Helping Each Other Progress

The concept of developing and unleashing capacity has been on my mind a great deal lately. As a Baha'i, a fundamental belief is that each human being possesses unique God-given capacity, and that it is part of our purpose in life to exert effort to develop this capacity in order to grow spiritually and be of service to others. So it was with great interest that I read this article on the Harvard Business Review website about the creation by Throkil Sonne of a company to utilize the skills of people with autism. What is particularly striking is that Sonne did not choose to start a non-profit or an entity focused solely on research or training for individuals with autism, but rather, he created a corporation seeking to utilize the unique abilities of these individuals to offer a service to others:

Four years ago Thorkil Sonne realized that his young autistic son possessed an extraordinary memory and a remarkable eye for detail. Those traits are prevalent among people with autism, and Sonne saw an opportunity to help individuals with the disorder find productive employment. As the technical director of a Danish software venture, he knew those qualities were critical in software testers. So he went out on his own and launched Specialisterne, a Copenhagen-based software-testing firm that now has 51 employees, including 37 with autism, and revenues of $2 million.

One noteworthy aspect of this endeavor was that Sonne saw no dichotomy between providing a service to customers and helping people with a disability:

We’re constantly asked whether we support customers or a cause. We want to do both, of course, but we’re always fighting against the suspicion that we’re just a charity. Our corporate social responsibility profile might open doors with CEOs, but executives in charge of software testing aren’t evaluated on CSR, only on getting the most for the company’s money. To wipe away their suspicions, we must exceed performance expectations every time.

All our business comes from the private sector. Because Denmark has no tradition of social enterprises, the government doesn’t earmark contracts for companies like ours or give them tax breaks. We have to compete head on.

The article goes on to describe how Specialisterne is organized to create an environment suited to enabling its autistic employees to be productive. Well worth a read!

The article offers some interesting insights into the nature of the development and utilization of human capacity. As the Baha'i Writings make clear, each of us needs to take responsibility and make effort to develop our own capacity:

The whole duty of man in this Day is to attain that share of the flood of grace which God poureth forth for him.
(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p.8)

Yet we also have an important role to play in helping each other to grow and progess; as the following passage reveals, this is one of the central purposes of true religion:

All the divine Manifestations have proclaimed the oneness of God and the unity of mankind. They have taught that men should love and mutually help each other in order that they might progress.
(Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 245)

What I appreciate most about the Specialisterne example is that it seems like a good model of these principles in action, and in particular illustrates the importance to this process of organizational structure and the ability to identify and utilize peoples' strengths.