By Antoine Martin – Impactified Co-founder
Impact? What do you mean ‘Impact’? The question keeps coming over and over, so I decided to put a few ideas on paper. What does the term actually mean? Why it is relevant? How can it be used to bring things to another level, so forth and so on.
In this article (which draws from another article I wrote some time ago), I give some background as to what got me to Impact Thinking, and I elaborate on how we – at Impactified – define ‘Impact’.
Over time, several layers of definitions have indeed formed, each bringing our thinking one step further, one idea at a time. In the end, we couldn’t isolate one single definition of ‘Impact’, however. Undeniably, the idea that Impact is about making a difference is our absolute truth, yet there is much more to it than that. So, we dig in.
Impact and forward-thinking
A Ph.D. is one of those things that opens a variety of doors. Right after I graduated in 2012, mine got me into the economic research department of a multinational insurance group. My job there was rather straightforward: do research, produce insights, coordinate outputs with CEOs and law firms in over 45 countries.
More importantly, perhaps, that job pushed me to figure things out on the go, and to build strategic plans as a way to compensate for the absence of existing strategic plans.
Or, said differently, it taught me that there can be no positive Impact without a strong dose of forward-thinking and planning.
A few years later, my Ph.D. got me another job. This time, the opportunity was in Asia – Hong Kong to be precise – and in a university. Still a matter of organizing research projects, with a focus on financial and Fintech matters. But with a major difference: measuring the actual outcome of my work became much more complex.
Why?
Because in academia the point was not really to make a difference, and it was even less to measure what results had been achieved. Writing and publishing mattered, but whether or not the work made was used outside of academia didn’t really matter. And that became rapidly frustrating. Very frustrating.
To compensate, I started to build a parallel life. I joined entrepreneurs’ groups, for starters. I co-founded an online platform to help entrepreneurs talk about business in Asia. And I kept myself busy with consulting gigs.
Building an entrepreneurial project is always difficult, so using the expertise I had built to work with Fintech entrepreneurs made a lot of sense. Especially from a business strategy perspective. Mostly, these guys wanted to make a difference out there. They wanted to solve a problem, and, as it turned out, being able to help them finally gave me a tangible indicator of the difference I could make for others.
But then, things took a U-turn.
Meeting my Impact opportunity.
One day, I changed jobs. Same place. Same office. Same computer screen. Same email address. And same colleagues. But a completely new job. And that new job was a game-changer because it opened my eyes on the fact that business-as-usual simply can’t be enough.
Professor Bryan Mercurio, my boss at the time, came into my office. We chatted for a moment. We talked about the last papers we had in the pipeline, about that startup I was working with, and about the remaining work on that book we were working on. And then, right before leaving my office, he threw the news at me.
“The Board was looking for someone to build something strategic for the Faculty so I suggested you’d be the right guy for it“, he said. “We need a new policy center, something to build impact, you know… you’ve built a network, you went to business school and all that, you’ll figure it out…“.
I wasn’t sure what they had in mind, to be honest. I had spent the past three years working on my things, working my way to the outside world and playing a low profile while staying deliberately outside of influence zones and games. Plus, I was well aware that change wasn’t a preoccupation in such a heavy institution, so I got curious.
I realized that beyond appearances, my extra-curricular experiences had apparently made an Impact on someone, and that they would become a strength after all. So, I started to look into the thing.
Soon after, the Dean of the Faculty asked me to refocus my work. I joined the Faculty’s Research Board, and I started to act as Head of Impact Strategy for Hong Kong’s best legal education institution. As it turned out, research needed to get even better than it was, and I would be responsible for building the strategy to get there.
Defining Impact: First Experiment Inconclusive.
The first issue I had to deal with was very simple: I needed to understand what the big shots who pulled the academic Impact strings actually had in mind.
The problem was that no real guidance was available, and the definition of ‘Impact’ which was provided was so broad it didn’t help.
I attended some workshops, went to a couple of events organized by the university, wrote a faculty guideline based on best international practices and built a leadership program around that for the staff. More importantly, I quickly realized that something was changing.
For some reason, the Hong Kong Universities were now following a system originally developed five years ago in the UK to give wings to academia. Academics are paid out of taxpayer money, after all, so the Brits decided that academic work would now need to become useful to the society, outside of academia. No more “making a contribution to academic literature”, as academics always say.
No. Research would now need to become impacting and impactful for the rest of the world, and Impact would need to become a new purpose for research. “To be impactful or not to be impactful”, I said to myself at the time. Except that this little joke has since then become way more than a joke. Impact has become a question, an objective, a road map, a personal quest for meaning, and an even more personal mission.
Impact Definition #1: Bangs and Wows.
