This is part 2 in the Organizaing for Impact book excerpt series, click here for part 1: Introduction to Organizing for Impact

Just as one would till and fertilize soil in a garden before planting seeds, there is some groundwork to consider when it comes to preparing to build or migrate toward an impact organization. A garden is also a living ecosystem of environmental factors that maintain a complex balance of interactions between them, and it can be helpful to think of an impact organization in this way as well. There are some baseline needs, there are some catalysts for growth, and there is a sense of what that growth will yield over time, but there is also space for the emergent, for sensing and responding, and for fully supporting the growth and development of its staff. Impact organizations are evolutionary for all involved.

Organizing inherently carries an intent, and intent implies a desired outcome. The common way of expressing a desired outcome at the earliest stages of an organization is via a mission and/or vision statement that often expresses the most aspirational outcome they are setting out to achieve. Impact organizations also have aspirations, of course, but just by classifying itself this way, impact becomes part of the outcome: we are an organization that wants to make an impact. OK, so what does impact convey for me?

What is Impact?
Impact is a strange word. It implies a strong forcefulness, and as a noun is defined as “the action of one object coming forcibly into contact with another.” We are concerned with the action-oriented aspect of making an impact, and while one definition as a verb is, “to come into forcible contact with another object,” there is another use of the word as a verb: to “have a strong effect on someone or something.” So, an impact can leave a literal crater, but it can also make a lasting impression or spur a transformation, which, of course, is the definition we’ll be building upon.

It’s actually pretty easy to find definitions of “impact” in the business world, but what you will learn through the course of this book is that definitions are contextual to the level of consciousness a business operates at. Don’t worry, I’ll explain what that means along the way. The point is that different types of organizations see impact through different lenses. Those that are profit-driven see impact through sales and revenue streams. Customer-centric companies might see impact through customer satisfaction. Nonprofits might look at it as achieving programmatic goals. Regardless, impact is typically assessed via metrics related to what a business or organization delivers–to its shareholders, its customers, or its clients.

If we were to look at impact as possibility, then so far, we have a pretty narrow definition. There are so many more considerations that can be included in the assessment of impact. A company organized as a B Corporation, for instance, would include measures of corporate responsibility, often environmental impact mitigations, that broaden the scope of their impact beyond the products or services they provide. There are relationships between the level of engagement of staff at a company and the level of success that company achieves, showing that impact can also be bolstered by how engaged employees are in the work. Companies that adhere to a machine metaphor will typically be achievement-oriented and attached to metrics that measure outputs, whereas an organization that adopts a pluralistic-oriented mentality and views it as a family, the impact metrics start to include the well being of the people doing and making things and their engagement in their work.

Getting back to the definition of impact we started out with, a “lasting impression” can be positive or negative, and while we strive for the positive, there are certainly negative impacts to be aware of and avoid. When it comes to organizations with missions that strive for positive impact, they won’t make an impact in and of themselves. It’s the people in an organization that, working together, make an impact. It’s also more than that. It’s the way people organize that makes the difference, which includes the way they collaborate, make decisions, and hold or perceive each other in the workplace. It’s through the agreements and actions of people that organizations make an impact.

“Impact” is not the same as “success.” Something can be successful, like reaching a revenue goal, without really making an impact in the greater world. Most big businesses, especially if they are public companies, operate under an agreement with shareholders to maximize profits and thus are driven to make decisions that favor the company above all else, including the welfare of their employees and sometimes even their customers.

Impact is what we set out to make when we decide to join a cause, to create a product that delivers positive, life-altering value to a lot of people, to create a nonprofit organization that strives to change the world. No small callings here! Impact is the result of a series of decisions and actions taken to reach a goal measured in results that are reflected in people’s lives, or the environment’s health, or media and/or government attention on important issues, or whatever area the mission targets. Sometimes an impact can be achieved quickly, and sometimes it takes years, or decades. The bottom line is that it takes passionate and persistent people, organized around prioritized activities and a clear set of shared values and agreements, to make an impact.

It may also help to take a look at what is not impact. I’d like to invite you to think about what it feels like to be a worker near the bottom of the ladder in a hierarchical organization. You are probably given a list of tasks, or a daily goal of some sort, and by the end of the day, you need to show that you either hit the goal or you didn’t. You might be someone who really needs that job and therefore lives in fear of losing it, so you take it very personally when you don’t hit that goal. If you miss the goal often enough, you will get fired. If you stay long enough and perform well, you might get promoted. You also might not, if a promotion relies on certain skills or education you don’t have. You see where this is going?

Strict, hierarchical organizations can be oppressive, miserable experiences for many, and if you happen to climb the ladder, it may seem like you earned not the position, but the right to act a certain way in that position. So, what does that have to do with making an impact? Zero, clearly, or perhaps less than zero, as fear and helplessness could be construed as negative impact. The customer may not feel the negative impact because he is happily using the product, but the producers of the product can experience a negative impact. These are not conditions for impact, in fact, they are quite the opposite.

I’ve worked in cubicle-land environments, in which roles were so granular that it was easy to step on people’s toes when trying to get things done. As a Business Systems Analyst, I could design a database structure, for instance, but then the person with the title Database Architect had to really design it. I could implement a prototype, but there’s no way I could put it in production because I wasn’t part of that team. They may not ever see my prototype, which is a very common phenomenon in very large hierarchical organizations. People sometimes can’t get the support they need to even get their jobs done, so the ones who are able to create their own tooling and systems with what they have. This often results in creating silos, shadow systems, and ultimately, dangerous knowledge management situations in cases where those employees then leave the company and nobody even knows they had their own system for doing their job. Those just can’t be conditions for impact.

To be clear, it is not intrinsically bad to be highly hierarchical in structure, as long as it serves the goals of the organization and views people as humans and not just resources or job titles. For a company making and selling consumer products, its main goals are to make a product that serves some consumer need, and generates revenue and profit, ideally better than anybody else does. That is a typical scenario in which companies justify keeping certain trade secrets ensconced within need-to-know circles. Brief bursts of direction leak out from such opaque groups to move forward goals known most clearly at the highest levels of management, and less so as it trickles down, to minimize the competition’s ability to take a lead in the marketplace. This kind of company may successfully reach its sales and revenue goals, but with structures that reduce transparency and increase power consolidation and control, it is clearly not an impact organization.

Organizations are essentially decision and action entities, and whether decisions are well-informed and shared determines, in part, what I call the Impact Potential, or IP. Basically, the more people that know about and can participate in decision-making, the higher the IP. I will be introducing organizational patterns that maximize impact potential a bit later. For now, I want to turn the focus toward the central component of impact organizations: people. While it takes people to reach full impact potential, they don’t always just show up ready to make an impact. Sure, there are certain skills and capabilities that help, but what’s really important is that they need an impact mindset.

…to be continued