Measuring What Matters: Outputs Vs. Outcomes

Focusing too much on how much. Many companies measure success based on how many things they can build. For tech companies, it's features, for factories, it's widgets.

Outputs matter, but only as the means to an end. The outcome of our outputs is the point, not the outputs themselves.

Happy customers, profitability, growth - these are the things we care about. Delivering your quota and delivering it on time is great...but was any value delivered? Did we actually move forward? Work for work's sake doesn't help anyone.

When we fixate on outputs, we trick ourselves into feeling good. In the short-term, we feel progress being able to check off our to-do list, but over time we fall behind. We lose sight of our goals.

This happens in our personal lives too. If we want to learn more, the number of books we read don't matter. Our understanding of the content does.

Measure yourself against things that matter. Outcomes, not outputs.

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Herman Ye

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