Outcome or Activity? The First Question in Accountability
You deserve to not be let down. You deserve to not be set up for failure.
The Accountability Protocol shows you how to build trust and high accountability in your workplace and at home.
(This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book The Accountability Protocol.)
The first question to ask yourself as you draft your Request is, do you want an Outcome or just an Activity?
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels
The difference is significant. If you ask your salesperson to sell 1,500 cases of product X next week, that’s an Outcome request. If you ask your salesperson to spend 40 hours next week trying to sell product X, that’s an Activity request.
You should always ask for an Outcome if you can get it, and if it’s ethical to ask for it.
For example, say you need the wallpaper stripped from a bathroom. A competent contractor might quote you $0.95 per square foot to strip the wallpaper, such that the remaining surface is clean enough to have new wallpaper put up. The contractor can offer this fixed price per square foot, because they have detailed experience. They know their workers’ skills, as well as the process steps, tools, supplies, cost of labor, and so on. They know exactly how many labor-hours it takes to remove normal wallpaper. And, they’ll charge more if the wallpaper was painted over or if a nonstandard glue was used.
You should feel very good about taking up such an offer. It’s usually a sign that the Doer is a master of their craft who can provide a guaranteed outcome.
When is it unethical to demand an Outcome from your Doer?
- You know the Doer has never done this work before (e.g. your young cousin has never stripped wallpaper but offers to try to do the work).
- You know that this context is different from normal (e.g. you know that the wall is actually covered not with wallpaper but with glossy magazine covers, attached not with wallpaper paste but with artist’s glue).
- You know of some other circumstance that would prevent the normal approach from being taken.
Some combination of these factors can justify an Outcome request:
- The Doer is repeating a past success.
- The Doer has a relevant track record (training, expertise) in a related field.
- You are supplying your Doer with a detailed, step by step procedure that other Doers have followed successfully.
- You have reasons to believe the circumstances are normal or favorable.
- You know that tools and supplies are present and adequate, or reasonably believe that the Doer possesses these.
When should you simply ask for Activity?
- The Doer is an unskilled worker, whom you will be overseeing closely. You’ll be showing them what to do and how to do it. Your instruction and oversight, together with the Doer’s work Activity, will add up to an Outcome.
- The work is too novel or unknown to be predictable. Better to engage in work Activity, pause and debrief. Then having learned, take a fresh stab at the problem.
- The context is too chaotic or ambiguous to support predictions.
Warning signs to not trust an Outcome promise and to refuse to make one:
- One or more of you have never done this before.
- Your Doer is operating outside their prior success envelope.
- The external conditions are not favorable.
- You have unanswered questions or doubts about the tools, supplies, context, or other circumstances.
Some might advise you to go ahead and try to squeeze your Doer into committing to an Outcome, even when the circumstances warrant against. Their arguments will likely be one of these:
- If you can get the Doer to over-promise or to be overconfident, you can then push them to cut their price or do free work for you, to make up for their failure during Performance (which you goaded them into).
- An over-promise or naive promise might work as a stretch goal that helps the Doer to grow.
- “You get what you negotiate” or “good guys finish last” or the like.
These all go against the spirit of the Accountability Protocol.
The spirit of the Accountability Protocol is “win-win or don’t play.”
Learn More
To learn more about the forthcoming book The Accountability Protocol and how to be notified when it’s available, visit this link.
Excerpts on Medium from the Book The Accountability Protocol:
