To focus on outcomes, we have to unlearn

It's time to abandon old mindsets and behaviors.

This post builds on concepts discussed here and here. To get the most out of it, I recommend starting there.

This post is also available in Portuguese.

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As we've seen, the outcome-driven mindset is a fundamentally different way to lead people and manage work.

It doesn’t fit most organizations’ existing operating models, capabilities, processes, or cultures. It also doesn’t match most individuals’ existing skills and mindsets.

Unfortunately, most people don't understand that and end up falling into a common trap that I call the Tinker Bell approach. It goes something like this:

Sprinkle some of this pixie dust over your old way of working without changing anything else.

Your organization will magically work like the best companies. Everyone will suddenly become more aligned, innovative, focused, and will set more challenging goals.

This sounds like a joke, but the sad truth is that many people fall for it. They say they want outcomes but continue to focus on meeting project due dates as they always have.

People apply the Tinker Bell approach not only with outcomes but also with OKR, the product model, Agile, and anything that becomes trendy in the business world.

A few years ago, the “Spotify model” became the most popular pixie dust. Several companies started to call their teams “squads” without making any meaningful changes.

The same pattern is beginning to repeat itself with the product model. Some organizations are telling employees they are now product managers without even asking if they want to be PMs.

Like that popular definition of insanity, these companies keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.

But my favorite example is the bank that had been using a KPI dashboard in its technology department for several years. One day, a senior executive decided to swap the dashboard's label from "KPIs" to "OKRs"—without changing anything else. Then, he presented the dashboard to the teams saying, "Here are our OKRs."

As you can imagine, the bank got no results from OKR.

Overcoming legacy thinking

Several organizations have invested in abandoning legacy systems, but most haven’t abandoned legacy thinking.

As companies grow, they often have to deal with legacy systems, outdated software still in use.

For scale-ups, it can be a platform developed in a rush during a high-growth phase. For traditional companies, it can be an application developed in the 90s.

Legacy thinking is something very similar. It includes outdated mindsets, beliefs, practices, and processes still in use.

Just like legacy systems, legacy thinking may fulfill its initial purpose, but it’s incompatible with modern approaches and limits the organization’s ability to innovate and change.

Examples of legacy thinking include treating teams as order takers, believing there's no need for measurement or experimentation, and funding specific projects instead of outcomes.

To focus on outcomes, organizations have to address legacy thinking as seriously as they address legacy systems.

To focus on outcomes, you have to unlearn

If you simply want to say you are focusing on outcomes—or using OKR—the Tinker Bell approach is for you.

But if you want to benefit from outcomes and get results from OKR, you must change your organization’s operating model and culture at a fundamental level.

It starts by developing your outcome muscles, as we’ve been talking about—here, here, here, and here for example. But that’s not enough.

To focus on outcomes—and succeed with OKR—you have to unlearn.

The best definition of the unlearning process comes from my friend Barry O’Reilly, author of the book Unlearn:

Moving away from mindsets and behaviors that were effective in the past, but now limit our success.

We have a series of mindsets, behaviors, and management practices that were effective 10, 20, or 50 years ago, but are now limiting our success. We need to unlearn them.

Many of the techniques, approaches, and processes we’ve been taught are just like legacy computing systems. They may still meet the needs they were originally designed for, but now they are limiting our success.

I’m not saying that everything you are doing now is wrong or that you have to unlearn everything.

But unlearning is hard, and you have to commit to unlearning what is hurting your ability to succeed.

Leaders must commit to unlearning

The unwillingness of leaders to change their own behaviors is one of the main causes of failure for large change initiatives and transformations.

As Patrick Lencioni points out:

The single biggest factor determining whether an organization is going to get healthier—or not—is the genuine commitment and active involvement of the person in charge.

To focus on outcomes and get results from OKR, leaders have to commit to unlearning.

One of the things we have to unlearn is the idea that leaders have to know everything and have all the answers. Instead, leaders must be willing to learn everything.

As Microsoft's Satya Nadella likes to say:

Don't be a know-it-all. Be a learn-it-all.

Senior leaders and individual contributors have to unlearn the mindsets, behaviors, and methods that are limiting their success.

The organization must also abandon any practice that reinforces legacy thinking. If a process, method, framework, workflow, metric, or incentive reinforces old behaviors, you must scrap it.

The table below lists some of the things we have to unlearn if we want to focus on outcomes:

What else do you have to unlearn?

And how about you, what else do you have to unlearn to be able to focus on outcomes?

I’ll be back soon with another post. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments or email me.

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