Article 18
Changing your mindset to embrace an Impact X Responsibility Matrix
1-2 minute read
CAPSULE SUMMARY – When actually applying this matrix to your business you will need to get comfortable with directional precision, working with others outside of your organization, cost and process ambiguity, and letting go of complete control of the prioritization decisions.
18.1 An Impact x Responsibility matrix for Social Impact requires data and quantification, blended together with significant business judgment. To get comfortable applying it, leadership teams will need to break out of some very well-established mindsets. I will cover the top four here.
18.2 Mindset Change #1: Get comfortable with directional vs. precise – Those looking for a singular, precise metric for social impact prioritization will be disappointed with this approach. But as noted, a precise, singular metric for all impacts simply doesn’t exist and those seeking it will be forever chasing it. And that’s OK. Directional yet holistic beats precise and narrow when it comes to identifying and prioritizing these types of efforts.
18.3 Mindset Change #2: Break the line, go zig-zag – The typical approach of most companies would be to stay in the far right of this matrix and focus on what can be easily controlled—or putting it another way, most companies focus just on their first order impacts. Why? It’s easier to focus there, and the potential projects to be found just within that narrow band will easily transcend what any given company can resource.
Most companies focus on the right, on the things they completely control.
Businesses need to break this pattern and move prioritization into a reverse zig-zag—clearing the matrix of all high order impacts (both first and second-order) before moving down the impact ladder to things that are lower impact but easier to control. And of course, in doing so the company should avoid the far left of the matrix, which represents areas where their fractional responsibility is small.
You can’t just stay to the far right of this matrix, even though it’s easier and more comfortable to focus on areas you completely control.
18.4 Mindset Change #3: Committing to action where the required investment is unknown – Because we have, by design, taken feasibility off of this matrix, some of the options that show up may be very hard or very costly to solve. In many cases you won’t even know because you haven’t started the root-cause analysis and haven’t brainstormed or tested ways to mitigate it. Committing to taking action on something where costs and effort are unknown will make many leaders uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t. If you are clearly creating societal damage or harm, you need to commit to taking the first steps to gather more data, analyze root-cause, build a Collective Action group if needed, etc.
18.5 Mindset Change #4: Bringing the stakeholder into the prioritization – Until now, prioritization for social-impact efforts has come either from within the company (the CEO, executive team, head of Corporate Social Responsibility, etc.) or it has been interjected by aggressive government mandate and regulation. Just like they have for all the other stakeholders, companies will need to open up their prioritization process to include the actual stakeholder in question. Put another way—society needs to have a vote. This is an important enough change that it’s the subject of Part IV of the framework.
END OF PART 3