Adopt OKRs without the DIY drama: OKR Coaching that works

Different practitioners will have a different answer to this — there is no single governing body or certification for OKR coaches or OKR consultants.

Deeper answers are provided in the next two questions, but briefly:

OKR coaches are OKR experts who operate by asking questions, and guiding clients through self-motivated change, to support the client’s goals.

OKR consultants are subject-matter experts who operate by providing OKR expertise, and guiding clients through a set of best practices to help speed OKR onboarding and increase OKR methodology adoption quality.

Some people (like me!) are both. I work with clients as both an OKR coach, and as an OKR consultant, to provide the best of both.

An OKR coach provides support for an organization’s methodology adoption by asking questions and providing space for people to do the hard work of change that comes with a successful OKR adoption. A truly skilled OKR coach will have deep subject matter expertise in OKRs, but their practices will revolve around asking questions that enable self-discovery and clarity building at scale in the organization.

Some OKR coaches (like me) adhere to professional coaching standards that are not required for our scope of practice. For example, I became a nationally board-certified health and wellness coach (NBC-HWC) to provide clients confidence in my foundational coaching and behavior-change support skill. That credential also holds me to a very high ethical and professionalism standard.

OKR Consultants are people with deep subject matter expertise who support organizations by bringing that expertise to life within client organizations.

OKR consultants provide frameworks, tools, playbooks, and other resources that help clients adopt OKRs based on best practices. After discovery, an OKR consultant’s primary job is to blend advisory work and progress support to help organizations successfully onboard OKRs.

Complete pricing transparency is available on the Services and Pricing page here.

When my capacity allows (usually not more than once a year) OKR support becomes available to the public through group coaching programs in the $582-$1500 range.

Some clients begin by engaging with me on a day-rate basis ($10k / day) for speaking services or offsite facilitation services.

Many clients opt for my flexible monthly strategy execution advantage program ranging between $10k and $26k (or more for large enterprise clients), or for a conventional OKR coaching and consulting-supported onboarding or OKR methodology “reboot” engagement, typically starting at $26k for non-profit partners and $46k for for-profit organizations.

The time to see results varies dramatically depending on factors like:

• Leadership modeling: Do leaders learn the No-BS OKRs practices and “walk the talk?” Or, do they lag in learning (or even resist participation)?

• Coherence and consistency of the model: Are you adopting a proven playbook with defined words, meanings, and practices, or are you “winging it” based on a book or tool?

• Degree of internal alignment about why you’re adopting OKRs: Sometimes, organizational participants have very different (and often opposing) reasons for adopting OKRs.

  • The CEO wants performance management and incentive pay tied to OKRs;

  • HR is trying to address declines in employee engagement and job satisfaction;

  • Operations wants greater efficiency and less wasted human labor;

  • Delivery wants clearer expectations and to feel like they don’t have to mind-read;

  • and Strategy wants a way to align people toward innovation and transformation.
    
    In situations like this, we have to reconcile any conflicts that create paradoxes for the implementation before large-scale systemic change is possible.

• Your starting place in terms of psychological safety and trust. Some organizations have a fundamentally healthy leadership, management, and people operation and culture. Other organizations are struggling with extreme dysfunction. The former will generally see results from OKRs more quickly; the latter often take more time to resolve the fundamental issues OKR adoption shines light on.

If you already have a trained, skilled OKR coach in house who can serve in a “coach” capacity, you may not need an OKR coach.

That said, professional subject-matter-expertise OKR coaches have often worked with hundreds of organizations and thousands of people implementing OKRs: what your internal expert or coach may be guessing at how to solve, a professional OKR coach may already have a proven solution for. Most organizations adopting OKRs benefit from professional support so that your participants can focus on the substance of your organizational strategy and objectives and key results (and learn OKRs in the process), rather than trying to build the plane of OKRs while you’re flying it.

Some people who identify as an OKR coach are actually OKR consultants in my definition: they are deep subject matter experts who help clients in an educational and advisory way.

Others may have completed a couple of hours of training to yield an “OKR coach” certificate, but have little practical and applied experience to help guide you through the most challenging elements of adopting OKRs.

Coaching with No-BS OKRs is a rigorous, supported experience where I guide you step by step through creating and implementing OKRs, with a blend of coaching and consulting support, and a proven toolkit of practical, applied tools and frameworks that make OKRs easy and efficient to adopt, instead of time-consuming and confusing.

My goal is to get you efficiently to self-sufficiency or a maintenance scope if you prefer ongoing support. I don’t overcomplicate the process to require software or consulting spends; I don’t make myself indispensible to the organization — I support your internal champions becoming indispensible to the organization.

‍I am also the only combo OKR coach and Nationally Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) which holds me to both a very high standard of professionalism and ethics, but also has provided me deep expertise in the science and practice of behavior change. Helping clients create OKRs is the simplest and easiest part of the work I do with clients. Helping clients build a culture that supports inspired, aspirational, visionary goal setting and goal achievement is the real work.

You can learn more about what makes No-BS OKRs different here.