In the last three episodes, we've talked through the vision, the journey, and the culture. And in today's episode, we're gonna talk about the results. The fourth and final piece of the new paradigm we're proposing to make work not suck, Make work, not suck. Our podcast that talks about exactly that, our process, vision, journey, culture and results. We present real world business solutions that make the difference. Our goal is to make work not suck. Hosted by Ryan Hodges, co-host Daniel Steer. Join us each episode and make work not suck.

Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast. All right, Ryan, we have talked through this new paradigm that, uh, that we're, that we're offering. We started with vision. We talked through the journey, we talked through the culture, and now we're in the fourth and final phase of this new paradigm, the results section, right? And, and rather than just asking you to unpack it, I think I'll tell you a story, uh, to begin with about a client that I was working with.

So I was doing a workshop, kind of a multi-day workshop with this client, and it was very evident very quickly that they were a heavily results oriented company. And we'll talk about this later in terms of the strengths and the blind spots, but it was just super obvious that they didn't have a lot of journey capabilities. Like they hadn't spent a lot of time working on that. And so at some point during the workshop, I kind of called 'em out for it, not being rude, but just said, you guys are very, very strong on results, which is great. Your challenge is gonna be you're, you're gonna be weaker on the journey. And they kind of challenged me a little bit on it, and I was like, well, let me, let me just ask you this. Where are your standard operating procedures? And they kind of sheepishly just, they wouldn't make eye contact with me. They were just kind of sheepishly looking to each other side to side. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's kind of what I thought. Like, you don't, you don't have a lot of standard operating procedures, do you? And they're like, no, not, not so much. I was like, all right, well then where are your process people? Like, I've got a whole department here. Who's the process people, the engineers, the people that are really good at developing and implementing process. And again, nobody wants to make eye contact. They're all just kind of sheepishly looking around. And finally, one brave person like, kind of raises their hands. And I was like, yeah, what, what are, are you one of the, are you one of the process people? And she says, we fired all the process people because they weren't delivering results. And so I Was like, Do, Do you think that means that maybe you guys are really strong on results, which isn't bad, but how's that, how's that working for you guys? And they were like, well, that's kind of why you're here, because it's not working. It's worked for a while. We were delivering great results, and now we just, we haven't been able to hit results for a couple years, and we're not quite sure why. And so we'll go into that later. But as we think about just the results section and dig deeper into that, what all is kind of held within that section that we call results.

All right? So results is the physical side when we talk about the, the, uh, the, in the, the, the psychological. Yeah. The, the spiritual, mental, emotional. And now this is physical. It's, it's physical. It's the things we can touch. It's the things, you know, it's the tangibles, right? Mm-Hmm. And so we tend to gravitate towards things, you know, we, we believe what we can see, you know, this microphone is real, this table's real. I can touch it. I'm an avatar. But everything else around here is, is real. You're ai. Yes, I am. You're just what I, you know, typed in the computer and generated, right? Mm-Hmm. I'm, but the thing is, is, is the results side of it is always what we tend to, because it's what we can touch, feel, see, et cetera. And when you talk about results from, you know, and from the beginning of results coming outta culture, that's really your accountability metrics to the people as you get kind of into the middle of it. That is the, uh, the operational metrics within that. You're supposed to balance the, the journey side of the equation. But it's, it's your, your KPIs within your departments, et cetera. Okay? And then the, the top parties, you're getting back into vision, going around the circle. Those are your financial metrics. Well, we all know how much the financial metrics drive an organization and everybody's looking at the p and l. Everybody's looking at the budget. And that's what we're managing too. The thing is, is there's not a lot of color in a p and l unless you know how to put the color into a p and l. It's very black and white Or, or red, you know, or red white. Yes. Oh, yes. PE people just losing money, but yes. Okay. Yeah. Not a lot of options. Only three. But what, what the results side is, is where, like in the example of the company you mentioned is they're so results driven. 'cause they're looking to get those tangibles. The problem is at the expense of a journey. You don't have consistency. You don't have, it's, it's, I have an idea and I act on it. If you've ever worked in an organization, especially if you work under like a founder, CEO, they'll have a thousand ideas a minute, and then they'll execute on it and they'll expect a result. And then it's like, oh God, here we go again. Mm-Hmm. Here's another You don't talk about work sucking. Yeah. Work for a visionary that has a thousand ideas and they expect everyone 'em to be implemented and then they wonder why they don't work, and then they wanna fire everybody. Yeah. It's because they experience that don't have, they don't have, uh, KPIs and metrics that align with the, the journey in order to produce it.

