DO YOU WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD? (SO FAR FROM HOME, ch 2) I use this rather dramatic phrase of “saving the world” to get your attention and also to make a point .

You may not hold your work in such grandiose terms; you may be working hard to create change within one community, one organization, or for one cause. You haven’t been contemplating how to change the whole world, just working on the small piece in front of you. But many of us harbor the hope that if we do a good job and have evidence of our results, our work will spread and create change beyond our initial project or place. For me, such hope places you in the category of saving the world.

A few questions to see whether you fit in this category: ~

When you’ve discovered a process or project that works well, do you assume that others will be interested in how you achieved your success?

~ Do you present your good results, with supporting evidence, and assume that this will convince others to adopt your model?

~ Do you sometimes imagine how your good work could be taken up by enough other people that it goes to scale, creating change far beyond your own sphere of influence?

~ Have you presented your work at conferences or meetings hoping to have this kind of impact?

These hopes and dreams are quite normal in my experience, and it’s hard to let them go. But they’re based on an assumption of rational human behavior— that leaders are interested in what works— that has not proven true. Time and again, innovators and their highly successful projects are ignored, denied or pushed aside, even in the best of times. In this dark era, this is even more true