I first heard this admonition in January of this year:
“Impact matters more than intent.”
I couldn’t even decipher what that could actually mean in the real world. Based on the context, the facilitator of the space I was in seemed to be indicating that it didn’t matter what your intent was. All that mattered was how it landed. Meaning how the audience or listeners took it. I couldn’t compute that. There is no way a speaker can determine how something they say will be taken. Everything we hear is processed through the lens of our lived experience. Since everyone has different lives and different brains, there’s no way to know for sure how something will be taken. I took that as saying you shouldn’t speak your mind, or prepare to be jumped on and attacked if your listener takes it poorly. So better to not say anything at all.
I ran it by my therapist who was speechless. She struggled to compute what that saying could mean.
I then ran it by my partner, who had a slightly different (and very helpful) take:
So that means that someone could be mean-spirited and hateful inside, but as long as their words come out as nice, it doesn’t matter how they are inside. If they’re good with their words and covering up hardness or hatred in their hearts then that is totally fine. As long as the people listening are positively impacted, it doesn’t matter what the speaker’s intent was.
This also feels deeply maladaptive and not conducive to open and honest communication. Did I mention this statement was made in an anti-racism space, by a white woman?
I then read it in the book White Fragility.
[As an aside: I read most of the book, but couldn’t quite finish. I instead proceeded to read James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Ibram X. Kendi. Those are some great writers and thinkers! White Fragility is an awful book. Poorly written, with few original ideas. The best part was the references and quotes from writers, scholars and activists. And from her behavior, I’d say the author definitely has exhibited racist beliefs. And while I would never thought police anyone, the issue is that she included those thoughts in a book that she published, ostensibly as a manual to teach white people how to be less racist. It definitely validates racist beliefs when a paid anti-racist educator includes them in her book. I will eventually finish the book and then write a long post ripping it apart.]
So then I decided to search online to see how widespread this strange statement was.
From a National Library of Medicine event standards page: “If you are unsure if something is appropriate behavior, it probably isn’t. Each person you interact with can define where that line is for them. Impact matters more than intent. Ensuring that your behavior does not have a negative impact is your responsibility. Problems happen when we assume that our way of thinking or behaving is the norm or ok with everyone. This is particularly problematic when we are in a position of power or privilege.” [italics in the original]
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/ncbi/workshops/2024-09_AMR-Codeathon/event-standards.html
This is taking the idea of everyone having boundaries and somehow turning it into every speaker must be a mind-reader and magically divine everyone else’s boundaries, and most likely what their triggers are. This is impractical and it makes conversations absolutely impossible. I do appreciate the addition of the last sentence.
And “if you are unsure if something is appropriate behavior, it probably isn’t.” So that punishes people with high emotional intelligence or who are highly sensitive or who carry a lot of shame and self blame and makes them not speak up at all. Meanwhile people who lack a conscience or any sense of introspection or insight will speak freely and not even care.
This code of conduct does nothing to hold people who are truly harmful, aggressive, self-absorbed and insensitive accountable, and does everything to silence people who have likely spent their lives afraid of speaking up.
From a Quaker group (Link: Friends General Conference): “The Addressing Racial Wounding Committee provides support to Friends who have experienced racial wounding at an FGC-affiliated event. Impact matters more than intent. The committee prioritizes the impact of harm over the intentions behind it. Good intentions do not erase harm. By focusing on impact, the committee creates space for genuine accountability and the possibility of healing.”
The foundational statement is still not logical, but they at least provide a rational explanation for their thinking rather than just parroting a bunch of silencing words. And on that page, they do go on and say “The committee honors the dignity and humanity of all involved. This includes the person who experienced harm, the person who caused harm, and the broader community. Accountability processes work best when they recognize that of God in everyone.” So I’m not opposed to their implementation of the sentiment. I just think that one phrase doesn’t make sense.
My perspective
I get where this idea came from. It’s to counter the frequent responses by the person who was called out for saying the harmful words: “I didn’t mean it. You misunderstood my intent. I’m a good person.”
But the phrase overcorrects and puts all the power on the receiver of the words.
Note: My perspective is absolutely NOT aimed at situations where someone is attempting to cause harm by saying racist, sexist, homophobic or other bigoted things! My concern is that this ground rule is being applied in anti-racism trainings and in settings where people are in intentional community together. It is being applied in places where people are ostensibly all there to learn and grow together.
My reframe:
Impact matters just as much as intent!
That’s it! Simple. “Yes, and.” Not “one or the other.”
