| An idealist is a man who helps other people to be | | | | work on this project. |
| prosperous. | | | | How did we eventually find participants? We began |
| - Henry Ford | | | | to work with for-profit hospitals. Their leaders cared |
| Through my continuing studies into the nature of | | | | about cutting costs because they were financially |
| rapid improvements, I looked at all kinds of | | | | rewarded for earning higher profits. |
| organizations. Having been a fan of Peter Drucker's | | | | From that experience, I learned that breakthrough |
| writing since the early 1970s, I was familiar with his | | | | innovations from nonprofits were easier to spot than |
| point that nonprofit organizations are often better at | | | | breakthrough-innovating nonprofits. Scanning for |
| innovating breakthroughs than for-profit companies | | | | news stories, I began to find those nonprofits that |
| are. Why? Resources are usually so scarce in | | | | had soared like eagles to go to a higher level of |
| nonprofits that anyone who wants to provide more | | | | performance in some particular activity. |
| benefits has to do a great deal with very little. | | | | Then I studied how those organizations had |
| In addition, nonprofits attract people who are | | | | succeeded and extracted the key lessons from |
| inherently motivated by the organization's purpose to | | | | these champions. In every case, I found high levels |
| look for how to do the most. Imagine, for instance, | | | | of personal identification among staff and volunteers |
| the differences in perspective and motivation you | | | | with organizational goals to improve the world for |
| would experience between working for a for-profit | | | | others. This identification was just as strong among |
| waste disposal company and a nonprofit organization | | | | staff and volunteers as it was among the |
| aimed at eliminating breast cancer. | | | | organization's founders. |
| I continually go in touch with leaders of nonprofit | | | | Who were such organizations? Many were pursuing |
| organizations to see what they were doing. Mostly, I | | | | religious activities such as the emerging Protestant |
| found bureaucracies more concerned with their own | | | | mega-churches that Peter Drucker often advised. |
| perpetuation than with making any improvements. | | | | The Salvation Army was another organization that |
| For instance, I worked on a project while with The | | | | effectively drew on Christian roots. |
| Boston Consulting Group in the early 1970s to find | | | | Secular concerns drove other groups, such as the Girl |
| ways to contain health-care costs. One idea that | | | | Scouts under Peter Drucker's tutee, Frances |
| interested the United States Department of Health, | | | | Hesselbein, to breakthrough excellence. Concerns |
| Education, and Welfare (HEW) was to simplify billing in | | | | about eradicating poverty provided the motivation to |
| hospitals so that the same revenue was generated, | | | | succeed for the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which |
| but at less expense. In those days, a bill for a | | | | provides low-cost, small loans to farmers and fledgling |
| three-day hospital stay could run to 67 pages. | | | | entrepreneurs in remarkably effective ways. |
| HEW gave a grant to our consulting firm and our | | | | In addition, employees, volunteers, and beneficiaries |
| accounting firm partner to put demonstration | | | | found their lives were transformed in positive ways |
| projects in place to generate shorter bills that would | | | | beyond what they could have expected. The |
| be less expensive to produce. There would be no | | | | enthusiasm became contagious, and rapid growth |
| cost to the organizations that participated in the | | | | ensued that did not dilute the motivation. For-profit |
| demonstrations. The grant also provided payments to | | | | skills and innovations rapidly invaded the nonprofit |
| state hospital associations for their efforts in | | | | organizations through the attention of volunteers and |
| describing the project as one method for enlisting | | | | donors. From these observations, I realized that rate |
| participants. | | | | of improvement was often related to how strongly |
| My colleagues and I trekked across the United States | | | | people felt about gaining the benefits from making |
| many times to describe the opportunity. The result? | | | | improvements. |
| No nonprofit hospital in the United States wanted to | | | | Copyright 2008 Donald W. |