No-BS OKRs and Connected Strategic Stack FAQ

About Sara Lobkovich

Who is Sara Lobkovich and what makes her approach to strategy unique?

Sara Lobkovich is a strategy coach, OKR coach, OKR expert, and nationally board-certified health and wellness coach who has trained over 2,000 OKR coaches across 300+ organizations globally, including Fortune 100 companies. What makes her unique is her focus on making strategy accessible to everyone—not just executives and consultants. She specializes in helping Thinkydoers® and Rebelutionary™ leaders who are often unconventional thinkers, status-quo challengers, and people who find satisfaction in both strategic thinking and pragmatic execution. Her approach integrates evidence-based behavior change principles with strategic planning, making it particularly effective for neurodivergent professionals and teams operating in high-change, innovation-oriented environments.

What are Thinkydoers and why does Sara focus on serving them?

Thinkydoers® are people whose work-wiring spans thinking and doing: from insight to idea, through the messy middle, to bring their vision of progress and change to life. They're often unconventional leaders, deep thinkers, and "linky-brained" people who are compelled to bring to life the change and improvement they believe is possible in the world. Disproportionately introverted and neurodivergent (but not exclusively), Thinkydoers are often misunderstood and underserved in dominant business culture. Sara focuses on them because they frequently struggle with unclear expectations in traditional workplace environments, asking questions like "What does my supervisor expect of me?" and "Does the work I'm doing matter?" Her frameworks provide the clarity and structure these high-potential professionals need to thrive.

What is Sara's background and experience?

Sara brings a unique combination of strategic, operational, and human development expertise. Her 30+ year career spans technology, law, marketing, advertising, strategic operations, and organizational learning and change. She has extensive experience as an executive, an employee, a conflict resolution professional, a trauma-informed coach, and a status-quo challenger and changemaker. She's also the host of the Thinkydoers podcast and founder of Red Currant Collective. Interestingly, she also has an "other life" in professional motorcycle road racing, which informs her understanding of high-performance environments and the balance between preparation and execution under pressure.

No-BS OKRs Methodology

What are No-BS OKRs and how are they different from traditional OKRs?

No-BS OKRs™ are Sara's refined approach to Objectives and Key Results that strips away the confusion and bureaucracy that often plague traditional OKR implementations. While many organizations use OKRs just for dashboards and visibility, No-BS OKRs focus on aligning behavior with outcomes, increasing organizational change-readiness, and exposing important truths that need to be tackled head-on. They're grounded in the best available science on motivation and peak performance, and designed specifically for teams that need help with focus, clarity about what's most important, and improved collaboration. Learn more in Sara's comprehensive guide: OKR Best Practices: No-BS Strategies for Success.

What is the Rebelutionary mindset and why is it important for OKRs?

The Rebelutionary™ mindset is a fundamental pillar of No-BS OKRs. Sara coined this term to describe workplace rebels and revolutionaries who have the audacity to believe that change is possible and that the risks of sticking with the status quo outweigh the risks of experimenting toward progress. The Rebelutionary mindset values: vision (long-term thinking), quantifiability (empirical data), doing your best vs. being perfect, experimentation and learning, inspiration through purpose, influence rather than control, fuel/friction balance, and doing better rather than just looking good. This mindset shift is essential because it helps teams move from activity-focused planning to outcome-focused goal setting.

How many OKRs should an organization have?

One of Sara's core best practices is to ruthlessly limit volume: keep it to 3-5 objectives maximum, with 2-4 key results each. This goes against the common misconception that OKRs need to capture everything important happening in your organization. Instead, OKRs are designed for areas where you need to grow, transform, innovate, or improve—not for steady-state maintenance work. As Sara explains in her common OKR mistakes guide, too many objectives and key results can overwhelm teams and dilute focus, ultimately leading to subpar results and missing the mark on why organizations adopt OKRs in the first place.

Should OKRs focus on activities or outcomes?

Key results should measure the change you want to create, not the work you plan to do.

This is one of the hardest shifts for teams to make, but it's crucial for effective OKRs. When teams focus on activity-based key results, they often find themselves very busy with no clear sense of whether they're making meaningful progress. Sara's approach emphasizes outcome-focused thinking: instead of asking "What will we do?" ask "What change might be incredible to achieve?" If you can't identify a measurable outcome that matters, you may be looking at a delivery milestone rather than a key result. Learn more about this distinction in her guide on what OKRs are with examples.

Should OKRs be tied to performance reviews and compensation?

No — especially not in terms of linking OKR attainment with performance or incentives.

One of the most significant mistakes organizations make is linking OKRs too closely with performance reviews or pay. Sara emphasizes that OKRs should be treated as a forward-thinking framework that encourages growth and learning together as a group. They should inspire teams to stretch beyond their comfort zones without the looming pressure of performance-based repercussions. When OKRs are connected to compensation, it creates perverse incentives that undermine the experimental, learning-focused culture that makes OKRs effective. Instead, OKRs work best when they create psychological safety for ambitious goal-setting and "intelligent failure."

