Is Lean Impact the answer to innovating for radically greater results? It’s a vital part of understanding social innovation and a compelling new model with non profits in mind.
________
Innovating for purpose is oodles more difficult than innovating for profit. While businesses can bear down on profit and focus on product or service, beyond-profit or social purpose organisations tend to operate in more complex environments, with multiple stakeholders and beneficiaries, and with causal factors, resource constraints and risks that would make company leaders weep. Yet few would disagree that given the scale and intractability of many of the social challenges we face, greater innovation is necessary in spades. So why has purposeful innovation not had the attention it deserves?
In her book "Lean Impact: how to innovate for radically greater good", Ann Mei Chang sets out to illustrate why we must do more to help charities, social enterprises and beyond profit organisations fully understand and embrace social innovation - where the value accrues mostly to society - and adopt it as a holistic growth engine for their organisations rather than something tactical or project-based. We must do more to equip them with the best methodologies for increasing their impact and moving the needle. That way we can all shift from doing the good we can to the maximum good possible.
Innovation Is the Path, Impact Is the Destination
When Ann Mei Chang made her switch from 20 years of Silicon Valley and the American bigco fast lane (think Google, Apple, Intuit) to social good, she became convinced that innovating for good could be better, more transformative and more far-reaching. Utilising her experiences working at USAID while helping a wide range of non-profits across the world, she developed a practical model that borrows the best of lean innovation and merges it with social impact. Lean Impact is the story of her framework and its application in case studies ranging from orangutans to solar lighting.
Ann Mei puts forward a framework for social good more convincing than any I have found in my 28 years making stuff that works and matters at companies, charities and startups. There are tweaks that I would make - especially to how we transform ourselves and our organisation cultures to enable us to achieve more with less - but that is for another day and my own emerging framework.
I owe a huge mojo-style thank you to Ann Mei’s work and can highly recommend her book alongside her videos and other content. Without a shadow of doubt, her vision ansd enthusiasm helped me transition back to the social good sector and create an aligned personal and professional Lean Impact mission for myself.
So here are her main ideas to get you thinking!
Think Big
Ann Mei advises that we “think big” to bring about successful solutions to the social challenges that we face. By looking at the larger picture and envisaging social change at the highest level of the problem, however daunting a task it may seem, a greater number of people could be helped than when focusing only on conservative goals. Thinking big is certainly not new. But how big should nonprofits thinking really get? Ann Mei describes it as asking yourself the question: “are we trying to empty the ocean with a spoon?”
Chang currently sees a concerning mismatch between the scale of global problems and the strategies being deployed to solve them. Social good organisations tend to neglect the "audacious goal" and look more at what seems possible. This results in trying to “do some good” when they should be aiming to completely eradicate a problem that impacts a large number of people. Only by setting a big goal that matches the scale of the problem they’re facing, can they truly make the best impact upon it. Significant results aren’t achieved by unclear and reigned in expectations or convenient milestones - but by goals of great ambition that are also clearly articulated, specific, measurable, and actionable. It is exponential rather than linear or incremental thinking that really cuts a new cloth. Incremental is satisfied with 10%. Exponential is out for 10X.
"If both your problem and solution are well understood, you can simply execute on a defined plan. On the other hand, when the solution is unclear and the needs are vastly underserved, we must take greater risk, set higher ambitions, and test multiple alternatives.
- Ann Mei Chang
Ann Mei is aware that in a large number of non profit organisations audacious thinking can get choked off by tight budgets and insufficient manpower. She urges that while looking at the whole problem is important, moving the actual needle is likely to be achieved in collaboration with others and across sectors. In other instances there will need to be policy and system change. Still, each organisation can begin by setting out their vision of long-term change. The journey towards that change will be one of increments, with each stage leading or contributing to the final change, or it is not worth doing. Testing multiple ideas, understanding your customers, beneficiaries or service users intimately, focusing on the value you uniquely bring, and taking some calculated risks, is the best way to maximise your chances of achieving your ambitions and innovating along the way. This is the optimal way to build on each of your achievements towards radical transformation.
And the horizon for thinking big? Ann Mei suggests 10 years. Sounds rather like a Theory of Change doesn't it?
