Rating Qualities Applicable Well Structured 8 Concrete Examples

Measure What Matters OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth John Doerr | Portfolio UK, 2018

Curious about Measure What Matters? Read our review below. While we’re awaiting the copyright holder’s go-ahead to summarize this book in our usual summary format, we hope you’ll find our review just as helpful.

Review

As the leader of one of the largest, most respected firms, John Doerr discovered, invested in and mentored a great variety of people, including philanthropist of the Irish rock band U2 and tech pioneers and of . At the dozens of companies that Doerr has funded and assisted, he evangelized for a process he learned from Andy Grove at : Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). This is a simple method for choosing ambitious, inspiring goals and identifying the specific, measurable results needed to achieve them. Using OKRs is an effective way to rally employees and focus everyone on getting the necessary jobs done. Doerr’s engaging instruction and implementation manual includes dozens of examples and short case studies. His guidance and methods will pay off for just about anyone in any organization – especially leaders.

John Doerr explains that your Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) should state what your firm needs to have happen and clearly convey how you will make it happen. Doerr, who has long experience crafting OKRs, advises firms to keep their OKRs simple and easily understood. He stresses that creating only a few “overarching objectives” helps focus everyone on what’s most important. When Doerr was at Intel, a typical OKR plan might have read as follows:

Objective: Show that the X Intel chip exceeds the performance of the Y competitor chip.

www.getabstract.com

LoginContext[cu=2980872,aff=1536,subs=1,free=0,lo=en,co=US] 2020-09-10 15:22:48 CEST Key Results (KRs):

1. Devise and exceed five measures by which the Intel chip outperforms the competition. 2. Create a demonstration. 3. Craft training content for sales. 4. Show that it works with at least three customers.

Doerr insists that to make this practice meaningful, everyone in the organization must participate. Ensure that every leader, manager and employee creates his or her own OKRs and that those items align with the firm’s overarching OKRs. This could take months or more, so persevere. People must document and share their OKRs so everyone sees everyone else’s – up and down the organization. Each objective should have three to five KRs, and every employee's objectives should call for a personal stretch.

Intel’s managing engineer Andy Grove explains that objectives must challenge people. Testing the limits of what’s possible inspires employees, makes them think in new ways and leads to breakthroughs rather than mere incremental improvements.

Doerr maintains that OKRs work because they incorporate specific hard goals. He notes that the business literature points to the OKR method as a robust forecast of success. People tend to rally around “audacious” goals more than modest ones. You can achieve big goals only in conjunction with other important practices, but without stretch goals, innovation and breakthroughs seldom occur.

For example, Doerr describes how leaders at Google typically strive for a 10 times (“10x”) or better improvement over whatever a project aims to replace or compete against. For example, launched with a free gigabyte of storage per user, hundreds of times more storage than other cloud-based email services offered. Google fails at many of its big goals, but some turn into billion- dollar businesses.

Focus on a Few Critical Objectives.

Doerr advises leaders to set the stage for success by strategizing about the organization’s main objectives and setting other idea aside. He stresses that you should choose “significant” corporate-level OKRs carefully. Your choices must signal the importance of your OKRs to the entire organization. While you must take your OKRs seriously, Doerr urges you to remember that they aren’t sculpted in marble. Respect your OKRs, but adjust them as needed. Once the firm selects its OKRs, leaders must commit to, evangelize and model them. Make sure everyone understands them clearly and knows why they were chosen. Doerr suggests that leaders must repeat the OKR message often to make it stick.

www.getabstract.com 2 of 5

LoginContext[cu=2980872,aff=1536,subs=1,free=0,lo=en,co=US] 2020-09-10 15:22:48 CEST He believes that when an organization makes its goals and progress visible to everyone, from the CEO down, people work harder and collaborate more. He advises against the traditional top-down “cascading goals” approach, which might produce perfect alignment but lacks flexibility.

At the same time, OKRs also must align to the organization’s main objectives to keep employees from working in different directions or at cross purposes. So align goals from the top down and the bottom up. Productive OKRs provide the visibility that employees need to line up their work and goals with their peers’ work and with the organization’s most important objectives. However, to support the firm’s mission, leaders must commit to objectives and KRs that uphold and nurture its values.

Track OKRs to Determine Your Progress.

In large organizations tracking OKRs is challenging. To address the complexity and volumes of data involved, Doerr advises big companies to adopt OKR management platforms. This software allows easy recording, tracking and searching of OKRs, even across tens of thousands of employees all pursuing individual goals that update or change several times every year. Doerr urges leaders to hold all employees – including executives – accountable for posting their OKRs and reporting on their progress at least quarterly. Make it clear that people can adjust, refine and even abandon OKRs that no longer serve their purposes. Adopt a way to score individuals’ progress against OKRs.

