Impact Multipliers

Factors that act as multipliers of your impact - individually and as an organization

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When I interact with ambitious young profssionals, I often get this question, “How do we create an impact with our work and scale it?”

First and foremost, impact for me means making a positive difference in lives of the other people. Or as Seth Godin says,

“The medium doesn't matter. The intent does. Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.”

This question often gets me thinking about things that helped me scale my impact.

Impact Multipliers for Individuals

I feel it starts with a purposeful intent. “What change would you like to see as a result of your work?” is a great question to start with. I have learned that as we go along, our purpose evolves. For example, when I started working in Quality domain, I thought that delivering quality was about processes and tools. My purpose evolved to include people in it, and then leadership, and culture and so on. The purpose evolved as I evolved.

I place a lot of emphasis to Generosity in sharing. I have been very generous in sharing my journey and lessons since 2006, when I started blogging. Generosity is as much about sharing as it is about opening the doors for other people. Being generous, amplifying good work of the others and fostering connections between people is a true impact multiplier.

There cannot be any impact without Credibility. I’ve learned that when we build a reputation for reliability, expertise, and integrity, it makes our voice and actions more impactful. Credibility is also about sharing whatever you share from your own lived experiences, as it is about your skills and competence.

When you practice generosity consistently, you automatically attract a Community of people around your work. I feel that resonance is a powerful force that brings people together to a common intent. I think, write and share about leadership, learning and change - and these topics have found relevance amongst diverse communities and sub-communities. For example, Helen Bevan, former Chief Transformation Officer at NHS, UK shares a lot of my work making me a part of the vibrant healthcare improvement community. This is just one example of how our work starts to find resonance in different contexts.

Crafting a narrative that resonates others through Storytelling creates impact, because it inspires action. For me, storytelling has helped me immensely in building a culture of high-performance while leading a large organization. I have helped customers tell their strategy story visually. Sketchnotes is also a form of visual story.

When you are a part of community, you can only thrive with your Contribution. Contribution can come in form of generous sharing, having a heartfelt conversation, coaching/teaching other people, adopting a mindset of service, amplifying ideas of others and building products or services that positively impact others.

In a dynamic world where context evolves rapidly, one skill that helps create a positive impact is Lifelong Learning. Continuously seeking new knowledge and staying curious enabled me to experiment with different functional roles, take up new responsibilities and find newer ways to express myself. As an example, in journey of expressing and sharing, I wrote traditional magazine articles, blogs, 100 word stories, books, newsletters, visual notes etc. Each of these required new learning to be assimilated and implemented.

Community and generous sharing invites opportunities for Collaboration. Combining strengths is a great way to scale impact. For example, my first book opportunity happened as a result of a short call with someone I admired a lot. This collaboration opened doors for many new relationships, conversations and opportunities to create an impact.

Impact Multipliers for Leaders and Change-Makers

As a change consultant for large scale transformation initiatives, I often wonder about creating impact and influencing change in large teams or organizations.

What are some of the impact multipliers for people trying to influence a large scale change? I stumbled upon one possible answer to that question in Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini’s excellent book “Humanocracy”. In chapter 16 of the book, the authors cite examples of change makers like Malala Yousufzai and Greta Thunberg who mobilized thousands of people towards their chosen cause.

I created the following sketchnote to outline the Impact Multipliers for Leaders and Change-Makers - aimed at building a human-centric culture of high performance.