You've probably noticed it on your LinkedIn feed or in the way CEOs are talking during earnings calls. Everyone is chasing "impact." But here's the kicker: we rarely stop to ask is rising impact good in the long run, or if we're just inflating a metric that doesn't actually mean anything for the bottom line or the soul.
It's a weird time.
In the world of social entrepreneurship and corporate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), "impact" has become the new "profit." It’s the metric that determines who gets funding and who gets ignored. But if you're a founder or a manager, you've likely felt that nagging doubt. You’re scaling. Your reach is growing. But is that "rising impact" actually doing what it's supposed to do? Or are you just making a bigger mess on a larger stage?
The Reality of Scale: Why Rising Impact Isn't Always a Win
Scaling a business used to be about sales. Simple. Now, it's about "impact," which is a lot harder to track and even harder to get right.
Let's look at a real-world example: TOMS Shoes. They were the poster child for rising impact. For every pair of shoes sold, they gave a pair away. It sounds perfect. It’s the definition of a rising impact model. But as they scaled, the "good" they were doing started to look a bit shaky. Local shoemakers in developing nations couldn't compete with free. By increasing their impact, they were accidentally destabilizing local economies. They eventually had to pivot their entire model toward investing in local manufacturing and health initiatives because "more" wasn't "better."
It’s a classic trap. We assume that if doing a little bit of something is good, doing a ton of it must be incredible.
The Dilution Effect
When impact rises too fast, quality usually takes a nosedive. Think about non-profits that get a massive influx of cash after a viral moment. Suddenly, they have to spend millions. They hire too fast. They lose their connection to the community. The "impact" numbers on the spreadsheet go up—more kids fed, more trees planted—but the sustainability of those actions often crumbles.
You've seen this in tech, too. A platform grows. It connects more people. Rising impact! But then come the bots, the toxicity, and the algorithmic echo chambers. The impact rose, but the value stayed flat or dipped.
Measuring the Wrong Things
The obsession with whether is rising impact good usually stems from how we measure success. Most people use "vanity metrics." These are the numbers that look great in a pitch deck but don't tell the full story.
- Reach vs. Depth: You reached a million people. Cool. Did you actually change anything for them?
- Output vs. Outcome: You distributed 50,000 laptops. That's an output. An outcome is whether those kids actually learned to code or got jobs.
- Short-term Spikes: A viral charity campaign creates a massive spike in impact for 48 hours. Then everyone forgets.
Harvard Business Review has actually looked into this, specifically regarding "Impact Investing." They've found that the most successful projects aren't necessarily the ones with the fastest-growing impact, but those with the most "additive" impact—meaning, would this good thing have happened anyway without your intervention? If the answer is yes, your "rising impact" is actually just a statistical illusion.
The Psychological Toll of Constant Growth
Honestly, the pressure to constantly increase impact is exhausting. It creates this "never enough" culture. In the startup world, if your impact isn't "rising," you're considered stagnant.
But what if your impact stayed the same but became deeper?
We don't talk about that enough. We’re obsessed with the vertical line on the graph. We want to see that 45-degree angle pointing toward the top right corner. But depth doesn't show up on a standard line graph very well. Deep impact is boring to report. It takes years. It involves building relationships and failing and trying again.
Is Your Impact "High-Fidelity"?
Think of impact like audio. You can turn the volume up (rising impact), but if the speakers are cheap, it just sounds like static. "High-fidelity" impact is about clarity and resonance. It’s about making sure that as you get louder, you aren't losing the nuance of what you’re trying to achieve.
When Rising Impact Becomes Dangerous
There’s a dark side here. When "rising impact" becomes a requirement for survival (like for non-profits seeking grants), people start to game the system. They choose the easiest problems to solve because they yield the highest numbers.
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If you want to show rising impact in education, you might choose to work in a school that is already doing "okay" because it’s easier to move the needle there than in a school that is completely failing. You get your "growth" on the report, but the people who needed you most were left behind. This is what experts call "creaming"—taking the best off the top to make your data look better.
It’s a systemic issue. It’s not just about one bad actor; it’s about an entire ecosystem that rewards the appearance of rising impact over the reality of difficult work.
How to Actually Do It Right
So, is rising impact good? It can be. But only if it's intentional. You have to be willing to slow down. That’s the secret.
- Audit your "Why": Are you scaling because the problem requires it, or because your ego (or your board) does?
- Look for Negative Externalities: What happens if you succeed? Who loses? If your rising impact creates a vacuum elsewhere, you need to fix that before you grow further.
- Prioritize Resilience: A smaller, more resilient impact is always better than a massive, fragile one. If your project would collapse if you stepped away for a month, your impact isn't "rising"—it's just inflated.
- Listen to the "Impacted": This sounds obvious, but so many people forget it. If the people you're trying to help are telling you to slow down or change direction, listen to them. Their feedback is more important than your KPIs.
Actionable Steps for Meaningful Growth
If you're worried about whether your trajectory is actually "good," stop looking at the total numbers for a second. Look at the ratios.
Check your Impact-to-Effort ratio. If you have to work 10x harder to get 1.1x more impact, you've hit a point of diminishing returns. You're probably just churning.
Evaluate your "Secondary Impact." This is the stuff that happens as a byproduct of your work. Sometimes, the most important impact you have isn't the one you're measuring. For a business, this might be the way you treat your employees or the culture you're building in your industry.
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Don't fear the plateau. A plateau isn't failure. It's often where the real work happens. It’s the period where you solidify your gains, refine your processes, and make sure that your "rising impact" is actually built on a foundation of stone rather than sand.
In the end, impact isn't a race. It’s more like gardening. You can’t just scream at the plants to grow faster. You have to tend the soil. You have to deal with the pests. And sometimes, you have to prune the branches so the whole tree doesn't fall over under its own weight.
Rising impact is only good if it’s sustainable, ethical, and rooted in reality. Otherwise, it’s just noise.