The Problem With Results-Oriented Culture

As the saying goes, “What gets measured gets done.” Business results, deliverables, client hours billed, etc. – these hard measures are what tend to get the most attention within organizational cultures. The irony of emphasizing these hard measures or encouraging this kind of results-oriented culture, is that doing so contributes to a greater overall lack of accountability. Let me explain why.

When results are the overriding driving force, they become the basis of how employee efforts are measured, rated, and rewarded. As a manager in a results-oriented organization, I come to every conversation with results in mind. When I meet with my peers, when I meet with other divisions, when I meet with customers, when I meet with my direct reports, when I frame outcomes, when I write emails—whenever I engage—I motivate, see, hear, and feel all through a results-oriented lens. Especially if I am ambitious, results come first.

Results Are for Businesses…Not People

It’s completely normal that businesses emphasize results—results are what make the money that keeps a business viable and profitable! The thing is, that approach doesn’t reflect how people are wired to be most productive, most innovative, and most willing to give discretionary effort. Focusing primarily on business results removes the personal connection and fails to leverage the power of the human effort.

It may sound too ideal to say that to get the best advantage we need to look at the human beings who work within a business as having more than just a superficial relationship. But this is not a mere ideal. It’s also not new thinking. Those who work in human resources, organizational development, or other learning arms of their organizations know this already. They know that if the aim is to create a people-positive environment, to leverage human production, innovation, and willingness to go the extra mile on behalf of business results, then taking a relationships-first perspective is far and away more effective than a results-first approach. The problem comes in convincing some managers and leaders that this is the case.

Managers Have the Ability to Choose

Now, what if I told you that every manager actually makes a personal choice about which approach to take? Every manager decides her or his answer to the questions: What’s more important to me? What do I hold to be true about delivering results for my organization? This choice stems from their fundamental beliefs about human nature as it does from the resulting organizational culture.

There are many managers who feel that they do not have that capacity to choose, who feel that their organizations regularly communicate to them, explicitly and implicitly, that they must select the results-first approach in order not to do damage to the company or even lose their jobs. You may even be thinking, Relationships first sounds like a nice approach, but if I don’t focus on results, they’ll replace me with someone who will! Or you may even be thinking, A manager can get results either way, whether by focusing on results or relationships.

Better Connections Yield Better Results

Poor results are often the result of broken connections; between departments or divisions, between teammates, between individuals. It is the lack of clear and mutual understanding or conflicts in approach or perspective between two people and the fact it goes unaddressed because each feels they are “doing their part” or delivering their individual result without consideration on the broader connections. Accountability for performance comes from accountability for relationships. Managing performance, especially driving accountability, is a relationship- and culture-forming skill set, a foundation-building capability. You are the person who ultimately decides how you approach accountability and what you hold people accountable for. It’s your employees’ discretionary efforts that make the difference, and that’s what makes employee engagement and relationship building so critical. If results come first for you, your ability to get any discretionary effort will be limited because you will have left it up to the individuals you are managing to be self-motivated and self-initiating. You may find that you’ve been conditioned to manage in a results-oriented manner, or perhaps you straddle results-driven and relationship-driven. Either way, there is power in recognizing the effectiveness of relationship-driven accountability in our management practices as opposed to a results-driven approach.