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People On Purpose: Ben Metz

Ben Metz works with and creates environments for leaders and their organisations who are doing good to do better.  Ben is the Europe R&D lead for ImpactAssets and the instigator of OxfordJam, a three day fringe event to the Skoll World Forum which kicks off today in Oxford.  He is also the founding Trustee of and long time supporter of  Hackney Pirates and manages the Sarah Dodd Fund.  Ben was the former UK Director of Ashoka and now spends his time conceiving, incubating, launching and scaling new ideas that are good for the world.

1. Why do you do the job you do?

Why would I do anything else?  An acceptance of reality - that humanity is on an irreversible trajectory of decline - might be considered the ultimate force for disempowerment.  I see things the other way round, as kind of a 'positive nihilism'.  Once we know quite how f#ck£d we are this becomes a liberating force and allows us to act for good rather than react to the current 'bad' state of the world.

2. What are you most proud of?

No one thing.  I guess my increasing ability to focus on individuals and support them in thinking and feeling their way in the world is something I am increasingly proud of.  Paying attention to other people, I am coming to realise, is an art that has been overlooked in a world that favours bean counting and strategies for growth over real human interaction.

3. What keeps you awake at night?

One of two things - a) wondering whether I did my best or b) if I know I did my best the sheer excitement of realising this!

4. What were you doing 5 years ago?

Lying in bed wondering whether I had done my best...  And during the day I was establishing the UK office of Ashoka, working with world class social entrepreneurs across about 40 countries.  

5. What do you expect to be doing in 5 years' time?

Lying in bed wondering whether I've done my best...  I don't have a clue what I'll be doing.  And I like this.  I increasingly work using emergence as a core principle.  So planning for the future has faded from view in favour of guiding principles such as having a clear purpose (to help people to good better), fostering insistence (sticking at it damn it!), continuing learning (a Masters in organisational psychoanalytics is my current learning focus) and retaining humility guide my journey through life much more than big plans.

6. If you were Prime Minister for the day, what would you do? 

Resign.  Immediately after removing all tax allowances and the entire benefits system and replacing these with a universal living wage.  This could potentially fundamentally alter the social contract individuals have with society as society would value the individual from the day they are born to the day they die, rather than placing conditionality on individuals' value through a punitive 'tax and give' system.

7. Why are you involved with On Purpose? 

 Simple - because individuals with tenacity and the right kind of intention make the world a better place.  On Purpose Fellows have these - in bucket loads!  At first I was sceptical of the model.  But the first cohort proved me wrong.  The quality of the individuals and their commitment to doing things differently means I'll go the extra distance to help each of them that I am able to.

Launching into the social enterprise stratosphere

Trying to sum up what we do at On Purpose is always difficult.  I have to admit that even I didn’t know quite what to expect when I turned up to induction in January, I’m happy to say though that 10 weeks later, its all getting a bit clearer.  With a little more perspective, and an ever developing armament of skills, I’m beginning to get a picture of what it takes to make it in the social enterprise world.

From the get go, we were challenged at induction to learn the ins and outs of problem solving, issue trees and porpoising, not to mention the 17 new names and faces of our fellow Associates.  In the weeks’ since, we’ve been poked and prodded by our mentors and coaches, learnt to reflect on ourselves and our colleagues through the lens of Myers-Briggs, acquired the skills to become productivity ninjas, and thanks to Noggin and The Spring Project, learnt to see body language in a whole new light.  We’ve also been provided with lots of opportunities to develop skills in our own areas of interest from blogging to video making to social media.

For me personally, it’s perhaps the financial skills training that has really helped to kick-start my career in social enterprise.  Learning to read profit and loss statements, develop financial models, and to use Excel effectively has meant that I can now do what I would have previously asked a colleague to do for me.  And you know what?  It’s really not that hard! 

The hard part is finding the opportunity to learn while working.  So, now that I’m here, I’m doing what I can to make sure that at the end of my On Purpose year, I have a full set of Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive skills to launch me into the social enterprise stratosphere.  It’s really not that difficult when you have a community of Associates, Fellows, Trainers, Mentors and Coaches to help you along the way.

