Question 4
What Are Our Results?
Peter F. Drucker
- How do we define results?
- Are we successful?
- How should we define results?
- What must we strengthen or abandon?
The results of social sector organizations are always measured outside the organization in changed lives and changed conditions—in people's behavior, circumstances, health, hopes, and above all, in their competence and capacity. To further the mission, each nonprofit needs to determine what should be appraised and judged, then concentrate resources for results.
Look at Short-Term Accomplishments and Long-Term Change
A small mental health center was founded and directed by a dedicated husband-and-wife team, both psychotherapists. They called it a “healing community,” and in the fifteen years they ran the organization, they achieved results others had dismissed as impossible. Their primary customers were people diagnosed with schizophrenia, and most came to the center following failure after failure in treatment, their situation nearly hopeless.
The people at the center said, “There is somewhere to turn.” Their first measure was whether primary customers and their families were willing to try again. The staff had a number of ways to monitor progress. Did participants regularly attend group sessions and participate fully in daily routines? Did the incidence and length of psychiatric hospitalizations decrease? Could these individuals show new understanding of their disease by saying, “I have had an episode,” as opposed to citing demons in the closet? As they progressed, could participants set realistic goals for their own next steps?
The center's mission was to enable people with serious and persistent mental illness to recover, and after two or more years of intensive work, many could function in this world—they were no longer “incurable.” Some were able to return to a life with their family. Others could hold steady jobs. A few completed graduate school. Whether or not members of that healing community did recover—whether the lives of primary customers changed in this fundamental way—was the organization's single bottom line.
In business, you can debate whether profit is really an adequate measuring stick, but without it, there is no business in the long term. In the social sector, no such universal standard for success exists. Each organization must identify its customers, learn what they value, develop meaningful measures, and honestly judge whether, in fact, lives are being changed. This is a new discipline for many nonprofit groups, but it is one that can be learned.
Qualitative and Quantitative Measures
Progress and achievement can be appraised in qualitative and quantitative terms. These two types of measures are interwoven—they shed light on one another—and both are necessary to illuminate in what ways and to what extent lives are being changed.
Qualitative measures address the depth and breadth of change within its particular context. They begin with specific observations, build toward patterns, and tell a subtle, individualized story. Qualitative appraisal offers valid, “rich” data. The education director at a major museum tells of the man who sought her out to explain how the museum had opened his teenage mind to new possibilities in a way he knew literally saved his life. She used this result to support her inspiration for a new initiative with troubled youth. The people in a successful research institute cannot quantify the value of their research ahead of time. But they can sit down every three years and ask, “What have we achieved that contributed to changed lives? Where do we focus now for results tomorrow?” Qualitative results can be in the realm of the intangible, such as instilling hope in a patient battling cancer. Qualitative data, although sometimes more subjective and difficult to grasp, are just as real, just as important, and can be gathered just as systematically as the quantitative.
Quantitative measures use definitive standards. They begin with categories and expectations and tell an objective story. Quantitative appraisal offers valid “hard” data. Examples of quantitative measures are as follows: whether overall school performance improves when at-risk youth have intensive arts education; whether the percentage of welfare recipients who complete training and become employed at a livable wage goes up; whether health professionals change their practice based on new research; whether the number of teenagers who smoke goes up or down; whether incidences of child abuse fall when twenty-four-hour crisis care is available. Quantitative measures are essential for assessing whether resources are properly concentrated for results, whether progress is being made, whether lives and communities are changing for the better.
Assess What Must Be Strengthened or Abandoned
One of the most important questions for nonprofit leadership is, Do we produce results that are sufficiently outstanding for us to justify putting our resources in this area? Need alone does not justify continuing. Nor does tradition. You must match your mission, your concentration, and your results. Like the New Testament parable of the talents, your job is to invest your resources where the returns are manifold, where you can have success.
To abandon anything is always bitterly resisted. People in any organization are always attached to the obsolete—the things that should have worked but did not, the things that once were productive and no longer are. They are most attached to what in an earlier book (Managing for Results, 1964) I called “investments in managerial ego.” Yet abandonment comes first. Until that has been accomplished, little else gets done. The acrimonious and emotional debate over what to abandon holds everybody in its grip. Abandoning anything is thus difficult, but only for a fairly short spell. Rebirth can begin once the dead are buried; six months later, everybody wonders, “Why did it take us so long?”
