NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - The Often Missing Component of a BoP Venture: Humility - Comments

Telemedicine and Telehealth

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The Humility Advantage

Jeff Mowatt — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:31:31 -0500

Motivational speaker Jeff Mowatt, who is no relation but happens to share the same name, has advocated the advantage of humility for some years. http://www.jeffmowatt.com/articles/humilityadvantage.html Why should social business be any different? Jeff

Great point

Moses Lee — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:49:47 -0500

I think this is an excellent point, Mike.

Humble Inventors

Mike Heiss — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:53:57 -0500

I believe a little more humility is required when we decide where to allocate our resources for design and investment. For example, it seems like every year there are 5 new designs for water filters that are going to “provide clean drinking water to millions of people in poverty.” Finding a new way to purify water is attractive, and the inventor will probably get his or her name in a few newspapers and magazines. However, how often are we reinventing the wheel? Perhaps rather than spending time and money in wealthy countries making new designs, we could actually implement and scale some of the previous designs. This would require some humility, since the inventor would still get all of the credit, not the implementer. Take the biosand filter for example. This technology has been around for hundreds of years and can be constructed with local materials and labor in a developing country. The technology is available but not in the hands of those who need it. In addition, what good is pure drinking water if a person still eats with fecally contaminated hands? Improving the health of those in poverty requires “rolling up our sleeves” in the longer and less glamorous tasks of education and sanitation (constructing pit toilets, etc). We must humble ourselves to realize that problems such as poor health from contamination will not be solved in a design lab in Colorado or California, but rather with local and personal connections with the BoP.

Multifaceted Situation

Moses Lee — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:24:47 -0500

Going along this subject, I think it's critical to see poverty more than simply an issue of money - and our BoP approaches need to embody more than just trying to sell stuff to the poor. A lot of the work that we're doing at WDI is in an effort to try and figure out what are the real impacts of our poverty alleviation work, both the intentional and unintentional.

Global consumerism

Meredith Gossland — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:29:44 -0500

I think it is critical that everyone watch the video The Story of Stuff! To me it is the most profound yet easy to understand video ever published on the absolute urgency of rethinking globalization!It is a 20 minute video but well worth the watching. Thinking that the answer to poverty is profits is ok.....except when it really means profits for global corporations. The return to local economics is absolutely essential for the survival of the planet.It also means the end to disposable everything from plastic shopping bags to paper plates. Micro Enterprise and local economy can help end poverty but the bigger race is to save the planet and that means that every business needs to be concerned with its ecological impact. Please please please watch this video if you are thinking profits are solutions.
Find more videos like this on Earth Day

What is the end goal?

Moses Lee — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:17:37 -0500

I agree with you, Jane. To say that the poor need to become "like us" would not be the end goal of poverty alleviation. You raise a good point and I will probably write some thoughts on this subject on a later post. Also, thanks for sharing you own thoughts!

On learning humility...

Brian McCarthy — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:37:02 -0500

I've discovered a 'foolproof' way of gaining humility while working in the BoP. Steps: 1. Start a company that serves the BoP 2. Make some embarrassing mistakes That's It! Cheers.

Is reducing world poverty the end goal?

Jane Porter — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:43:08 -0500

Great post. I wanted to add something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I agree that attacking world poverty with profits is the way to go, the goal can't be to just help developing countries achieve the same lifestyle as developed. That’s a disaster in the making. And the answer is not so simple either. Our rich lifestyles are contagious. Once developing countries start having money, they’ll want to imitate western consumption patterns, and businesses will surely make that an easy process. I made a full post on the topic here. -end-goal/...

The Often Missing Component of a BoP Venture: Humility

Moses Lee — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:26:30 -0500

"We must imagine a world which combines in equal measure economic development and eradication of poverty, ecological stewardship and social justice. We must harness the forces of globalization to create this outcome. We have to imagine this future. If we cannot imagine it, we cannot create it. We cannot create this world if we cannot imagine it. I do hope that we can bring to this task our collective imagination, passion, courage, humanity, humility and intellect. We cannot expect less of ourselves." - CK Prahalad

Last year, I had the chance to listen to CK Prahalad give his lecture entitled, "Democratizing Commerce" at the University of Michigan. He urged the audience to push for a globalization that benefits all, particularly the poor. I listened with great intent and thought that his final comments of the talk were quite profound, particularly related to BoP strategies.
A few thoughts on what Prahalad suggests as the building blocks for business leaders seeking to create a more inclusive global economy:

Imagination: Creating BoP ventures that serve the poor entails having the eyes to see what could be in an environment often neglected and left for dead.
Passion: This is the fuel that keeps BoP entrepreneurs up late at night, fighting against all odds, and refusing to bow down to the complexities and challenges of creating enterprises that serve and employ the poor.
Courage: When entering communities of the poor, a BoP entrepreneur must be willing to accept the inherent risk that comes with serving the poor, seeing the failure that may come as a step in the right direction rather than a signal to give up and go home.
Humanity: Whether you are the privileged elite at the ToP or the poorest of the poor at the BoP, we all share one thing in common: our humanity. Since the beginning of time, we humans have lived in the pursuit of purpose, significant and meaningful relationships, fulfillment, happiness, and longevity. The fact that some of us have been given unbelievable opportunities and privilege is grace. By grace I mean that which we do not deserve but we receive anyway. It is critical in our pursuit of poverty alleviation that we from the ToP develop what Jacqueline Novogratz from Acumen Fund calls "moral imagination," or the ability to empathize with the poor and to place ourselves in their shoes so that we can "make tough decisions in the name of the greater good."
Intellect: Bill Gates, in his Harvard commencement speech in 2007, reflected, "The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century – which is to surrender to complexity and quit." The issue of poverty is highly complex and needs our collective thinking and brainpower in order to bring forth true transformation.

Now, I'd like to expound more on the subject of humility because I think this is the one characteristic that is the most elusive, as it cannot be obtained through effort, work, or education. The reason it is so difficult to obtain is because the mere desire for it precludes one from having it. Have you ever heard a person state, "I have finally become a humble person!" The statement alone is a signal that humility has not been gained.

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