Some of the most successful and innovative businesses in the world have entrenched Objectives and Key Results(OKRs) in their organization. There are heaps of examples out there such as Google and Intel which have attained commendable growth and revenue after adopting the OKR management. It is one of the most renowned approaches used by some of the world’s leading businesses for years now. No matter which industry your organization belongs to or of what size it is, if your organization is looking to grow and improve its performance at each level of the business, then OKR should be one of the best, if not the best ways to make this possible.
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Establishing a successful business needs numerous key elements such as the right model, team, growth strategy, and product. Not to forget, you also got to make sure that your entire organization is well focused on measurable, growth-based initiatives that are in alignment with the overall strategic approach of the business. Even if you have a strong team, strategy, and product, the way your organization operates and is structured, can still experience inefficiencies and hindrances that will negatively impact the growth aspiration of your organization.
Just think about it. How many times do you notice yourself and your teams focus on projects that are not contributing to the growth of your organization directly? are inefficient with the potential of a low impact? and are unquantifiable in their association to growth? Such instances of poor prioritization and misalignments are quite common in businesses but can lead organizations to significant losses.
This is where the OKR program comes into the picture as your organization works with a framework for establishing measurable objectives that guide the organization towards the desired growth. In order to grow and thrive, organizations have to operate with a ruthless focus on efficiently growing in order to sustainably scale at a faster pace than the competition.
How OKR helps the business to grow and thrive
OKR program provides your organization with a group of ambitious measurable objectives that fosters alignment, clarity, and a singular unified direction for the organization. In return, this expands the efficiency, impact, and focus of the entire organization.
1. Focus and discipline
When the organization revolves around a focused number of objectives, it leads to a decline in distraction and enables the entire organization to prioritize their workload and time. Instead of devouring time on the menial projects and one-off initiatives, teams get more disciplined and attentive towards the work that moves the business closer to accomplishing OKRs and thereby, its desired growth.
2. Cross-functional cooperation and alignment
The larger the size of the organization, the harder it tends to keep everyone in alignment to ensure that everyone is working towards the same mission and vision. When the organization uses shared OKRs, it helps them to enhance collaboration among employees and teams of all departments. Now the employees are quickly able to identify objectives, and contributors to unify for competing against initiatives. As a unit, they get able to solve interdependencies and determine better methods to work as a unit towards broader organizational objectives.
3. Less time for establishing objectives
OKR program pushes organizations to depend less on the set and forget it strategy and rather conduct more regular check-ins as well as review cycles. This simple rhythm of check-ins in OKR management leads to making the goal-establishing methodology faster and easier as well. It leads to a drastic reduction in the resources and time devoted to setting, reviewing, and adjusting objectives.
4. Clear communication
OKR program establishes a concise and clear view of the organizational objectives and priorities. Such a consolidated version of the organizational vision and mission enhances transparency as it enables each and every one to see the top organizational priorities and comprehend how their work helps the organization in attaining its ultimate objective. In addition to this, when everyone is aware of what is expected from them and from everyone else, the chances of confusion and misunderstandings are drastically low as well.
5. Agility and innovation
The cadence of regular goal establishing enables the broader business to come concurrently and align on progress and determine the new organizational priorities. Moreover, this allows the organization and teams to pivot direction as and when needed. Such shorter goal cycles empower the teams to swiftly adapt to the modified business realities and priorities, consequently boosting innovation with little to no wasted time.
As organizations are looking for new methods to establish objectives, boost results, and drive performance for attaining the desired growth, the OKR program is becoming more renowned than ever. Make sure you too are quick to get your organization on board with this methodology before you are left behind your competitors. So, contact us today!
Gaurav Sabharwal
CEO of JOP
Gaurav is the CEO of JOP (Joy of Performing), an OKR and high-performance enabling platform. With almost two decades of experience in building businesses, he knows what it takes to enable high performance within a team and engage them in the business. He supports organizations globally by becoming their growth partner and helping them build high-performing teams by tackling issues like lack of focus, unclear goals, unaligned teams, lack of funding, no continuous improvement framework, etc. He is a Certified OKR Coach and loves to share helpful resources and address common organizational challenges to help drive team performance. Read More