Impact Interview: Adam Stones

Name: Adam Stones

Role/Function: Author and Founder, A'DAM Communications

1. What are you working on these days?

The focus of my work at A’DAM is helping purposeful people and brands to power up their communications, so they can make a greater impact on the world. That might be through brand building, skills training, content creation or strategy development. I see this work of empowering changemakers as very much my purpose.

Through this work, I have seen how hard it can be to be heard; that just because you have something important to say, it doesn’t mean the world will listen. There are so many amazing people and organizations out there, passionate about creating positive change. And they struggle because they either don’t pay enough attention to communications, or because they don’t know where to start. And so their good intentions fall short or simply fail. I don’t believe you can create change without being an effective communicator.

So the thing that I have been working on recently that I’m most excited about is my book - Influence: Powerful Communications, Positive Change. It’s a step by step guide to becoming a great communicator, and can be used whether you’re an individual or an enterprise, or starting a movement.

I wanted to create a book that acted as your go-to communications coach, whatever your needs; a book that made all the key concepts accessible, so that anyone - really anyone - could become a masterful communicator and influential leader. I wanted to sort of democratize all this information, to reach more changemakers, and as such all the tools in the book can also be freely downloaded from my website. 

I am also working on another exciting project in this area, called rather deliciously The Communications Donut. It’s a simple but urgent framework to help inform a more standardized approach to ethics and excellence in communication. This is because a positive approach to communication is essential in supporting the changes we need for the wellbeing of people and the planet. But too often communications either fail to have an effect (and are therefore a wasted effort) or they are used maliciously, even working against the interests of the audience.

The Communications Donut provides a number of guiding principles to steer the way you speak, write or illustrate ideas, to ensure the best outcomes. It’s called the Donut because, of course, the model looks like a ringed donut (and, yes, it’s totally inspired by Kate Raworth’s brilliant ‘doughnut’ model for a sustainable economy). 

My dream is for its ideas to start to be adopted by organizations as evidence that they are focused on positive progress, or even for people to use it to hold others accountable for the way they communicate. But the model is still in its infancy - it’s a fairly new concept so I’d love to get some thoughts from some of the readers of the Reconsidered newsletter on how it might be fine tuned. 

2. What was the “aha” moment that sparked your interest in social impact?

My parents always led by example in this respect. They always seemed to have so many community and charitable commitments when I was young, so it was always around me. But I guess I didn’t realize until I was a little older though that a desire to also make a contribution was part of my identity specifically, and not just what everyone thought about.

It wasn’t until my mid 20s that I found a more specific focus for my good intentions. I set off with a friend to cycle 4,500 miles across the USA over four months. It was a brilliant, hard and often madly surreal time. And it may sound like a cliché but on those long roads, I saw more intensely our fragile but wonderful connection with nature and with each other, and - importantly - I also discovered I was much more capable than I had previously realized. In fact, I realized we all are.

These experiences helped to frame my desire to pursue both writing and social impact professionally. (I actually wrote a comical book about that journey - called The Limey Project - for anyone that finds that topic interesting.) And so, when I got back from that journey, I set to work.

3. How did you break into the social impact space?

I actually came into this as a writer first. I pursued my ignited passion and became a journalist for local then national newspapers and magazines. I loved shining a light on the stories that mattered. And it was a huge privilege to help launch a brilliant magazine with the BBC focused on nature and being active outdoors.

Journalism then led me to PR agency life - having sat in the newsroom, I enjoyed helping organizations to get their stories into the news. And from there, I broadened my skills to cover all aspects of marketing communications and branding.

For the past 12 years that communications work has been exclusively on projects that are affecting a positive social or environmental impact. I joined a brilliant agency in London called Forster Communications. We worked on a number of high profile national communications campaigns around diversity, the environment, mental health and healthy living.

And when I moved to Amsterdam six years ago, I wanted to continue that impact focus and so I established my own enterprise A’DAM Communications - it’s a play on my name, obviously, but also the name of the city, which is often abbreviated this way. I also like the inference that I do, indeed, give a damn! Luckily there is so much energy and passion for progress here in Amsterdam, so plenty of people to collaborate with.

I also try to be active in my own right, and since that trip across the USA, I have advocated for greater access to cycling in towns and cities, to improve health, community strength and the environment. This was the focus of a TEDx talk I gave in 2019.

4. Working in social impact is often about driving change. What is the skill or trait that has been most important for your work as a change agent? How did you learn or hone it?

For me, it is all about change. Every communication leads to some sort of change - whether that is shifting an attitude or affecting an action - every time we open our mouths or post on Instagram, we change something; sometimes to great effect, sometimes not so great… But you can control what that change looks like, and ensure it is both effective and positive by owning the way you communicate. I believe communication really does provide the opportunity to change the world.

Essentially, every communication is trying to change the way someone thinks, feels and acts. We are taking our audience on a journey from being totally unaware of our idea to being active around it and eventually a full on advocate, getting others on board. It may sound complicated but in fact it can be super simple: change doesn’t happen by making people do things but by making people want things.

Being a changemaker can be hard and I believe that change first has to start with yourself - you have to look after yourself so you can best serve others and sometimes you also need to recognize what’s holding you back and address that challenge first. 

One book that I totally recommend to anyone is 'When Things Fall Apart' by Pema Chödrön. It provides accessible, essential teachings on finding compassion and joy in the face of uncertainty. There is so much wisdom on every page. 

I also love ‘How We Are’ by Vincent Deary, which explores the power of habit and the process of change. It reflects on how our present is made up of all our past, like plodding over a grass field: over time we leave a path to show the desire of how we wanted to travel - but that doesn’t mean we can’t change the direction we move in tomorrow. 

For anyone interested in finding more power in their purpose, I worked with a friend to create a free tool to find balance in life and set positive intentions - it’s called Control Goal Soul. Feel free to check it out.

5. What most excites you about the social impact space right now?

I am excited by the ways more and more businesses understand that they must make a positive contribution to the future if they want to be part of that future. And as such, we are seeing much bigger, bolder impact programs from business. And I hope this trajectory continues to rapidly escalate.

A decade ago, businesses mostly talked about ‘responsibility’; they continued to operate as normal but did a few good things on the side, like being a dodgy bank that gave a small bit of money to charity. But in recent years sustainability has become much more mature and embedded. And we have progressed from businesses trying to be less bad, to proving they are actively doing good.

Progressive businesses are now moving beyond sustainability and purpose into more brand activism and regenerative approaches. This shift is being demanded by customers, investors and employees alike. And so I’m excited to see what the next decade brings.

It is easy to get disheartened by the world sometimes, but when you see the passion and enterprise of people working in this space, and the opportunity we all have to make an impact, you get immensely energized. And what other option do we have, really, other than to believe in the future and to fight for it?

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