Gaurav SabharwalUltimate Guide to Objective and Key results – OKR Meaning and Examples
Do you dread setting goals for your organization as you don’t see useful results? […]
Have you been reading quite a lot of books on performance management lately? Some on OKRs, and some blend of everything that goes into making the work culture more sound? Ever since getting exposed to the OKR framework, we all are on our way to learning and gathering a bunch of stuff and reading it to enhance our understanding.
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The world is full of information on OKRs and Goal setting, but believe us when we say that just reading a book about OKRs won’t make you an expert. However, adapting your own goal-setting strategy surely will.
Reading books and surrounding yourself with information can be a significant boost to your professional development. But, reading too much about the topic can make it hard to start acting!
However, if we had to recommend one book to aspiring OKR users, it would be ‘Measure What Matters by John Doerr. John is the person who first introduced the idea of OKRs to Google and helped the young founders successfully implement the right goal-setting discipline in their business. Google’s success has turned OKRs into the well-known framework it is. The book has amazing insights, including how the founder of OKRs Andy Grove polished and breathed life into the OKR methodology.
In and out, the OKR books will fair enough give you a baseline to get started with OKRs but what you shouldn’t do is ONLY stick to the practices said in such books.
What can be done instead?
Every business runs differently, and so are its goals for teams and departments. But for every business, goal-setting is defined differently, and a lot of exercise and discipline goes into the process. Do you also wonder how successful companies continue to navigate and grow? A lot of us did; when starting off with goal and objective settings, young entrepreneurs always admired how most companies know which direction to go in order to get aggressive growth. But ever since getting more involved in OKRs, it became apparent that the secret sauce was being insanely aggressive in growing key objectives with a talented group of people.
Thus, when you set personalized objectives for each team, they tend to relate it more with their work and own them to get the maximum results from their set objectives and key results. So, when you make your own OKRs by considering the ins and outs of your business, your business grows, and that’s quite apparent.
Do your own trial and error
When it comes to OKRs, the phenomenon of overnight success does not work. You need to give it time. Even if you’ve implemented the OKR system designed as per your company’s pain points, the results are not going to come out swiftly. Usually, it takes at least a couple of quarters to develop your OKR muscle. This is why doing your own trial and making your own mistakes is a must to find answers suited to your unique inflection points.
Invest in an OKR champion
Having an OKR champion onboard who has taken the time to learn all about OKRs and also has adequate knowledge of the ins and outs of your company will work in many ways- it will save you a lot of money, save you time while keeping the organization aligned. OKR champions also help in driving the successful rollout of OKRs across the organization. Thus, when you invest in an OKR champion, you get an in-house expert to drive OKR meetings by asking the right questions and helping you navigate through struggles. If you’re on the verge of getting the OKRs implementation done, OKR champions will act as the guard for keeping all the timelines updated.
Consider hiring an OKR coach
If you require some more expertise to make OKRs work, or if you want to ensure you get it right the first time, consider hiring an OKR coach or consultant. An OKR coach is the person who knows the ins and outs of the OKR implementation process of different industries. OKR coaches will provide the tops that can save you a lot of time and effort substantially. An OKR coach will also help in finding out your business goals and in which order those goals should be fulfilled.
How an OKR coach will help
OKR coaches are well connected and acquainted with the OKR strategy and have a wide reach on giving honest feedback and solutions for the respective pain points. Through SWOT analysis, they can help streamline strategy into achievable and stretch goals, facilitate questions of goals setting cadence and outline the check-in process.
Thus, by getting the OKR coach, you’ll quicken the process of setting objectives and goals and get the liberty to NOT stick to cohesive principles. OKR coaches sit down with employees and team leaders to discover new ways to reach each objective. Doing this will help you conclude what changes are needed to optimize your existing strategy.
Final Take
There are so many books for you to choose your goal-setting systems from, but everything will conform to the same credo. That is- The higher the goal, the more likely we will be in a position to stick with it and make changes whenever required. Take every day as a baseline for you to achieve the milestones you’ve set for your organization and departments.
Setting your Objectives on your own will benefit you in more than one way. Even if you don’t meet your goals on time, evaluate how you have scored them and refine them accordingly. No one knows your company’s pain points and strengths more than you for this. Even if you don’t, we’ve got you covered. JOP offers consultation to understand your pain points better, and after analyzing your business function, we create a customer success journey based on what you tell us. Sounds like a win-win deal? Get on a 30 minutes demo with us today.
