Be unreasonable. : social enterprise

WASH SERIES: Menstruation Matters

This is the first of a three-part series focusing on issues surrounding water, sanitation and hygiene.

In international development, this issues of water, sanitation and hygiene are brought under the collective term ‘WASH’. These three factors are inextricably linked and play a vital role in the progress of the Millennium Development Goals. WASH issues create a huge impact on the global burden of disease. This burden is placed disproportionately on women and girls. It is therefore fitting that the first of this three part series focuses on the intersection between sanitations and women’s health, in particular menstrual hygiene.

The first issue surround menstrual hygiene is that it is largely a taboo topic. This makes this issue very hard to resolve. How can a large global issue be solved if there is no open dialogue about it?

One of the key problems is that women in developing nations don’t have access, can’t afford, or are too embarrassed to purchase items such as tampons and sanitary pads. In fact, in some cases ‘natural materials such as mud, leaves, dung or animal skins are used to manage the menstrual flow’ (UNESCO 2013, Puberty Education and Menstrual Hygiene Management). There are indeed many issues surrounding menstrual hygiene.

Society’s stigmatisation of menstruation is not limited to developing nations. Just last month, menstrual hygiene was brought to attention in Australia in light of the tampon tax. The movement against the so-called ‘tampon tax’ gained momentum as women around Australia discovered that tampons carry 10% GST. Unlike other products such as sunscreen and condoms (which are not taxed) tampons are deemed ‘non-essential’ and therefore carry GST.

Outraged, this resulted in women across the nation taking to an online petition which gained 90,000 signatories. Ultimately, this call for action was rejected by Treasurer Joe Hockey. But, the tampon tax isn’t just an issue of politics. It reveals a fundamental flaw in the way society thinks about menstruation.

The good news is that dialogue on the issue is opening up. This year marked the second year ‘Menstrual Hygiene Day’ took place. Not-for-profits and bodies such as the United Nations, are increasingly collecting data so we can better understand the problem. There are also an increasing number of social enterprises working towards solving this complex, multi-faceted challenge.

So why should you open up the dialogue around menstruation hygiene?

Because it impacts the lives of women and girls around the world. Period.

If you want to learn more about menstrual hygiene check out this report by Water Aid.

Until next time,

Danushi

04:49
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How Great Leaders Create Impact

authority

There are many challenges facing the world: climate change, access to education, water, sanitation and hygiene. The list goes on. For people who want to ‘make the world a better place’, the long list of issues to be tackled can be overwhelming.

Gandhi is famously quoted as saying 'be the change you want to see in the world'.

As such, many people aspire to become authority figures because they think it will give them the power to create change. Yet people who do have authority struggle every day to enforce that change. This is because in order to create change, leadership is more important than authority.

Share Leadership

Crutchfield et al. (2012) writes:

'Many books on leadership focus on the traits and behaviours of leaders... In just the past decade, theories of ‘collective leadership’ have begun to gain traction, but for the most part leadership is still thought of as an individual act. Great leaders are praised for their individual competencies, attributes or distinguished personalities. In other words, attention has focused more on leaders than on leadership.'

This top down approach of focusing on the talents of one person must be replaced with collaborative leadership in order to achieve high-impact.

In ‘Forces for Good’, Crutchfield explores twelve high-impact social enterprises to find out why they are successful. Although there was no secret formula to creating one of these outstanding organisations, there were a few common threads. One of them being collaborative leadership. All of the twelve organisations had strong executive boards and a talented second-in command.

Collaborative leadership

Image credit: http://ct-leadership.com/

This implies that, in order to solve complex issues, we need to engage the different skills of many individuals.

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of social entrepreneurs who aim to 'be the change'.

However, social enterprises must operate differently to other companies whose sole aim is to maximise profits. This is because social enterprises lead through influence not authority. Yet discussion around social enterprise too often concentrates on the entrepreneur. They focus on authority rather than leadership.

Focus on leadership not authority

What is the difference between leadership and authority?

Leaders are not just people who excel at what they do. Leaders challenge the status quo, they create paradigm shifts.

George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903) wrote:

'The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.'

If you want to be a leader, create disequilibrium and take people out of their comfort zone. Take a risk and challenge the status quo.

Image credit: http://theroadtodomestication.files.
wordpress.com/2013/04/chaos-and-order.jpg

Richard Branson explains:

'Every entrepreneur should strive to be unreasonable, to push their business to become a force for good, and create more innovation, more change and more progress.'

This is how great leaders create change. They create disorder. Creating a disequilibrium gets people uncomfortable and encourages those early adopters to follow change.

How do great leaders create impact?

Great leaders focus on leadership rather than authority, they challenge the status- quo and also share leadership.

References

Heifetz, R, Grashow, A & Linsky, M 2009, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership. Tools and Tactics for Changing your Organisation and the World, Harvard Business Press: Boston, Massachusetts

Crutchfield L, Grant H 2012, Forces for Good. The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, Jossey-Bass, pp. 175-201

Satell Greg 2014, ‘To Create Change, Leadership Is More Important Than Authority’, Harvard Business Review, viewed 4 June 2014 http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/04/to-create-change-leadership-is-more-important-than-authority/

Branson Richard 2014, 'The unreasonable man',viewed 5 June 2014 http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/the-unreasonable-man,

22:52
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Be unreasonable.

WASH SERIES: Menstruation Matters

How Great Leaders Create Impact