How OKRs Can Give SUPERPOWERS to Your Business

It does not matter the size or the kind of business you have. Any organisation can acquire new superpowers with OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results. They are extremely simple, but very powerful if properly used. They won´t solve all your problems, but they can produce real differences in your bottom line.

 

Just in case you are new to OKRs, they are made of one objective and 3 to 5 Key Results. The objective is what you want to achieve. The Key results tell you how you will measure your progress towards your objective.

 

And how something so simple can give new superpowers to your business? And what are these superpowers?

 

OKRs tell you and everyone in your company EXACTLY what the priorities are. And they can´t be many – between three to five. In your strategic planning, perhaps you decided to build a bridge.  And you assume that everyone understood it. Suddenly you discover that they are building a tunnel instead. Lots of money and time are usually wasted when the objectives are not clear.

 

OKRs will tell not just what has to be built, but how you will assess progress, so there is no doubt about what should be achieved. And they are communicated and then followed up regularly, so this clarity is constantly refined.

 

Because you are clear about what you should achieve, you can now be selective on what you do. Your OKRs can help you decide if you should or should not do something. You just have to ask: Will it help me move my OKRs forward? If not , I should probably ignore it.

 

 

A friend of mine was on holiday on the beach, watching someone catching crabs. The man would go to the sea, get a crab, come back to the beach and tie it with the other ones, leaving them there to go for more. So my friend asked him: won´t they flee when you leave them here?

The guy just said: Don´t worry – they don´t agree with each other.

 

So these crabs kept pulling to different directions, without going anywhere. And very often our teams do the same in our companies. There is no alignment of efforts.

 

OKRs can solve it, as each team creates their own OKRs aligned to the strategic objectives of the organisation, and also to the OKRs of the other teams. So you end up having everyone moving in the same direction and not wasting time and effort.

 

Research shows that when you have clear, written and well communicated goals, you increase engagement, and this is what OKRs are – clear, written and well communicated goals. But there is another important factor.

 

As OKRs are created not just from top to bottom, but also bottom-up, it produces a sense of ownership of that goal, a kind of “this is my baby, my team and I created it”. And ownership increases engagement.

 

Thousands of organisations of all kinds and sizes around the world are enjoying these and many other benefits right now through OKRs. If you are still considering if this is for you, I hope this video will help you to embrace this simple and powerful framework.