Focus on Outcomes or Fail Due to Complexity
Reaching success is becoming increasingly more difficult for people and organizations because of accelerating complexity. Complexity is constantly interfering with realizing what we set out to accomplish – both individually and as an organization. Time and performance pressures require us to think differently and Outcome Management is at the core of the solution that can help us.
Can you achieve what you set out to do?
This forward-looking question focuses people and organizations on what might get in the way or prevent them from achieving what they set out to do. Relying on the traditional backward-looking question of “Did you achieve what you set out to do?” can make you fail in your efforts to manage complexity. Looking backward means waiting until after the fact to find out whether you did or did not achieve the intended results.
Outcome Management
Outcome Management is the discipline of using outcomes to bridge any disconnect between short-term tactics and long-term strategies. Outcomes are the intended and actual results achieved by tasks and activities or other supporting outcomes.
Managing to outcomes is important because while most people fulfill numerous tasks every day, you can boil down all that activity and find they usually contribute to one to six outcomes at any given time. One to six may not seem like a big number to an individual, but for an organization with 1,000 people, that translates to 1,000 to 6,000 outcomes in a given period. If you also believe that 20% of effort and resources drives 80% of the results, focusing on important outcomes means that other demands and opportunities will start to align around those outcomes.
Tasks and activities are not irrelevant, but they do not always lead to results and sometimes add to the complexity.
Example Outcome
Focusing on an outcome that improves safety can contribute to avoiding injuries, reducing absences and minimizing expenses amongst other outcomes and benefits. There are many outcomes that could contribute to safety, but let’s assume the following outcome has consensus to deliver the desired impact.
Title: Safety – Burn Prevention
Deliverable: Publish and communicate the new burn prevention procedures and policy by Mar 31 to reduce injuries by 15% the following year.
To achieve the ultimate outcomes, we must first make sure there is alignment and specificity of supporting outcomes. Based on the defined deliverable, this outcome is to focus on burn prevention, not other types of injuries. It is a policy and procedure, not physical guards. It is to influence a 15% improvement next year, not to own the actual injuries next year.
There could be numerous tasks required to achieve the outcome, like researching prior injuries, reviewing existing policies and procedures and holding meetings. All the tasks are extremely important, but in this example, unless we publish the new procedures and policy, the intended safety improvements will not occur.
Outcome Management Principles
Surrounding the outcomes are eight principles that ensure you have the right outcomes and that you increase your probability of achieving them. The underlying concepts are not new, but Outcome Management makes use of them in a way that enables people and organizations to apply the appropriate principle in the appropriate situation to minimize any achievement disconnects. The eight principles are:
Ownership – Who is responsible for specific outcomes?
Urgency – What is the importance of those outcomes relative to each other?
Tactics – How will you achieve the outcomes?
Contribution – Why do we want the outcomes?
Opportunities – What will make the outcomes achievable or better?
Motivation – Is everyone motivated to achieve the outcomes?
Expectations – Is there consensus regarding the outcomes?
Sharing – How are we progressing towards the achievement of our outcomes?
You cannot simply flip a switch and expect that everyone will be managing toward outcomes. People have different experience levels and knowledge, and organizations have grown accustomed to using a variety of established techniques to drive performance.
It is not that people and organizations cannot manage to outcomes. Most are being driven to the daily tasks and activities that force them to lose sight of their own outcomes and how those outcomes contribute to the organization’s outcomes. Outcome Management focuses everyone around “what” needs to come together versus the numerous options for “how” we choose to accomplish them.
Complexity is now making many of the existing techniques and tools obsolete so we require new disciplines, processes and tools to succeed. My next blog will address how organizations can start using and sustaining Outcome Management by leveraging processes and tools.