Both matter! We can never predict how our words will land, because we don’t know someone’s history. We can try to say “trigger warning” if it’s something involving violence or abuse (pretty safe bet that in any given space someone will be triggered by a mention of violence or abuse). But we can’t always know how people will react. At the same time, if our words do cause harm, then it is on us to accept responsibility and make a genuine apology.
The way this can be applied in a space:
One of the guiding principles in our space today is that impact matters just as much as intent. What this means is that everyone can speak their mind, but that also means you need to be open to receiving feedback if your words cause harm. And by open we mean listening without interrupting. Sitting with the discomfort of witnessing someone else in pain. Having compassion for their pain. Once they are finished sharing, it means apologizing and asking how repair can happen.
A genuine apology would look like “I am sorry my words caused you harm.” If appropriate, you can even add, “Please let me know how I can repair the harm I have caused.”
A genuine apology is NOT: “I am sorry you were offended.” or “I am sorry you feel hurt.”
That is not owning your role in the situation and it puts all the responsibility on the other person. That is an attempt to cover yourself, and gives the semblance of contrition, but lacks the heart and spirit. It is not owning your role. It is instead focused entirely on the listener’s reaction. Those phrases are distancing and disconnecting.
If we really want to be in community with others, we need to be ready to set aside our egos and repair harm when we are made aware that we have caused harm. It does not mean that we subsume our needs to the needs of others.
And if you were the person who experienced harm or were triggered by the speaker, your role is to share your reaction using I statements (I recognize that when you’re activated or triggered it can be hard to speak mindfully. I said “that was triggering” recently when I experienced something that didn’t land right). Then give the speaker a chance to respond and offer genuine repair before you reach a conclusion about their motivations.
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That’s all I have. Obviously this can fall apart and people can still attack each other. But I don’t think the other phrase is conducive to forming trusting communities.
Calling In
Just today, I read more of the book “Calling In” by the amazing Loretta J. Ross (the subtitle of the book is “How to start making change with those you’d rather cancel.”) And she addressed this! She was describing call outs (Chapter 2). She has seen situations where call outs have destroyed groups. She describes 5 responses to call outs: Demonize, defend, dictate, distract, deflect. None of these are conducive to productive dialog and can create lasting harm.
She then says “There are three critical ways in which I’ve seen call outs tip over the edge to become more destructive than constructive:
1) when calling out becomes a way of asserting ego or power, rather than a larger purpose;
2) when the harm caused by a call out outweighs the harm of the original wrong;
3) when call outs create a stifled, fearful environment where people are reluctant to engage or get involved.”
(From halfway through chapter 2. I’m reading the ebook, so I can’t give a page number.)
I’d been meaning to write about this for a couple months. I was prompted to write today because I was actually part of a situation in a virtual group today. I had planned to include a description of what happened, but decided even my general description could violate confidentiality. I will just say that I was in the “listener” role and I was triggered and indicated that. The “speaker” then acted defensive and the group (including me!) rallied to support and reassure the person. I even ended up apologizing for causing harm with my words.
Some more background on this phrase. As far as I can tell, the rationale for the saying “Impact matters more than intent,” had a foundation in a true need, and one that I absolutely understand and agree is super problematic (as I experienced today in a very small way)!! In workplaces, and even antiracism trainings, white people would say things that were racist. Others would then point those things out, and the white person in question would then act defensive. Common responses might include: “That’s not what I meant.” “You don’t understand.” “I’m not a racist. I’m a good person.”
And according to the White Fragility book, in extreme cases, the speaker who caused the harm would then make themselves into the victim, and would be able to sway the room to their side. All of a sudden, the mood in the room would be about comforting the speaker because they said they were attacked, and they are the real victim in this. To me this sounds like typical DARVO (“Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender”). Link to Wikipedia entry on DARVO.
This is inexcusable behavior and can even involve gaslighting. So I definitely understand the motivation to come up with a ground rule that will clearly stave off such behavior! The problem is that this statement is being applied to so many settings. I really think my shift in the statement to make both intent and impact matter creates a situation where both parties in the exchange are partners. That decreases the likelihood of toxic and aggressive defensiveness, while also granting power to the listener to articulate when harm has occurred. I think having shared responsibility for the exchange increases the chance that repair can occur.
I hope the impact of this post was neutral or even positive. I hope I did not cause harm. But if I did, I hope you will trust me enough to let me know, so we can remain in dialogue and learn and grow together.
Impact matters just as much as intent!
With love and solidarity!
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