How A Small Fish Can Make Big Waves
One Young World
The global Community for young leaders. 2024 Summit: Montréal/Tiohtiá:ke
Dear friend,
I see you. The idealist found their way into a corporate firm, where their vision of how the world should be different from the reality of how things are in their organisation.?
You love your job and the learning it offers, but you also believe some things could and should change regarding how the organisation works. You feel perturbed by what you see and want to do something about it.?
I want to tell you this: It is not only okay but also a good thing. It is critical for every changemaker in an organisation, no matter what tenure or level, to try to shape their actions and practices to align with their vision of a kinder, better world.
In this article, I am sharing two times I tried to bring change in a large organisation I was part of - one that failed and one that worked well - and what you can do practically to give your actions a fighting chance of having an impact.
Tale #1 - When ‘Choices’ faded away
At the orientation of my first day as a Junior Associate at McKinsey & Company in 2015, we found plastic bottles on every table. A fellow new joiner, Chayan, and I needed clarification on this problem. “If we want to drink water, there is no way to do it but by using plastic bottles.”?
To change this, we created a WhatsApp group called “Choices” to encourage eco-friendly choices in the organisation. Many joined in, and exuberant, we collected more ideas.?
And then… nothing. Life and its pressures caused my first stint at attempting to be a changemaker to end.
(To the firm’s credit, they piloted glass bottles in one office location and rolled it out in all the offices a year later.)
Tale #2 - When we sprinted to impact and beyond
Fast forward one year. My colleague, Naveen, sent our cohort a survey asking if we believed the organisation was doing enough to support local social enterprises, initiatives or NGOs. I cared about this too, so the survey led us to talk, and together, we hashed out a new fledgling initiative, ‘Social Sprints.’
With the burnt fingers of Choices behind me, I was doubly mindful as we designed Sprints. The idea was simple: Social Sprints was a platform to bring the talent and skills of the associates at McKinsey to social businesses and initiatives pro bono, 3x3x3 - three associates working three to four hours a week for three months on a strategic problem of a social enterprise.??
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Over the next two years, Social Sprints enabled 75 employees to volunteer their expertise to over 20 NGOs across India. In time, we also got involved with the office's flood relief efforts and eventually became the go-to duo for routing anything social impact in nature to action via Sprints.?
Today, Naveen and? I don’t work at McKinsey, but we both carry the legacy of Social Sprints.
Because of Sprints, I represented 麦肯锡 globally at the One Young World Summit in 2019. Sprints also brought me in touch with Peepul, a visionary education non-profit I was taken by.?
I joined Peepul as the COO and Director-Scale Programmes. At Peepul , I was privileged to support the multifold growth of the organisation’s breadth and depth of impact by partnering with governments to deliver improvement to public schools in India. Our work impacted 300,000 teachers and 10 million students and got recognition through the @Commonwealth Education Awards for Innovation in 2022.
What this means for you:
I’ve now been a serial intrapreneur in that sense - with Choices that fizzled out and Social Sprints that took off. In the years that followed, as part of the leadership team at Peepul, I saw many early-tenure associates with a passion for strengthening the organisation.?
And so, with the power of hindsight and pattern recognition, for those idealists, dreamers and active changemakers who are thinking about creating or strengthening your initiatives within a large and layered organisation,? here are the top 10 things I have learnt that might help you along the way:
When you begin:
To some extent, I credit the learning, reflections and connections I made through Choices and Social Sprints for the path I have then walked down of a full-time career in the development sector. I know you will have your own incredible and unique journey of impact - and as with any journey, it all begins with that first step.
So, go forth, my friend, and give it your best shot. You may be a small fish, but you can make big waves. I wish you the best!
Girish Ananthanarayana is currently the founder and curator of “Raahi: Impact Journeys”, watch his latest talk ‘Career Choices, Social Impact and Remembering Dumbledore’ on his YouTube channel on social impact perspectives.
Co-Founder and CEO at One Young World
10 个月Such a great list of points/landmarks to make sure you actually get somewhere with your initiative/project. Fascinating always to see a 'fail' learn through to real 'success'. Love it.
Industrial Designer I Biodesigner I New Product Development
1 年Some serious good pointers on succeeding in your ventures ????