So it's, I have an idea. I expect a result. It didn't work. I have an idea, I expect a result. It didn't work. Okay. I have an idea expected, I expected and assumed a result, it didn't work. Okay. Because you're measuring to a tangible, as opposed to understanding the journey you're trying to take people through. Alright. So help me understand some examples of where you can be a healthy results company. 'cause I think my example is a, maybe an unhealthy example, but have you seen companies that are strong in results, but do it in a, in a good way? No, really, Uh, results are very important. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the financials and the KPIs aren't important at all. Okay. But because of the way it, it talks about, I think this is a future episode is rotation because of where it sits that is actually going backwards through the wheel. So companies that are very results heavy at the expense of journey okay. Are typically, they're very successful in the early phases, like a, a startup, you know, and they'll hit those reset because you have to hit results in the startup phase. Sure. You have to get results to get the company off the ground. But when you start maturing as an organization and you keep trying to just go through that grind, that hustle Mm-Hmm. That, you know, well, this worked when it was just three of us. You know, why isn't it working when there's 20 of us? Just we've gotta have more results. More results, you know, expect more. It, it, it doesn't grow in scale. Yeah. And So that's Off the ground. Yeah. But at scale, no. Yeah. And that's the, the client that I was working with, that's what they were experiencing is they had hired a lot of really smart people who just knew how to hustle and knew how to make really impressive things happen. But they just ran out of those people and they kept hiring folks. But those folks didn't know how to train, develop standardized processes. And so they would, they were churning through their new hires because people would come in and they wouldn't know what to do. They'd thrash around for a year and then leave, and they're like, oh, well they're just lazy. But it's like, well, but you never trained them. There's no standard operating procedures. And so there was just kind of this hustle, grind, figure out a way and make it happen, which had worked for them for several years, but they had gotten to a point where it wasn't working anymore and their margins were shrinking and they were holding steady on revenue, but the margins, it was just, it was harder and harder each time to do the same thing. And rather than getting those economies of scale, they were kind of moving backwards from a margins perspective. Oh, Exactly. Because you, you, you don't, you can't result your way off the ground. I mean, the other thing is, is you can't, um, uh, private equity venture fund, et cetera. Mm-Hmm. You can throw money at it. Sure. You can, you can get high caliber people and you can, you can throw money at it and you can expect results, but you end up again, just like you said, you end up churning through people. Yep. You end up with high, uh, churn rates in your organization. And it's always why do we have high churn? Well, it's because you're asking people to produce results and you haven't given them any tools to succeed.

Yeah. And you have to understand that. I always say there's, there's always a time and a place for results, right? Mm-Hmm. And then I always say you get what you measure. Mm-Hmm. So if you're measuring just results and you're not measuring how you got there, Mm-Hmm. You know, if you, if you have a highly results oriented organization, right? You're gonna get the results that you measure, but you won't necessarily get the results that are from the journey that you wanna take them through. In other words, if you measure results and you don't measure, how did you get there? You don't, you don't really care about process. You're just like, we hit the number, we hit the number. We hit the number. The results you get, are the ones you measure. So if you measure results without a journey, you'll get short-term gains. You'll get some, you'll get, you'll hit your targets for a little while, but it's not sustainable. And you'll end up chasing that and chasing that, and you'll get out of the way, you'll get out of alignment of what the journey was meant to be in the first place. So you have to understand that measuring results has to be aligned with the journey in which you're taking people through. Right. So when you think about, if you want to achieve sustainable results, if you want to hit results, but you also want to make sure you keep it sustainable for the long term, it's about balance. Okay? So the, you can hit results. But if you really want to make it happen, you have to balance it with a journey that you're going through. Right? Yeah. And to your point, Ryan, it's not that results are bad. It's that focusing solely on results can lead to an imbalance that eventually undermines success. It can produce short-term gains but at the cost of long-term stability. And so our goal is to help companies understand that true success comes from integrating results with a thoughtful, sustainable journey and process that supports those results.

So we've talked a lot about the results piece, and we've kind of used it to contrast against some of these other pieces, vision and journey and culture. And we've talked about some of the negatives and the positives. In your experience, what are some of the big wins or the bright spots that you've seen companies achieve when they get this balance right? The biggest thing, so there's a, there's a handful of them, but the biggest thing, you, you know, you achieve results while you're building a culture. That's a great positive. You can, you, you know, because you are balancing a result and a journey, you're actually helping the people. And so you're building a positive culture. You get results through consistency, so, you know, when you have KPIs and metrics that align with a journey, you're creating consistency in how you get there. Right? It's not like we just have to grind, grind, grind. Yeah. You actually have a method to how you're achieving results. So there's consistency. And then ultimately, you have more alignment between your people and your vision. Okay? So when you get the results right and you balance it with the journey, you're actually aligning your people with where you're trying to go. So it's not just a, we're hitting the number, but people are actually engaged in the journey of where you're trying to go. So you get alignment of people, you get a positive culture, you get consistency, and then ultimately you get results. And so, and so you're achieving results while you're also creating a positive culture. You're making it sustainable. All right? Well, that sounds pretty great. Let's work on helping companies make work not suck. Let's do it. All right. Thanks, Ryan.