hedge fund industry but directly applies to our Social Sector work and life.
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 The Social Sector Titan site is a good place to learn about the best mindsets, strategies and tactics to create deep focus and do our best work. But how do we decide what to work on in the first place? How do we decide which social mission to choose as a humanitarian? Or how do we discern what really matters in a noisy world? Are we working on essential things? How important to your overall mission were the things we did last week?
Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism explores these choices. I’ve distilled and translated a few of his ideas below for a Social Sector context. The book uses clear concepts and smart graphics to help the reader simplify and focus.  Escaping the busy trap and making hard decisions easier
What are they doing all day (in the other department, in the other organization)? This uncomfortable question strikes deep for us social sector professionals. Unlike our for profit counterparts, we are constantly worried that our work, organizations and lives are less justified since they are not generating direct quantifiable profit. We fall into these fears and down into the alluring busy trap where we do everything to appear busy (and thus validated) to others. This non-profit must be important/useful/valuable since I and my co workers are so busy all the time.  As the due date of our first child approached ten years ago, I remember that feeling of pure fear, similar to the roar of a large, unknown rapid ahead on the river, with no way to get out of the stream to stop and look before dropping in. Life is changing with the arrival of the new baby. It marks a progression point for your life, but it doesn’t have to mean the end of outdoor adventure. Quite the contrary. A new adventure chapter is opening before you. Ten years into the experiment, I am happy to report that there are some technical changes, but the adventure life is fully accessible to those who set up a plan and go for it.
 Hi Friends, it has been a minute since I posted on Social Sector Titan. The COVID-19 virus onset and its ripple effects have gotten me thinking about how to best prepare the family and our life/work to ride out a disruption in the normal routine. Each of us has a unique set of circumstances from which we must approach our work.This is our best attempt at making a new routine happen during the COVID-19 social distancing effort.
At Social Sector Titan we have a deep set of strategies, tactics, and mindsets that we use to design a high performance and impactful life in the Social Sectors. All sectors of the economy are taking a big hit right now, but those of us working on the pillars and systems that help society function, have a unique role to play. |
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