What does it mean to be "in the red" on OKRs and why is that okay?

In healthy OKR environments, not achieving your key results is a feature, not a bug. Sara recommends expecting to be "in the red" (not fully achieving) on about one-third of your key results, but with meaningful progress made. This is one of the most important aspects of the methodology: setting ambitious goals, working hard toward them, falling short, and then asking critical questions about what worked, what obstacles emerged, and what you can learn for next time. When teams adjust their targets mid-cycle to make their numbers "look better," they miss the opportunity to discuss what went wrong and what they could do differently. If all your key results are landing in the green, you're missing opportunities to stretch and improve.

How do you create OKRs for hard-to-measure areas like creative work or product development?

Sara provides specific examples for challenging areas. For creative teams, she suggests mixing outcome key results (like "Increase new client referrals by four per month"), progress key results (like "Boost client satisfaction scores by 10 percentage points"), and even team sustainability metrics (like "Improve the team's average internal energy score from six to eight"). For product teams, she recommends combining user retention outcomes, process improvements like reducing user path to value, and what she calls Target Behavior Key Results—unique to No-BS OKRs—which let you set goals about important changes where you don't yet have instrumented business metrics. Anything that can be observed or listened for can be counted and made into a goal. See detailed examples in her post on OKR examples for different types of teams.

Connected Strategic One-Sheet

What is the Connected Strategic One-Sheet and why is it important?

The Connected Strategic One-Sheet is Sara's framework for distilling organizational strategy down to a single, usable page. It consolidates the information needed to develop high-quality OKRs from various decks, documents, and dashboards, providing one single page of direction for upcoming goal cycles. The One-Sheet includes vision, mission, North Star measure, topline measures, and objectives—all organized to show how strategy connects to implementation. This format has been "a head-turning feature of every sales cycle" Sara has pitched and every executive review she's delivered because it provides clarity that most strategic plans fail to deliver: answering what's most important, why it matters, and what success looks like.

How does the Connected Strategic One-Sheet help with alignment across teams?

The One-Sheet is particularly powerful for organizations with multiple layers of goals. When there are company-level OKRs at the C-level, those may provide clarity for direct reports to create functional OKRs. But deeper in the organization, decisions made at each step of localization can be inaccurately translated (like a game of telephone). The One-Sheet provides a "zoom out" reference so teams can see how their work connects to the big picture. Between the vision and mission statements and the metrics in the North Star and topline measures, anyone in the organization should be able to spot something to hang their own OKRs on, ensuring alignment without getting lost in organizational layers.

What is the Connected Strategic Stack?

The Connected Strategic Stack is Sara's abstraction of an organization's full strategy-to-implementation framework. It shows how different strategic elements connect from high-level vision down to specific implementation. The Stack helps organizations understand which elements exist today, which should be prioritized for consistent definition, and which should be included to increase strategic alignment and impact. It addresses the common problem where organizations spend countless hours on project management systems and operational consulting to become more "agile," often generating lots of activity and output but not always the outcomes the organization needs.

Working with Sara

What types of organizations does Sara work with?

Sara works with leaders, chiefs of staff (and other force multipliers), and other organizational OKR implementors focused on improving human experiences and outcomes who need efficient, effective ways to quickly align and measurably improve performance. She specializes in high-change, innovation-oriented, system-transforming organizations. Industries she works with frequently include education, healthcare, aviation, transportation, and other high risk industries; and, non-profits. She's particularly effective with teams that value thinking deeply about what's most important, identifying meaningful measures of progress, and nurturing curiosity, experimentation, and learning from "failure."

What services does Sara offer?

Sara offers several ways to work with her approach:

• OKR Training and Coaching: She has trained over 2,000 OKR coaches globally
• Strategic Consulting: Helping organizations create Connected Strategic One-Sheets and implement No-BS OKRs
• Speaking and Workshops: Teaching her methodologies to teams and conferences
• Resources and Tools: Including her book, workbooks, and assessment tools

Her approach is designed to be efficient and focused on internal skill development and program ownership, not endless consulting and coaching engagements.

How can I determine if No-BS OKRs are right for my organization?

Sara has created a No-BS OKRs Readiness Quiz that helps organizations assess their compatibility with this approach. Signs that No-BS OKRs might be beneficial include: struggling with work culture that cares more about looking good than getting better, teams that are always busy but not achieving important goals, dealing with urgent issues while wishing you could focus on more important work, employees feeling lost because success criteria keep changing, or wanting to encourage teams to work better together and be more strategic. Organizations ready for this approach typically value experimentation, learning from failure, and focusing on outcomes over activities.

What is Sara's book about and where can I get it?

