A Primary Desired Outcome Primer

Brief #1

Creating your Desired outcome statement

Let’s get started on what will be one of the most important things in your professional life. And likely your life overall. Get ready to apply clarity like most people never have and never will for themselves. Here you will learn how to create your primary desired outcome(PDO) statement. 

Primary desired outcome statement: A brief statement (three to four sentences ) of the result you want to achieve yourself or your organization and when it will be done that drives your decisions and actions. 

Use of the word “primary” is intentional and significant in this definition. Ideally, you should have one point of focus in your efforts. Or at least as few as possible. And really no more than three primary desired outcomes.

There will (and must be) other desired outcomes that are part of your work. These secondary desired outcome (SDO) statements support your primary desired outcome. Think of a PDO being the end point for a project. That is the reason for it’s existence. SDOs help to achieve a PDO. There can be numerous SDOs, but minimize their number as much as possible and involve enough people to get the work done at at the necessary level of performance.

Be mindful of how many primary and secondary desired outcome statements you create. Too many can become counter-productive quickly. Then no desired outcomes (or very few) are realized. 

This is simple in concept, but more difficult in practice. Your time, energy, and headspace are crucial factors when it comes to achieving your PDOs. When it comes to creating and adopting a primary desired outcome statement, the biggest obstacles are: