Individual's attempts to improve impact get stymied by the day-to-day routines and habits that stifle growth and innovation. What can you do to prepare and position yourself for success? Develop your impact capabilities.

Drawing on years of experience, while working with dozens of for-profit and nonprofit organizations, there are a few practical ways that I have used to break habits that impede impact and to develop new capabilities that inspire it.

Here are a few ways to get started in your current organization:

Know your "why": understand your purpose, your reason for being, and how your mission aligns with the organizational work. Consider including elements of spiritual, personal, and professional components in your mission statement.
Know your strategy: look beyond the short-term, day-to-day activities. Become familiar with the business model and work to understand how the operations and strategy relate. The ability to articulate the link between strategy, activities, and resources will provide you with information to make sound decisions and recommendations that help organizations reach their goals.
Know your financials: if you haven't already, you might want to crack open some old accounting textbooks. At a minimum, you need to be able to interpret an income, P&L, or operations statement and use that to understand what is going on in the business.
Know your relationships: build successful working relationships with other directors, top executives, and other stakeholders. Being effective involves listening carefully and being able to grasp, process, and react positively to opinions you may have not previously considered.
Know your [organization's] culture: work on your ability to assess and understand the behaviors, norms, and beliefs of your organization. Improve your understanding of cultural dynamics by joining cross-functional, cross-industry, and cross-culture groups.

While developing impact capabilities does take time to build, it is not rocket science. I find that successful leaders know themselves in the context of their organization and use these capabilities to unleash impact.

Do you agree?