Soli Ego Gloria

(Last of a Series)
The great grand master Johan Sebastian Bach wrote a little note at the bottom of each of his compositions - Soli Deo Gloria – Glory to God alone. Would that more of us took his approach. Far too often, it's Soli Ego Gloria - To me alone be the glory.

Now before you jump off this page thinking a religious treatise is on its way, you should know that I'm headed for a point more about motives and the mind of the social entrepreneur than I am about God. So let's jump back a step and talk about human motivation.

Like good detective work, one of the keys to understanding human behavior is motivation. If you can figure out what makes a person behave a certain way, you can then understand how they might be able to change that behavior.

Lots of work is being done to understand what motivates entrepreneurs. Surprisingly, even in a for profit venture, is not about the money (ok, it's not ALL aboutthe money).  A lot of it is about ego, the need to control your own fate, and the desire to have an impact. But in all of those cases, the individual is held up as a champion, and the recognition is in and of itself a significant reward. Not to mention that they make a good buck or two along the way.

This ego need becomes a challenge when the work has a social benefit. And much of the cause is the compensation structure of the typical nonprofit. Because the usual Executive Director makes far less than the same job would pay in other sectors, they are forced to seek gratification in other ways. Yet the social structure of the industry is such that the "grand conqueror" path is not available to them. And honestly, most of us are just not capable of the level of self-effacement that old JSB was able to claim. So our old faithful E.D. gets put into a bind - a no win scenario where they end up doing all sorts of weird things to obtain the sort of recognition and personal satisfaction that other sectors commonly feed in other ways – “it's not about me- it's about the mission” (reminds me of that old rule in negotiating: when they say it's not about the money, it's about the money). And the root cause of all this is our own inability to claim the real value of what we produce.

I remember giving a speech to a bunch of social entrepreneurs about two days after Steve Jobs passed away. All the headlines where about how Steve Jobs changed the world. My take was that this group of daring souls did far more to change the world than Steve Jobs ever did. Jobs revolutionized markets, changed an industry, and fundamentally shifted the way we communicate. That's a heck of an accomplishment. But it pales when compared to the fundamental change in the human condition that occurs thousands of times every day in social benefit organizations around the world. 

If we start to claim that value, all of our other issues begin to fade into the background. But to claim that a life is changed is (oddly) not enough. We need to show the real value in that change. For example, the reduced dependence on government support and increased tax revenue that comes about when a homeless person gets a job and can pay for a decent place to live. If we start to think about and talk about the work we do in those terms, we'll get all the attention our egos can handle. And if we can make a stronger practical case for the value we actually create, we can probably earn a few more bucks as well.

Once that happens, I’m willing to bet that all the other silly reindeer games we currently play will no longer be necessary.  

So there you have it. The ultimate root cause of the Nonprofit Martyrdom Syndrome is our own inability to translate our work into terms that can be objectively valued.  The tools for making a more objective value assessment are in our hands. To return to the religious analogy for just a second, the cross we are on is of our own making, and we can climb down anytime we want.

In my next series, we’ll talk about why we don’t measure better. But for now, it’s time to rally. It’s time to stand up and claim our value. Soli Outcome Gloria? Could be, my friend, could be.