Stop chasing the same outcome

When I was in high school, I worked for a retail shoe store. I would talk to customers and help them determine the best shoes to buy.

The corporate office gave us sales goals each month. The goals were set from historical performance. Each month we would review the upcoming goals to make sure everyone knew what was expected.

This is a very common structure. Most jobs incorporate some basic goal setting to make sure employees keep working hard.

Back then I recall looking at the goals and thinking that it seemed like we kept having the same goals over and over. They would vary slightly but each month everyone would struggle to try and hit the goals.

Some months we would hit our goals. Everyone would celebrate. Some months we fell short. Everyone would find something or someone to blame.

This occurred over and over. It seemed like a bad episode of the twilight zone or Groundhog Day.

The managers would start to put pressure on employees towards the end of each month to try and hit the targets. They would tell us they need more effort. They need us to push to hit our marks.

After a while I had enough. I was sick of the cycle of setting goals and using effort to try and will myself to hit my numbers.

Instead of relying on increasing effort, I decided that I would keep tweaking the process until I had a better way to reach the goals. This meant that my performance was higher regardless of my motivation level.

So, I started to adjust the sales process. I would try different tactics and see what worked better. I was doing A/B testing before I even knew what that was. I was using continuous improvement methods even though I never heard that term before.

For me, it felt very natural. I would keep adjusting and improving the steps I took to make it more and more likely that I would get a positive outcome.

After a while others started to notice. I was hitting my goals every month. I started to lead the district in performance.

My manager would watch me to see how I was doing it. She pointed out that I did things differently. I would do certain things every time, without even thinking about it. But those things made a difference.

I explained my process and she asked if I thought I could teach it to the rest of the store employees. I said yes and began training the rest of the store on how to sell using the steps that took me months to fine-tune.

But suddenly others knew the secrets. They would use them and hit their numbers consistently.

Now, one thing that I like to point out is that this isn’t magic and it wasn’t 100%. There were plenty of employees that didn’t want to use a new approach and thought it was stupid.

So, they would half-ass each attempt and then say, “see it doesn’t work.” Or they would use them when a manager was watching but skip them whenever they could.

They sabotaged the process every chance they could. They did this to prove the process wrong, rather than to improve their performance. They would rather see failure in the process than success on their end. They wanted to be right more than they wanted to be successful.

But those that gave it an honest try found out that it made their life easier. Suddenly they were hitting their goals without the normal end of month stress that they used to feel.

As our store started to hit our numbers, others took notice. The district manager paid us a visit to see what it was that helped us hit the metrics that so many others struggled with.

We showed him some of the process and walked him through our training methods. He took it and then presented the information to the other stores in the district. Over time our district started to outperform other districts.

Now that I have worked over 20 years helping businesses design and improve their processes, this isn’t surprising. This is a simple process. It involves developing a standard process, measuring and then adjusting. But at the time, since I stumbled upon this technique, I didn't think much of it.

As we adjust the process, we measure the outcome. If it is better, we make that the new process. If it isn’t better, we throw it away and go back to the old way of doing things. Once we have a fine-tuned process we can train others on the process to obtain similar results.

This changes how we look at goals. Instead of using goals to motivate or increase effort, we use goals to keep track of where we are and where we want to get.

It stops us from cycling back and forth and instead provides a way to keep improving.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear says, “Imagine you have a messy room and you set a goal to clean it. If you summon the energy to tidy things up, then you will have a clean room – for now. But if you maintain the same sloppy, pack-rat habits that led to a messy room in the first place, soon you’ll be looking at a new pile of clutter and hoping for another burst of motivation. You’re left chasing the same outcome because you never changed the system behind it. You treated a symptom without addressing the cause.”

The process that we follow is the system that Clear is referring to. The process of using systems instead of goals to help us succeed is a tried and true strategy.

If you find that you keep having to motivate yourself and use effort to get to the same levels of success, then switch your thinking. Change from focusing on the goals to focusing on the systems you are using. The systems have room for improvement.

Changing the system allows us to use the improvements of today to benefit us tomorrow. System improvements mean that we can get better without pressure and stress. With better systems, you will become happier and more successful.