How to Get Sh*t Done with OKRs
I was talking to an entrepreneur about his company’s OKRs and he said that one of the biggest problems they’re having is missing the objectives they set for themselves. The concern is that if one of the founders misses the mark by a wide margin, then that affects how everyone else will set their goals in future.
Wait!
What the heck is an OKR?
OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. It is a method of defining and tracking progress towards objectives. Its main goal is to connect company, team, and personal objectives to measurable results, making people move together in the right direction. — Wikipedia
OKRs were pioneered by Intel and are the lifeblood of how Google and other successful businesses operate. I’m going to simplify, but here’s the basic idea:
Objectives are big goals that define where you’re headed. You want them to be measurable and time bound.
Here’s a quick video walkthrough of some OKR examples:
My main objective for the next 90 days is to decide whether to continue building my company. In order to keep my dream alive I need to stabilize my consulting revenue while also building an online business that’s not tied to my hourly compensation. If I’m not able to show significant progress within three months then it’s time to get a job.
I can state my objective as, “Decide within 90 days whether to continue consulting or commit to finding a full-time position.”
Key Results are the measurable and quantifiable outcomes we will need to see in order to achieve our objectives. In my case these are:
- Average a minimum of $10k per month in revenue
- Build my email list to 1,000 people
- Explore five full-time positions
The magic here is that I’ve quickly mapped out where I want to be and how to measure my progress. Now I can filter all of my possible activities for the next 90 days by whether or not they’re helping me achieve my objective. If an activity isn’t moving me closer to my goal then I shouldn’t be doing it.
Writing my weekly newsletter? Yes, because it helps me build my email list.
Getting more info from a recruiter who contacted me on LinkedIn about a job at an international company expanding to Miami. Yes, because it helps me explore full-time positions.
Grabbing coffee with a CEO who wants feedback on his pitch deck. Yes, because she may want help with fundraising or growing her sales team—or she may know someone else who does.
Other activities? I don’t have time for that right now.
OKRs can cascade throughout an organization. So Google has overarching objectives supported by each division’s objectives, which are in turn supported by each employee’s objectives. Google, each division, and each employee all have key results that support these metrics. Everything is transparent, so colleagues can look up each others’ OKRs. They quickly see how they can help each other, reducing wasted effort. And colleagues can refuse to get sucked into side projects because they would be a distraction.
[Swipely CEO] Angus Davis says. “The right way to look at OKRs is a way to communicate so there’s clarity of purpose.”
When personal objectives are directly and clearly connected to the broader goals of the company, they’re suddenly more inspiring, less myopic. Make them public so everyone can see what’s on their co-workers’ plates and employees no longer feel like they’re toiling in a vacuum, or for their manager’s approval, Davis says. That way, OKRs become a built-in way for people to ask for resources, or easily spot where they can come to their colleagues’ aid.
“Having public goals forces different types of thinking around how people ask for help from others,” Davis says. Swipely’s implementation of OKRs is all about bringing this type of dialogue to the fore. Airing things out releases anxiety and let’s people get creative — and that’s when interesting things happen.
The best practice is to set aggressive OKRs so you achieve around 70%. This forces you to stretch, to target more than you can comfortably commit to. If you hit 100% then you set your goals too low. And if you only hit 40% then you set your goals too high.
So I should actually set my email subscriber goal to 1,400 if I want to achieve 1,000 within 90 days.
But this leads to the uncomfortable situation where people regularly miss their goals, which is what made me want to write this article. The trick is to set the proper expectations, and to not use a 70% outcome against someone in a performance review.
Nick Ushkoff recommends:
“Stretch for some goals, but keep some within reach. No employee would be satisfied with getting a 70% all the time; that’s why you need to balance your ambitious OKRs with [achievable] ones.”
Featured Download: Grab my OKR Guide to make sure you’re getting the
right sh*t done. BONUS: I’ve included tactics I use to achieve my objectives,
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Take a minute to define your OKRs for the next 90 days, post them here, and we can all work together to get sh*t done.
Mike Lingle is obsessed with helping founders grow their businesses. I’m a serial entrepreneur, mentor, and executive in residence at Babson College. Check out my Rocket Pro Forma if you want to quickly create your financial projections.
