The Praxis of Grassroots Diplomacy for Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurs design and implement innovative, sustainable, and scalable solutions to pressing social challenges across the world. While the success of their ventures is impacted by numerous factors, their long-term viability and endurance depends on the relationships built with diverse stakeholders. The praxis of grassroots diplomacy facilitates the development of harmonious and effective relationships that catalyze social change. This art and science of pro-active conflict avoidance and resolution helps navigate multifaceted social dynamics and develop successful entrepreneurial alliances and ecosystems. With the help of several examples and mini case-studies, this article articulates the meaning and importance of grassroots diplomacy. A conceptual framework based on six core competencies of proactive scenario planning, empathy, trust-based relationship building, equitable collaboration, conflict resolution, and ethical reflection is presented. Finally, a practical methodology that animates these core competences into a structured process that strengthens partnerships and ventures is presented. These concepts, competencies and methodologies are built upon the central tenets of systems thinking and self-determination that leads to systemic self-determined improvement of lives and livelihoods.
Entrepreneurial Alliances
To form an entrepreneurial alliance that is capable of maximizing the potential of the venture, entrepreneurs need to be highly collaborative and effective at bringing together diverse parties and ensuring commitment. As shown in Figure 1, potential entrepreneurial alliances include, but are not limited to: innovators, governments, community-based organizations, customers, and employed agents.
Grassroots Diplomacy Framework
Practicing the six core competences and reflecting on the acquisition of these competencies is meant to give entrepreneurs what they need to prevent risks that threaten the venture. Each piece of the framework serves as learning objectives to facilitate a more nurturing philosophy of engaging diverse entities. In combination, these competencies encourage positive and sustainable relationships among alliances.
- Proactive Scenario Planning
- Taking action prior to when the action is required
- Systematically evaluate possible ways to engage the community
- Empathy
- Reflects the capacity of an entrepreneur to understand complex and subtle social dynamics
- Leads to greater contextual awareness
- Trust-based Relationship Building
- Two tangible components: the duration of a relationship and an insistence on ethical decision-making
- Act ethically at all times to avoid actions that lead to mistrust and suspicion
- Equitable Collaboration
- Fairness in the amount of time, money and energy expended by one partner for the benefit they incur
- Conflict Resolution
- Gandhigiri- Gandhi utilized an empathetic understanding of people, their problems, and their motivations. Each conflict existed as a function of the individual’s ego, expectations, and motivations. Therefore, conflict resolution was an opportunity to transform the self and others and was a response focused on the nature of a problem and not just its consequences.5
- Ethical Reflection
- Ethical decision-making is crucial for grassroots diplomacy and reflection is an exercise that enlightens entrepreneurs of the true consequences of their decisions and helps them understand the growth of the previous five competencies