Keeping the Body in Mind

Like many people I’ve often tried to puzzle out body language. When I was 19 and heading off to university this meant buying a book on body language. Unfortunately, “How to Talk to Anyone” was not as useful as I had hoped and led to some rather awkward questions when it was discovered peeking out from under my pillow by my newly acquired friends.

So, I didn't know quite what to expect from On Purpose's training session with Noggin.  Thankfully, Noggin didn’t approach body language in the prescriptive way that I’ve encountered it in the past.  Instead of telling us to mirror every itch and hair toss, our trainers were more interested in making us mindful of the ways in which our own body language could be perceived by others and how this could potentially by enhanced by simple observations.

In one exercise we were able to observe free-flowing conversations between our colleagues become stilted and staccato when one of the people involved started to look away rather than look at their partner’s face.

We also found that while half of us were rather disconcerted by our partner leaning forward in their chair during a conversation because we perceived it as aggressive, the other half were spurred on by what they perceived as a display of eager interest. A clear indication of the potential for miscommunication before one even opens their mouth.

As Susie Braun has already mentioned, On Purpose training sessions do tend to stick and re-surface at almost any time. In a roomful of people I’ve found myself beginning to pick up wandering gazes and aligned stances.   Its just another way in which On Purpose is helping me to understand what my eyes are already seeing .

Generosity Day: Valentine's rebooted

What would happen if each of us were more generous? If we said yes just a little bit more? If we actually made a commitment to changing other peoples' lives, could we change the world?

I think so and as it turns out, there are a few people out there who think the same! More importantly, they are doing something about it.

One inspirational example of how we can all do good is Generosity Day, the idea of Sacha Dichter from Acumen Fund.  On 11 February 2011, Sacha unleashed an idea… to reboot Valentine’s Day as Generosity Day and to tell the world in 3 days.

It was out with the commercialism and overpriced heart-shaped tat of Valentine’s Day and in with saying YES. The world was invited to say YES to a request or opportunity making a personal change in people’s lives. On his blog, Sacha explained,   “it’s not designed to be a philanthropic strategy (“say yes to everything”). Rather, the whole point is to use the day … to develop a different practice of generosity in our lives – whatever that means to you.”

On 14 February 2012, Generosity Day returned with a vengeance:

Can being generous make us happy though? Mike Williamson of Action for Happiness, a movement of people committed to building a happier society, certainly thinks so.  Mike truly believes that “doing good, feels good” and that being generous brings all sorts of benefits including to our health. Interestingly, points to reseach showing how we choose our sexual partners not on wealth or looks, but on generosity (if you want some good pub banter, throw that last one into the mix…).

Sometimes changing the little things in our lives leads to something bigger and better, just ask Jim Carrey:

The generosity movement is gaining profile in all kinds of places, Mike Dickson's book Please Take One Step, for example, has been a huge success and he offers 10 steps to generosity here.

Choosing to become an On Purpose Associate is equally just a question of saying YES. If you’re interested in joining us come and meet On Purpose at Escape the City’s How to kick-start your career in social enterprise on Wednesday 21 March. You can register your interest at www.onpurpose.uk.com. I'll leave the last word to Richard Branson, "Life is a helluva lot more fun if you say yes rather than no ".

PEOPLE ON PURPOSE: PATRICK SHINE

PATRICK SHINE

Patrick Shine is the co-founder and lead partner of The Shaftesbury Partnership, a social business whose mission is to create and inspire trailblazing social reforms that empower communities by tackling disadvantage and generating opportunity. He is chairman of The Challenge Network, the leading provider of National Citizen Service, and of the Southwark Free School Trust. Patrick worked for nearly 20 years in the City and has worked at UnLtd.

Why do you do the job you do?

Because I am passionate about not only delivering social impact, but also about modelling business-like ways of doing it to make it less grant-dependent and to enable scaling.

What are you most proud of?

We’ve been able to do a series of ground-breaking things ranging from securing investment from Big Society Capital to being the chair of one of the fastest-growing charities in recent years (the Challenge Network).

What keeps you awake at night?

Social venturing is very demanding – there are often situations which take a lot of thought, and I do my best thinking in the middle of the night.

What were you doing 5  years ago?

I was a member of the Unltd team, helping social entrepreneurs develop strategies for scaling.

What do you expect to be doing in 5 years' time?

