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Process
2 min read · 428 words
Process is the sequence of operations that produces an outcome over time, and most operators are oriented to the outcome at the cost of the process.
The result-oriented system is what the culture trains. Set the goal, achieve the goal, measure the achievement. The framework is partial. Most outcomes worth producing arrive through extended processes during which the outcome is invisible, the work is incremental, and the felt experience does not include the satisfaction the eventual outcome will provide. Operators who can only register satisfaction at the outcome quit during the process — and the outcomes they were oriented around never arrive.
The mechanism that the process-oriented system exploits: the operations that compose the process are themselves available as sources of engagement. The training session. The page written. The conversation conducted. The rep performed. Each is a complete operation in itself, regardless of whether the larger outcome ever lands. The operator who can engage with the operation in front of them today produces the inputs that the process requires. The operator who is constantly evaluating today against the unreached destination depletes themselves into not producing the inputs at all.
This is not a denial of outcomes. Outcomes matter. The outcome is what the process is for. But the operator’s relationship to their own work needs to find its main fuel in the process, not in the outcome — because the outcome is not present today, and most days are process days, and the process days are most of the operator’s actual life.
From the chair: orient the satisfaction toward the operation, not the destination. The metric is not did I reach the goal today. The metric is did I do the operation today. The first sets up an evaluation that fails most days. The second sets up an evaluation that succeeds most days, while the operations that the satisfaction is rewarding accumulate into the outcome the operator was hoping for.
The other application: process as the unit of the well-lived life. The outcomes will arrive or not, and many of them will arrive in shapes the operator didn’t predict. The operations the operator does daily are what they actually have. The operator who can find engagement in those operations has built a life. The operator who is waiting for the eventual outcome to make the operations meaningful is waiting for what does not actually pay off the way they expect, even when it arrives.
The process is most of the life. Treat it as such.