Like all the people in the workshops I attended, the first thing I began to think about was the meaning of ‘Impact’. Nobody had a clue, really, because researchers are trained to research and write, not to use their research to change the world. But I could see that there was something to explore out there.
If only because the term was a flying saucer in a room filled with fast-thinking and bothered minds.
So, I tried a dictionary definition experiment.
Truth be told, though, defining the term really is a challenge! Look for ‘Impact’ online and see for yourself. ‘Im’pakt’ has a few definitions, some of which are far more interesting than others.
The first definition I bumped into was rather unoriginal. Impact was a “marked effect or influence” which can also be considered in terms of effect or impression. Not very impactful, if you ask me…
So, I looked for more and another definition emerged: an impact is the action of one object coming forcibly into contact with another one, which in this case becomes a matter of collision, crash, smash, clash and bang. That was more convincing.
According to the Cambridge dictionary, an impact also refers to the force or action of one object hitting another, or to a powerful effect that something, especially something new, has on a situation or person. Again, something like a bang.
Better, but I needed more so I looked for a little bit of provocation and went for the definitions of the sharp and corrosive humor of the Urban Dictionary. There, I found this. First, impact “usually refers to how shocking, thought-provoking or memorable some given item is (or likely to be)”. Second, “Wow is impact”.
In sum? An impact implies a forcible contact between two things and therefore is a matter of collision, smash, and bang. But it is also a matter of challenge, thoughtful provocation, shock and Wow. Much, much better.
Impact Definition #2: Impact Marketing BS.
But then another definition of impact came up and spoiled the fun. Dramatically, I mean. The word I picked after that wasn’t ‘impact’ but ‘impactful’. And when defining ‘impactful’, users of the Urban Dictionary have a largely critique eye which pictures impact as a matter of marketing-based but otherwise perfectly hollow and nonsensical concept.
In 2007, for instance, J. Spaghetti (we’re still on Urban Dictionary, remember?) defined the word ‘impactul’ as a “non-existent word coined by corporate advertising, marketing and business drones to make their work sound far more useful, exciting and beneficial to humanity than it really is“.
“This term“, Mr Spaghetti added, “is most frequently used in team building seminars and conferences in which said drones discuss the most effective ways to convince consumer zombies to purchase crap they clearly do not need or even want“.
Another definition popped up, eventually, alongside the idea that ‘impactful’ is a word “Commonly used in advertising” and which “refers to campaigns or executions with a positive effect on consumer perception or awareness“. In a talk I gave with Philippe, as a matter of fact, a former advertising expert who participated in the conversation openly regretted that his late industry – whilst arguably producing Impact for its clients – only focused on what he called “meaningless creativity”.
Said differently? Beyond shock, smashes, bangs and Wow opportunities, “Impact” is also a term which can denote BS rather than strength, meaning, and impact. And that’s not really a definition I want to play with…
Let’s think differently, first.
Beyond the initial disappointment, looking at those definitions got me thinking about verbs. Excuse my French, English isn’t my native language, therefore, the wording of some definitions gave me some food for thought. In particular: do you have an impact or do you make an impact?
I couldn’t explain the difference in the first place. In fact, I even wondered which of the two was a grammatical mistake. But both terms came up as valid. Valid but different, nonetheless, and something meaningful came out of it.
The power of “make”.
Think about it. People don’t “take” decisions. They “make” them. Said differently? Well, a decision isn’t something you pick. A decision it is something you provoke deliberately.
Philippe and I talked about the topic in length, again and again. And we came up with another question. What if having an impact was not a matter of picking the low-hanging fruit but, instead, a matter of making a decision to “make” a difference?
The distinction might seem irrelevant to you, but to us it was an absolute game-changer. Shifting from provocative interpretations to verb analysis gave things a whole new dimension.
Having an impact is in the range of wishful thinking. At best, you “have” an impact by default, out of luck, because something good happened unexpectedly. Congratulations. Yet, for the majority of people, chances are that no Impact has occurred yet and therefore having one is nothing but a vague goal. Having an Impact is a dream, maybe a fantasy. Something impalpable and hardly measurable.
But ‘making’ an Impact by making an actual difference is a whole new story. Making an Impact is all about action. making an Impact is about making things practical, palpable, visible and measurable. Making an Impact is about creating a change, one way or another.
“Making an impact” denotes strength and it implies that a decision was made to smash, bang and Wow things up in order to make a difference. And it requires the development of a strategy to turn a fantasy into something that effectively matters and changes something for someone.
Impact Definition #3: The impact you have is (nothing but) the difference you make.
It flows from the above that the following idea – which has since then become our message – is probably the best way to define what ‘Impact’ is all about. The impact you have is nothing but the difference you make.