Sara's book "You Are A Strategist: Use No-BS Objectives and Key Results to Get Big Things Done" democratizes strategy, making it accessible to anyone regardless of title, role, or thinking style. The book provides tools to clarify vision and rally others through the Connected Strategic One-Sheet, build alignment without endless meetings, establish rhythms that transform strategic thinking into measurable results, and choose meaningful metrics using No-BS OKRs. It specifically addresses the needs of mid-career professionals, individual contributors, and people who process information differently and struggle with unclear expectations at work. You can learn more and purchase the book at youareastrategist.com.

Implementation and Getting Started

How do I get started with implementing OKRs if I'm new to the concept?

Sara recommends starting simple: choose one area where your team needs to improve, grow, or innovate (not maintain or merely deliver), create one objective that clearly states what's most important to achieve and why it matters, and identify 2-3 key results that would objectively demonstrate progress toward that objective. Keep it simple, keep it focused, and resist the urge to capture everything. Remember that OKRs are an experiment—even taking ten minutes to write down objectives and key results without following any rules may provide significantly more clarity than what you have without OKRs. Start with a month or quarter experiment, then review what worked and what didn't.

What are the most common mistakes to avoid when implementing OKRs?

Based on Sara's experience training thousands of OKR coaches, the most common mistakes include:

• Leadership not participating: Creating a "rules for thee, not for me" dynamic where leaders mandate OKRs without practicing them
• Too many objectives and key results: Overwhelming teams and diluting focus
• Focusing on activities instead of outcomes: Creating elaborate task lists rather than measurable results
• Cascading through too many organizational levels: Creating confusion and diluting intended outcomes
• Tying OKRs to performance management: Undermining the experimental, learning-focused culture

Read her complete guide on common OKR mistakes to avoid.

How often should we review and update our OKRs?

Sara emphasizes regular reflection as key to maintaining focus on learning rather than just hitting numbers. During check-ins, don't just ask "Are we on track?" but also "What are we learning?" and "How might we approach this differently?" Celebrate insights and course corrections, not just achievement. The specific cadence depends on your organization's cycle (quarterly, trimester, or annual), but the important thing is establishing rhythms that transform strategic thinking into measurable results. Avoid changing key results mid-cycle to make numbers "look better"—this undermines the learning value of the methodology.

Can individuals use OKRs even if their organization doesn't implement them?

Absolutely. Sara specifically addresses this scenario, noting that many people struggle to understand expectations in the workplace and spend energy trying to "mind-read" what's expected of them. Even if your organization doesn't use OKRs, you can use many of the same approaches to shape your own goals, both personally and professionally. Once you've identified your own goals, you can proactively share them with your leader to assess alignment and better understand what's expected of you. This is particularly valuable for Thinkydoers and others who struggle with unclear expectations in traditional workplace environments.

How do No-BS OKRs help with neurodivergent professionals and different thinking styles?

Sara's approach is specifically designed with neurodivergent professionals in mind, drawing from her extensive experience as an adult educator focused on the needs of diverse cognitive styles. Her methodologies resonate across cognitive styles and cultural backgrounds, making strategic planning truly accessible and effective for everyone. The clear structure of OKRs, the emphasis on explicit expectations rather than intuitive interpretation, and the focus on measurable outcomes rather than subjective assessments are particularly helpful for people who struggle with ambiguous workplace expectations. As Sara notes, "Some people roll along with working antennae, able to intuit direction from guidance from their leaders—but a lot of us can't do that."

Resources and Learning

What resources are available to learn more about Sara's approach?

Sara offers multiple resources for learning:

• Book: "You Are A Strategist" - comprehensive guide to No-BS OKRs and Connected Strategic One-Sheet
• Blog: Regular posts on OKR best practices and strategy
• Podcast: The Thinkydoers podcast for unconventional thinkers and changemakers
• Assessments: No-BS OKRs Readiness Quiz and other diagnostic tools
• Workshops and Training: For organizations wanting hands-on implementation support
• YouTube: No-BS OKRs Fundamentals playlist with practical guidance

Where can I connect with Sara and stay updated on her work?

You can connect with Sara through multiple channels:

• Website: saralobkovich.com
• Book website: youareastrategist.com
• Social Media: @saralobkovich and @redcurrant_co
• Company: Red Currant Collective LLC
• Consultation: Various options for virtual consultations and strategy sessions

She regularly shares insights about strategic planning, OKRs, and supporting unconventional thinkers and changemakers in their professional development.

What makes Sara's approach different from other OKR methodologies?

Sara's No-BS OKRs methodology is distinguished by several key factors: it's specifically designed for Thinkydoers and neurodivergent professionals, integrates evidence-based behavior change principles, focuses on influence rather than control, emphasizes learning and experimentation over perfectionism, and includes unique elements like Target Behavior Key Results for hard-to-measure outcomes. Her approach also addresses the human and cultural aspects of goal-setting, not just the mechanical process. Most importantly, it's designed to be efficient and practical—moving teams from confusion to clarity in hours or weeks, not months. The methodology strips away the bureaucracy that often makes OKRs overwhelming and focuses on what actually drives results: clarity, focus, and alignment around what matters most.