Leadership Is Accountable
There are times to face the fact that the organization as a whole is not performing—that there are weak results everywhere and little prospect of improving. It may be time to merge or liquidate and put your energies somewhere else. And in some performance areas, whether to strengthen or abandon is not clear. You will need a systematic analysis as part of your plan.
At this point in the self-assessment process, you determine what results for the organization should be and where to concentrate for future success. The mission defines the scope of your responsibility. Leadership is accountable to determine what must be appraised and judged, to protect the organization from squandering resources, and to ensure meaningful results.1
What Are Our Results?
Dr. Judith Rodin
Peter F. Drucker wrote that the “most exciting” development in his half century of work with nonprofits was that they had begun to talk not of needs but of results. This was progress of a very important sort—and Drucker, typically, understated his own role in helping inspire the change.
Drucker's explication of question 4 clearly and cogently lays out some of the most important subordinate questions in the evaluation of outcomes in the nonprofit sector: What are the prerequisites for our success? How do our partners and beneficiaries experience our work? What are our qualitative as well as quantitative goals? How do we define our results? Do we have the courage to admit failure and let others learn from our mistakes?
I would submit, however, that Drucker's insights in this matter are now sufficiently well understood that he would want us today to go further. The contemporary discussion around evaluation is no longer whether it is worthwhile—it surely is; nor is it around whether quantitative measurements alone are sufficient—surely they are not; nor is it confined to whether failure is admissible—surely we must admit that human efforts, no matter how well intended, must fall short and that refusal to admit failure and share the knowledge with others only compounds that failure.
Instead, the next question—question 4A, if you will—asks us how we use our results to play a role in Drucker's question 5, “What is our plan?”
The Five Most Important Questions proceeds on the implicit premise that our plan is fixed and that the results must flow from it. But the program work of a nonprofit is more iterative than linear. Our plan needs to be designed not only to further our mission but also to yield measurable results so that we can know whether the plan is succeeding. Just as Drucker is correct in observing that needs are not enough, that intentions are insufficient, it is also true that a plan should not be considered complete, or even satisfactory, until it has been constructed in such a way as to produce some measurable outcomes and to build mechanisms, a priori, that allow midcourse corrections based on these results. This work is not like conducting a clinical trial or a randomized controlled experiment, however, where we do not break the code until the end. The goal is to achieve real impact; thus, measuring results is a tool for learning, for self-correcting, to reach intended, specified outcomes.
In saying this, we must sail between two shoals, what we might think of as the Scylla and Charybdis of nonprofit planning. On one hand, we must ensure that our plans are designed in such a way that results are measurable. If necessary to guarantee this, we must even be willing to alter our choices of specific interventions to undertake, avoiding those where, for instance, the defined impact is so unclear and immeasurable as to be beyond our reach. On the other hand, we must also avoid the other shoal—the temptation to undertake only that work most easily quantified, to choose the sort of task that produces outputs but fails to alter the most important outcomes. In this way, to pursue the metaphor just one phrase further, our voyage is an artistic and not just scientific endeavor.
Drucker begins his discussion of question 4 by observing, with emphasis in the original, that “results are the key to our survival” as institutions. If results are our goal, they must also be our test. What endures from the work of nonprofits is not how hard we try, how clever we may be, or even how much we care. Hard work is indispensable to success, of course, in this as in any other field; intelligence is prized in our sector as in all others involving intellectual endeavor; and caring is what has drawn the best people into this line of work. And our offerings must appeal and be relevant to a younger generation of patrons, volunteers, and donors, for without the revitalizing force of new members from the communities in which these organizations reside, nonprofits risk calcifying and losing the ability to sustain themselves. But ultimately what is remembered is how we have been able to improve lives. Drucker understood this profoundly. This is why his question, “What are our results?” resonates today.
What Are Our Results?
Col. Bernard Banks
All organizations exist to produce outcomes. Such outcomes are generated in variety of forms (e.g., products sold, services provided, net income achieved, dollars raised, and students taught). Regardless of type, developing an understanding of what any result really means is a very important leadership activity. Peter F. Drucker highlighted the importance of understanding results within his iconic five questions one should ask about his or her organization. However, my reflections concerning in particular Drucker's question, “What are our results?” have led me to conclude that an additional filter is necessary to consider when evaluating the things one measures. Therefore, I submit that leaders must also examine results through the prism of organizational and personal values.
