The way most companies work today is stuck in an outdated loop. We praise effort instead of outcomes. We confuse motion with progress. We measure performance through optics, perception, and how well someone plays the political game. It’s an approach that rewards the wrong behaviors, tolerates waste, and leaves results up to luck. In tech — where execution speed and clarity should be the standard — this way of working is a liability.
If we want better businesses, we need a better operating model. One that measures value the same way for everyone — whether it’s a developer, a designer, or an autonomous AI — and one that makes accountability clear before work even starts. I call this shift the Results as Sole Value principle, and it sits at the core of my leadership philosophy and the execution frameworks I build. Here are five prescriptions for putting it into practice.
1. Be Explicit
Vague goals are the breeding ground for missed expectations and performance theater. Replace them with execution-ready agreements. Collaborate by Contract (CBC) forces all parties to define objectives, deliverables, and success criteria before work begins. When everyone agrees to the same scoreboard, alignment is automatic, and “I thought you meant…” disappears from the postmortem.
2. Minimal Essential Process
Process should exist to clarify and measure outcomes — nothing else. Every extra layer of bureaucracy slows execution and shifts focus away from results. Strip it back to the essentials: the minimum structure you need to keep score and course-correct. In a leaner system, teams move faster, adapt better, and waste less time on rituals that don’t actually drive performance.
3. Trust and Autonomy
Hire capable, trustworthy people, make expectations clear, and then get out of their way. Micromanagement kills initiative and breeds dependency. When people are trusted to own their work, they take responsibility for their results — and they know they’ll be judged on them. Autonomy doesn’t mean a lack of oversight; it means oversight happens at the level of outcomes, not daily hand-holding.
4. Outcome Over Everything
Value is only what we agreed to achieve. Everything else — extra features, nice-to-haves, or unplanned “wins” — might be good, but they aren’t the scoreboard. This keeps everyone focused on delivering what the business actually needs and avoids letting effort, creativity, or enthusiasm substitute for results. It also creates fairness: humans and AI alike are measured against the same standard.
5. Be Meritocratic
Promote and reward based on results, not perception. When performance is visible and measured objectively, it’s obvious who moves the needle and who doesn’t. Meritocracy replaces politics with clarity, giving high performers a reason to stay and low performers a reason to improve — or exit.
These changes aren’t cosmetic. They force a shift from a culture built on appearances to one built on accountability, clarity, and execution. They create an environment where value is defined up front, measured fairly, and rewarded consistently. In a future where work will be done by a mix of humans and AI, this approach isn’t just better — it’s necessary. Because in the end, effort doesn’t pay the bills. Outcomes do.
