No-BS OKRs
Why Consider No-BS Objectives and Key Results
for Your Strategic Planning Stack?
Traditional Strategic Planning and Goal Setting Has Performance-Diminishing Gaps
Too often, strategic plans and corporate goals take forever to write, then those beautiful slides, charts, and graphs wind up collecting dust on a digital shelf somewhere. And after all that effort, the honest response that’s often received is:
“Now what do we do?”
Traditional strategic planning and goal setting leaves huge gaps between the long-range strategy and day-to-day choices people make — mostly about what they do, or don’t do — where the long-range strategy feels too big and remote to impact.
That traditional approach:
Creates beautiful shelf documents that never drive action
Often over-focuses on activities rather than meaningful outcomes (since outcomes feel beyond your control)
Lacks clear connections between daily work and strategic impact
Promotes "sandbagging" -- setting easy targets to guarantee success and “make the numbers look good,”
And sometimes actively punishes ambitious thinking and calculated risk-taking.
What makes No-BS OKRs different?
No-BS OKRs aren't just another corporate exercise. They're a complete reimagining of how we set goals and achieve meaningful change.
For leaders: No-BS OKRs give you unprecedented visibility into what's actually happening in your organization - not the sanitized version people think you want to hear. You'll discover where real innovation is happening, which priorities are at risk, and what your team actually needs to succeed.
For teams: You gain clarity on what truly matters and why, the freedom to determine how you'll achieve it, and a framework that makes your contributions visible beyond just completing tasks.
For individuals: You connect your daily efforts to meaningful impact, develop more strategic thinking, and get recognized for your value beyond mere task completion.
The transformative effects you'll experience
When implemented authentically, No-BS OKRs create profound shifts in how organizations operate:
1. From anxiety to curiosity
Traditional planning keeps you in anxiety mode - overthinking, delaying action, and fearing judgment. No-BS OKRs encourage quick thinking cycles, fast action, and data gathering that puts you in a state of curiosity rather than anxiety.
2. From "looking good" to actually doing better
Most performance systems reward appearing successful over honest improvement. No-BS OKRs flip this dynamic, creating safety to share what's actually happening - including struggles - so you can focus on meaningful progress instead of maintaining appearances.
3. From invisible work to recognized impact
No-BS OKRs make valuable work visible. That critical infrastructure improvement? The relationship-building that prevented a client from leaving? These contributions become measurable, trackable, and recognized.
4. From ambiguity to clarity
The most common workplace frustration is unclear expectations. No-BS OKRs create shared understanding about what success means before work begins, eliminating mind-reading and constantly moving goal posts.
5. From micromanagement to autonomy
By focusing on outcomes rather than prescribing activities, No-BS OKRs give teams the freedom to determine how they'll achieve their goals, unleashing creativity and ownership.
What to expect when you begin
The No-BS OKR journey involves distinct phases:
Initial discomfort: Breaking dependency on activity-tracking and embracing outcome-thinking feels strange at first.
Learning to fail productively: You'll develop the muscle to treat setbacks as data, not disasters.
Communication transformation: Teams start speaking more honestly about progress, risks, and needs.
Strategic thinking at all levels: People throughout the organization begin thinking more expansively about impact, not just task completion.
Achievement acceleration: As the system matures, you'll see dramatic improvements in focus, alignment, and meaningful results.
Is Your Organization Ready for
High-Impact No-BS OKRs
Is transformative goal setting with No-BS OKRs a fit for your organization?
Or, might another approach work better? Answer seven quick questions to reveal your path to clearer direction, better alignment, and real results.
No-BS OKRs are designed to solve many of the problems change maker organizations face when implementing OKRs.
The strategy-execution divide: No-BS OKRs bridge the gap between high-level strategy and daily work by creating clear outcome chains. This directly counters the problem of strategies becoming "shelf documents" disconnected from action.
Build internal strategic capability: Unlike traditional coaching and consultant-driven approaches, No-BS OKRs develop strategic thinking throughout the organization. The framework teaches people to think in terms of outcomes rather than activities, gradually building the strategic muscle that may atrophy when strategic work is entrusted to outside consultants and coaches.
No-BS OKRs recognize organizational realities: We emphasize psychological safety and "healthy failure rates," recognizes the actual social dynamics of organizations rather than pretending strategy happens in a purely rational environment.
We redefine success metrics: Moving from activity completion to meaningful outcomes addresses the core problem of performance theater where people optimize for what's measured rather than what matters.
No-BS OKRs help retain high-potential high-performers: By making valuable work visible and connecting daily efforts to meaningful impact, No-BS OKRs provide exactly what high-potential high-performers crave: recognition, growth opportunity, and purpose alignment.
Is your organization ready?
No-BS OKRs flourish in environments where:
Leadership genuinely wants truth over comfort
Teams are ready to be measured on outcomes, not just activities
The organization values learning alongside achievement
People at all levels can influence how work gets done
If that sounds like you, No-BS OKRs won't just change how you set goals - they'll transform how your organization thinks, works, and achieves together.
Learn No-BS OKRs™ at your own pace!
Learn to efficiently set big, bold goals (and achieve them)
Are you tired of traditional approaches to OKRs that promise big results but lack practical steps? I’ve got you! My newly-updated, fully asynchronous and self-paced No-BS OKRs workshop helps you learn a human-focused approach to OKRs, designed to achieve business results that matter.
Developed from real challenges faced by thousands of students and clients
Accessible to everyone, regardless of professional history or background
Scientifically robust, informed by motivation science and organizational behavior
COURSE OVERVIEW
Learn our simple No BS OKR approach to create OKRs that you and your team will actually use
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) help us quantify our most important measures of success and progress. This hybrid workshop blends self-paced asynchronous learning, with live practice sessions with instructor support and feedback, and peer community support, to help you learn our No-BS OKRs™ framework by doing. You’ll create your own useful, measurable OKRs; at an unmatched value compared to live training and/or OKR coaching and consulting services!