I will still be doing what I do now, with a group of social ventures at a more mature stage of development.

If you were Prime Minister for the day, what would you do? 

I would cull a third of charities dependent on the government money and which are not delivering, and reinvest double the amount saved into the ones that deliver high-quality services which really make a difference.

Why are you involved with On Purpose? 

I switched to the charity sector after 20 years working in the City and didn’t find it easy. I share the intention of On Purpose to bridge the gap between the world of business and social action.

On Purpose training will never leave you. Even if you want it to...

Sometime between the third cup of tea and the first glass of wine on a weekend in a Yorkshire cottage, my friends and I opened up the quaint dresser to discover a pile of jigsaw puzzles.

Brilliant, I thought: the perfect mindless way to wind down after an action-packed first few weeks of the On Purpose programme. I assigned myself a corner of the puzzle, and merrily embarked on recreating a picture of a delightful National Trust property with peace in my heart and very little in my head.

5 minutes later my mind was whirring: how might an issue tree for cracking this jigsaw look? Would a good MECE approach be edge-pieces versus middle-pieces? Topiary hedge versus be-swanned lake? Mindless schmindless: this jigsaw was just begging for some structured problem-solving. 

Calm yourself: it's just a jigsaw, I muttered. Everyone else is getting along fine. But the inner On Purpose training voice crept in. Hmmmm but are we all applying ourselves to the best of our MBTI profiles? Would my INFP mate be more comfortable working in a different way? Perhaps I needed to abandon my iNtuitive preference for a good Sensing approach? 

I ploughed on. A little topiary completion here; a little swan completion there, as the fancy took me. This was what holidays were for. But hang on a moment: my mate was making real progress with her element of the picture, whereas I'd barely made an impact on mine. Perhaps I wasn't jigsawing productively enough? Maybe the Getting Things Done technique would suggest I search for several pieces at once? What did I really think the next action was and which section could I ignore for later? WHAT WOULD TOM RIPPIN DO?

Be warned: you can take the girl out of On Purpose training but you can't take On Purpose training out of the girl. 

A New Economic Model?

Many forces across the profit, non-profit and government sectors are looking at ways to rethink our current economic model. A recent event hosted by Oasis Charities Parliament brought together Secretary of State for Business, Vince Cable, Occupy London representative Richard Paton and Sir Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive, National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) to debate this issue, and the growing idea of Responsible Capitalism.

For me, one of the most interesting discussions was why some felt the traditional model of Capitalism had broken down.  The lack of appropriate consideration for the social implications of certain financial decisions and the lack of moral self-restraint in risk taking were two issues that particularly resonated. Yet the idea of completely abandoning Capitalism remains difficult to fathom, especially when there is an absence of clear alternatives.

Responsible Capitalism seems to offer a middle way.  This model would enable the needs and well-being of employees and consumers to be taken into account as well as the long-term impact of financial action.  In addition, advocates of Responsible Capitalism argue that motivation for self-improvement and market demand would drive innovation.

But what can we do in the short term to address the problems brought about by overzealous capitalism? Some suggestions are to increase diversity of boards and to review the market motivations of financial institutions and ratings agencies.  We could also look at how alternative models such as co-operatives and mutual societies can instil values of responsibility and accountability.

However, in my view, this will mean nothing if we do not learn lessons from the past.  Particularly, we should ask why some of these alternative models haven’t been more widely used and what is different about today’s climate that can make them work.

For further exploration of Responsible Capitalism, visit The Social Investment Consultancy blog and Charities Parliament podcast from the event.

PEOPLE ON PURPOSE - GRAHAM ALLCOTT

GRAHAM ALLCOTT

Graham Allcott is a social entrepreneur, consultant and trainer, specialising in youth engagement, volunteering and voluntary sector issues.  He became one of the youngest leaders in the charity sector when he was appointed Chief Executive of the national charity, Student Volunteering England at the age of 25: a post he held for three years.  Graham currently divides his time between Fruitful Consulting and time management specialists Think Productive, and in his spare time is putting the finishing touches on his first book “How to be a Productivity Ninja”.

Why do you do the job you do?

