Achieving balance

A teacher of mine recently sent me some thoughts, including this: "‘balance’ in our lives is not static, it is fluid and dynamic - more a dance than a fixed state."

When I speak to my clients about social enterprise, the issue of balance inevitably comes up. As social entrepreneurs, we constantly struggle with balancing our social mission with profit. There is a dynamic tension that occurs when these two complimentary, yet sometimes conflicting, elements require difficult decisions to be made that can feel like you're giving up one for the other. I am often asked how to stop this tension. My answer: you can't - and, you shouldn't. I believe that there is great power in this dynamic tension and needs to be identified, managed and embraced, rather than stopped. I believe that this tension is what pushes both sides of the coin. The need to make decisions at times that are more focused on the money than the mission can be an important catalyst for examining whether you are making smart, financially sustainable financial decisions. After all, there is no mission activity if there is no money. On the other hand, when you find yourself making decisions that put the mission first and may feel detrimental to the financial bottom line, you're being pushed to examine how your enterprise impacts people. The key is that the decisions that are more money focused and the decisions that are more socially focused balance out over time - not that every decision itself is balanced. I've found that once organizations understand this, as well as the common areas of tension that arise - they can begin to recognize it, foster healthy discussions and embrace both points of view as important parts of the whole.