Are results enough? Here’s what you should be measuring instead

In a recent blog, we discussed what makes for a good leadership development programme, and whether satisfaction metrics are really enough to prove the efficacy of a programme. But what about your own teams?

In this blog, Justin Temblett-Wood explores why only measuring the results of your people may not give you the insight to develop your teams effectively.

Going beyond the numbers

For a lot of organisations, everything they do is geared towards results. As such, success is only measured in terms of getting these results. But if people are not growing as individuals or enjoying the work, then the results alone are not sustainable.

Of course, a results-focused approach is important. But building up a business just on results is a bit like putting up a tent using just one pole – you’re going to need something more robust. Accomplishments within a business should rest on a foundation of three things, otherwise known as the three pillars of accomplishment:

1. 1. Results (these speak for themselves)
2. 2. Development and growth (ensuring you and your team learnt something from the process)
3. 3. Fulfilment (ensuring you and your team enjoyed the process)

Sustainability is key

To support development in the workplace, most companies set up learning and development teams. More often than not, these teams are solely focussed on developing people to fill competency gaps within the organisation.

To combat unfulfilment in the workplace, these teams often send out surveys, set up free lunches, staff outings, away days, and other L&D interventions. But these are all macro solutions and are not intrinsically linked to what it is you’re trying to achieve – a well-rounded team that is fulfilled, in constant growth, and bringing home the results.

Accomplishments need to be viewed through the three pillars equally. Why? Sustainability. If someone doesn’t enjoy what they’re doing, how sustainable are they as a member of your team?

Let’s take the star salesperson of a team, the person who gets the most sales day in, day out. Yes, they might be accomplishing the first pillar – producing results. They may even at a push accomplish the second pillar if they develop a new part of their sales pitch. But at the end of the day, if they aren’t getting any enjoyment from their job, they’re not going to stick around very long.

What happens then? You scour endless CVs until you find another hotshot salesperson who can get you the results you want. But without fulfilment they won’t last very long either, and so the cycle continues. It’s about building a sustainable team that is effective across the board – across all three of these pillars.

If you and your team are just focussed on the result, you may get burnt out in the process of reaching that result. You may have hit the goal you set out to, but if everyone is burnt out, has it been worth it?

This is not a box-ticking exercise

These three pillars of accomplishment are not mutually exclusive, and they need to be married up together. So, when you’re working towards a result, make sure you’re going to learn and grow as a business while working towards this result, and make sure everyone will be fulfilled by undertaking this project.

The three should be intrinsically linked and all three should be achieved in order for the project to be a success.

For example, you can’t work your team into the ground on a gruelling project at work and then try and offset that by taking them to a theme park for a weekend of “fun”. The enjoyment needs to come from the work itself. If your team members are not fulfilled in their job, they’re not going to deliver their best work for you.

The same principle applies when you’re creating a team. You need to lay the foundations for long-term accomplishments. To do this, you need to be authentic in what you’re promising your team. Inauthentic overselling only breeds disillusionment, and disillusionment is not going to create a sustainable team.

So if your organisation is not learning from and enjoying the process to achieve results, your results are not sustainable. But by measuring success not just by results, but by all three pillars of accomplishment, you’re going to create a sustainable team that will give you their best work time and time again.

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