Understand Whether You Should Focus on a Process or a Product
When I was in college, I had a consultant who constantly advised me to focus on the process rather than the product. I didn’t follow this advice very well, in part because I didn’t really understand what it meant.
In fact, I wasn’t sure I fully understood it until I saw this image that RadReads’ Khe Hee found in a “random Danish magazine” and posted on Instagram :
If the process is important, ie the process of learning through exploration, discovery and communication, you play.
If the results really matter, you get the job done. You are using methods already developed that are linked to specific results.
This is because I wrote about the difference between game and performance on my personal blog:
A game is a gift that you give yourself.
A play is a gift that you give to the audience.
Or, if you want another meaningful dichotomy: play is your experience. Work is someone else’s work.
Knowing when to use a process mindset rather than a result oriented mindset is, for example, the difference between trying out a new recipe for fun and making a dinner you know your family will eat. The difference between how you play your guitar when you want to relax, and how you work on your music when you get ready for a concert.
Of course, there are situations where it is difficult to understand which way of thinking should prevail. Should higher education be process or results oriented? What about raising a child? If you bring a group of people together to form a group, an improvisation group, or a massive campaign, when do you move from process orientation – a necessary part of group development – to results-based practice? (And who in the family or group will need to maintain a result-oriented mindset to provide leadership / structure / space in which everyone else can play?)
According to the quote shared by Khe Hee, you may have to ask yourself the same question in every new scenario (i.e. every group meeting, every family dinner, every guitar playing, etc.): This is a situation, when the process is more important, or the situation when the results are more important?
And then you will know whether it’s time to work or it’s time to play.