The Impact Ladder: How Communication Scales Influence, Creativity, and Reward

Editorial Note: This essay sits at the heart of the Cultivated body of work. It captures an emerging model — still forming, still being tested — about how impact grows over a career, and why communication sits at the centre of that growth. What follows is not a prescription, but a way of seeing.

The Impact Ladder: Communication, Creativity, and How Influence Grows

I’ve spent most of my career observing people.

Partly out of curiosity.
Partly because I’m always learning.
And partly because I’ve always been a quiet people-watcher — noticing behaviours, patterns, and moments where things either moved forward or quietly stalled.

Over time, those observations were reinforced by study. My Zotero library filled up with research on communication, creativity, leadership, and organisational behaviour. Different disciplines. Different vocabularies. Strikingly similar conclusions.

I eventually landed on a conviction that still feels bold, but increasingly difficult to un-see:

Most problems in business are communication problems.

Alfred Adler said it more cleanly:

“All problems are interpersonal relationship problems.”

However you phrase it, the pattern holds. Communication sits beneath conflict, misalignment, stalled change, poor decisions, unrealised ideas, and underwhelming impact. It is not a soft skill. It is the operating system, the infrastructure.

And it scales.

A Ladder, Not a Leap

Over the years, a simple model began to form — not from theory first, but from watching how careers actually unfold.

As people progress, their impact changes.
And as impact changes, the kind of communication required changes with it. Or maybe it was the other way around. Their communication changes and their impact does too.

Not everyone climbs this ladder. Not everyone wants to. But the pattern is there.

Contributor

Most of us begin here.

We exchange time, energy, and attention for pay. We do the work. We solve problems placed in front of us. We deliver value within a defined boundary.

This stage matters. It builds competence. It teaches craft. But it has limits.

Time is finite.
Energy fluctuates.
Impact scales slowly.

Many people push harder here — longer hours, more effort — and are surprised when reward and influence don’t rise in proportion. I’ve lived that cycle myself. It’s honest work, but it isn’t scalable.

Manager

The first multiplier appears.

Impact no longer comes solely from personal output, but from enabling others. Work moves through people rather than being carried alone.

Communication shifts.
Clarity matters more than effort.
Conflict appears.
Politics, alignment, and trust enter the frame as a core responsibility and activity.

At this level, people begin to lead — whether formally or not. Earnings often rise, but more importantly, leverage appears. Results are no longer bound to individual capacity.

Some stop here. Many do. And that’s not a failure.

Systemic Thinking

This is where the work changes again.

The focus moves from within the system to on the system. From activity to structure. From effort to leverage.

People operating here see patterns others miss. They notice where friction accumulates, where incentives misfire, where processes quietly drain energy.

Their value isn’t measured in hours, but in what changes because they were there.

Communication becomes more demanding. Ideas must travel across boundaries. Stakeholders need aligning. Resistance must be navigated rather than overpowered.

Many managers never quite reach this level — not because they lack ability, but because the work requires space to think, not just space to act.

Creativity

At the upper end of the ladder, something shifts again.

Value is no longer extracted from existing systems, but created beyond them. New products. New approaches. New ways of seeing. Scalable products.

Here, communication becomes the work.

Ideas only matter if they can move.
Insight only matters if it can land.
Creativity without expression remains invisible.

This is where writing, teaching, speaking, designing, and publishing begin to compound. One idea, clearly communicated, can out-earn years of effort elsewhere. Not because the idea is magical — but because its reach is.

This is not about fame. It’s about leverage.

Why Communication Sits at the Centre

Across every level, communication is the multiplier.

It ensures work is understood.
It aligns people before effort is spent.
It moves ideas from private insight to shared action.

Without it, contribution stays local. Systems resist change. Creativity remains trapped.

With it, impact scales.

What the Real World Reflects Back

You see this pattern everywhere once you know how to look.

A single talk earns more than a month of labour.
A practitioner reaches thousands through online teaching.
A former employee becomes a creator, shaping their own terrain.

The work is often similar.
The communication is not.

A Living Framework

This ladder isn’t complete. It isn’t fixed. It isn’t a mandate.

It’s a way of noticing.

Some people will choose to stay at one level. Some will move fluidly between them depending on season, life, or energy. That’s healthy.

What matters is awareness.

Because when communication improves, options appear. And when options appear, so does agency.

That, ultimately, is where impact begins