OKRs push us far beyond our comfort zones. They lead us to achievements on the border between abilities and dreams.Distinguish between:<ul><li>Committed OKRs: goals that must be attained 100 percent.</li><li>Aspirational OKRs: and those that are stretching for a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.</li></ul>Create an environment where individuals are free to fail without judgment. Replace incremental OKRs with exponential ones to reach 10x growth.Design stretch OKRs to fit the organization's culture. A company's optimal "stretch" may vary over time, depending on the operating needs of the coming cycle.

Stretch for Amazing

"In God we trust; all others must bring data."

"It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

What is most important for the next three (or six, or twelve) months? That's what focus is all about.The best OKR cadence is the one that fits the context and culture of your business.Objectives are the stuff of inspiration and far horizons. Key results are more earth-bound and metric-driven.Pair Key Results to Quantity & Quality to measure both effect and counter-effect.Each Objective requires 3 to 5 Key Results to perform correctly.As S. Sandberg says: "Done is better than perfect."Summing up, priorization is key for management.

Focus and Commit to Priorites

"We don't hire smart people to tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do."

OKRs give transparency and transparency seeds collaboration. They are the vehicle of choice for vertical alignment.Fulfilling KRs = Achieving Objective.Adverse effects of top-down OKRs:<ol><li>Loss of agility</li><li>Lack of flexibility</li><li>Marginalized contributors</li><li>One-dimensional linkages</li></ol>Solution: bottom-up OKRs!"People who choose their destination will own a deeper awareness of what it takes to get there."When leaders are attuned to the fluctuating needs of both the company and its employees, a mix of top-down and bottom-up OKRs is often optimal: "Connected companies are quicker companies."

Align and Connect for Teamwork

OKRs can be tracked and then be revised and adapted.Its life cycle consists of three phases: <ol><li>Setup: process of OKRs creation.</li><li>Tracking: "The single greatest motivator is making progress in one's work." While tracking OKRs you can either continue, update, start or stop.</li><li>Wrap-up: consists of objective scoring, subjective self-assessment and reflection.</li></ol>Our goals are servants to our purpose, not the other way around.

Track for Accountability

CFRs stands for Conversation, Feedback & Recognition. They give OKRs their human voice.By having regular conversations with your employees, you gain context for goal-analysis. Conversation consists of:<ul><li>Goal setting and reflection</li><li>Two-way coaching</li><li>Career growth</li><li>Lightweight performance reviews</li></ul>Feedback is key nowadays, by giving positive feedback you directly fulfill the need of empowerment of your employees and help them aim higher.

Continuous Performance Management: OKRs and CFRs

"You need a culture that high-fives small and innovative ideas."

The father of OKRs is Andy Grove, who implemented them in Intel, taking the company to the top of their sector.OKRs consists of four superpowers, which will be discussed in more detail in the following sections:<ol><li>Focus and Commit to Priorities</li><li>Align and Connect for Teamwork</li><li>Track for Accountability</li><li>Stretch for Amazing</li></ol>

OKRs Superpowers

OKRs is short for Objectives and Key Results. It is a collaborative goal-setting protocol for companies, teams, and individuals.In the author's words: "A management methodology that helps to ensure that the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organization."Objective is simply WHAT is to be achieved. These are significant, concrete, action oriented and (ideally) inspirational.Key Results benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective. These are specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic, but most of all, measurable and verifiable.

What are OKRs?

"If we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing."

"Ideas are easy. Execution is everything."

"Transparency creates very clear signals for everyone."

"Without an action plan, the executive becomes a prisoner of events. And without check-ins to reexamine the plan as events unfold, the executive has no way of knowing which events really matter and which are only noise."

Closely related to Feedback, we find Recognition, which can be implemented through:<ul><li>Peer-to-peer recognition, by this culture of gratitude is born.</li><li>Establishing clear criteria, recognize people for actions and results.</li><li>Sharing recognition stories, like newsletters or company blogs.</li><li>Frequent and attainable recognition, hailing smaller accomplishments too.</li><li>Tying recognition to company goals and strategies, any organizational priority can be supported by a timely shout-out.</li></ul>

"The biggest risk of all is not taking one."

"What keeps me going is goals."

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast [...], it's what makes meaning of work." Any organization peak performance is the product of collaboration and accountability."Culture is a set of value and beliefs, as well as familiarity with the way things are done and should be done in a company. The point is that a strong and positive corporate culture is absolutely essential."High-motivation cultures rely on a mix of two elements:<ul><li>Catalysts, actions that support work.</li><li>Nourishers, acts of interpersonal support.</li></ul>Companies that "out-behave" their competition will also outperform them.

Culture

Explore John Doerr's brilliant work on OKRs, defined by himself as: "A management methodology that helps to ensure that the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organization”. 

#1 New York Times Bestseller Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr reveals how the goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has helped tech giants from Intel to Google achieve explosive growth—and how it can help any organization thrive. In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress—to measure what mattered. Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove ("the greatest manager of his or any era") drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than fifty companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked. In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization. The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction and boost retention. In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.

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Productivity

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Time Management

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Business

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Leadership & Management

#1 New York Times Bestseller Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr reveals how the goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has helped tech giants from Intel to Google achieve explosive growth—and how it can help any organization thrive. In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress—to measure what mattered. Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove ("the greatest manager of his or any era") drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than fifty companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked. In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization. The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction and boost retention. In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.

MUHAMMAD ALI

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