The Responsible Entrepreneur: Four Game-Changing Archetypes for Founders, Leaders and Impact Investors

Introduction

Our World Is Calling for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

Great companies start because the founders want to change the world . . . not make a fast buck.

—Guy Kawasaki

Transitions can be agonizing. In recent years, the Western world has found itself at the intersection of multiple major transitions:

Between generations, when young and old try to make sense of each other’s worlds and mostly fail

Between economic cycles, when polarized classes and political parties blame one another and exalt themselves

Between eras, as when Rust Belt industries have given way to ubiquitous information and the death of privacy

As challenging as they may seem on the face of it, these transitions also create an edge, a kind of crucible where small interventions and intelligent choices can bring about big transformations. Within this crucible, the responsible entrepreneur moves behind problems and issues to work on underlying patterns. Raising understanding of how to leverage this work to create global change is the purpose of this book

We are at a time in history when our planet is under siege, communities are filing bankruptcy, and the disparity between rich and poor has widened. From a global perspective, business has been a key contributor to this list of ills. It consumes vast resources, drives the flow of capital, and exerts a high degree of control over labor markets and conditions. Yet for these very reasons, business—especially entrepreneurial business—could just as readily be the instrument for making the world a healthier and more equitable place. That’s why the world needs entrepreneurs who will push against boundaries, challenge sacred cows, and question authority and the status quo in general. In other words, we need entrepreneurs who work the edge to change the game.

The good news is there are an astounding number of people trying to figure out how to make a better world through the way they live their lives and earn their livelihoods. Universities report an explosion in the number of students entering business programs that focus on social change. The stage is set for a revolution in consciousness, but that revolution can’t succeed if it depends on the methods that created the problems in the first place. We need advanced methodologies that are consistent with the more humane world being sought by so many at this time.

A Method to Manage the Madness

For four decades, working in very large multinational corporations and small entrepreneurial enterprises, I was able to codevelop and test such an advanced methodology. I call it responsible business development. At DuPont, a change effort that I helped design led to a revolutionary new way of mining and processing titanium (and associated proprietary technologies) that generated 1,000-percent growth in the business while radically reducing destructive ecological and community impacts. In South Africa in the early 1990s, I collaborated with a team from Colgate Palmolive to help the company successfully transition into a post-apartheid world by using its presence in the country to grow leadership in black townships (while also enjoying a 40-percent growth in revenues). At Seventh Generation, I cocreated a shift in company focus from philanthropy and “doing good” to moving the entire household products industry toward sustainable practices. (These, and a host of other stories, are told in depth in my book The Responsible Business.)

Ironically, most of the business people I have collaborated with started out being “bad” with regard to one or more criteria of social or ecological responsibility. Few, if any, were interested in becoming “good.” They just wanted to be better at being in business. Nevertheless, whenever I engaged them in thinking more systemically about their value-adding processes, their work became increasingly beneficial with regard to the environment and society as a whole—not through philanthropy but as a direct result of business activities.

As powerful as responsible business development has proven to be, I am clear that using it to work one business at a time is too slow. I want as many people as possible to have access to this methodology. I have a strong sense of urgency about the need for profound and rapid change—in the world in general and in business in particular. The key to this change is to cultivate in people everywhere the personal agency to pursue their desire to make a difference so that they, too, can contribute to a society that is healthier for everyone. That’s what this book is for.

Primary Characteristics of the New Entrepreneur

I am a big fan of entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial spirit. At its best, entrepreneurialism combines initiative, innovation, and risk-taking with a desire to bring real value to the world. To do this requires tenaciously challenging the limits (perceived or real) of what is possible. When that tenacity yields a breakthrough, the effect can ripple out far beyond the reach of any individual business.

Responsible entrepreneurs are a special breed. They start out with the idea of changing the game of business itself, to make business a force for making the world a better place. They have the courage to take on what they don’t yet know how to do and the dedication to build the capability to do it. These entrepreneurs are driven by the realization that society and the planet need something big from them and that, if they don’t rise to the challenge, the work may not get done.

Reimagining the World of Entrepreneurship

After years of teaching and studying how systemic change happens, I have been able to organize and make sense of what I have observed by drawing from something my grandfather, Noble Murray, taught me. His heritage and upbringing were Mohawk, and he believed that a healthy tribe could emerge and sustain itself only when four major archetypes—the Warrior, the Clown, the Hunter, and the Headman—were present and working collaboratively. Each archetype informed a unique kind of leadership, and each was necessary for the well-being of the community. I have used these archetypes to illuminate four key frames of reference that are common to all of the entrepreneurial agents of change whom I have encountered.

