To achieve results, let go of the outcome

Most executives would say that if you want to achieve results, you have to have a relentless, unyielding commitment to the outcome you want.

Seems reasonable, right? Focus on your goal if you want to achieve your goal.

But actually, the opposite is true. Focusing too much on the outcome is what causes teams to choke.

Focusing on the outcome takes your attention away from what’s most important right now. Execution. Attitude. Ethics. Relationships. Integrity. Process. Health.

We see it in sports—teams choke when they’re so focused on winning that they lose their ability to execute. We see it in corporations—employees compromise on ethics when pressure from above pushes them to do anything to hit the goal. We even see it in life-and-death situations.

And we see it in ourselves. We get so attached to a specific outcome that we become our own biggest obstacle to achieving it.

I was reminded of this today when I noticed my nerves ratcheting up over an upcoming sales call. I paused to check in with myself.

“I want this meeting to go well,” I thought. “I want to work with this new potential client. I know I can help them. It would be great learning experience for me, too. I have to close this deal.”

Then I realized I was so fixated on the outcome of “close the deal” that I was putting myself in danger of blowing the whole thing by losing sight of what got the potential client to reach out to me in the first place.

Now, if you’re truly in a desperate situation where actual survival is on the line, maybe “close the deal” is the only acceptable outcome. But I’m not talking about those situations. Those situations are breathtakingly rare.

But falling on your face because you’re looking up at the mountaintop instead of the path ahead of you? Totally common. Totally avoidable.

And all it takes to correct is to take a moment and ask yourself if you’re focused on the right thing.

There’s an unverified story I once heard that I like to recall when I’m working with someone who I can tell is getting in their own way. I doubt it happened like this, but the lesson is what matters:

Ken Griffey, Jr. was in a terrible batting slump. He tried everything to break it. Changed his stance, changed his grip, changed his swing… anything he could think of. He got more and more frustrated and demoralized as the slump dragged on.

One day, his father asked him simply, “Son, can you see the ball?”

Griffey, Jr. answered, “Yes.”

“Then hit the ball,” his father replied.

The next day he broke the slump with two home runs and a double.

Now, did it actually happen that way? Probably not, though I’ve been told it’s reasonably representative of the two men and their relationship.

The point of the story is that Griffey was so focused on the outcome of breaking the slump that he got caught up in a whole lot of unhelpful actions instead of trusting to the things that had gotten him there in the first place.

Now, is it always so easy to get out of your own way, and will success always follow? Not at all. There may be other factors in play. But I do see it happen all the time.

Letting go of the outcome allows you to see not just the things that are important right now, but sometimes even that perhaps you were focused on the wrong outcome the whole time.

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