We had seen a lot of interesting, bizarre and even some pretty horrible pitches. These were 16 year olds at a small sixth form college from a small city in England — so it was practice for them and fun for us. But, we were all playing our roles with gusto — just in case.

Just in case someone like Julie took the stage to tell us about her business idea.

“I take portrait style pictures of people with their pets. Mostly they are dogs, but I also take pictures of people with their birds, cats and horses.”

Ok. Really?

Yep. It turns out that there is a huge market for people capturing images of their pets in ways traditionally set aside for people. Who knew?

The more she told us about her current clients and where she wanted to take the business, it became obvious that this 16 year old was onto something interesting and credible.

But, what happened next changed her perspective and probably the perspective of those who support her.

Giant sized ambitions

In a perfect world, at least the one I would design, healthcare and education and even public transport would be free to citizens at the point of service. Even the proliferation of start-up businesses is something that can be greatly enhanced by this free at point of service model.

Note the distinction: “point of service”.

What’s that I hear you saying? Not possible?!

Maybe.

But, you’re right, it’s not possible if we keep approaching big societal investments and ambitions differently than we may approach investing in entrepreneurs like Julie.

The left envisions a utopia. The right envisions a dystopia. The rest are stranded in some kind of horrible half-way house with some residents realising their aspirations, while others step out of the house into the abyss.

All in the name of market forces.

The invisible Darwinian hand of the market helps absolve ourselves of any responsibility to each other. Or rather, making sure we don’t cheat by skipping class (no free education), eating bad food or not exercising (no free healthcare). The market forces are there to stop the 22% from taking advantage of the 78%.

Or do they? What would happen if we stuck to our market mentality, but changed how and where the market took control or participated in healthcare, education and transport?

We already do. Roads.

Wait, what?

The way we think about roads has alot to do with how we might think about healthcare, education, and even start-ups like Julie’s.

But how?

The mouth of the gift horse.

“Wow! We have a chance to change the world.” Sarah was excited about the new possibilities that this grant would provide for her fledgling venture.

“But, I’m really worried about the boxes I must tick to avoid losing the grant,” she says as elation turns into anxiety.

Sarah is building something special. Her venture has the potential to change a small part of the world in an economically sustainable way. But, the grant monies stipulate lots of things that skew how she will build this operation. Specific timeframes, impact numbers, and constituents. And surprisingly, they aren’t based on reality.

I have seen this hundreds of times. Grant monies deliver hope to a start-up venture or innovation at a bigger firm. But, the reality of delivering on the conditions of the grant actually act as an opposing force to the long-term viability of the important work.

What’s the solution?

I don’t know for sure, but starting the journey thinking about the approach to delivering on the objectives is a good place to start. This means virtually ripping up the grant agreement — to clear the mind.

Seeing the forest for the trees is the important perspective here.

We have lots of organisations dutifully fulfilling their grant requirements. Why is the change we see short lived at best?

Approach. Opposite of rock climbing.

In rock climbing you assess your route based on some simple criteria that weighs safety and speed to ensure you keep moving up the rock, not suddenly down.

In rock climbing, this route is called your approach.

Off the rock face, an approach is different than our route. It’s different than rock climbing, but we spend an awful lot of time making our approach look like a rock climber planning a route.

Especially when it comes to making big decisions about important stuff.

How can we see the difference?

Remember Julie, the girl with an idea of photographing dogs and their owners? She emailed me the other day. Two years after I saw her pitch. Julie had started a family. Wow! Ok. Let that digest.

Hey, stuff happens. But, I sensed a bigger force was at work when I read her email.

This aspiring creative women was emailing to ask for a recommendation for her college application to a 2 year business degree programme.

Really?

What happened to building a business based on her passion and skills?

Julie said she didn’t know enough about running a business — a degree would give her this.

Will it?

I don’t know. But, it sounds like a solution steeped in the historical context of degrees and more like the rock climber planning a route.

Do you really need a business degree to run a small business?

And for Sarah — how can she reconcile the needs of the grant givers with her venture’s mission? Does she give the money back, take the money and forget about the grant stipulations or play by rules?

Or what about education or healthcare for all of us? Lots of smart people are debating this issue, so I won’t pretend to know the answers to any of these questions. These are big, complicated questions.

But, how might you begin to answer them?

Perhaps a good starting point is approaching your questions in the same way an investor starting a conversation with the possible target of her investment might think about them.

How does that work?

It’s all in your approach. How you begin to look for the answer. This is how the top investors succeed when investing in businesses, in people, or in society.

You begin with an open mind. You collect data like a researcher with a positive bias and a skeptic with a short term memory loss problem.

You’re ideologically agnostic and understand the importance of each potential direction, but are more interested in the outcome instead of the route.

And importantly, ideas rule! You know that a lot of modest ideas are better than a few immodest ideas, or should I say ideals. The best idea will be a clear reinvention of a mix of your best ideas.

And a funny thing happens when you focus on an approach instead of the route or the solution. More viable options appear. Risk is mitigated. And you develop of set of guiding principles which shape future decision making.

Your approach. Probably one of your most important tools in moving forward.