Tackling Bonsai Social Policy

The seed of a bonsai tree has the ability to grow into a full sized tree. But placed in a tiny pot, its growth is stunted. A person deprived of health, education, or opportunity is like the bonsai. The constraint isn't the seed; it's the pot. In the same way, the systems that exist have stunted the growth of millions. And as a result, we undervalue people because we define them by their perceived deficits. But social entrepreneurs flip the script, unlock people's strengths, and debunk old myths and suffocating assumptions that we mistake as truths. Because the truth is, individuals and institutions that assume people are capable of great things consistently outperform those that expect the worst. And it's about time we think outside the pot.

But mindsets are tricky things. Because we see things the way our minds have trained our eyes to see. And once we believe something to be true, we create ways of living that are consistent with these false ideas, which reinforce the false ideas, causing them to appear true. This creates self-fulfilling systems and institutions that we mistakenly believe to be the inevitable outcome of immutable realities, rather than a self-directed outcome rooted in our malleable (and often misinformed) beliefs. And five decades of data has demonstrated that our collective mindset about diverse communities, traditional institutions, and capitalism itself has crippled our economy and suffocated our society.

Mainstream mindsets are quick to undervalue sweeping swaths of society. The most common recipients of this social disdain and systemic self-righteousness are individuals who have been viewed as incompetent, expendable, or beyond rehabilitation. Those could include inmates, illiterate, young, old, poor, disabled, addicted, rural, urban, ethnic, pigmented, or any other designation that might fall outside the arbitrary parameters of "normalcy".  But false ideas about human beings and social structures don't just disappear with time. They must be challenged through action.

Social entrepreneurs specialize in challenging status quo. They ask simple questions, examine old assumptions, test their own biases, and work directly with the people affected by a problem to better understand the problem and co-create solutions. And as they experiment with alternatives, they move the rest of us beyond our stale and stuck ways of thinking with bold ideas and new solutions. Because all social entreprenuers have one thing in common: they are creating platforms that unleash human potential. They work tirelessly to increase the number of people who have the opportunity to contribute their talents to the world. And in doing so, they expose prevailing myths about the creativity, resilience, brilliance, and moral agency of the people who have been overlooked, undervalued, or unappreciated by our systems and society.

Social innovators show what's possible on an individual level. In India, Grameen Bank invested in the poorest villagers and went on to break millions of people out of the cycle of poverty. In England, Harry Specter Chocolates illustrates the award-winning capacity of the autistic adults through a specialized skillset catered to their innate strengths. In America, Dave's Killer Bread demonstrates the rehabilitative potential of former felons through Second Chance Employment. In urban schools, Peace Games trains fifth fraders to be "peace builders", transforming school culture and dramatically improving learning outcomes. And networks like Green Dot Public Schools, Uncommon Schools, and Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) have demonstrated dramatic results with "disadvantaged" students by modifying structure, supporting teachers, engaging families, and employing a model that stresses character education and dynamic participation. All of these changes came about simply because someone was dissatisfied with the status quo, and sought bold alternatives to old approaches.

But each of these social innovations represent a more important shift. Because the biggest mindset shift that social entrepreneurs lead today is convincing people that the world's toughest problems can in fact be solved. They simply cannot be solved with the same thinking that created them. And the solutions do not come from the systems that perpetuated the problems in the first place; they come from new alternatives that make these old and broken models obselete. Simply put, social entrepreneurs are creating new possibilities that have the potential to renew hope and optimism at a societal level. Because social entreprenuers think outside the pot.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ―Buckminster Fuller

Also Read: The Audacity of Optimism