Chief hippie?

I can’t decide my take on this “chief guru of life change” executive naming trend.  Some of the most exciting emerging social ventures seem to enjoy coming up with creative yet somewhat ridiculous-sounding titles for the people who run their companies. This was brought to light by a somewhat recent McKinsey interview of Adam Werbach, who seems to know a lot about this stuff.  He highlighted two cool sustainability-focused for-profits, method and Seventh Generation.  Seventh Generation’s founder calls himself the “chief inspired protagonist” (seriously?), and method’s is the “chief greenskeeper” (seriously.).  These guys are arguably two of the major players in the triple bottom line/social venture/sustainability space, and this is what they call themselves?  I know they’re run out of San Francisco and Vermont and all, but really.  I’m trying to figure out what the next guy down gets called – vice inspired protagonist?  Semi-inspired protagonist?  Chief inspired realist?  The hierarchy could get really confusing.

In an industry like social enterprise that is trying to be more professional, more respected and a bigger player, I would expect this kind of stunt to be laughed off stage.  What kind of private sector CEO would call herself a chief inspiration nurturer?  What kind of investor would give his money to the chief flowerchild?  It makes me angry because it seems that some of the best emerging social ventures are making light of the space and encouraging mockery at best, reinforcement of a flaky and poorly managed sector image at worst.

But then, despite myself, there’s something I unwittingly like about this fad.  (Don’t tell my future investors.)  There’s something Google-esque about it.  It implies a work environment where incredibly bright minds come up with groundbreaking ideas over fooseball and beanbag chairs.  (Perhaps this has its own challenges, but it seems to have worked for tech.)  And maybe that’s what attracts the bright minds to the social sector – the idea of business without business as usual.