Welcome to Lead Prompt // executing leadership from the root. I’m your host, John Collins.
I have seen a lot of people hide behind crumby processes in my career. Usually, these people worked in deeply dysfunctional teams. They were entirely comfortable with this dysfunction because, in their minds, “they were following the process.” Even if that rigorous adherence led to absolutely terrible outcomes, they slept soundly at night. Why? Because the failure wasn’t their fault. The process failed, not them.
This is a psychological safety blanket, and there is actual organizational research that backs up why we do this. Back in the mid-20th century, a sociologist named Robert Merton coined the term "Goal Displacement." He observed that in bureaucratic environments, strict adherence to the rules originally conceived to achieve a goal eventually becomes the goal itself. The rulebook becomes more important than reality. When teams suffer from goal displacement, they stop asking, "Is this working?" and start asking, "Did we fill out the form correctly?"
A robot is a slave to a process, but a human should have agency. A human should be able to adapt to changing circumstances and still stay on mission despite extreme uncertainty in the zone of operation.
There is a famous military doctrine called Auftragstaktik (pronounced OWF - trahgs - TACK - tick), or "Mission Command", developed in the 19th century and still used by top-tier militaries today. The core philosophy is simple: tell your leaders what the goal is and why it matters, but never tell them how to achieve it. You give them the mission, set the boundaries, and let them figure out the process on the ground. You have to trust human agency. When the map doesn't match the terrain, you don't keep following the map off a cliff. You look at the terrain.
Process is for ants.
Now, perhaps I am being harsh in saying that. The fact is, it is very hard to get consistently good outcomes from a bad process, so evidently, the process does matter. Without process, you can't scale, and you rely entirely on individual heroics, which inevitably leads to burnout. My core point, however, is that the mission matters more. Process must always serve the mission, never the other way around. The minute the process stops serving the mission, you kill the process.
Process is just activity. It’s the way you build your software, the way you chop vegetables in the kitchen, or the way you like to pass the ball on the pitch.
The mission is the outcome. It’s the bug-free software release your users actually see. It's the final meal your customers enjoy and leave a five-star review for. It's the final score on the board at the end of the game.
There are many, many ways to reach a positive outcome. In most instances, the process you or your team chooses boils down to mere preference. It’s “how we do things around here.” There is often no obvious right or wrong way to write a line of code or run a daily stand-up. The right or wrong outcome, however, is glaringly obvious to everyone.
Therefore, in my mind, the outcome is far more important than the activity that led to it. Management theorist George Odiorne famously warned leaders about the "Activity Trap." He noted that people get so caught up in the sheer momentum of being busy that they completely forget what they set out to accomplish in the first place. Activity by itself is absolutely no guarantee of success. There are a dozen other factors at play, such as experience, group dynamics, market timing, and good old-fashioned luck.
This is why I tell my teams to report outcomes to me, not activity.
Most senior managers operate the exact same way. If you bring an activity-focused report into a boardroom, it will be looked upon negatively. I don’t care about how busy the team is in the kitchen. I don't want to hear about the heat of the ovens or how fast the pans are moving. I only care about the meal that arrives at the end of the line. Does it taste good? Is it on time?
At best, an activity-focused report merely demonstrates how busy you are. At worst, it comes across as intentional obfuscation to hide your utter lack of results. A senior leader will see right through a list of tasks disguised as accomplishments. I once worked with a sales executive who boasted endlessly about his pipeline. He proudly reported to leadership that he had met with 200 new prospects that year. He logged thousands of miles, drank hundreds of coffees, and filled the CRM with impeccable meeting notes. But guess how many of those 200 prospects he actually closed?
Zero.
He had the perfect process. He had incredible activity. But he fundamentally failed the mission.
Nobody cares about how busy you are. We are all too busy. The market doesn't pay for your sweat; it pays for your solutions.
So, as you go back to your teams this week, audit your environment. Are you rewarding the people who perfectly check the boxes, or are you rewarding the people who actually move the needle? Stop managing the process, and start leading the mission.
Thanks for listening to Lead Prompt. I'm John Collins. Keep executing from the root.
Sources
Robert Merton and Goal Displacement Social Theory and Social Structure - https://archive.org/details/socialtheorysoci0000mert_r5s3
Auftragstaktik (Mission Command) Mission Command: The First Principles - https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/March-April-2017/Vandergriff-Mission-Command/
George Odiorne and the Activity Trap Management by Objectives: A System of Managerial Leadership - https://www.worldcat.org/title/management-by-objectives-a-system-of-managerial-leadership/oclc/51445
Organizational Psychology of Process vs. Outcome The Tyranny of Metrics (Jerry Z. Muller) - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691174952/the-tyranny-of-metrics
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