Should you be execution or results oriented? Should there be any barrier to getting started? Should you know the exact path to victory before you begin, before you commit any resources? Execute now and press the play button to find the results.
Hunter Powers: Welcome to the ONE. I'm your host, Hunter Powers, broadcasting live from our nation's capital DC proper, Washington DC. Today's one idea is, should you be execution or results-oriented? This is a question that was asked of me very recently. It's also something I've seen people on both sides pushing against each other online. The heck with the results. Execute, execute, execute. And what's the point of executing if there are no results? And it seems that the execution folks are all about getting, going, getting momentum, removing a lot of the perceived structure around starting something new. And the results folks are all about planning. It's hard to find success without a plan. Figuring out that path, figuring out what you're trying to achieve, setting those milestones, knowing when you're going to check in, having a nice listing of all of the resources at hand, and here's how you're going to find your success.
Hunter Powers: And so the execution folks say, "Look, you results-focused folks, you planning folks, you never really get started. You spend all your time ideating, but you never get anything real done." And the results folks, they say, "You execution folks, you're spending all of your time running, but you're basically just running around in circles and you're trying to justify it by saying, 'Look how tired I am. How could I possibly do anything more? I ran 25 miles today.'"
Hunter Powers: The results folks are like, "Yeah, in a tiny little circle." And then the execution folks back to the results folks like, "Yeah, but at least I got around the circle. You didn't move at all."
Hunter Powers: And so those are the two extremes of the argument. And if we dialed them back to their subtle approach on that execution side, it's really about removing the barriers to entry, the things that are stopping you from getting started. Just get going. Just do something. Just get some momentum. Motion creates emotion.
Hunter Powers: The results folks are really just about having some idea of what you're trying to achieve. Some way of measuring it, bringing some thought into the process and not wasting energy, not wasting the resources that you have, making the most of everything.
Hunter Powers: All right, but who's is right? There can only be one winner. Which one wins? That's why we tuned in today. You're supposed to tell us which one is right. Well, I don't know. You're listening, right now. Which one is right? Should you be execution-focused or should you be results-focused? There's this great answer, and it's the answer to most questions, and that answer is "It depends." There are times when it's better to be execution-focused and there are times when it's better to be results-focused. Note that I'm using results as a proxy for planning in a very prescriptive approach towards execution, and execution more as I'm going to do anything I can think of as long as it's kind of in this broad box of things. I'm just going to do something." And so it depends.
Hunter Powers: It depends on the amount of expertise that you have in an area. Are you doing something that you've done many times before? In which case you probably have a plan, and that plan is very easy for you to come about, and having that plan provides you with an internal motivation that, hey, if we do this, we're going to get our results. It depends on the resources that you have available. If you're able to go and talk to someone who's had tremendous success in the area that you're trying to execute, well then yeah, it makes sense to go have a conversation and be a little more results-oriented and take some time because you have this great resource available.
Hunter Powers: What if you don't? It depends if you're stuck. You've been ideating on something or a very long time. You've been planning out all the details, and the details have start to become overwhelming. Anything can be divided into infinite complexity. There's an old math problem and it goes something like this. So I start off on a trip. I'm going to cross the country in each leg of the trip. I will go halfway there. The first half of the trip, I travel halfway across the country, and then the next half of the trip, now I have half of the country left. I'm going to travel half of that. So I'll travel one quarter of the country, and now I have one quarter of the country left, and I'm going to travel half of that. So I'll travel one eighth of the country, and I'll keep just traveling one half of whatever I have left. And if you keep doing this, you keep traveling one half of what you have left, you will never get there.
Hunter Powers: And the math problem goes, given that you must travel one half of the way towards something to ever get there. If you always travel half the way there, you will never get there. And how does anyone ever get anywhere? The answer is that at some point you have to stop traveling halfway there. At some point you have to be execution-oriented. We're just going to go burn the ships. What happens happens. And so it's a balance. If you have a lot of great ideas, you're good at planning, then you should start by planning. But you shouldn't plan to the point of being stuck. And you need to recognize that if someone is 100% results-oriented, then they will never get any results. And you have to realize that if someone is 100% execution-oriented, then they will leave many, many results on the table.
Hunter Powers: And so the real trick is finding the balance between the two and understanding that you will have to reevaluate things as it goes and trying to find those moments where the re-evaluation makes the most sense and then constraining those time periods. I wouldn't necessarily constrain them by time. I'll constrain them by progress. And so these are the milestones where we're going to stop and we're going to think and we're going to plan. And as long as our planning is producing incredible results, we're moving forward and we're finding much faster paths. We keep planning, but the moment it starts diving into the infinite, the moment we start constantly taking a half step forward, that means we need to get back to the execution. And so we execute, execute with our eyes open, waiting for something that fails to match our pattern of what we think is broadly going to happen.
Hunter Powers: And then we have those check-in periods. I'm going to do these four or five things and then I'm going to reevaluate. I'm going to work for two to three weeks and then I'm going to reevaluate, make sure everything's still more or less make sense.
Hunter Powers: The answer is not to be execution-oriented or results-oriented. The answer is to be progress-oriented. You have to be moving forward and moving forward in the right direction. And the only way that you will find that progress is through a combination of execution and results. And that is your one idea for today.
Hunter Powers: I am Hunter Powers, broadcasting live from our nation's capital, as we say in the city, DC Proper, and until next time.