ADP Founder, Will Marre, Interviewed in Forbes about Careers

I think a lot of us have the wrong idea of what it takes to make a big impact on the world.  We don’t have to relinquish all material belongings, retreat to Africa, and hold crying babies to make a difference.  Those that are making the greatest impact are making money at the same time.  That’s right.  They’re making money by saving the world.  It’s actually the strategic thing to do.  It makes solutions to our problems sustainable and scaleable.  It helps us solve big problems faster.  I call it socially strategic enterprise.  What a great idea.

I was recently interviewed for the Forbes magazine article, “Get Paid to Be a Do-Gooder.”

*Taken from Forbes SLIDE SHOW

The article discusses the growing trend of people looking for careers that benefit humanity and the environment.  These opportunities are indeed endless.  As I suggested to Forbes, social entrepreneurship is a vastly growing field where entrepreneurs base their business on offering products or services that directly benefit society.  Great examples are the South African Roundabout that provides rural areas with water pumps driven by a human-powered merry-go-round mechanism and makes money selling advertisements on its water towers.

Also, the Grameen Bank, who generates a strong profit giving microloans to the poor and has created a worldwide movement toward self-reliance.

Of course you don’t have to be an entrepreneur to have a fulfilling, socially responsible career.  There are huge opportunities right now in the non-profit sector for strong business-minded individuals as non-profits are trying to come up with strategies to create sustainable income from either products or services to support their mission. What’s needed are people who are skilled in marketing, web development, IT, SEO, finance, etc.

Non-profits are not in short supply of people who want to go to Africa and hold babies, console mothers, and improve orphanages.  What they are in short supply of are people who can create an infrastructure to scale up systematic solutions and create sustainable income strains.

And finally, if you’re not in a position in which you can start a socially strategic enterprise or work for a non-profit, transform your current job into one that brings you meaning and satisfaction. Your opportunity is to just start seeing your current job as a means to reduce waste, promote responsibility, help your community or innovate new, sustainable value.

Yes, I know, the job market is tough right now, but this unemployment crisis has brought each of us to a moment of truth. We can either use it as an excuse to make our work meaningless, merely a paycheck, or we can see it as an opportunity to make our work count for something bigger than ourselves.

As I tell audiences around the world, it’s an exciting time to be alive.  We can save the world and make a sustainable living doing it.  We can have a fulfilling career and make a difference.  Our difference.  Just start.

Welcome to a New America

The blast damage of what is turning out to be The Great Recession has united the mindscape of our workplace and marketplace in unexpected common desires of Baby Boomers (age 50 to 65) and Generation Y (age 20-35).  Yes, the generation gap is transforming like a giant, cultural smoothie of unifying values and opinions blended by our new technologies and flavored by the fruit of our shared concern for the future.  This is what research reported in two articles in the Harvard Business Review says (How Gen Y Will Reshape Your Agenda and Understanding the Post Recession Consumer).  The implications are potent for all of us seeking to make a living amidst the economic violence of our new economy.

In the workplace the new trends are turbocharged because Boomers expectations of working long, hard and loyally for a secure retirement has been vaporized.  Meanwhile Boomer children (Gen Y) have seen what work first, last and always priorities have brought their parents, so they want to create a sustainable work life that supports their personal interests and family aspirations even as they launch their careers.  In fact, they don’t view their job as a career.  Instead building a livable, integrated life is their career.  This translates to the mass of America’s working population wanting three things from the work place.

1. Personal flexibility. After health care the most sought after work benefit is flex-time and telecommuting.  Both Boomers and Gen Y want to be held accountable for results not face time.  Employees increasingly feel that the 24/7 connection of their digital leashes work both ways.  If you can email me or text me at home, then I should be able to work from home at least some of the time.  Today, time is the valued currency.
2. Personal meaning. 21st century workers want to contribute to a better world.  This begins with eliminating waste, being environmentally responsible, recycling and a host of “green” practices that make companies feel like good work places.  What’s in most demand are jobs with companies whose core business model benefits humanity or the environment.  The application pool of engineers who want to work on GE’s eco-imagination products is steadily swelling as is the number of advertising professionals who want to work on accounts of the most socially responsible companies.  This trend toward meaningful work is as true for Boomers seeking to leave a final legacy, as it is for their children intent on building a sustainable future.
3. Social Connection. Boomers have worked so hard that they have let their social support networks wither.  No more.  Following the example of Gen Y, they are suddenly investing more in friendships and family.  They are the fastest growing user group on Facebook and more and more Boomers are working with 25 year olds at work on a collegial basis.  In fact, the new business rage is “mutual mentoring” which involves Boomers sharing their wisdom, skill and connections with 20-something’s who are teaching them the wonders of emerging technologies.

In a recent YouTube video I posted, Job Creation for Today’s Unemployment and Uncertain Times, I discuss signposts to look for when searching for a 21st century career that are expanded upon in my book, Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner.

