Work vs. Value: The Interplay of Outputs and Outcomes

The Journey and The Destination: Achieving Outcomes Through Fulfilling Output

Ambitious professionals get told to fixate on measurable outcomes – hit sales targets, deliver projects under budget, exceed ROI metrics. Just get results.

But this obsessive focus on outcomes has a dark side. It can warp motivations, strain ethics, and destroy team culture if not balanced with purposeful output.

A good process and the right output doesn't guarantee a good outcome. Likewise, you can do everything wrong and get the outcome you desired. So what is more important?

The key is integrating the two by aligning output to outcomes while also finding intrinsic motivation in your daily work.

The Big Idea: Outputs vs. Outcomes

• Outputs: These are tangible products, actions, or services produced. They're the immediate results of our tasks—akin to the stepping stones that take you across the river. For instance, publishing a monthly newsletter is an output. New code releases, features, products - these are all the outputs that we produce to achieve our goals.
• Outcomes: These are the longer-term impacts, benefits, or changes that occur as a result of the outputs. If the newsletter led to a 10% increase in customer engagement, that's the outcome. If your product is beloved by customers and leads to an increase in sales or retention, that is tangible success as a result of your output.

Clarify Connections Between Outcomes and Outputs

Output refers to the day-to-day activities and effort that ultimately drive outcomes. Outcomes without ethical, engaged output become meaningless. And output without direction becomes aimless activity.

Here's the challenge: Good outcomes aren't always delivered by good output. And sometimes your worst output might lead to a great outcome.

That is why it is so important to build systems and track trends that help you understand how you define the output to focus on, while also mapping your outcomes over time with those outputs.

• What specific outputs directly drive desired outcomes? Don't let your biases get in the way of facts.
• Are you optimizing the right activities or just keeping busy? Reflect on which outputs have the highest payoff.
• Are you doing the right amount of analysis ahead of time so that your outputs are more closely impacting your highest priority objectives?

Understanding when to track outputs versus outcomes is pivotal. Outputs are vital for immediate benchmarks and task-based accomplishments. They're quantifiable and easily measured—number of projects completed, hours of training conducted, or units sold. But they don't actually measure value delivered, which, at the end of the day drives the metrics that determine your business' success or failure.

The Balance: Set Outcome-Oriented Goals, But Focus On Daily Outputs

A common pitfall in leadership is the excessive emphasis on outcomes at the expense of outputs. Yes, outcomes are crucial—they're the reason we strive. But, it's the outputs—the daily actions, the tasks, and the little victories—that shape our journey.

Drawing inspiration from the words of the legendary John Wooden, "Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it."

Paradoxically, the more you focus consciously on outcome goals, the more your mind gravitates unconsciously toward output that achieves them.

So set clear outcome targets, but shift your conscious mental energy to the process:

• Frame goals around specific metrics like “close 20 new accounts this quarter by taking these output steps each day.”
• In meetings, discuss output-related topics like “How can we refine our prospecting process?” more than results like deals closed.
• Incentivize and reward behaviors, not just numbers. Praise creative prospecting methods, not just sales totals.

Getting granular on fulfilling output keeps you immersed in the experience rather than fixating anxiously on numerical targets.

Then, as you deliver, keep reflecting back on your outcomes as a measure of success. Figure out the right cadence for delivery and assessment of value received from your work.

For me, I like to focus on delivering value every two weeks, and aligning my outcomes to monthly and quarterly measures of success.

Adapting Outputs for Desired Outcomes

If the outcomes aren't aligning with expectations, it's a signal to recalibrate your outputs. This requires a two-pronged approach:

1. Feedback Loops: Implement regular check-ins to analyze the effectiveness of outputs. This can be through surveys, team discussions, or customer feedback.
2. Pivot and Adapt: Embrace flexibility. If a particular strategy isn't yielding the desired outcome, have the courage to pivot. Remember, it's not about rigidly sticking to a plan but fluidly moving towards the objective.

Teams and organizations that continuously deliver value have regular check ins and retrospectives that help align strategy, execution, and outcomes.

Further, a bad outcome doesn't necessarily mean that your output was wrong:

• Accept that uncontrollable variables influence results. Don't impose unrealistic, demotivating pressures.
• Remember that probabilities, not certainties, drive success. You can make smart bets but not guarantee wins.
• Look at trends and trajectories, not isolated outcomes. Sometimes exemplary output pays off later.

So, while we want to be outcome oriented, we should avoid being outcome obsessed.

No Matter the Outcome, Keep Driving to Success

As you go through your journey of defining ideal outcomes and building the outputs you feel will help you get there, remember that every outcome is a chance to learn, adjust, and grow. The most important thing is that you move in a direction that drives positive growth and keep on delivering high value output that ultimately will get you there.

Never let outcome hunting destroy relationships around you, and continue to assess the highest value outputs that help you achieve your goals.