The change we urgently seek will not come from impact measurement tools and bold visions for change alone.
At Scotland CAN B, we believe that real, lasting, transformation of our economic system requires deeper introspection into the worldview, mindset, values, and behaviours which underlie the system that we are trying to change. It requires a culture shift.
The Micro, Meso, & Macro of fostering Impact Culture
Our Impact Culture work takes various forms, across micro to macro levels, with each of our stakeholder groups, woven throughout our different activities and offerings.
This cultural change work is emergent, and often intangible, but vitally important. Our ability to pin-down and articulate the nature of it, is itself a work in progress. Below we’ve outlined what we’re beginning to see emerge as three levels of our work to foster Impact Culture:
Behaviour, motivations, and relationships
In its simplest form, Impact Culture is about understanding and exploring our motivations and our conduct at a human level. All systems are made up of a multitude of relationships and dynamics, and so where better to try and make a difference than at the level of the relationships and dynamics we are a part of every day?
Structures, language, and tools
We are committed to doing what we can to ensure that as a nation we’re all pulling in the same direction by joining dots, cultivating coherence and alignment in mindset, language, tools and frameworks used when we talk about business impact in Scotland. Fostering these supporting structures provide the ‘meso’ level, the connective tissue which bridges the gap between micro and macro culture-shifting work.
Values, assumptions, and beliefs
This deepest work of fostering Impact Culture links to our core value and principle of Interdependence. What are the wider systems we are a part of? What belief systems do we currently hold about the role of business in society? Are these serving people, the planet, and future generations? How might these beliefs need expanding, evolving, or reassessing to become fit for the future?