At Intel, for example, people and teams rate their KR from 0% to 100% complete. A score of 70% to 100% gets flagged green meaning accomplished, while 40% to 60% gets yellow to indicate progress being made. Anything less than 40% signals red – a failure. Intel always sets aggressive goals and believes achieving 65% to 70% overall against KRs means good progress.

For Grove, percentages that run too much higher signal that the goals weren't aggressive enough. Apparently, Bill Gates would agree. Ambitious goal-setting and careful tracking were part of Microsoft from the very beginning. This mind-set carried over into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where OKRs became the daily language. Doerr explains that this allowed Gates – who at first led both Microsoft and the foundation – to understand and track the foundation’s progress efficiently. Gates’s insistence on OKRs helps the foundation pursue its enormous goals, such as eliminating malaria by 2040.

“Conversations, Feedback and Recognition”

Doerr frequently reminds you not to expect OKRs to work magic by themselves. Pair them with regular manager-to-staff and peer-to-peer conversations, feedback and recognition (CFR). Managers who conduct regular meetings with their team members about their performance stay aware of their employees' needs and concerns. These managers provide more frequent, timely and meaningful feedback and coaching.

www.getabstract.com 3 of 5

LoginContext[cu=2980872,aff=1536,subs=1,free=0,lo=en,co=US] 2020-09-10 15:22:48 CEST Feedback should also occur continually among peers. Regular peer conversations support more frequent recognition and appreciation. This helps managers give more accurate feedback within the time frame of the employee's work. Ongoing discussions fuel OKRs, and OKRs fuel ongoing discussion. For example, Doerr describes weekly performance management and feedback conversations between managers and team members at Adobe.

Ask Five Crucial Questions.

In your conversations with team members about their OKRs, Doerr advises you to ask five questions:

1. “What are you working on?” 2. What progress are you making on your OKRs? 3. What, if any obstacles do you face? 4. How can I help? 5. “How do you need to grow to achieve your career goals?”

In these conversations, Doerr warns you to avoid talk of raises, promotions or rewards. Save those hot button subjects for separate discussions so you don’t distract from the OKR process with emotionally charged matters like compensation. Listen more than you talk. Ask questions, provide specific feedback and coach, but don’t dominate or assign work or tasks. Get your employees involved in providing peer feedback and recognition.

These simple changes can boost engagement and retention dramatically, because people will experience a greater sense of support and appreciation. Tell stories about people who accomplish things. Recognize and appreciate as many people as possible across your organization. Tie recognition to progress against individual and organizational OKRs.

Support OKRs and CFRs with a strong culture.

Doerr asserts that OKRs work only when paired with sound CFRs. But without the necessary cultural environment in which your OKRs can flourish, your efforts are likely to die on the vine. Culture fuels success, perhaps more than anything else. OKRs and CFRs drive organizations toward the right culture and can set in motion a virtuous cycle of increased openness, responsibility, recognition, collaboration, trust, risk-taking and innovation. Sound OKRs also nurture learning, frank discussions and autonomy with accountability: the ingredients of a powerful, modern corporate culture.

To create and keep a strong talent culture, Doerr advises you to act quickly on employee issues. He says that top firms don’t merely react; they monitor employee sentiment through robust CFRs that feature social platforms and tools that connect employees. This approach allows leaders and managers to stay on top of anything that might cause disengagement and attrition so they can behave proactively. Culture is your firm’s single greatest differentiator and, Doerr says, the most

www.getabstract.com 4 of 5

LoginContext[cu=2980872,aff=1536,subs=1,free=0,lo=en,co=US] 2020-09-10 15:22:48 CEST crucial way to protect your success from easy imitation. Use OKRs and CFRs to create and sustain a flat, open, autonomous, accountable and collaborative culture.

The Voice of Experience

No one aware of John Doerr’s history and foresight would ever take his advice lightly. Doerr backs up his impressive experience with clear, simple, readable prose. He never drifts off into jargon or corporate-speak. As an author, he comes off much as you might suspect he does as an investor: tough, innovative, flexible and imbued with an unusual degree of common sense. He may not have the lightest, most varied prose style, but he understands precisely what he is trying to impart. His primary goal is making sure that you understand it, too.

About the Author

John Doerr worked in Silicon Valley with Intel and other firms before starting his career investing in and advising start-ups. He was an original investor in Google and and now chairs .

This document is restricted to the personal use of Mari Ryan ([email protected]) getAbstract maintains complete editorial responsibility for all parts of this review. All rights reserved. No part of this review may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, photocopying or otherwise – without prior written permission of getAbstract AG (Switzerland). 5 of 5

LoginContext[cu=2980872,aff=1536,subs=1,free=0,lo=en,co=US] 2020-09-10 15:22:48 CEST