Why You Shouldn't Just Focus on Outcomes: The Process Matters

A strong team of 50 people came together for our carefully curated two-hour team building exercise from a FMCG company, to understand how to drive the company’s 2023 vision. We did an engaging activity to enable the team members learn the vision in a fun way. The task comprised a challenge where the team members had to complete a sequence of connected tasks and directives in order to achieve their goal. The team had a great time applying logic and working together during the activity.

Here’s the interesting part, the beauty of outbound training programs is in the facilitation. We decided to probe the participants into letting us know how they felt about that particular activity and what is it that they learnt. They were asked to raise their hands if they thought the activity was a success. Astoundingly most of the junior management team members raised their hands. On the contrary, when asked who all thought the activity was a failure, a handful of participants raised their hands. Among these few, we managed to identify that most of the senior management shared the same notion.

You may be wondering why there is such a discrepancy. It's because the?senior management had reached a point where their experience had allowed them to enhance their perspectives. When we set out to do anything, we typically focus on the end result—the reward, prize, or final destination. While having a precise goal in mind is important, it's also important to consider the complete process of getting there. Why so? We learn, grow, and form habits and skills that will help us in our future endeavors. Let’s dive into detail?why the process is equally as important as the end result.

1.?????Stages of Growth: Working towards a goal provides us with a one-of-a-kind opportunity to learn and grow. In many cases, the skills and habits we develop during the process are more valuable than the end result. For example, if you're training for a marathon, race day is only one part of the equation. The real growth and learning take place during the months of training preceding the race. You are developing endurance, mental fortitude, and learning how to push through difficulties and pain during this time. These qualities will benefit you in other aspects of your life long after the race comes to an end.

2.?????Fulfillment: While reaching our targets is important, the process of achieving them can also bring us a sense of fulfillment. We seize ownership of our lives and future when we set a goal and strive towards it. The fact that we made the effort and worked hard towards it is something to be proud of, even if we don't get the exact result we were hoping for.

Going With The Flow: A goal-achieving process can be rewarding in and of itself. We are able to work in a great flow when working on tasks that are enjoyable, demanding but not overly difficult. This is a condition of intense concentration and pleasure brought on by total?

??involvement in an activities may have numerous opportunities to enter this state of flow while working towards a goal, which can be highly satisfy in rewarding.

To conclude, while the result is vital, the process of achieving a goal is equally substantial. We have opportunities to learn from the process, improve our abilities and habits, and increase our resilience. We can truly appreciate the journey and make the most of the experience when we pay attention to the entire process not only?the final result.

To explore how you can incorporate the best of learning and enjoyment for your team, send facilitator Deepa an email at [email protected]