Change Starts…

Change starts with a small group of people who are willing to go out on a limb to show others that their small, impossible idea will work.

 

Kerosene lamps kill and disfigure thousands of people in the developing world.  Kerosene is cheap in the short run, it is available, and it is proven.  It provides light at night.  The risk, although substantial, is accepted. 

 

Solar lamps do not kill or disfigure.  They are more expensive in the short run, they are not readily available, and, in the eyes of the “new” market in the developing world, they are unproven.  Why would you spend a significant portion of your resource, in this case income, on something that is unproven?  When every penny is worth an ounce of food, the incentive to risk is low.

 

D.Light and SociaLite are companies that provide solar lamps to people living in poverty in the developing world.  Wherever they introduce their product, they face an uphill climb.  They have to unseat the incumbent, kerosene, with a new, unproven and even magical solution that supposedly provides reliable light at night from the sun.  That’s quite a hurdle to overcome. 

 

But they do overcome it.  And when they do, something happens.  People begin to see how spending money today can save them money tomorrow.  By investing in solar lamps, a person can have light well into the night, and they can have it without the fear of accidental burning or even death.  They eliminate the additional heat generated by burning kerosene.  They eliminate the soot in their homes.  Parents no longer have to wonder if the soot that covers the faces of their children each morning will harm them in the long run.  All of that goes away.  It doesn’t take them long to realize that an extra, difficult investment today will reduce the cost of medical care in the future.  Lamps aren’t the only example.

 

Water Health International operates small water treatment stations throughout India.  When they started in India in 2005, they operated one station.  People were reluctant to pay money for water, a commodity they could get for free from the local well.  Government efforts at education, though, helped the majority of the public understand that unclean water could make them sick, so when WHI stuck with their operation, the cost of local medical care started to go down.  People were spending more on water, but they were spending less on medicine each month.  They were also spending less time away from work due to illness.  They started feeling better…just feeling better.  By the end of 2009, WHI had nearly 300 stations.  Over 200 additional stations are planned for 2010.  And, most shockingly, at least 2 other competitors were in operation by the end of 2009.  Their entrepreneurship created a whole new industry in the country.

 

When we perceive that we have a scarcity of a resource, we resist expending that resource on something that isn’t guaranteed.  Nobody wants to waste that which they believe is scarce.  We all want those guarantees.  Of course, there are no real guarantees.  Any guarantee is a fallacy, a falsehood.  All we really have is a perception that risk is mitigated.  That’s it.  Yet, we buy into guarantees all the time, as if a document or a signature is good for something.  Well, they aren’t.  There really are no guarantees. 

 

Change starts with a small group of people who are willing to go out on a limb to show others that their small, impossible idea will work.

 

If you want to launch your small, impossible idea, find your followers.  If you can’t find them, then build your own tribe.  Find the people that you trust.  Strengthen your network.  Your network is all you really have. 

 

Invest, not with money but with a piece of yourself.  It’s worth more than gold.  Your time and energy, your trust and friendship…those are things that no economic downturn can spoil.  You can’t ruin that when the market crashes.  Trust is the most valuable currency we have.  Trust is scarce.  We need more of it.  We need a lot more of it.  We need it to fuel our organizations at the macro level, and we need it to fuel our tribes at the micro level.   

 

Change starts with a small group of people who are willing to go out on a limb to show others that their small, impossible idea will work.

 

Be the one who starts, who isn’t afraid to push an idea forward.  Don’t go it alone.  Build a tribe.  Make a real change.  Make a small, impossible idea a reality.