Forget the marketing BS and focus on real-world change, because whatever you do the only things that matter is to make a difference.
Making a difference to yourself, to begin with. In our line of work as business advisers, we keep reminding our clients that the point of running a business is not to just run a business but to make sure that the business runs for them and improves their situation, in a way that’s aligned with their own personal objectives and values.
Making a difference to others, also. Like it or not, but your own business won’t create value for you if you don’t create value for others. Even more importantly, wanting to make a difference for others is probably the best way to make a real difference out there.
Whether the Impact is on you or on someone else is for you to decide, but in the same way there is no smoke without fire, there can be no positive impact without decisions or actions either. Impact is something you have to provoke and generate. Impact is something you must deserve. Because Bangs and Wows just won’t fall from the sky.
Impact Definition #4: Impact is something you do with your guts.
The question of “how” we get there always comes up, and the answer to the question is very straightforward: The impact you have is nothing but the difference you make, and being Impactful is something you have to do with your guts.
Status Quo aversion.
First, making a difference starts from a deliberate aversion to Status Quo and immobilism. Immobilism is a form of comfort, it goes without saying. At the end of the day, why should we try to change a winning team? The truth is, immobilism is the worst thing you can ever want.
With immobilism comes a fear of challenges and a refusal to change. Before you know it, the mere idea of improving starts to be perceived as a threat. And then you are doomed. A sort of Smash, Bang and Wow, that’s for sure. But a bad one.
Embrace change.
Instead of accommodating with immobilism, embracing change is the best way to make a difference and Impact our lives. Yours, to start with. And others’ too – which is far more interesting.
On a daily basis, embracing change isn’t complicated. It can be a matter of welcoming people with a smile, a matter of being a reliable friend even though you’d better be home with a beer. It can be a matter of being useful to others, and a matter of solving problems others get stuck with, without expecting anything in exchange.
Right. Except that making a real Impact requires more than that. Making an Impact requires a decision to change things for real. And there are many ways to get there.
Impact Definition #5: There are many ways to make a difference
In our line of work as business advisers and especially since the term ‘Impact’ has entered into our daily vocabulary, people keep asking us what we mean by ‘Impact’ and how we plan on making it happening. Over time, we have come up with an answer to that question which not only regroups the previous points but also opens a rather wide perspective.
Impact is about people.
At Impactified, our mission is to help entrepreneurs build strategies, business models and organizations that make a difference. In some cases the difference affects their own lives, yet in most cases the Impact is much bigger. Why? Because business is about people. The people you work with as a team, the people you build a solution for, you name it. But people are at the heart of everything.
Impact is about helping.
Impact is obviously extremely relevant in the non-profit business, both from the perspective of their result and from the perspective of their money-generating message.
At the end of the day, people don’t give money to charity without a good reason. Charity-giving has a single purpose, which is to improve a situation and help solve a problem, to have an impact on society, one way or another. In that case, the Impact message is about helping and about fund-raising.
The same goes for the Research industry and for academia, as a matter of fact. The years where making an Impact on the existing literature was sufficient are gone. Think about it, what is the point of spending years researching a topic if nothing changes? nowadays research relates to results and the ability to change the world for better, one way or another.
What that means is simple, Impact in such contexts is even farther from the marketing BS mentioned by Mr Spaghetti. Impact is the bread and butter of all those organizations which are expected to alleviate pain instead of capitalizing.
Impact can be a personal thing.
Last but not least, Impact can be a matter of self-satisfaction and self-fulfillment. Perhaps your efforts will positively affect a hundred thousand people. Perhaps your efforts will only affect the people you love. Perhaps you will be the affected person. Who are we to judge? At the end of the day, what matters is to make things change for the better, isn’t it?
Impact Definition #6: Impact is not just a matter of social entrepreneurship.
Now, we often hear that Impact is a social entrepreneurship thing. But we don’t agree. As far as we’re concerned, Impact applies to every entrepreneurial mind.
As we just wrote, Impact can be a matter of positively influencing or helping people. This can be a matter of getting people off the streets from a charity perspective, or a matter of creating socially-oriented businesses. But it can also be a matter of building happy business teams while securing their jobs and allowing them to plan their own lives with peace of mind.
Think about it. Where do you draw the line between social and non-social entrepreneurship? Does a company like Stojo (which sells silicone cups to avoid paper cup waste) count as a social enterprise? Their purpose is to save the environment and their Impact is easily tangible, yet are they “social entrepreneurs” or simply conscious entrepreneurs? Does the distinction even matter? In the end, isn’t the ability of an entrepreneur to change the rules of the game the most important thing?
