The focus on meaning and impact in the company makes a significant contribution to the successful implementation of projects and to placing the company on a sustainable foundation.
As part of the Treffpunkt.Tomorrow series of events, Sigrid Koloo contributed an impulse on the topic of “Impact Thinking – being economically successful with meaning and impact”. Afterwards, we tried out the implementation in our own business practice with practical tasks. The exchange of ideas provided a good introduction to networking. We report here a short summary of this inspiring evening.
Impact Thinking: being economically successful with meaningful activities
The Impact Thinking approach is about bringing meaning and impact into daily operational practice. A sense of purpose and impact orientation anchored in the company’s orientation helps to,
- achieve social impact and economic success together
- offer added value to customers and employees through meaning
- solve current challenges and improve specific situations for people
- to be guided by the guiding star and not to lose sight of the goal
- to learn from mistakes, to continuously improve the activity as well as its impact
Impact Thinking as compass
Impact thinking is an attitude that gives orientation on a journey like a compass. From the initial idea, through the planning and finally to the execution of the journey, the journey is oriented towards the destination. The choice of route, the means of travel, the preparations – from the language spoken locally to the accepted means of payment – , even the luggage, depends on what the actual goal of the trip is.
In the case of the Impact Thinking approach, this journey revolves around the impact that is to be brought about in a specific target group. An impact is always a purposefully brought about change in people.
This is the guiding star or lighthouse of the impact journey. What one wants to achieve – the desired effect – is kept in view.
The starting point of an impact-oriented approach to projects or ventures, are the following two questions:
- What ideal state of society are we striving for?
- What social problem do we want to solve?
Simply work impact-oriented with impact chain & impact staircase
We got to know and tried out two tools right on the spot to get an insight into the impact thinking approach:
- describe and discuss the impact chain for your own organization or project
- formulate impact-oriented goals using the impact staircase
generate enthusiasm and create meaning
Both tools provide a good and practical introduction to Impact Thinking. They bring new stimuli and inspiration for a sustainable corporate orientation. On the one hand, a project or the entire organization can be put on a successful and stable economic footing. On the other hand, the organization or the project demonstrably contributes to solving current and burning challenges. Thereby a sense of activity becomes immediately visible, which motivates and satisfies employees, provides customers with an additional incentive to use the organization’s offer and generally inspires people.
More about Impact Thinking
Learn how to inspire and be commercially successful with meaning and impact in our e-learning course. You will receive valuable information and all the basics you need to implement impact thinking in your organization.
We support you in creating your impact report based on the Impact Thinking approach. Click here for more information.
Update 03/2023: with Impact Thinking to the impact report to achieve the status of a Verified Social Enterprise.