Goals should be result-oriented, by definition. But we often see action-oriented goals in strategic plans. Why does this confusion happen and how can we resolve it?
Appreciating the difference between results and actions is vitally important to find meaningful performance measures. Measuring action does not lead to better results. Activity measures keep us focused on being busy, without checking that we’re getting where we had intended to go.
To achieive its strategy, an organisation not only has to execute that strategy, but keep checking to be sure it’s heading where it was designed to go. And we need result-oriented measures to do this. Result-oriented measures are easier to find when we start with result-oriented goals.
Actions and results are not the same thing.
The difference between the words ‘result’ and ‘action’ becomes starkly clear if we look up their classic definitions.
The word ‘result’ is defined as:
- “a thing that is caused or produced by something else; a consequence or outcome” — provided by Oxford Languages, when you Google ‘result definition’
- “something that happens or exists because of something else” with synonyms including effect, consequence and outcome — Cambridge Dictionary
- “something that happens as a consequence; outcome” and “a desirable or beneficial consequence, outcome, or effect” — Dictionary.com
And the word ‘action’ is defined as:
- “the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim” and “a thing done; an act” — provided by Oxford Languages, when you Google ‘action definition’
- “the process of doing something, especially when dealing with a problem or difficulty” and “something that you do” — Cambridge Dictionary
- “something done or performed; act; deed” — Dictionary.com
Why is the distinction so important? Because somehow, some way, these two words are muddled when we write strategic or operational goals. Some goals read as results, but too many read as actions.
Goals are supposed to be result-oriented.
The importance of making the distinction between results and actions becomes clear when we look at a few dictionary definitions of what the word ‘goal’ means:
- “the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result” — provided by Oxford Languages, when you Google ‘goal definition’
- “an aim or purpose” with synonyms including aspiration, intention, and objective — Cambridge Dictionary
- “the result or achievement toward which effort is directed” — Dictionary.com
Results and actions are not the same thing:
- Actions lead to results.
- Actions are taken because we want to create specific desired results.
- Desired results are achieved by specific actions.
This distinction is why the most useful of strategic planning templates makes space for both results and actions (in this example, the space is in Column 2 and Column 5). But we too often see action-oriented goals in strategic plans.
When our goals are written as actions, we end up measuring how much effort or time or resources we spend doing the action. Like these:
- “Upgrade financial software by June” leads to measures like “Upgrade delivered by June 30”
- “Provide analytics training” leads to measures like “Number of analysts trained”
- “Introduce a new innovation each month” leads to measures like “Number of innovative ideas generated”
With activity measures like these, we miss out on the insights of impact measures that evidence how well we achieved the results we intended to achieve by those actions. For performance measurement to be meaningful, result must be separated from action.
Why are there so many action-oriented goals?
Why do so many people struggle to write result-oriented goals, and default to action-oriented goals?
It’s not their fault – action-orientation is a cognitive default. Here are two threads of research that explain this:
- Firstly, when work feels uncertain or complex, people are psychologically primed to retreat to concrete, procedural thinking (how, what, when) rather than abstract outcome thinking (why, to what effect). Strategy in most organisations is about an uncertain future and the complexity of moving an entire organisation toward the same future. This could be why so many goals default to being action-oriented. [Action Identification Theory, developed by social psychologists Robin Vallacher and Daniel Wegner]
- Secondly, the preference for action over results is partly hardwired. Research consistently shows humans evaluate actions more favourably than non-actions, form action goals more easily, and are socially rewarded for being visibly busy — regardless of whether the activity produces results. [Research by Albarracín, Sunderrajan and colleagues, published in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2021]
Organisations have a cultural and institutional bias toward action — activity-based performance systems, praise for busyness, discomfort with ambiguity. And this reinforces and compounds what is already a cognitive default, making outcome-oriented thinking a skill that has to be actively practiced.
We can get better at setting result-oriented goals. And it starts with practicing how to notice the difference.
Notice if the goal is action-oriented.
When you see or suspect a goal that is action-oriented, there are two useful clues that give it away:
- The type of measures that are first suggested for the goal will be counts of activities, or milestones of completion, or totals of time or resources spent.
- The goal’s wording starts with a ‘doing verb’, like these: provide, upgrade, introduce, implement, build, train, educate, review, communicate, and promote. But note: ‘changing verbs’, like improve or enhance or increase, are less indicative of action-oriented goals, so take a closer look at those!
In addition, if you can imagine a time when your goal is done or finished then it’s likely action-oriented. If your goal cannot be done or finished, but only continually improved, then it’s more likely result-oriented.
Practice this:
Can you now see any action-oriented goals in your strategic or operational plans?
Move from action-oriented to result-oriented
When you have an action-oriented goal, it hopefully exists for a reason. That reason will be a result it is supposed to impact on, or make better. That’s the logic we need to build, and the word ‘why’ is the trigger.
It might go something like this:
Q: Why do we want to “upgrade financial software by June”?
A: The current software is too slow and makes reporting take too long, and errors slip through.
Q: What change do we want with the upgraded software?
A: We want financial reporting to be fast and accurate.
Guess what the result-oriented goal is? Yes, it’s something like “Financial reporting is faster and more accurate.”
Practice this:
Can you build a logic flow like this for one of your action-oriented goals?
Use analogies.
Our USA PuMP Partner, Brook Rolter, uses the easy-to-understand analogy of retirement. We want results like more flexibility to visit grandchildren, spare time for hobbies, and enough money to travel. The actions that get us to those results include routine saving, good investment decisions, and healthy habits.
Other ideas for analogies, to discern actions from results, could be:
- Sport: the action is training, the result is winning or improving rankings
- Health: the actions are exercise and diet, the results are reduced blood pressure or fitting into those pants again
- Lifestyle: the actions are developing new habits, the results are less stress or more happiness or more time for recreation
Practice this:
Can you think of an analogy that might work with your colleagues?
Keep practicing.
Don’t give up on the quest for result-oriented goals. Yes, action matters. But without a clear result to aim for, action becomes a terrible waste of the time and effort we have such limited supplies of.