Making meaningful impact: How to reorient around what truly matters?

Photo by Luca Cavallin

We’re seeing increasing signals that the world around us is changing rapidly and becoming increasingly complex and uncertain.

Mid-sized service providers feel the effects of these shifts in their day-to-day work. Beyond delivering services, there’s a growing awareness of a deeper question: What meaningful impact are we creating for people and society?

It’s not a simple question. It often opens up a broader exploration: What role do we want to play as an organization? What truly matters?And how do we find our way—especially now?

Making sense of what’s unfolding

In our experience, finding your way through complexity doesn’t begin with offering answers. It starts by asking the right questions. By pausing together.By observing what’s happening.By reconnecting with the bigger picture.

For us, change doesn’t emerge from top-down plans but through creating space for sensemaking—the shared process of interpreting what’s going on and exploring where it might lead. It’s about developing a collective understanding—one that opens up new possibilities.

Meaningful impact as a compass

Organizations striving for meaningful impact don’t begin with optimizing structures or retooling processes. They start by re-examining their purpose.

People bring energy to their work when they feel that what they do matters. Customers value services that go beyond the transactional. Leadership becomes stronger when it not only provides direction but also creates space for reflection and shared ownership.

In our work, this impact often becomes visible in how teams talk to each other, in the questions they dare to ask, and in their willingness to explore complexity together, without rushing to solutions.

What does this ask of leaders and teams?

In our collaborations with leaders and teams, we repeatedly see a familiar pattern: The world is changing, and the old ways of thinking and acting no longer seem to fit. Existing beliefs stop working as they used to. That can be uncomfortable, but it also opens up space for something new.

That’s where insight begins. And movement becomes possible.

What we see in practice

Over the past twenty years, we’ve worked with many leaders and teams navigating these shifts. Sometimes, they are a response to external developments—like new technologies, legislation, or shifting customer expectations—and other times, they are a response to a more internal need: a desire to reframe their role, their values, or the meaning of their work.

What stands out to us? There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. But we do see patterns that help teams take meaningful steps:

1. Creating clarity through a shared vision

In times of complexity, clarity about what truly matters—and where you want to go—is invaluable. Even if the path ahead is still uncertain.

We support teams in co-creating a vision that connects ambition and direction, not as a rigid end goal but as a shared expression of intent that invites action.

We use tools such as:

• The 5-Step Bold Vision Canvas helps make choices visible and leaves space for reflection, without locking everything in.

• OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, Measures) provides structure by asking: What do we want to achieve? How will we know we’re making progress?

The result is a shared language and direction—a compass teams can align with and use to guide everyday decisions.

2. Creating space to explore and learn

Traditional strategic planning can give a false sense of certainty in a complex and unpredictable world.

We believe a different mindset is needed—an exploratory one that treats strategy as a hypothesis to test rather than a predefined route to follow.

This mindset is where sensemaking becomes a key capability: The ability to observe, connect seemingly unrelated signals, and stay open to learning, especially when the path ahead isn’t linear.

It calls for leadership that:

• encourages collective sensing and interpretation,

• fosters curiosity,

• and initiates small, focused moves that build trust and confidence.

Our programs invite teams to let go of “the way we’ve always done things.”Instead, we explore what might emerge when we listen differently to the outside world, one another, and the quiet signals of change already present.

The result of this work is often a set of simple, guiding principles—your internal compass when the old maps no longer apply.

3. Designing safe but uncomfortable spaces for change

Meaningful change often touches identity, position, and deeply held beliefs, so it’s no surprise that it brings discomfort.

That discomfort isn’t a problem—it’s part of the process. However, it requires a safe and well-designed space to be processed constructively. That’s why we create learning environments that are both structured and flexible. We use tools like LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) to tap into emotion, insight, and genuine human connection.

LSP invites participants to build metaphors with their hands, making abstract ideas visible and unlocking conversations that often remain beneath the surface.

It lowers barriers, encourages deeper listening, and allows people to explore discomfort instead of avoiding it.

We capture not only what’s said but also the emotional undertones, tensions, and breakthroughs—often the process's most valuable outcomes. The document becomes a living record of a team’s thinking, feeling, and growing awareness.

Co-creating meaningful transitions

Something shifts when shared vision, exploratory learning, and engaged dialogue come together. Change is no longer something that happens to people; it is something they participate in and help shape.

This kind of transformation doesn’t happen all at once. It builds over time through small, purposeful shifts that strengthen ownership, trust, and clarity of purpose.

Above all, it honors the team's unique context, values, and ambitions.

Let’s explore what might emerge for you

You may be at the start of a new chapter. You may sense that something needs to shift, even if the ‘how’ isn’t unclear. Or maybe you’re simply looking for more meaning in your daily work.

Whatever your starting point, we’d love to explore it with you, not with pre-made solutions but with curiosity, grounded experience, and space to sense what’s possible.