A quick sneak peek at our workshop portal, with desktop and convenient mobile app access!
Who this course is for:
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We’ll help you build a strategically-aligned set of OKRs to achieve transformation, innovation, growth, and impact in your work.
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You may have been handed a copy of Measure What Matters and asked to make it happen. If so, what you learn here will serve as a huge shortcut around the critical words and meanings of OKRs, and help you accelerate your own learning for creating (and evaluating) OKRs.
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If you’re facing big commitments and challenges, and need help increasing expectation clarity, engagement, accountability, and ownership among your colleagues, what you learn in this class with help.
Hear from our participants:
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Sara was excellent! The course did a great job of everything from high level explanations to answering detailed questions. OKRs can be a complex topic with a lot of room for interpretation, but Sara's approach is by far the best I've seen, and she provides excellent tools to be able to enact her way in any size organization.
Rory Hibb, Feed.fm
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My current role is more at the initiative level rather than the organizational OKR level but being able to understand how these OKRs are constructed so that I can breakdown into concrete initiatives has demystified the entire approach for me. You don't need a "C" in your title to operate like someone who does, and this course was a great introduction for me into that way of thinking.
Jim Wyatt, Pearson
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This course set forth a clear and actionable framework for setting up OKRs that can truly mean something to your team, and provide the clarity for how we proceed. Sara was intentional, listened to each person, and shared techniques relevant to each person's individual needs around setting OKRs. This course unblocked me from a process that's been a struggle trying to implement from books and online articles for the last year. And, she was lovely and made it a joy!
Megan Mahdavi, Sun Reach Consulting
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I love how it was broken down into manageable pieces. I also greatly appreciated Sara explaining the WHY behind each step of the process.
Whitney Smith, Health Rosetta Group
Would you prefer a more “starter” course with a lower price (only $99)?
Check out Get Started With No-BS OKRs!
What To Expect
20+ Core lessons with 30+ bonus resources on special topics help you learn to create the most impactful OKRs you’ve ever written
90% of course materials become available at registration for instant access, so you can learn at whatever pace works for your schedule with zero stress
Participant questions are answered either via the course discussion group or via video explainers when better for student learning
Full access to the actual frameworks, tools, and resources we use here at Red Currant Collective to help clients create OKRs that actually achieve strategic impact and change
All in a supportive, learning-focused environment designed to help you do your best deep thinking and clearest, most focused goal-setting!
This workshop experience includes:
20 learning and practice modules, all available asynchronously and self-paced via our workshop portal
6 exercises (with worksheets!) that I use with my own OKR coaching clients every day
A private community with other workshop participants
Lifetime access to course materials
No-BS OKRs Workshop FAQs
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If you prefer access to live support with Sara, consider the Unblock Your Inner Strategist Program instead! That program includes the Building No-BS OKRs course, AND live support year-round.
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Refunds are available prior to downloading or viewing course material beyond Module 1 (Welcome to this Workshop). Contact hello@redcurrantco.com with any questions about our refund policy. If you have any concerns about whether this course is right for you, reach out to us before registering and we’ll answer any questions you have to ensure you’re confident about your purchase prior to checkout!
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To keep the price of this course as accessible as possible, standard registration includes community Q&A support, monitored and replied to by Sara (personally), with TAs and her team contributing links or references to answers that Sara has already provided an answer to.
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All participants agree to confidentiality, and, our IP acknowledgment and agreement includes some information about how to protect and preserve your confidential information. If you have specific concerns or special confidentiality circumstances, please email hello@redcurrantco.com and we’ll work with you to ensure you can fully participate, while maintaining confidentiality requirements.
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Most lessons are video-based — when they are, videos are either subtitled or have closed-captioning available and a transcript is provided; you can also select your own playback speed as needed. Some course materials are made available via PDF: when so, we use Acrobat’s Accessibility Checker to ensure materials are as accessible as possible. If you have specific accessibility needs, please reach out to hello@redcurrantco.com and we’ll do our best to accommodate (or, be honest if we are presently unable to).
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Sara’s Building No-BS OKRs (this course), is an in-depth Level 1/2 course to help people achieve an intermediate level of competency with No-BS OKRs. Prior OKR experience is not required (and this course is often taken by beginners and OKR pros alike). The Building course includes substantially more instructional content, full-length recorded exercises, and a fully-supported course community.
Get Started with No-BS OKRs is a fully asynchronous Level 1 (Beginner) introduction to No-BS OKRs, suitable as a first step in the learning journey of No-BS OKRs, with no OKR experience required. Support is provided for general Q&A via the limited course community, but 1:1 feedback and live sessions are not included in this course.
Last, Coaching No-BS OKRs is Sara’s OKR Expert course, which requires completion of the Building No-BS OKRs. Coaching No-BS OKRs is currently being revised, with a target relaunch of Q3, 2024.
Do you have questions not answered here?
Drop us an email, and we’ll get back to you ASAP!
What will you learn?
Introduction to Creating No BS OKRs
What are OKRs (and how are No BS OKRs different)?
Why do we talk about OKRs, Objectives, and Key Results separately?
How to use and apply our No BS OKRs Cheat Sheets and OKR Mad Libs to create excellent OKRs every time
How OKRs work with other elements of your Connected Strategic Stack
OKR Creation step by step
Basics of Operationalizing and Implementing OKRs
Individual vs Group Goal Setting in the OKR Environment
And, you’ll have access to a wealth of optional resources in our resource library!
All in a workshop environment with brief videos and articles to read for learning new skills, and then time to practice drafting yourself, with feedback and support from a cohort of supportive other participants and your instructor!