Start Small
Thinking big doesn’t mean that you have to tackle that enormous issue in one fell swoop. After all, if there was an easy fix to the problem, wouldn’t someone have made it already? By starting smaller, minimal resources such as funding and manpower are less of a problem. It makes perfect sense to start small by designing solutions and testing their results in context with your customer or user. This is what Ann Mei calls the Value > Growth > Impact hypotheses. The job of the social impact organisation is to solve each circle in order to reach the middle sweet spot - the social innovation that tackles the problem at scale.
She suggests making small changes first to test out the principles or assumptions behind your solutions, and to measure how successful these changes have been. With each incremental change, the organisation can learn and adapt the model, and slowly chip away at the larger issue in more manageable chunks. The aim is always to fix the larger issue with small, consistent and trackable changes, and to alter what you do based upon what you’ve found out. This is known as the “build > measure > learn" feedback loop, directly derived from the Lean Startup way. The lean part is where real-time customer feedback and trackable data reveals what verifiable impact your solution and interventions are having so that you can map that back to the big picture you began with.
[see here for a 1 page synopsis of the lean startup model and principles]
It's good to remember that the winning solution is unknown. It is your task to eliminate uncertainty and work smarter not harder. The beauty of working lean lies in how you validate each step of learning. No longer do you have to figure it all out on your own. Continuous improvement lets you enjoy the journey and celebrate each small gain as a win for social change.
And what do you do if you learn that what you are doing is wrong or has failed in some way? You process, pivot or persevere. Your accumulate learning will let you choose a better path or double down.
Relentlessly Seek Impact
The socially-focused organisation does not rely merely on profits and growth to prove its effectiveness. It relies on a set of metrics that show real change is occurring and making a contribution towards solving the bigger problem. 'Impact' essentially shows whether what your social purpose or non profit organisation is doing works, but it also shows how it does that in the best way possible.
For this to happen there are two 'innovation metrics' that Ann mei describes:
1. Unit Cost: cost per unit of intervention
2. Unit Yield: social impact return per unit of intervention
There is exponential growth when the unit cost goes down or the unit yield goes up. This means that you are effective and becoming more so ie. you are experiencing optimised growth by offering the most cost-effective solution with the greatest impact. Bear in mind that your cost-effectiveness may not be where you want it to be initially, but impoves over time and with the right attention. It is not enough to make a difference. You should also consider the value for money relative to the alternatives.
“If you can’t do it better than the other groups out there, you shouldn’t be competing for scarce funding and attention.”
- Ann Mei Chang
Ann Mei is as clear about the need to eliminate waste in the arena of social good as any proponent of the lean startup movement. Indeed we could easily agree the moral imperative to do more with less is greatest in the social impact space. She talks about the need for non-profit and social purpose organisations to focus in a business-like fashion on finding "engines of growth". Funding can only go so far in initially de-risking or facilitating a new idea, project or innovation. It seldom offers the wherewithal for ideas to pivot or scale so it is important for you to take that long term view, be audacious, and empty your ocean with a spoon.
[This link to the book is via World of Books, B-corp and ethical retailer ]
In summary:
If you thing big, start small and relentlessly pursue impact you will set yourself up to achieve radically greater social good
Lightweight experiments, fast feedback loops and validated learning are the ingredients for lean learning
Everyone is an entrepreneur when they allow themselves the right mindset, creative work space and practical methods and tools to innovate
Fall in love with your pblem and not your solution and you will go far!
Afterword -
To the leaders and changemakers reading this:
I adore your pure, unwavering dedication to serving other people. For me, that is a wonderful world to live in and it is precisely why I have chosen to roam in your sphere (I am terrible at analogies). I show up to support you whilst you are tenaciously solving problems.
My aim is for us to work together to recognise how to get the best from your personal and organisational resources. We will create smaller tasks that you will be able to put into action immediately. You will test many brilliant ideas and lightweight experiments to find out what actually works. You will learn how to grow and scale your efforts in such a way that will benefit the greater good, whilst maximising everybody's energy and effort. You will learn how to get out of the way of yourself and others and how to "loosen the lasso without losing the horse". You will enjoy the journey more. I’m excited, are you?
コメント