Intent vs. Impact

Speaking to a group of principals, one of the participants, thanked me for my time, and gave a very elegant “call-to-action” to the group.  It was not simply discussing what I talked about, but what they needed to do to move forward.

One of her quotes that resonated with me was, “Intention is not good enough; we need to look at our impact.”1  It jolted me.  There are very few people in the world that don’t want to do important things, yet what is the impact of our intentions?  Everyone wants to be a great teacher, but do all educators do things that keep them up to date and moving forward in their work? This would obviously apply to any profession.

I have always believed that you could have been a great teacher ten years ago, changed nothing, and now be irrelevant.

This is one of my favourite quotes from a college dropout who felt a post-secondary education was no longer relevant to what he needed to be successful in our world today:

“Wanting” is not good enough on it’s own; the impact of our actions are how progress is always measured.

George Couros Principal of Change