Leveraging Entrepreneurship to Accelerate Change

It is easy to confuse responsible entrepreneurs with those who wish to make their businesses role models. Good role-model businesses strive to be exemplars of social or environmental responsibility. They seek to do the right thing and thereby inspire others to emulate them. As worthy as this endeavor is, it is not what I am describing here.

Responsible entrepreneurs seek to actually transform industries and society itself. They challenge and refine cultural assumptions, laws, regulations, and even the processes of governance. But this requires them to enlarge their perspectives and their capacities far beyond what is usually required of business leaders. That is, they need to reimagine their role in business and society in order to raise themselves to a level where they can negotiate the internal and external challenges that will inevitably arise at this level of the transformational game. The four archetypes featured in this book are intended to serve as guides and aids for anyone stepping up this new, more demanding way of doing business.

I have directed this book toward entrepreneurs because I believe that they are the ones with the will to work in a sustained way on innovation and transformation. Because healthy economies are critical to bringing about change, the business entrepreneur plays a highly leveraged role. I feel it is increasingly important to engage with entrepreneurs because I observe that far too many of them violate their own values by heedlessly adopting outdated corporate ideas, believing that they have no other choice if they are to succeed. Still, others believe that they need to leave business and take on social advocacy if they are to bring about important changes. These entrepreneurs clearly recognize the power of business to be a destructive force, but they seem to forget that this same power could be used for life-affirming transformation.

This book is also directed toward impact investors, who play a critical role in fostering health-generating businesses. Responsible investors also seek a method to generate new insight into where to invest, how to measure results, and how to advise investees. Too often, the change models offered to investors draw on old thinking and outgrown paradigms. The Responsible Entrepreneur proposes an alternative, systemic approach. I believe that impact investors can greatly leverage the change efforts they support through the use of the leadership archetypes presented here.

Entrepreneurship Is Everyone’s Birthright

Not everyone becomes a global change agent, but I believe that anyone of us can if we strive to. From my perspective, too many people are blind to their own potential and the difference they could make. “Don’t think small,” I want to tell them. “There’s so much to do. We need every one of us to help if we’re going to change all of the games that are at play right now—games that diminish potential for families, communities, nations, and the earth. We must know ourselves to be powerful and self-determining, able to respond to the call for a healthier and more vital society. Even the smallest business has an opportunity to contribute to this important work.

This book is dedicated to the entrepreneurial spirit, wherever it is found. It makes no difference whether you are an entrepreneur in your own company or within a large organization. If you are an impact investor who thinks like an entrepreneur, you can use the frameworks offered here to evaluate and direct your investments to create the greatest benefit to all stakeholders. Entrepreneurialism is a perspective or worldview that can be practiced anywhere.

Responsible Entrepreneurs Rise Above Rugged Individualism

Entrepreneurialism is about personal agency and the development of will. I’m particularly interested in the growth and expression of will in creative enterprise. This is why entrepreneurship matters because human will is a powerful and necessary social force if we are to successfully undertake major change at a global scale.

The idea of the entrepreneur is almost worshipped in the United States. It reflects one of the qualities that make the country unique—a tendency toward rugged individualism. It is associated with the ideas of innovation, creativity, and a willingness to take great risks in pursuit of a dream. The word entrepreneur comes from the French and means an enterprising individual who builds value through initiative or by taking risks. In ordinary conversation, the word is also used to describe a person who launches something new and accepts full responsibility for the outcome.

Around the United States and the world, an exciting upwelling of entrepreneurial spirit seems to be taking place in local and community endeavors, as people who never thought of themselves as entrepreneurs are inspired to take on the role.1 For example, local food enthusiasts are birthing businesses in major cities everywhere, and young people are experimenting with new forms and definitions of business. Meanwhile, crowd-funding has made a big dent in the backlog of startup funding needs; in 2012, it raised over half the capital available on the planet.2 Even recent high unemployment has turned out to have a silver lining, stimulating a host of new start-ups. The next generation of entrepreneurs is at this very moment inventing new products, industries, sources of capital, and models of enterprise. In the process they are creating the necessary proving ground, as well as the competence and confidence, for the emergence of the responsible entrepreneur as a business paradigm for the twenty-first century.

Latent Entrepreneurship Identifiers

The entrepreneurial spirit is a core human trait that shows up wherever personal agency and will are present. Entrepreneurs can be found in all walks of life. Some work for themselves, others work in large organizations, but all of them share certain characteristics:

They care about the whole of something and enjoy developing the acumen needed to work on all parts of a business. Even with regard to those aspects that don’t thrill them, they are tenacious about doing what it takes to get something launched.