A happy accident.  I spent the first few years of my career in the charity and social enterprise worlds.  I’d summarise my first few years as “good at leadership, rubbish at doing”.  So I began working on my own productivity, reading books and blogs, experimenting with what made me productive or unproductive.  Then I kind of fell into teaching it to people and realised it was a bit of a calling.  So I followed my hunch, set up a training business just as the recession hit (!) and thankfully I’m still here 3 years later, with a great team of people around it now too.

What are you most proud of?

I’m proud of lots of the things I’ve done over the years, but right now, I’d have to say my book, “How to be a Productivity Ninja”.  Writing is hard work, especially alongside running a growing business.  It’s been a tough couple of years but I’m really proud of this book and as I write this, I can’t wait to unleash it on the world in a couple of months’ time!

 

What keeps you awake at night?

My cat.  She goes a bit crazy at night.

What were you doing 5  years ago?

I was CEO of a small national charity called Student Volunteering England.  I got that job when I was 25, which I still think is ridiculous, but it taught me a lot. 

What do you expect to be doing in 5 years' time?

I genuinely don’t know.  In my twenties I always used to have a 5 year plan, but these days I tend to wait and see what opportunities come along.  I’m still really happy doing what I’m doing with Think Productive, but in the longer term I’d maybe go part-time on that and fill a couple of days a week with a new social enterprise project.  A have a few ideas for things that I daydream about every now and then.

If you were Prime Minister for the day, what would you do? 

Wow.  I think first I’d see if I could invent a time machine in a day so that I had more than a day!  There’s so much to do isn’t there?!  I’m really passionate about social mobility and the potential for education to empower kids from less well off backgrounds.  I was a free school meals grammar school kid that ended up at a good uni... and all for free.  I know there are thousands just like me who weren’t so lucky.  However you argue the new system, debt is scarier to a kid from a council estate than to a kid from Eton.  Personally, I think we need LESS uni places, but paid for out of the taxes of, er, all the people who got their university education for free themselves!  That way, we’d have the best chance of ensuring we get the brightest and the best at uni, not the wealthiest.  Surely that’s also best for pushing forward our society.  Tragic that so many believe that view is so radical in 2012.

Why are you involved with On Purpose? 

I met Tom and he asked me if I’d offer some pro bono training to the group.  It’s always such a pleasure to be surrounded my like-minded people all doing such interesting things.  I’m secretly jealous I’m not one of the group!


Think Productive provide workshops on email etiquette and facilitation training that add value to your bottom line, by saving time, reducing stress and increasing productivity. Visit their site to find out more.

First Impressions Are Made to Last

Ever wondered what it would be like to make the leap from the commercial world into social enterprise? One of On Purpose's 2012 Associates, Isabelle de Morlhon shares her thoughts on Shaftesbury Partnership's blog about what she has learnt in her few first weeks of her placement there.

First impressions are made to last…and I hope they will. After 7 years working in brand management I joined the social sector in January as an associate at OnPurpose, the 1-year leadership programme for professionals starting their career in social enterprise. I am spending the first half of the year applying my business and marketing skills to support social innovation at the Shaftesbury Partnership.

Three early observations from a newbie to the social sphere:

The diversity and passion of people is fascinating.

Here at SP I am surrounded by a talented team covering a huge range of experiences (teacher, nurse, entrepreneur, business owner, public sector senior manager, banker and more…), with an impressive combined expertise. What brings everyone together despite these very different profiles and styles are shared values, a common purpose, and a passion for innovating and creating social change. 

Bridges between the business world and the social sector are strengthening.

Going well beyond the out-dated, one-way “cheque-writing” approach there is now a well-spread recognition of the benefits for both worlds to work together. This collaboration is taking various forms - partnerships, sharing business expertise or employee time, developing appropriate commercial products and services... Business collaboration is particularly key for the Shaftesbury Partnership as a vehicle for scaling our ventures and accelerating social impact.

There has never been a time with more opportunities for the social sector to grow and scale the impact it’s already proven to have.

The economic crisis has uncovered the limits of capitalism as we knew it, and is opening the space to develop and innovate with new models. Risk-takers who accept the possibility of failure will be the ones creating successful social innovation in this incredibly fast-changing environment.  

Passionate people, bridges between business and social sector and a time of opportunities are very compelling reasons for young professionals to move their careers to the social space. I am glad to be part of it!

Author: 

Isabelle de Morlhon