Meanwhile in the market place the length of our financial famine is likely to permanently alter what we buy, how we buy and how much we buy.  Gone are the days of the insane consumer.  They’re gone because our money has been caught in an industrial strength shredder.  Incomes and credit are unlikely to grow for some time so consumers of all ages are:

1. Simplifying, reusing, substituting and generally discovering that often less is more Eating at home vs. out saves money and often increases family connections.
2. Choosing carefully by consulting the bazillion consumer reviews on the Internet.  Brand loyalty for loyalty’s sake is dying.  Quality, functionality and responsibility are thriving.  New brands are being created almost over night based on value more than bling.
3. Going green on the cheap by simply buying less.  The strong consumer trend in all developed countries toward environmentally friendly products looks to be irreversible in the long term.  As price and quality issues get sorted out with these products, consumers are feeling that wasting less and living more leads to a wonderful life.  The simplest way to reduce congestion and pollution is drive less or reduce our landfill trash by drinking our tap water.  A recent poll revealed that 47 percent of us believe we already have all the things we need to live a good life.  This belief has nearly doubled in the past three years.

Who’s doing this?  According to a broad base of consumer research, mostly all of us.  Donald Trump is an irrelevant icon.  Yesterday’s brand.  We, the big WE, rich, poor, working,  not working, young, old are all discovering that our real dreams are realized by timeless values of family, friends, and valuable work.  Will we go back to old addictions of work without end and debt without satisfaction?  I hope not.  This may be a harder path forward, but it’s real.  The past was fake.

What’s the best thing we can do? Perhaps the most powerful trend coming out of our economic turmoil is that we can’t consume our way to prosperity.  What we were doing as a society was unsustainable.  So decide what is.  What is a sustainable workstyle and lifestyle for you for the long haul?  What is your sustainable job of the future?  Many of us became serial consumers because we were bored.  If we deliberately filled our days with more satisfying work, our bodies with more healthy food, our minds with more inspiring thoughts and our hearts with more loving relationships, how much more would we have?

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GET A SNEAK PEAK OF WILL’S NEW BOOK, Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner

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SELF Reliance is Your Birthright

Recently I was invited to attend the Board of Directors Dinner of the Grameen Foundation.  I was thrilled to be there.  Grameen’s Founder, Muhammad Yunus, has done more to lift people out of poverty than any human in history.  Grameen, which means village, began in the 1970s as a bank making microloans to the deeply and chronically poor of Bangladesh.  Since then Grameen has loaned 8 million women entrepreneurs money to start or expand their tiny enterprises which has triggered massive declines in poverty and huge improvement in self-reliance, literacy and quality of life.  Since then Grameen has expanded to nearly 20 social businesses offering ways for the poor to build a new economy by improving everything from health care to solar energy.  Most of Grameen’s businesses are owned by the poor they serve.  For the past 15 years they’ve been teaching others their secrets and today microcredit has helped 133 million families.  Their goal is to reach 500 million by 2015.  It’s a great business.  Loan repayment rates exceed 98%.

One country that has gotten Grameen’s attention is ours.  They founded Grameen America to help the persistent poor of our country.  Yea, I know.  From Bangladesh to the USA.  Who would have thought?  Of course a microloan in the US ranges from $3000 to $10,000, a far cry from the typical $50-$150 microloan of developing country borrowers, but the purpose of loans is the same, to achieve economic self-reliance.

You see Yunus, an economist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, is a huge proponent of SELF-employment.  He considers working for a paycheck to achieve someone else’s goals a road fraught with uncertainty and too frequently little security or satisfaction.  As a practical evangelist for universal entrepreneurship, he claims that financial self-reliance is a core human drive.  He also maintains that the entrepreneurial instinct is a part of basic human nature.  He makes this claim based on over 30 years of experience encouraging impoverished illiterate women to start micro-businesses that most often flourish into enterprises that lift entire families out of poverty.  He even has a loan program for beggars.  It turns out that beggars are frequently good sales people.  When they have stuff to sell, they sell all of it.  He calls entrepreneurship passion plus common sense.

We don’t have to be dirt-poor villagers to understand that many of the 5 million jobs that were evaporated in this Great Recession will never, ever return.  We don’t have to be psychics to foretell that the employment market will probably never return to the steady growth and security it offered in decades past.  And finally we must ask ourselves, why work for the “man”?  Anyone who hires you is making money on your talent, presumably money you could be making for yourself.  Are you living your American Dream?

Many experts say that recessions are great times to start new businesses or become an independent consultant. This is because competition during recessions tends to be weak and uninspired.  Also 80 % of new businesses are self-financed, and Internet based businesses can be started with micro amounts of money. Consulting also can be a boom area since many companies lay off too many people. If you make yourself an expert in an area that fascinates you, you will be in demand. And the best marketing for consultants is word of mouth. So if you’re willing to open your mouth and tell the world how you can make things better, you may be surprised at all the opportunity you uncover. If the poor and uneducated can become self sufficient with almost no resources, we can too.

