Flip It To Tip It
I recently worked with a social enterprise in Zambia that focuses on the conservation of natural resources in an area that suffers from extreme resource exploitation, creating a vicious cycle of poverty and environmental degradation. Their motto caught my interest - Making Conservation Profitable. I had a talk with one of the partners to understand the thinking behind this, and he said:“We can always persuade people to plant trees. But they would cut them anyways to farm. Instead, we have designed a system that rewards people for conserving natural resources. We train farmers in climate smart, sustainable agriculture techniques and provide market access. With income visibility, the farmers are incentivised to conserve”.
I loved this pivot from traditional models of conservation, and it got me thinking. Telling people not to cut trees didn’t address the root cause of their action: poverty. Who would think of planting trees when there is no food on the table? Who would think about the environmental effects of burning land when they can’t send their children to school?
Humans have a hierarchy of needs. This social enterprise understood this hierarchy and designed a system using the right incentives to mobilize the community which resulted in conservation of natural resources, increased food security and improved livelihoods. Perfect!
If I were to extend this approach to a macro level, hierarchy of needs is as much a reality for organisations as it is for humans. Every institution has a code it follows. An unalterable code that is built into its DNA. And it is important to be aware of this hierarchy when we think of collaborations. Especially collaborations between the private and the public sector, which are driven by the concept of the “common objective” which means bringing together different players in the ecosystem to pursue a common goal. The goal being solving a specific social problem.
But to me, the critical question has always been- Does the “common objective” narrative really work? Does it help to bridge the gap between the private and public sector, such that they can work together with the same motivations? I think not. I have worked on both the sides and have seen the invisible walls that exist between the two.
So I say, how about we recognise the organizational hierarchy of needs and flip the ‘common objective’ narrative? How about we bring together different actors to follow their primary objectives or what I call, their ‘uncommon objectives’, but the act of coalescing meets a social objective? How about we place everyone’s interests first to incentivize collaborations that result in social impact?
Imagine this. A social enterprise, through deep community engagement, creates a last mile distribution network to deliver essential medicines in rural parts of South India. But it doesn’t have the resources to procure the medicines. A pharma company on the other hand has the resources but it doesn’t have last mile access to this rural community. They join hands but with different or ‘uncommon’ objectives. One with the social objective of providing access to essential medicines and the other with the economic objective of penetrating an untapped market. But the collaboration ultimately results in the provision of life saving drugs to the underserved.
Win-win, don’t you think?
