Self-sabotage. Why don't we prioritise outcomes over outputs and process?

Towards the end of last year I had an exchange with Joanne Karcheva (Director of Comms at the Manchester Collective) about the post I wrote on the benefits of content thinking.

In that, Joanne said something which really struck a chord with me.

When I asked why a more audience-centric approach to content wasn’t particularly prevalent, and what could be done to change that Joanne responded: “Leadership (and funders) prioritising outcomes over outputs would be a good first step…”

This is something that is taken for granted in many other industries, because it’s the most effective way of being effective.

But the fact it still needs saying in the cultural sector feels both slightly demoralising and also very important.

The reality is that folks in the cultural sector are often still very focused on outputs and process.

It is regularly the case that people seem to care more about how something gets done, and that it can tick a box, than the actual impact it makes.

Call it what it is - it’s sabotage (y’all)

In a post last year, Audree Fletcher wrote about the Simple Sabotage Field Manual.

This was a guide produced in 1944 by the predecessor to the CIA (the OSS), it outlines some simple sabotage tactics.

How many of these do you recognise in your day-to-day work?

• Misunderstand” requests. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about requests. Quibble over them when you can.
• Do everything possible to delay delivery. Even though parts may be ready beforehand, don’t deliver until everything is finished and ready.
• Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.
• Multiply the procedures and clearances involved. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.
• Apply all regulations to the last letter.
• Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned.
• Misunderstand all sorts of regulations concerning such matters as rationing, transportation, traffic regulations.
• Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
• Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
• Be worried about the propriety of any decision—raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
• Insist on doing everything through proper “channels.” Never permit shortcuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
• Hold meetings when there is more critical work to be done.
• When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible—never less than five.

It was jarring just how familiar almost every single thing on this list was.

It has inadvently been adopted wholesale as the way most things happen at cultural organisations.

Wasting time, energy, money, and motivation

I don’t know if this is an example of bikeshedding, or something more insidious, but it is a massive problem that undermines the sector’s ability to deliver and progress, and it creates a toxic working environment.

Too often the focus is on defining what the thing will be (i.e. output) that plops out of the end of the project rather than on the outcome that the project is trying to achieve.

What this means in practical terms is that people are very obsessed with getting the thing to happen, and getting it to happen in a specific (torturous) way, but much less obsessed with whether or not the thing actually achieved anything.

You see this in many of the giant failures of digital projects that have littered the sector over the past decade or more.

The obsession was on process and output, not on truly understanding what was required to make an impact and achieve the desired outcome.

This leads to a huge amount of wasted time, energy, and money.

It also demotivates teams and I’m convinced that it is part of the reason so many talented people end up leaving the sector

I remember a newly appointed Director of Digital (who had joined the organisation from a commercial consultancy, and who has since left the sector) pulling me to one side at the start of a big website project to warn me “this group are obsessed with process, that’s all they will focus on”.

It was such an issue (and such a surprise to him) that he felt the need to specifically call it out to me.

But this is something I’ve seen time and again when working on hundreds of digital projects with cultural organisations.

A lack of trust, clarity, and agility

I think this problem stems from a number of inter-connected areas.

The first is a lack of trust. We see this most clearly in the way cultural organisations make decisions, there is a lack of agency and trust in the people employed to do the job.

Relatively inconsequential decisions have to be run up to board level to be signed off, or exec level figures feel they have to be involved in the minutiae of everything.

This is a staggeringly ponderous and inefficient way of working.

But it, in part, explains the obsession with process (which is basically the natural response of people covering their backs).

There is also a lack of trust between different parts of an organisation.

Because of a lack of clarity (see below) about priorities, colleagues don’t trust that their priorities are being taken seriously by others.

Agency needs to be pushed down into and distributed across organisations, individuals need to be given the trust and accountability to do the job they were hired to do.

Until that happens this atmosphere is distrust and disenfranchisement is going to keep being grit in the machine.

Secondly there is a lack of clarity. Because there is so rarely a clear and shared understanding of priorities, or a real focus on outcomes, people instead become focused on outputs and process.

I think that this lack of clarity (and the lack of trust that colleagues understand and share your priorities, and vice-versa) is at the root of much of the silo-ing we see at cultural organisations.

And it is this silo-ing between different departments that in turn leads to a perceived need for more process, which in turn slows things down even more and pulls the focus away from outcomes.

Lastly is the issue of agility. Although this is really a symptom rather than a cause of this problem.

Lack of agency, lack of clarity, no focus on outcomes, too much process - all of this slows things down, it makes them cost more (in terms of time, money, and energy) and it dilutes their impact.

As Dr Carrie Goucher has said, “trust is fast […] Low trust, low safety is treacle-speed”.

Shift your focus, its benefits will be immediate

If we can instead shift our focus to outcomes we will notice an immediate change in the conversation.

Rather than doing things ‘just because it’s done that way’, we will instead be able to have more ambitious and creative conversations about the most effective way to achieve whatever it is we’re trying to achieve.

It will allow us to get more curious about ‘why’ rather than just getting stuck on ‘what’ and ‘how’.

But it will require an accompanying shift in the areas I’ve outlined above, of which trust and clarity feel most important.

Solve that and the downstream effects could be immense.

Not nothing, but it’s not brain surgery

Lastly I want to stress, I’m not saying we should do away with process entirely.

The right level of process that is understood, shared, and followed by all is immensely valuable.

But that is not what exists in most parts of the cultural sector.

We have suffocated ourselves under layers and layers of confusing, inefficient ways of working and it is hampering effectiveness and draining our resources. Not least the energy of the people who work in the sector, perhaps one of the most vital resources of all.

In high-risk or high-regulation environments (criminal justice, nuclear safety, brain surgery, finance, etc) a high level of process is proportionate.

But we work in culture, let’s try and set ourselves free.