Book Summary — Measure What Matters
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1 paragraph summary:
Must read for anyone setting goals. OKRs are all about focusing on the core things in your business and being realistic about what you need to achieve. If done properly they can inspire and align the whole company.
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there.”
Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.
OKR =Objectives + Key Results
Objective
- WHAT is to be achieved
- Significant, concrete, action-oriented and (ideally) inspirational
Key Results
- Benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective
- Specific, time-bound, aggressive yet realistic
- Measurable and verifiable
“It’s not a key result unless it has a number” — Marissa Mayer
You either meet a KR or not — there is no grey area, no room for doubt.
Goals
- Hard goals drive performance more effectively than easy goals
- Specific hard goals “produce a higher level of output” than vaguely worded ones
Productivity is enhanced by well-defined, challenging goals.
How do you build satisfaction? No single factor has more impact than “clearly defined goals that are written down and shared freely… Goals create alignment, clarity and job satisfaction.
“Stressing output is the key to increasing productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.”
OKR Hygiene
- Healthy OKR culture — ruthless intellectual honesty, disregard for self-interest, deep allegiance to the team
- Less is more — 3–5 objectives with 3–5 key results max, be clear what you say yes and no to
- Set goals from the bottom up — promote team engagement
- No dictating — cooperative social contract
- Stay flexible — if things change, the goalposts change too
- Dare to fail — output will be greater if everyone strives for a level of achievement beyond immediate grasp
- Tool not weapon — it’s for everyone to know their own performance not to performance manage
- Be patient, be resolute — every process requires trial and error
Four OKR superpowers:
- Focus
- Alignment
- Tracking
- Stretching
Superpower #1 — Focus and Commit to Priorities
What is most important for the next three (or six, or twelve) months?
As LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner likes to say, “When you are tired of saying it, people are starting to hear it.”
Clear-cut time frames intensify our focus and commitment; nothing moves us forward like a deadline.
Don’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Remember that an OKR can be modified or even scrapped at any point in this cycle.
Key Results:
- Mix of outputs and inputs is helpful
- Completion of all key results MUST result in attainment of the objective.
Just do more is obsolete.
OKRs should answer one question in particular: What matters most?
If we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing.
Objectives:
- Must be SIGNIFICANT
- Should not be a catchall wish list nor a sum of a team’s mundane tasks
They’re a set of stringently curated goals that merit special attention and will move people forward in the here and now. They link to the larger purpose we’re expected to deliver around.
Superpower #2 — Align and Connect for Teamwork
Research shows that public goals are more likely to be attained than goals held in private.
Transparency seeds collaboration.
Key results cascade down an organisation — but don’t need to cascade in a straight line, can also skip some direct reports.
To avoid compulsive, soul-killing over alignment, healthy organisations encourage some goals to emerge from the bottom up.
Micromanagement is mismanagement. A healthy OKR environment strikes a balance between alignment and autonomy, common purpose and creative latitude.
Transparency creates very clear signals for everyone. You kick of virtuous cycles that reinforce your ability to actually get your work done. And the management tax is zero — it’s amazing.
Superpower #3 — Track for Accountability
In god we trust, all others must bring data.
For an OKR system to work the entire organisation needs to adopt it.
Research suggests that making measured headway can be more incentivising than public recognition, monetary inducements, or even achieving the goal itself.
Superpower #4 — Stretch for Amazing
The biggest risk of all is not taking one.
Aspirational goals draw on every OKR superpower. Focus and commitment are a must for targeting goals that make a real difference. Once a transparent, collaborative, aligned and connected organisation can achieve so far beyond the norm.
CFRs instead of Annual Reviews
= Continuous performance management
Conversations — authentic exchange between manager and contributor
Feedback — bidirectional or networked communication
Recognition — expressions of appreciation to deserving individuals for contributions of all sizes
If a conversation is limited to whether you achieved the goal or not, you lose context. You need continuous performance management to surface the critical questions: Was the goal harder to achieve than you’d thought when you set it? Was it the right goal in the first place?
Compensation needs to be divorced from OKRs.
Compensation conversations are backwards-looking assessment typically held at year’s end.
CFRs are ongoing, forward-looking dialogue between leaders and contributors — it centres around:
- What are you working on?
- How are you doing? How are your OKRs coming along?
- Is there anything blocking you?
- What do you need from me to be more successful?
- How do you need to grow to achieve your career goals?
The goal of the meeting is for mutual teaching and exchange of information. By talking about specific problems and situations, the supervisor teaches the subordinate his skills and know-how and suggests ways to approach things.
As soft as it seems, saying ‘thank you’ is an extraordinary tool to building an engaged team.
Some ways to implement a Thank You culture:
- Institute peer to peer recognition — all-hands round-up, unedited shout-outs from anyone
- Establish clear criteria — clear actions and special projects
- Share recognition stories — newsletters, blogs, emails
- Make recognition frequent and attainable — hail smaller accomplishments
- Tie recognition to company goals and strategies
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
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