When Outcomes Disappoint: Why Meaning Matters More Than We Think
- Luis A. Marrero
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
Understanding Our Times Through the Logoteleological Lens
© 2025 Luis A. Marrero, Boston Institute for Meaningful Purpose.
[The text was written by, with, and for human intelligence.]
When outcomes disappoint, it is worth asking not only what failed—but what was meant.
If you ever find yourself wondering why we seem to keep repeating the same mistakes, you are not alone.
Why do societies struggle with problems we already understand? Why do organizations rise, fall, restructure, and fall again—despite having access to world-class research, consultants, and technology?
I ask these questions not as an observer standing apart, but as someone who has spent decades immersed in psychology, organizations, leadership, and human development—and who has been unsettled by a simple but persistent realization: our problems endure not because we lack answers, but because those answers fail to take root in how we live, decide, and act.
This realization led me to a deeper question—one that became unavoidable:
What if the real problem is not what we know, but what we mean?
Meaning Is Not Abstract—It Is Causal
When the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl spoke of meaning, he described it simply as “what is meant.”I agree—and I would add this: meaning is an aim backed by causes.
Nothing can be meant, intended, or pursued without a cause. Every decision—personal or collective—is driven by meaning, whether we are aware of it or not. This is why meaning is never neutral.
What we read, hear, repeat, and absorb—from the news, social media, institutions, and cultural narratives—does not merely inform us. It forms us -- shaping what we believe is important, what we fear, what we justify, and what we pursue. In that sense, what surrounds us every day becomes what is meant through us.
And when the outcomes are harmful, confusing, or destructive, it is tempting to blame intelligence, morality, or effort. But in my work, I have come to see something more precise—and more hopeful.
We often assume that meaning is inherently positive. It isn’t.Meaning can be healthy or unhealthy, clarifying or corrupting. When it becomes distorted, it turns into what I call dysmeaning—and this low-quality meaning produces confusion, suffering, and harm. These outcomes are not accidental; they follow from the dysmeaning at work.
This post is an invitation to explore that idea—to examine our times and recurring struggles through what I call the logoteleological lens: a way of understanding human behavior by examining the quality of meaning that drives it.
If we can learn to recognize when meaning goes awry, we may finally understand why so many well-intended solutions fall short—and how more lasting, humane, and effective paths forward become possible.
Once we understand that outcomes follow from the quality of meaning at work, the next question becomes unavoidable: how does meaning go wrong in the first place?
In my work in Meaningful Purpose Psychology, I have found that dysmeaning does not arise randomly or require ill intent. In fact, it most often emerges through ordinary, understandable human processes.
The Three Primary Causes of Dysmeaning
There are three primary ways in which meaning becomes distorted—pathways through which otherwise well-intended people, groups, and institutions begin to act in ways that undermine their own aims.
First, a lack of accurate information. When we do not know enough—or do not know what matters—we fill in the gaps with assumptions. These assumptions quietly harden into beliefs, and before long, they guide decisions and actions as if they were true. Ignorance here is not a moral flaw; it is a human vulnerability.
Second, incomplete information. This is often more dangerous than ignorance. Some truths are known, but critical elements are missing. Context is absent. Complexity is reduced. Nuance is stripped away. The result is meaning that feels justified and coherent yet is subtly biased or misleading—strong enough to motivate action but too thin to sustain sound judgment.
Third, misinformation. This occurs when beliefs are formed on false, corrupted, or deliberately misleading data. Over time, these errors become embedded in narratives, ideologies, and identities. Once meaning is built on falsehood, even intelligent and ethical people can pursue aims that cause harm while believing they are doing good.
In each case, the problem is not a lack of effort or commitment. The problem is that the meaning guiding the action is of insufficient quality.
And this is where the scope of dysmeaning extends far beyond individual experience—because the same dynamics that distort meaning in a person’s life also operate within organizations, societies, and even global systems, shaping leadership decisions, institutional behavior, cultural conflict, and the persistent crises we struggle to resolve.
Why Reforms So Often Fail to Last
When we step back to examine organizational change efforts, social reforms, and even global initiatives, a troubling pattern emerges. Progress happens—but it rarely endures. Programs are launched, cultures are rebranded, structures are redesigned, and policies are revised. For a time, results improve. Then momentum fades, old habits return, and new problems surface in familiar forms.
This is not because reform efforts are insincere or ill-intentioned. On the contrary, many are grounded in rigorous research, thoughtful analysis, and genuine care. The problem lies elsewhere.
Most reforms focus on what people do—processes, behaviors, incentives, and structures—while largely leaving untouched the meaning that drives those actions. When the underlying meaning remains distorted, incomplete, or false, it quietly reshapes whatever new system is put in place. Over time, the reform begins to serve the old meaning rather than correct it.
This helps explain why improvements are often temporary. A new policy may curb harmful behavior, but it cannot sustain change if people continue to believe, value, or aim in ways that contradict its intent. A new leadership model may inspire engagement, but it cannot hold if fear, mistrust, or misaligned values continue to define success. Eventually, the system drifts back—not because people resist change, but because unchanged meaning pulls behavior back into familiar patterns.
A well-known illustration of this dynamic appears in the influential book Good to Great. Many of the organizations once held up as enduring models of excellence later struggled or declined. This does not invalidate the insights offered in the work; rather, it reveals a deeper limitation. Structural and strategic excellence cannot indefinitely compensate for unresolved meaning failures. When meaning degrades, even “great” systems lose coherence and direction.
The same pattern appears at the societal level. Laws are passed, treaties are signed, and institutions are reformed—yet corruption persists, inequality adapts, conflict resurfaces, and cycles of harm repeat. Once again, the issue is not a lack of solutions. It is that the meaning-shaping collective action has not been adequately examined, corrected, or strengthened.
Until meaning itself is addressed—until we learn to distinguish between high-quality meaning and dysmeaning—our reforms will continue to address symptoms while leaving root causes intact. Change will occur, but it will struggle to endure.
And this is precisely the gap that a logoteleological approach seeks to address: not by replacing existing efforts, but by clarifying why they succeed briefly, fail quietly, or never quite deliver on their promises.
This pattern points to a deeper paradox—one that inspired the development of Logoteleology in the first place: humanity does not suffer from a lack of answers; it suffers despite answers being available. We generate knowledge at an extraordinary pace, yet our most persistent problems remain stubbornly intact.
This is not a critique of academic research, consulting, training, or professional practice. These fields have produced valuable insights and sincere efforts to improve human life and work. Yet even with universities and libraries of knowledge and decades of effort, we still cannot create conditions in which organizations are both profitable and humane—or societies are consistently peaceful, just, and uncorrupt. The limitation is not effort or intelligence; it is that meaning itself has rarely been examined as the primary causal force.
Meaningful Purpose Psychology, also known as Logoteleology, addresses this challenge by addressing meaning directly—helping individuals, leaders, and institutions recognize dysmeaning, restore meaning quality, and align aims with causes that support psychological health, harmony, and awareness. For those who wish to engage this work in a practical, applied way, the Meaningful Purpose Practitioner Certification – Module One Lab offers an introduction to the methods used to diagnose and correct dysmeaning at its source.
If our struggles persist despite our knowledge, the question worth sitting with may not be what we are trying to fix—but the meaning from which we are trying to fix it.
To learn more about the Meaningful Purpose Practitioner Certification – Module One Program, click below. We look forward to joining our international community of Meaningful Purpose Psychology!
