Own the Outcome, Not the Task

It has been a great run these last few weeks. One small incident from that stretch has stayed with me, and I think it belongs in our culture as a team.

A slow fan and a quick phone call

Someone in the office told me the fan was very slow. Two minutes later I had called an electrician and booked him for the next day.

The person sitting next to me applauded the swift response. I knew the praise had come too early.

Experience has taught me that booking an appointment with an electrician is one thing. Bringing good airflow into the office is another.

What happened after the booking

The next day came, and so did the appointment time. The electrician did not.

Thirty minutes later, my reminder alarm rang. I understood he had missed the appointment and gave him a follow-up call. He came the day after and replaced two of the four fans we had asked for. The other two were out of stock. He said he had ordered them and would come back tomorrow to fix them.

Tomorrow evening came. Everyone, including me, was busy with a lot of things, and none of us remembered the fans. Later that evening, the reminder I had set rang again. The electrician had not come.

I gave him another follow-up call. After a few more texts and calls, he finished the job in another two days.

Now the office had good airflow.

The task was the booking. The outcome was the airflow.

That happened because I owned the outcome, not the task of booking an appointment.

If I had not taken charge of the outcome, those four fans would not have reached the office. The booking would still have been made in two minutes, and it would still have earned the applause.

The finished job is the work worthy of appreciation.

The same applies to our work

Getting a task does not really matter. Accomplishing the outcome does.

To do that, you need to understand the vision of the company and the product or problem you are working on. That understanding comes in one of two ways: good managers say it aloud, or you ask people.

So talk. Understand the product, the business, and the metrics that really matter.

Once you understand these, you can easily map out the expected outcome of any task assigned to you and drive it through to completion.

Where this takes you

If you understand the vision this deeply, you can also take initiatives to reach the goals in a better, faster, more efficient way.

Do this, and you will never need to negotiate your salary again, because what you produce will be of high value. At least at Techcora.

Own the outcome. Move fast. Let's LiTS.