My journey from goal setting to social entrepreneurship

In a conversation with a young missionary yesterday, I had the opportunity to describe the arc of my career and the result was a bit unlike the five or six eight or ten-year arcs that I often used in interviews to describe my career progression.

This time had more to do with my teaching and research evolution, whereas previous efforts described an administrative arc that I left out this time.

This career arc was anchored by my first work in individual goal setting, with its focus on maximizing individual performance was clearly self-centered. The other end was social entrepreneurship, with much more of a focus on the role of the individual and generating prosocial, more other-centered and sustainable (another part of the arc, i.e., sustainability) outcomes.

To be sure, I had never articulated this sense prior to this time. And just as clearly, this arc has been there all along. And just as clearly, I was not aware of the specific facts underlined this evolution, although I knew that I was changing in my interests.

A sub-theme to this evolution was the shift from personal outcomes to core values and traditions, with more attention to personal responsibility, "family values," natural/negative rights and the importance of liberty, freedom and independence coupled with responsibility that comes with these rights.