Social Venture Founders – setting values, building culture, and the extension and evolution of self

Founders of social ventures are driven by a sense of urgency to affect positive impact in the world. Their attitude is perhaps best summed by the saying of 19^th century British politician Benjamin Disraeli: “Life is too short to be little.” They conjure up big audacious visions that attracts others to work for that cause with high intrinsic motivation. As social venture startups grow, the founders’ values, whether implicit or explicit, take on a life of their own within the organization. Their actions build a culture that provides ques for other employees’ behavior. In that sense, the social venture becomes an extension of the founder’s self. Therefore, it is important for founders to be mindful of their values and how congruent their actions are with them. But what if what is important for the founder is not to be mindful of self today, but what one could become in the future?

Stating values for a startup is important. Corporations do it all the time. But their actions sometimes belie those proclaimed values. Remember Enron? It had a 64-page Code of Ethics manual and among its four core values was: Integrity. Yet, Enron’s scandal has made it synonymous with anything but integrity. What shaped employees behavior was not the explicitly stated values, but the implicit values in the culture shaped by leadership’s actions. As the Journal of Values Based Leadership puts it, “While senior leadership worked to create a statement of core values that upheld the highest ethical standards, their actions shaped a culture that would not meet these standards.”

Although we embody our values, they are difficult to state and rank “core” ones. Take a look at How to Find Your Values, where you will find a list of 50 values, Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues, and other resources. But values cannot be represented by rigid words. You can put them into sentences, or build context around them. Take for example the values of Social Ventures Partners- Tucson, where there is a description for each of the following values: engaged venture philanthropy; entrepreneurial spirit, community and collaborative action; lifelong learning; and mutual respect. Or consider those of 500 Startups: be bold, be humble; move fast, break things; challenge yourself, and others; be diverse, be diversified; have fun, make money. Values are presented differently, so state yours your own way.

I am a fan not only of stating values, but of the Values-Driven Leadership literature as a whole. Here is a good read on the framework with visual representation. A social venture founder takes an important leadership role that embodies implicit values. Leadership actions will build the culture that trumps explicit values. Those values should be mindful not only of the area of impact, but also of employees. As the founder of Seventh Generation says “Your employees are one of the key stakeholders at a social enterprise, so make sure that your values are reflected internally as well".

My interest in this may reflect that I am personally motivated more by affiliation than by achievement or power, as per the Human Motivation Theory (check out what drives you). I am also a firm believer that through trials and tribulations of founding a social venture, founders evolve. While focused on achieving goals, they should be mindful of their personal being through that evolution. As T. S. Elliot is quoted to have said “The journey, not the destination matters...” (and if you like poetry, read Ithaka for why that is so). The values one holds today are a great start, but what really matters is: what are the values that will help me withstand the journey and become an even better person. Not only what is my vision for the social venture, but what is my vision of my evolved self? Jim Rohn explained it so well: “The greatest value in life is not what you get, the greatest value in life is what you become.” What are the values which drive you now, but which will help you become a better person, while in the process building by your actions an organizational culture that affects positive impact?