Organizations invest heavily in improving outcomes, but according to William N. Martin, they may be asking the wrong question. "We strive for outcomes when we should be looking at conditions," Martin said. His perspective, developed over decades in high-stakes environments, suggests that focusing on conditions rather than outcomes could be more effective for unlocking human potential.
Martin's background as a utility lineman, flight nurse paramedic, ski patrol member, and mountain rescuer has placed him in situations where decisions had immediate and sometimes life-or-death consequences. One experience in particular—an emergency involving an 11-year-old girl who had suffered a traumatic amputation—shaped his thinking. Inside the ambulance, the atmosphere was intense. Instead of telling the emergency personnel to calm down, Martin asked clinical questions: What was her blood pressure? What had already been done? Why was a second tourniquet being used? The deliberate manner of his questioning changed the condition in the ambulance without anyone being told how to do their job.
Outside, the girl's mother was overwhelmed. Martin handed her his phone and asked her to call herself, explaining he wanted her number to stay in contact. He gave her a role: get to the hospital safely because her daughter would need her. The circumstances hadn't changed, but the mother now had something she could do. Martin couldn't determine the medical outcome, but he could influence the conditions surrounding it.
This distinction became central to Martin's thinking about human behavior beyond emergency medicine. He questions the tendency to assume poor performance means a lack of motivation or ability. Instead, he believes leaders, educators, and parents should first examine the conditions surrounding a person. "What conditions have we allowed to persist?" Martin asks. "Are we giving somebody the ability to think and make decisions, or are the conditions around them teaching them to simply wait for someone else to tell them what to do?"
Martin illustrates this with a simple analogy: two seeds, a sunflower and a corn seed. Each contains different potential, but neither needs to be taught what it can become. What matters is whether it encounters the right conditions—soil, water, sunlight. Throw those seeds randomly out a window, and their future depends on where they land. The potential inside hasn't changed; the conditions have. Similarly, an organization can recruit talented employees but still create an environment where people are afraid to make decisions. A leader can ask for initiative while rewarding conformity. Parents can want independent children while making every important decision for them.
None of these outcomes necessarily begins with bad intentions, but demanding different results without examining conditions misses part of the problem. Martin's interest is not in removing difficulty; difficult circumstances can reveal extraordinary capability. However, there is a difference between conditions that allow people to adapt and those that teach them to surrender their agency. This distinction is increasingly important as he considers younger generations facing unforeseen problems. "I don't know what problems the next generation is going to have to solve because some of those problems haven't even been invented yet," Martin said. "So giving them all of my answers isn't the answer. They need to be able to think, adapt, connect with other people and make decisions."
For Martin, this changes the responsibility of leadership. "Profit and performance are lagging indicators of the quality of our decisions," he said. If true, leaders may need to spend less time demanding better outcomes and more time understanding the conditions under which decisions are made. Sometimes the obstacle is the individual, but other times, the conditions surrounding that person deserve a closer look. "We talk a lot about releasing human potential," Martin said. "I don't believe I can create somebody else's potential. What I can do is contribute to conditions that either allow it to emerge or help suppress it." That leaves leaders with a question Martin believes is worth asking before demanding the next outcome: What are we allowing to grow?
