Busy vs Better: Why Focusing on Outcomes Beats Chasing Activity

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Busy vs Better: Why Focusing on Outcomes Beats Chasing Activity

Most businesses don’t struggle because people aren’t working hard.

They struggle because effort isn’t translating into the right outcomes.

It’s an easy trap to fall into. Leaders want accountability, so they start measuring activity: number of calls made, meetings booked, proposals sent, tasks ticked off. Soon, the business becomes obsessed with being busy.

The problem? Activity alone doesn’t guarantee progress.

The difference between busy and better

• Busy is about motion. It’s counting things done, dials made, forms completed, boxes ticked.
  
• Better is about impact. It’s whether those calls created real conversations, whether proposals advanced deals, whether meetings built clarity and momentum.
  

Busy feels good in the moment because it’s visible and easy to measure. But only better creates growth.

Activity matters, but is it the right activity?

Here’s the thing: activity isn’t the enemy. It’s essential. But too many sales teams treat activity as the hero, instead of the baseline.

Most KPIs are built on activity, calls, meetings, demos, proposals. That’s fine as a minimum expectation. But activity alone doesn’t create growth. Growth comes when activity is linked to outcomes.

The real questions are:

• Are your KPIs aligned to outcomes, or do they stop at activity?
  
• Are you rewarding volume, or progress?
  
• Is your team chasing numbers on a dashboard, or focusing on the actions that actually move deals forward?
  

Activity is the fuel. Outcomes are the destination. Without the link between the two, all you’ve got is motion.

When managers manage the wrong things

This difference plays out most clearly in how teams are led.

Too often, managers are asked to track activity, chasing dials, filling dashboards, updating CRMs. It creates pressure to “do more” instead of “do better.”

The real job of a manager isn’t to manage activity. It’s to build capability.

• Are we coaching people to have stronger conversations, or just counting how many they make?
  
• Are we developing judgment and skill, or reducing performance to numbers on a report?
  
• Are we creating accountability for results, or just for admin?
  

When managers focus only on activity, they may keep people busy, but they won’t make them better.

Questions worth asking

As a leader, here are some questions that help uncover whether your rhythm is driving progress or just motion:

• Are we more focused on activity or outcomes?
  
• Do we celebrate being busy, or getting better?
  
• Do our KPIs reflect activity alone, or are they linked to outcomes?
  
• Are managers growing skills, or just tracking numbers?
  
• Is accountability about improvement, or about admin?
  

If too many of these questions make you pause, there’s a good chance your team rhythm is geared towards busyness instead of betterment.

Shifting the focus

Moving from busy to better doesn’t mean ignoring activity. It means putting it in its proper place. Activity is the input. Outcomes are the reason.

When leaders put outcomes at the centre, three things happen:

1. Teams focus on what matters. Work shifts from “getting through the list” to “getting to the goal.”
   
2. Managers build capability. Coaching becomes about skill and impact, not data entry.
   
3. Results improve. Because energy is spent where it moves the needle, not where it just looks impressive on a dashboard.
   

Final thought

If you focus on activity, you get busy.
If you focus on outcomes, you get better.

The best teams don’t work harder than everyone else. They work on the right things, in the right way, with leaders who measure what really matters.

So as you head into the next quarter, ask yourself:
👉 How are we KPI’ing and managing our teams?
👉 Are we aligned to outcomes or is activity still the hero?

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