The 1% Solution

We are living in a puzzle of paradox.  On the one hand we are staring at the single light of an oncoming train barreling down the tracks of a collapsed economy.  On the other we are giddy with optimism that President Obama’s leadership will usher in a new era of inventive solutions that will bind us together in a new future.  As recent national New York Times/CBS News Poll declares, 80% of Americans believe Barack Obama will lead us to responsible prosperity and world peace.  Wow.  That’s hope on steroids.  But just below our optimism are nagging questions.

We are all upset about bailouts without accountability.  Banks who seem to have no trouble tracking every transaction on my debit card suddenly can’t tell us where they stashed or how they used $350 billion.  It’s all co-mingled with all the rest of their assets in a giant money bin they tell us.  Right.

Next we gulp when we’re told that the government has to spend a trillion dollars to stimulate our economy.  Hey, they are going to build roads and bridges and get us back working on high paying union jobs.  Yea…that’s good I guess, but how come every time I drive down the freeway by a construction zone all I see are lots of people standing around and a few people working?  And why do these projects take so long to complete?

It seems to me that flushing billions down the sewer of our giant broken banks without any accountability and huge public works projects is like treating cancer with aspirin; it may be necessary, but it’s not a cure.  The problems our bombed out economy is dealing with are far deeper than bank balance sheets and a new freeway interchange.

One massive game-changing problem is that globalism and technology has stopped our incomes from growing.  Don’t get me wrong.  Global trade and technology aren’t bad in and of themselves.  But when they are primarily used as tools to increase the wealth of a few, their toxic side effects are potent.  A global workforce has radically swelled and depressed wage growth in developed nations.  This combined with automation and software has rendered lots of well-trained and educated people’s skills irrelevant.  A recent side effect to no wage gain is the decline of consumption so our markets can no longer sustain the rapid industrialization and output growth of Asia and Eastern Europe.  Of course there is a silver lining to the collapse of the old economy.  We’ve been way too wasteful.  We bought stuff, lots of stuff, we didn’t need, and we gravely abused our planet.  It was all unsustainable.  But since the old economy paid our bills, its collapse comes with a raging river of human suffering.

So here comes the cavalry.  The bugle blows and Obama rides to our rescue.  Well maybe.  I hope so.  He’s intelligent, reasonable and inspiring.  But is government the right tool to fix what ails us?  Our own government’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently estimated that one-third of our annual $3 trillion in taxes is wasted.  We receive no value for it.  That’s just the way it is.  A trillion gone.  It’s true that some things government does best.  But mostly what I want government to do is make and enforce laws that promote fairness and justice.  I want them to keep the playing field as level as possible.  I want them to prevent corruption.  I want them to take the “special” out of special interests.

But one thing they are not good at is valued job creation.  The fundamental problem of government employment and government contracting for services is non-existent accountability.  When there are no consequences for under performance, underperformance is usually what we get way too much of.  Helping big business is not much better.  For the past 30 years they’ve been in the business of cutting jobs, not creating them.  For instance, General Motors has shrunk its global workforce by 75% over the past three decades as its market share shrank.

So what’s the best thing we can do?  Let’s try something completely simple and completely radical.  Before I propose it let me be clear there are lots and lots of details to work out.  So I need your help with creative solutions to all the ways this could fail.  But just hear me out.

Our core economic challenge we have is to create reasonable paying, needed jobs.  Jobs that create value.  Jobs that have performance accountability.  Jobs that build a sustainable future.  Jobs that make our nation stronger and benefit the world.  And we need to create these jobs not through a government bureaucracy but through ingenuity of millions of citizen entrepreneurs and professionals working with local, national, and global business.  Here’s how.

Our federal government can issue a tax credit equal to one percent of gross sales of all businesses with a business license.  So a $1 billion business would get a $10 million reduction on their taxes that they could carry forward if they had no profits.  A small business with $250,000 in sales would get a $2,500 credit.  However, this credit would only be valid if the money was directly invested in a new business that made money by benefiting humanity or healing the environment.  New businesses would qualify by meeting well-established Socially Responsible Investing Standards (SRI).  (This means no investments in cigarettes, vices, weapons or heavy polluters.) There are also many standards to judge socially responsible enterprise used in social venture capital competitions held throughout the world.   A simple annual audit form would have to be submitted by the new business to qualify for further investment in future years.

Based on our total GDP this ought to create about $100 billion in private capital to go in a new company and job creation for sustainable solutions to our most urgent problems.  This money would not go through the hands of bureaucrats but would be our money directly invested by us.   If we maintained this for five years it would be close to $500 billion invested in our new future.  My view is this would stimulate innovation, job creation, and sustainable business thinking faster and more broadly than anything else.  Of course not every business would work.  But the efficiency of the market place would reward good ideas and competence and bureaucratic waste would be minimized.

Oh, one last thing.  We’d all be investors.  You see we, the taxpayers, would own 10% of any new business funded by our tax credits.  Who knows, our investment in the future may even help pay off our national debt.  No, this won’t solve all our problems…but it would spur new business formation in the businesses we need for our future right now.

So, what do you think?  How would you improve it?  If we can create a workable program, I am off to Washington.  Obama, you better buckle up.