Reward effort, not outcomes, says CEO of Google and Alphabet Sundar Pichai. What do you think?

Completely agree. One of my company value is "Make Mistakes"

I lean towards outcomes, but specifically in the long run. If someone makes mistakes, that's okay; if they learn from it and apply those learnings later on, then in the long run we should stronger outcomes and results. A focus on effort doesn't necessarily emphasize working smart, learning and improving - effort for efforts sake can lead people to work long un-focused hours and yet not achieve.

Just reading the title I am not sure if I agree. Sure, effort is important and without the right amount of it nothing gets done. But from my experience a lot of the time effort (or being busy) is used as an excuse to not do the important work. I am all for making mistakes and learning but again this needs to be intentional. Have a plan, a timeline, aim an outcome and work hard to get there. If you can't, assess the work done and see what you learned from there and what are the next steps. So if the phrase is "Reward effort when aimed at the right outcome" I am in :D

I agree. Reward number of attempts and the energy behind those attempts.

I agree, I would choose contribution to the team as well, sometimes that contribution isn't measured in metrics, it could be emotional or just helping people as they achieve their goals.

Of course efforts, but that's harder to measure than outcomes

Effort should be rewarded, but it should be only one facet of the equation here. Outcomes, team contributions (both tangible and intangible), attitude, etc. are all very important too. As an extreme example, I could try really hard and put in my best efforts to do brain surgery on people, but keep killing all of them in the process. Should I still be rewarded for those fatal outcomes? Of course not. Maybe I'm oversimplifying the intent of the quote, but I think there has to be a certain amount of accountability (at some point) that goes along with effort. That doesn't mean you are not allowed to fail or make mistakes. That is perfectly fine, as long as you learn from them and figure out how to course-correct along the way.

I absolutely agree IF efforts are redirected after "failure." Sometimes it's not that our amount of action is not enough; it's that our efforts are not effective. But we wouldn't know if that's the case without failing and making mistakes!

@Brad fusion I guess he said, a mix of efforts and outcome. For a startup, 40% efforts -60% outcome (Since the outcome is important for survival) For an established company, 80% efforts - 20% outcome (Since one successful outcome brings them billions of revenue, hundreds of failure does not affect them)

When we reward hard work, people work even harder. Hard work only ends when a task is too difficult. Rewarding the effort encourages employees to develop a sense of purpose and view their work as more than a means to an end.

I don't work for pay. Although, of course, I receive a salary. I have several goals in life. And I go to them. This is the strongest motivator for me. And the reward is just a concomitant.

I completely agree to this that encouraging the efforts make the employee to put in more efforts and with higher zeal and enthusiasm, however there are scenarios when the efforts can only be rewarded if the outcome is favorable so off course efforts are important but the outcome too matters.

There cannot be outcome without effort