Let us take another, bigger example. Elon Musk’s various businesses are operated around the idea of changing the way we use energy. Tesla cars are electric, and the company also develops photovoltaic cells that can replace roofs. The Impact is once again easy to pinpoint, but does that turn Musk’s groups into a social business?
Ultimately, the ability of an entrepreneur to make a positive contribution to a community, however big, counts as Impact. Change something for someone, tackle a problem people face, challenge a status quo (whatever the status quo) and chances are that you will make a difference.
Look around you, take Apple or Google and Amazon, for instance. These brands’ current impacts are rather difficult to identify because, at the moment, the main concern is either their ability to evade tax or their negative influence on small shops and merchants.
Yet, Apple revolutionized our relationship with computers, music, and phones. Google has vastly transformed our approach to information and communication. And Amazon has probably created the biggest U-turn in the industry of retail.
Look at Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Their vision was to bring technology into our homes and lives. That’s an Impact they had, without a doubt, on billions. Elon Musk (again) worked on building electric cars and roofs, but his Space-X ships are about getting us into space. Impact. Double Impact. Triple Impact.
The point is, making an Impact doesn’t need to be associated with marketing BS aimed at cheating consumers and at producing money but it doesn’t just fit the social entrepreneurship discourse either. Making an Impact with business is a decision to make things different. Impact is an entrepreneur’s best friend. Period.
Impact Definition #7: Impact is also a matter of organization. Really.
The last definition of ‘Impact’ which comes to our mind is organizational. Beyond changing people’s lives, our ability to make a difference is usually a matter of organization. We put a lot of efforts, energy, time and money in building projects we believe in, but what is the outcome if the way we organize ourselves actually slows us down?
In many cases, making an Impact is a matter of being Impactful – i.e. a matter of making sure that everything we do actually serves our bigger purpose and cause. Being Impactful is about making sure that the resources we put into whatever we do are allocated properly, for the right reason, at the right time, and for the right outcome.
Said differently? Our ability to organize the way we make a difference is one of the roots of our overall Impact, hence the best way to make a difference is to work on our personal organizational and capacity-building skills.
Fundamental questions: Why should you bother, and how to do it?
Obviously, the questions which comes next are very straightforward: ‘why should I bother with Impact’, and ‘how do I do it’?
In our experience as business advisers, bringing a dose of Impact Thinking into your daily routine is a very efficient way to make things move forward.
For starters, taking some time to think about the Impact you want to make out there, as a person or as a business, is an excellent way to promote and propagate your message. In so many occasions, we see people struggling h a bad pitch. They try to sell whatever they do and have the greatest difficulties convincing people of why they should be buying. When Impact comes into the big picture, however, the pitch tends to turn into a super-powerful value proposition that people tend to be far more receptive to. We call that Impactification (in case you had a doubt). Please have a look at our article for more insights.
Beyond the narrative idea, the question of ‘how to do’ is also very relevant. Obviously, this is where the serious stuff begins, so we have written a few articles on Impactful strategy-building to help you with figuring things out. Here is a hint, thought: start with defining what Impact you want to have out there and make sure that this Impact solves a very tangible problem for a very specific target. Problem-solving and niche-building are the best ways to start making a difference, really.
The bottom line? Impact is about being Impactful and making a positive difference down the road.
The bottom line here is simple. Impact is about being Impactful and making a positive difference down the road.
Some will use entrepreneurial methods to leverage strengths and resources and make the biggest difference they can. Some will use business as a means to answer a demand, others will see business as a means to solve a problem. The approach is slightly different, the outcome is the same – in both way a successful entrepreneur will challenge the status quo and offer an improvement that others will benefit from.
but there is more. Making an Impact totally makes sense at the individual level as well. I worked with disabled kids in the past and was blessed to have a chance to temporarily improve a tiny portion of their lives. I also advised some entrepreneurs and challenged the way they saw their business strategy, to eventually help them change the way their organization worked. I am now working on turning Impact into a message and a mission, but ultimately the reality is that talking about Impact also improves my personal selfish situation, because I make a living out of it. And so what?
There, again, strategies need to be put into place to make the desired impact happen. But the basis is the same. It all starts from a realization that another model is worth exploring and that we, independently or as a group, can make things change. Opportunities to make an Impact are everywhere. All it takes to do that is the realization that we, you, and I, can make a difference at various levels. Think about it and imagine how things would work if you managed differently. You’ll see…
About Antoine Martin?
Antoine Martin (Ph.D.) is an entrepreneur, Impact Advocate and Co-Founder of Impactified. As a business strategy adviser, he challenges entrepreneurs and decision-makers to help them build more Impacful business stategies that make a difference. He also writes and speaks regularly on entrepreneurship and Impact.
