Leadership for Youth: Five Things I Learned at Harvard
By Adelaide Schaeffer, Champions for Kids, Fayetteville
Like many students, I arrived at Harvard in 2008 a bit nervous about the challenges and opportunities ahead of me. My emotions included courage and fear. But, fear soon faded because I arrived with a question that guided my steps: How do we accelerate impact for children?
While there are no silver bullets, there are always answers that strategically position us for greater impact. Following are the five things I learned at Harvard and why they are important for companies that want to leverage their legacy for children.
1. Scale means MASSIVELY increasing the number of people who are champions for kids
The person who caught my focused attention at Harvard was Bill Drayton, a Macarthur Genius Award Winner, often referred to as the father of social entrepreneurship. He serves as the Founder and Executive Director of Ashoka, a successful international organization committed to promoting and advancing social entrepreneurship. Drayton says, “The most important contribution any of us can make now is not to solve any particular problem, no matter how urgent energy or environment or any dilemma is. What we must do now is increase the proportion of humans who know that they can cause change.”
Scale is critical to our success and to corporate success. For Champions for Kids, scale does not mean infrastructure, buildings and shovel-ready projects. Scale means significantly increasing the number of people who know they can cause change and provide them with simple tools and resources to effect change in their local communities. Scale means building a substantial global corps of people who are champions for kids.
2. Business Leaders: You have MASSIVE distribution channels
As business leaders, you have the keys for this to happen. At Harvard, I often heard of “scale” in terms of “public-private” (government-private) partnerships. Classes, courses, forums, and workshops frequently were filled to capacity with people highly energized around the themes of innovation and social change. For many, the Rosetta Stone to accelerate change is in “public-private” partnerships (government-private).
By contrast, we believe the massive power for social good is in the mobilizing power of private-social partnerships. Public-private partnerships have the ability to galvanize large amounts of financial resources. Private-social partnerships provide the unique opportunity to catalyze people and engage them in service. Business leaders, you have a distinct advantage. You have enormous distribution channels. You have products and services that go into the hands of people worldwide. You are capable of providing resources and ideas to empower people to be forces for good in their local communities.
3. Innovation is your key to success
Is this pie in the sky? No. You are able to tap into your commitment to innovation and think deeply and strategically about how to develop simple tools and ideas that will empower your customers to be “Champions for Kids.” Innovation is essential for success. Your opportunity is to channel some of your cherished human and financial resources earmarked for innovation into social innovation. Why would you do this?
Your associates and customers care about kids. Many people want to do something to improve the lives of children but they don’t know how. Generally, answers to improve the lives of children focus primarily on financial resources. But asking people for financial resources doesn’t empower them or you. However, connecting your company values and social commitments through creative service opportunities that equip people to be change agents in their local communities is a win for you, for your customers and associates, and most important, for kids.
The Henkel Global Leadership Conference will show examples of how you can prioritize social innovation into your strategies and develop innovative cutting edge ideas that improve the lives of children.
4. Be Different: Move with a strategy to deliver a transformational experience
At Harvard we were challenged to define what success would look like. Many spoke of success primarily in terms of numbers, achieving economies of scale and market share. Success seemed to be driven by a focus on transactions: If we provide “x” at “y” then the customer will purchase “x” at “y” and we will have success.
This thinking is not bad, but we think it is insufficient. Why? Because customers want more than transactional experiences. They want transformational experiences. They want to leverage their influence to do something to improve the lives of others. Many want to improve the lives of children.
Continue to sell products, increase market share, accelerate growth and expand and diversify your portfolio. But in your march for doing good, we encourage you to provide a customer experience that is transformational. This does not neglect a transactional experience. Rather, you raise the tide for all the boats in the harbor—your associates, your clients, and you.
5. Change the culture
Imagine what the biggest win would look like for you, at age 90, and then work to make it happen. For Champions for Kids, our biggest victory is not solving any particular problem, granting large amounts of resources or expanding exponentially to other markets. Our desire is to change the culture. This means a shift from people thinking about Champions for Kids as an organization to Champions for Kids as part of our collective identity—who we are as citizens and as a community.
Sandra Bullock, in the successful movie, “The Blind Side,” made a decision to “stop the car!” On a rainy night, she stopped to assist a young, homeless teenager who was walking in the rain. Changing the culture means that massive numbers of people worldwide will make that decision to “stop the car!”
When close to fifty thousand children worldwide die every day largely due to hunger and preventable diseases, we must find ways to greatly accelerate our efforts to help children. Our goal, therefore, is to build a global corps of people who are Champions for Kids.
We can do this. Corporations have the distribution channels and invest in the power of innovation. Social organizations understand the needs of children. They know what works, and they, too, bring powerful innovative ideas, intellectual capital and experiences to the table. The alliances between these two sectors can be MASSIVE. The Henkel Global Leadership Conference launches this work and conversation.
The Henkel Global Leadership Conference presented by Champions for Kids is scheduled for October 27 at the Holiday Inn, Springdale. Details and registration at www.championsforkids.org.
Adelaide Schaeffer is CEO/President Champions for Kids. She recently received a Masters Degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Her studies focused on nonprofit leadership and management, and developing strategic alliances to provide catalytic growth for organizations focused on improving the health and wellbeing of children. Adelaide kept Champions for Kids central to her Harvard studies and drew upon the Harvard experience to strengthen and expand Champions for Kids’ work.
Champions for Kids Mission: Inspiring people across America to be Champions for Kids THIS Day by providing training and resources to Help Kids Finish Strong, and in doing so, ensuring our children receive the priority they deserve.
