“The world’s biggest problems are the world’s biggest business opportunities.” – Peter Diamandis
In 2013, I worked with Barbara Byrd Keenan while she was CEO of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). These are the researchers and scientists who create astronaut food, designer desserts like Twinkies, and who make sure your cabbage isn’t crawling with bugs when you pick it up at the grocery store. They are the geniuses behind the world of food. While she was there, Barbara saw the potential for IFT to make a global contribution to a complex and multi-faceted problem.
She met with representatives of multi-lateral development agencies and developed what she called the Power of Three. The name is derived from the unique interdependence of water, food, and energy, each of which are equally valuable if we are to feed the nine billion people expected to inhabit Earth by 2050.[#] To discuss food without thinking about water and energy is pointless; all three factors are inherently and irrevocably intertwined. The more populous the planet becomes, the more complicated the availability and successful delivery of each.
So in 2013, Barbara convened the first Power of Three conference. Corporate giants like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) participated. The World Health Organization, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and other organizations were attuned to the issue, too. With visionary zeal, Barbara brought each of these very different players to a common table.
Before all this was possible, she took her volunteer leaders on a journey that built credibility for the value of dedicating resources to such a powerful issue. She did this by reinventing governance at IFT so that it supported entrepreneurial opportunism. She still encountered barriers, but with a new governance structure she was able to move rapidly when circumstances were in her favor. Speed is an asset to entrepreneurs.
Barbara also founded the Global Food Traceability Center (GFTC), a unique organization able to work with large international organizations to identify the supply chain when there were problems with food.
Launched in 2013, the GFTC is a collaborative partnership that brings together public and private stakeholders to address common concerns in the world of food, issues that impact all of us. When Barbara started the Power of Three, experts came; IFT had earned the ability to convene. With this initiative, a Grand Challenge was launched. The Global Food Traceability Center is a benchmark for the power of liberating the latent value of an organization.
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Not long ago my family attended the wedding of my dear friend, George. The wedding was a deeply beautiful event, celebrating his commitment to love, and like all great weddings, it was filled with ceremony and dancing and happy tears. This was the first American wedding our daughter, Ruchi, had ever attended, and she brought a child’s sense of happy awe and openness to the event. My wife and I were proud to have our daughter witness our friend’s big day, in part because his marriage was historic. George married Michael. Theirs was a same-sex, biracial union, something that, despite their love and commitment, would not have been possible only a short time ago. Momentum in American culture since the LGBT rights movement began has reached critical mass; it is now legal in every state for same-sex couples to wed, and many more positive changes are underway.
Times are changing, some say exponentially.
The issue of LGBT rights at one time appeared unobtainable. But a few bold and passionate people believed in a future very different from their current reality. They were brave enough to imagine a world that would welcome them and everyone they knew, one in which their community need not live in secret or fear for their lives. A passionate, forward-thinking few set out to correct the injustices they saw, building a movement in their wake. Together, they took on an enormous challenge, a Grand Challenge, and today we see the fruits of their efforts in almost every direction.
A Grand Challenge is a major initiative that allows a collective body to do important and necessary work in the world in order to reverse an intractable problem.
A Grand Challenge is a bold, socially beneficial goal that successfully addresses a systemic and embedded problem through collaboration and joint leadership. It generates new stakeholders and powerful resources for any organization—knowledge, work, support, enthusiasm, time, and money. Grand Challenges are opportunities for change, for healing, and even for economic growth. “Business can be a great force for good. Companies who prioritize people and the planet as well as profit can play a leading role in creating the change the world needs,” writes businessman and investor, Richard Branson.[#] Grand Challenges benefit communities by bringing the most innovative minds together to solve real world problems, and they advance organizations by offering tremendous social and fiscal returns. The Grand Challenge model has emerged as an adept vehicle for scalable organizations to generate dramatic value, attract able stakeholders, capture the public’s trust, galvanize a cultural movement, and open up resources so a major problem can be solved.
When we take a look at the biggest problems humanity faces today—climate change, poverty, homelessness, infectious disease, food and water shortage, global conflict and refugees—it can feel overwhelming. But the truth is that we already have everything we need to reset the clock on the majority of these concerns, slowing them down dramatically and perhaps correcting them altogether. We have the intelligence, the creativity, the science, and the technology—or the capacity to build it. What we need before we can begin is not endorsement and not funding, but collaboration. We need the passion, the motivation, and the will to come together across sectors—government and private sector, non-profit and community—to share information, resources, and hope. We need the impetus to believe in impossible things, so that we can go out into the world and make them a reality.
In these pages, you will discover a roadmap for launching and following through on your Grand Challenge. It begins with the careful communication of a Grand Challenge Vision, bringing people together around a common area of great public interest. Members must work to both agree upon and carefully articulate their vision so that every single person who hears it can quickly apprehend both the challenge and the intention to collectively address it. With this shared vision as your lodestar, you will embark. Along the way you will see how other leaders are taking on their Grand Challenges and integrating their lessons learned. You will learn about the leadership competencies required for large-scale initiative-creation and maintenance, and discover the importance of shared leadership, systems thinking, and organizational learning. You will uncover the power and importance of trust-building—from within the doors of your organization, and across the threshold, out to every client, customer, member, partner, or end user. You will learn about vital partnerships, how to invite the necessary players to your table, and the importance of measuring and tracking across disciplines. … And much more.
Grand Challenges are by nature difficult to execute successfully—they are grand. Few have taken them on because they are outsized and multi-layered. With that in mind, you will learn how to avoid or work through potential pitfalls, obstacles, logjams, bottlenecks, and impasses—from the interpersonal level and beyond.
When executed well, a Grand Challenge is simply the most effective way to scale your impact and grow your resources—and it is the only way that together, we will heal the world.