Drucker's Pillars of How to Examine Results
Obviously, organizations must be cognizant as to whether they are achieving the right outcomes. Failure to evaluate critically the outputs an enterprise's activities produce can lead to skewed perceptions and potentially extinction. Consequently, Drucker highlighted several illuminating questions designed to foster a more comprehensive examination of outcomes (e.g., How do we define success? Are we successful? How should we define results? What must we strengthen or abandon?). The variety of Drucker's espoused reflection was crafted to examine short- and long-term outcomes through different types of data (i.e., quantitative and qualitative). Breadth and depth generally yield a better understanding of any phenomenon. Yet, it is natural to wonder whether Drucker's concise framework provided us all the prompts one should take into account when examining results. Leaders' ability to develop an accurate understanding of organizational efforts matters because of one important outcome—influence.
The ultimate impact of exploring outcomes is influence. Organizations' future behavior is generally influenced by the success or failure associated with their previous endeavors. Organizations and leaders inherently understand the need to get things right. Drucker once noted, “results are the key to our survival.” But, is it possible to get seemingly positive results the wrong way? I contend the answer is yes.
The Importance of a Values Filter
Values are designed to serve as individuals and organizations' “true north.”2 It is a rare organization that has not taken the time to establish some set of formal values. Yet, all too often organizations do not examine their actions through the lens such espoused statements of beliefs and principles provide. Failure to do so introduces needless risk into their future undertakings. The U.S. Army says its values “consist of the principles, standards and qualities considered essential for successful Army leaders. They are fundamental to helping Soldiers and Army Civilians make the right decision in any situation.”3 So, why must one examine values in concert with results? One story immediately comes to mind.
When I was attending a graduate program several years ago, I had a professor who had just finished a very successful tenure as the chief executive officer (CEO) of a Fortune 500 company. One day in class we were discussing leaders' responsibilities for influencing their organizations' business practices. Several students were intent on highlighting the need always to maximize shareholder value. Suddenly, the professor began to tell a story about an acquisition that his company had elected not to pursue. He said his firm had identified an opportunity that held tremendous potential to generate significant profit. However, acquiring the targeted entity would require laying off significant numbers of people and selling big pieces of the enterprise to harvest their economic value. Subsequently, many communities would face an immediate downturn because of the proposed action. The CEO mulled over the opportunity and decided not to do it. Consequently, he informed the company's board and his senior leadership team that pursuing the proposed acquisition made sense on paper. However, it did not withstand the scrutiny of the company's values. So, the deal never transpired. If the CEO had considered the potential financial results only, a very different outcome might have transpired.
The Prism of Your Beliefs
Leaders and organizations are entrusted with influencing people's lives. Long-term vitality for each of the aforementioned groups is contingent upon delivering the right results at the right time. Results matter! However, how one generates results also matters. Drucker's five questions continue to serve as an invaluable resource for helping create clarity of perspective while engendering action. My plea is that everyone should also examine organizational behaviors and outcomes through the prism of his or her beliefs. Doing so will undoubtedly yield results over time that one can be proud of having created the right way.
Millennial Takeaway
Adam Braun
At one point a few years ago when we had built just a few schools, I wrote in my journal that if Pencils of Promise built 30 schools by the time I turned 30, I could die a happy man. Today we've opened more than 150. But here's the important part—I was wrong about being able to die a happy man. I still want to do so much more. As soon as something becomes possible, you start thinking of what you can do next. Each stage on which I gave a speech gave me the confidence to go bigger, each country I traveled to made me hungry to visit another, and no matter how late I stayed out at night, I always had an urge to watch the sunrise.
So as I stand on the frontier of a new decade, I now realize what my twenties taught me: There is no such thing as best. The finish line to living the perfect life doesn't exist. It's constantly in motion, just ahead of our grasp, moving forward at the same rate of acceleration as the expectations that will inevitably trail our accomplishments.
You will screw up, you will be celebrated, and you will feel like a loser and a winner all in the same day. And that will happen over and over. But the people who succeed are those who dust themselves off and keep going because they're not motivated by hitting their goals. They're motivated by getting to a place where they can set new goals that seem just as unreasonable as the ones before them once did.
Take a moment to grasp that fully—the most successful people are not motivated by reaching their goals. They're motivated by getting to a place where they can confidently and audaciously move the finish line farther into the distance.
So set incredibly ambitious goals. Chase them with fervor. And then move the finish line far off into the distance.