Managing Output vs. Outcome Jobs

A paradox about outcome jobs.

There are jobs where the difficulty and result are clear to see and understand. Jobs like bookkeeping where accuracy and completion are both important and obvious. I like to think of these as output jobs. Output jobs are ones where the results have a way of speaking for themselves.

Other jobs are outcome jobs. The tricky paradox of outcome jobs is that the better you are at them, the easier they look. Yes, there are results to be measured but somehow the skill of the job makes the results feel less “earned” somehow. For example, sales. The better you are at sales the more organic and smooth you make it look and feel. People start thinking oh, I could take people to dinner. They don’t recognize the sea of finesse and judgment calls beneath the surface of those dinners to get to those outcomes.

Outcome jobs need to be managed differently than output jobs. They require more trust, more context-sharing, and more attention to long-term patterns over short-term activity. Measuring effort alone won’t reveal what’s working because effort isn’t enough to be truly excellent. Instead you have to look at influence, timing, and impact. If you apply output job logic to outcome work, you’ll either over-manage it or undervalue it.