Hi everybody - it’s Andrew Benedict-Nelson, your social impact coach, back with another way to think differently about any problem you are working on. Subscribe if you’d love to receive an exercise like this every week.
These are the same kinds of exercises I use with clients as I help them realize social impact — if that piques your interest, just hit reply and we can talk about it.
Think about the variety of people and organizations who are trying to solve the same problems you are. Now imagine that some outside entity is somehow buying them all up. Play these game even if the majority of entities in your space are nonprofits or other entities that are traditionally “not for sale,” like governments or churches. For example, you might imagine that the outside entity is acquiring key resources or offering huge salaries that lure away all your industry’s top talent. Who might be going on such a spending spree and why?
(By the way, on the small chance that this actually happening to you, this exercise will still benefit you. But first stop and make sure you have all the facts about the acquisitions that are taking place, especially what is motivating them.)
If you’re anything like me, your first instinct was probably to imagine some competitor or villain paying big bucks to silence you and all your peers. But set that aside for a moment — almost nobody buys organizations just to shut them down. Instead, even if you imagined this buyer as someone you don’t like, try to articulate the value they might see in these acquisitions. How might they explain their value to a colleague or outside investor? How might they see their value differently from the way you do?
Chances are that you imagined an entity with some connection to your current field spending all money. Now imagine someone from a really different background, industry, or part of the world acquiring organizations, resources, or personnel. Make the story as strange as you can imagine. What value might these curious outsiders see in your organization or the other people in your world?
Now let’s consider best-case and worst-case scenarios. It’s probably easy to imagine that this sort of consolidation would make your problem worse or lead to other negative outcomes. Describe them specifically. Then push yourself to imagine a world where the spending spree somehow makes things better or even solves your social problem entirely. How might that happen?
This exercise is useful because it forces us to apply a different conception of value to the people, organizations, and resources in our world. Chances are that the robber barons aren’t coming to buy up your sector anytime soon. But take a moment to ask about the form of value you imagined outsiders discovering in your field. Are there are any opportunities to leverage that value in the real world? What new opportunities or alliances might it unlock?
That’s it! If you want to share any thoughts or feelings these questions evoked, just reply to this e-mail or comment below.
This exercise was developed using the parthood lens. It’s one of six core questions I use with clients to help realize new insights and unlock creative thinking.