They maintain their own motivation, getting stimulus, training, and information when they need it. They work hard to manage their own state and hold a positive attitude.

They are willing to take on big challenges that stretch them beyond what they currently know how to do and to ride the roller coaster of needing to continually rise to the occasion.

These entrepreneurial qualities are latent in all humans. We all have the capacity for agency and learning, for self-management, and for will. For anyone who wants to make a difference in the way businesses affect the world, this book lays out ways to make that aspiration focused and doable. Changing the game is a stretch for anyone, but this book introduces a variety of ordinary people who used their drive to make it happen. The Responsible Entrepreneur offers a blueprint for a new kind of business leadership.

The Responsible Entrepreneur Master Plan

In what follows, you will encounter three distinct windows into the what and how of becoming a responsible entrepreneur:

1. First, I distinguish among four different domains within which you can pursue change. These domains are organized hierarchically into four levels, each of which requires a higher level of commitment and capability than the previous one.

2. Connected to these four domains are four roles that responsible entrepreneurs can play. They are drawn from anthropological research into Native American cultures, and because they have turned out to be universal in human experience, they are described as archetypes.

3. Finally, the stories themselves introduce real business leaders whose lives and experience suggest guiding patterns from which you can invent your own playbook. They are intended to inspire and give companionship along the road.

In Part One, I introduce the archetypes and show how they support the resilience, agility, and leadership needed to accomplish significant change. Then, in Part Two, I introduce four iconic entrepreneurs, each of whom has strongly exhibited the characteristics of one of the archetypes: Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple, adopted the Warrior; Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Companies, has worked from the Clown; Oprah Winfrey, founder of HARPO Productions, has pursued the role of Hunter; and Larry Page, cofounder of Google, Inc., has carried out the work of Headman. I discuss how each of these leaders discovered and grew into their role, becoming increasingly effective at it over time. Acknowledging their imperfections, I also explore the shadow expression of the archetype in their lives, which they must learn to reconcile in order to succeed.

Part Three unpacks the dynamic structure of each archetype—how it works and why. To illustrate, I’ve included the stories of ten entrepreneurs, ordinary people who have produced extraordinary results through their clarity, intention, and dedicated effort. Part Four then talks about how to put it all together, advancing on a path as a responsible entrepreneur.

Each of the entrepreneurs I worked with or interviewed for this book has publicly declared an intention to help change the world. Their efforts, as they would be the first to tell you, are works in progress, but they have also achieved significant results. Between what could and should be, and what is currently possible, lies a space of potentiality into which the responsible entrepreneur continually seeks to stretch and grow.

Business Is a Preeminent Instrument for Global Change

Occasionally entrepreneurs come along who are willing to set their sights on using business as a means to change the world. This enables them to alter the material foundation of our economy, one of the most highly leveraged places from which change arises. One of my aims at this time in my life is to encourage a tidal wave of responsible entrepreneurs so that this way of doing business becomes the norm, not the exception.

“But,” I am often asked, “isn’t improving social or environmental conditions the role of philanthropy?” I believe that as important as philanthropy is, it has been extended and pushed into arenas that are not appropriate to it. This is the direct result of the failure of businesses to take responsibility for the effects of their actions, assuming that others will address any issues created by their thoughtless practices. This is just one more version of outsourcing.

Responsible entrepreneurs see themselves as actors in systems much larger than their immediate businesses and environments. In other words, they view business itself as an instrument for change. All entrepreneurs bring something to the party, but responsible entrepreneurs pursue change on a grand scale; they are interested in more than just their own businesses or communities. They seek the bold, sweeping moves that can benefit nations, ecosystems, and the planet as a whole.

Because of this, responsible entrepreneurs can have a profound effect if they can create the right platform. This requires that they have successful businesses, which provide them with a reliable stream of resources and the credibility that comes from managing large challenges. In addition, they must recognize that innovation can serve the double purpose of securing the success of a business while simultaneously transforming the world.

A Blueprint for Responsible Entrepreneurs to Change the World

This book is filled with stories about extraordinary people who demonstrate that it is possible to change the game for the better. They started out like any of us. They each faced personal obstacles and setbacks, just as you and I must. But they were willing to grow themselves, and that created the people I celebrate in these pages.

I offer this book in the spirit of inspiration as much as instruction. I want it to show how business could and should play a leading role in fostering the social and ecological change that will lead to a healthier and more prosperous future for all. More importantly, I want it to describe the means by which any entrepreneur can aspire to pursue this higher order of work. It is my sincere desire to engage entrepreneurs everywhere in becoming responsible.