The Dynamic Tension of Running a Business and Starting a Movement

We have an interesting and often challenging dynamic in our work at Values Coach Inc. On the one hand, we are working to build a successful and sustainable business. As the good sisters said of the hospitals they founded, no margin no mission.

On the other hand, we are striving to start a movement – a movement were people do a better job of living their values; where they empower themselves to take responsibility for their futures and stop waiting for someone else to give them that power; and where we stop tolerating the incivility, bullying, and other forms of toxic emotional negativity that have become so prevalent in our world today.

Here's the dynamic tension: to run a successful business, you need to maintain control over your product and distribution, and charge customers enough to cover your costs and provide a margin to find future growth and development. But to spark a movement, you need to substantially give up control of your product in this distribution and often be willing to give things away for free.

In their book Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras wrote that successful companies do not give into “the tyranny of or” but rather insist upon “the genius of and.” At Values Coach, we are constantly seeking the “and” formula for sparking movement while also managing the business.

Did you see Derek Sivers’s 3-minute Ted Talk on how to start a movement? Click here for a link. In Derek’s video, the shirtless dancing guy is just a loan not until he attracts a first follower. It is the first follower more than the lone nut leader who attracts the second and third followers. And the new people tend to emulate those first followers, not the loan nut. That, Sivers says, is how you start a movement.

So, one of the first signs that and incipient movement is gaining traction is to see first – and second and third – followers making it their own. The picture above is from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). It was sent to me by Dr. Carol Pasquariello, a physician I met when I presented at the 30th annual OR Manager conference in Orlando last month. At CHOP, they obviously work with kids, and thought that a zany lemon would be more fun than a grumpy pickle.

I wrote The Pickle Pledge, I launched The Pickle Challenge (which has already raised more than $75,000 for charities), and I own the domain name www.PicklePledge.com. As a businessman, I might have insisted that I approve any use of our images and content in advance, and that Values Coach be paid a royalty for each use of our intellectual property.

But as a movement sparker, I could not be more delighted to see people adopting my work to better fit their needs, even if they don't seek my permission or pay me for it. They are, after all, the lone nuts who are introducing the concepts into their organizations, and they know better than I do what it will take for them to attract their own first followers.

When someone tells me that they've seen a Pickle-Free Zone door hanger or The Pickle Pledge posted at an organization I know Values Coach has not (yet anyway) done business with, I celebrate. Like every other business, including those that are not for profit, we must pay the bills (no margin omission). But over time, I’ve found that if we focus intently on the mission – on sparking the movement – the margin will come (albeit sometimes grudgingly).

If you want to build a more positive culture of ownership, I can help. I've written six books on the subject (two of them with my friend and co-author Bob Dent). I conduct intensive leadership workshops and inspirational employee assemblies – often in the same visit. You can see more about our process at www.ValuesCoach.com. If you want me to help you optimize a values-based culture in your organization, contact Michelle Arduser, our Director of Client Services, at 319-389-3889 or Michelle@ValuesCoach.com and she will take great care of you.

But if you just want to join the movement for more positive and more Values-guided world, by all means: proceed until apprehended because no one at Values Coach is going to apprehend you. But please share with us what you're doing so we can help you to promote it.