News Recap: “You Are A Strategist” Book Cover Reveal, Free OKR Coaching Live on LinkedIn

Written By Sara Lobkovich

In this Thinkydoers short, I'm sharing a few exciting updates from Red Currant Collective.

For one, we just revealed the covers for my two upcoming books: the "No-BS OKRs Workbook" and "You Are A Strategist: Use No-BS Objectives and Key Results to Get Big Things Done." The Workbook, set to print in Q3, provides essential tools for creating effective OKRs quickly, while "You Are A Strategist" is a playbook for change-makers to connect strategy with goal-exceeding implementation and will fast-follow the Workbook's release -- all in time to help with your year-end reset! And, a rare opportunity to learn No-BS OKR Coaching with me is taking place this August — if you don’t join this one, the waitlist will be open again later this month.

Episode Highlights:

  • Book Reveals: Sara announces the cover reveal of her two books, emphasizing the practicality of the "No-BS OKRs Workbook" and the strategic depth of "You Are A Strategist"

  • Not Sure You're a Strategist? Think Again!: A few quick thoughts on the importance of strategic thinking in today's fast-paced business environment, and an invitation to reflect on your own strategic capabilities

  • Live OKR Coaching: Sara shares her experience hosting a LinkedIn Live session, offering free OKR coaching, and invites listeners to participate in future sessions

  • Coaching Course: Details are provided about the upcoming "Coaching No-BS OKRs" course, designed for those looking to enhance their OKR coaching skills

  • Gratitude and Acknowledgements: Sara expresses gratitude for the support received during her book-writing process and teases future interview episodes for the podcast.

Link Roundup

Closing Thoughts: Sara encourages listeners to focus on their important goals and looks forward to sharing more insights in the next episode.


Full Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] Hello friends, and welcome to this quick Thinkydoers short. This is just a really quick episode to let you know a few of the really exciting things that are happening here at Red Currant Collective right now. First, if you've been here for a while, you know I'm working on a book, and the funny thing that happened is it turned into two books. So, on Tuesday, July 30th, I am revealing my book covers. I am so nervous and excited to do this. It makes it feel even more real.

Cover art by Caerus Kourt via Reedsy | www.bookery.design

After literal years of work, I'm so excited to announce the No-BS OKRs Workbook is being put into print this Q3. That'll be an eight-and-a-half by 11 print version of the PDF that I released earlier this year with tons of important definitions, exercises, worksheets, and cheat sheets. Basically, all the stuff that you can't normally [00:01:00] get outside of an engagement with me, or one of my courses. The No-BS OKRs Workbook gives you everything you need to create No-BS OKRs in a matter of minutes or hours — not days or weeks. They're the exercises, materials, and worksheets I use with my own OKR coaching clients all the time.

[00:01:20] Following the release of the No-BS OKRs Workbook, also in Q3, will be the release of You Are A Strategist: Use No-BS Objectives and Key Results To Get Big Things Done. I know all books are a labor of love; this one is my baby. It's a playbook to help rebels and dedicated change-makers increase your impact by learning this efficient, effective method for connecting strategy to goal exceeding implementation. And yes, it is another book about OKRs, but this one goes way beyond OKRs. You Are A Strategist puts OKR is in the context of modernized, [00:02:00] democratized strategic planning. This book recognizes the tradition of strategists being the observant, thoughtful dot connectors who ask questions, read research, and squirrel away facts and observations that we turn in our linky brains into insights. For a long time, that strategy has been the scaffolding that the stuff you ultimately see in the world rests on. The strategy is created and then the visible work begins. And the highest praise you can give a strategist traditionally has been, "You make the work better." "Your strategy makes the work better." But now in a business environment where people and organizations we're all doing more with less, we all need to be more nimble. We all need to be more adaptable and keep up with a world that changes faster than any of us can keep track of. Lightweight modern approaches to nimble strategy are becoming table stakes in [00:03:00] both a leader and a doer toolkit. So, you may or may not think of yourself as a strategist, but let me ask you some questions. Are you curious, sometimes to a fault? Is it important for your work to have a purpose? And do you tend to

challenge the status quo in big or, little ways? You always see what can be better and then feel impatient when change doesn't come quickly. Do you make connections that other people don't make and is your brain linky or nonlinear? Are you more comfortable with the risks of intentional experimentation, even when you might experience big losses? Do you prefer that to the uncertainty of dealing with fickle human politics and power dynamics? If so, my friend, you may be a strategist. And if you hear that and you think, gosh, I can't imagine living that way. Why would anyone live that way? What is that? Totally unfamiliar. Then you may be a leader or a colleague to many people [00:04:00] who feel that way. So increasingly it's the folks who relate to those questions. I just asked who are stepping out from the shadows and into the spotlight. If anyone is to have any hope of solving the major organizational cultural and existential problems that we all face today. Today, insightful, curious, linky brains are an asset, and leaders and individuals alike must be able to show their own strategic work and support the strength of their ideas on their merits. Few, if any strategists or strategic leaders come pre-programmed with skills and competencies for strategic leading in this uncharted territory that we're all in. The straightforward toolkit includes a simple, usable, connected strategic one-sheet and No-BS Objectives and Key Results to help you get where you need to go. I very intentionally chose [00:05:00] the title for this book. There's a reason this book is called You Are A Strategist, not something like, are you a strategist? It's because in today's market and work world, every person can benefit from operating strategicallyno matter how senior or junior or strategic or tactical your role. The cover reveal is live today on social media. You can check it out in all my social media channels under Sara Lobkovich, I'm the only one out there. You can check out the cover reveal via my social media today. And if you want to support the effort to get this book in front of more people, I would love to have your help. You can learn more about both books and join the pre-launch crew at findrc.co/yaas, that's F I N D R C . C O / Y A A S.

[00:05:57] Now, before I let you on your way, I have [00:06:00] one other big announcement. I did something that might be kind of nuts on Friday, but I loved it so much I'm going to do it again. On Friday, I hosted a LinkedIn Live and provided live, free, unscripted, unprepped OKR coaching sessions for volunteers who joined the live. Professional Objectives and Key Results coaching lets your leaders, and teams, and you participate fully in goal setting with your focus being on critical thinking, thinking about your business, the discussions that you need to have among your colleagues if you're in a multi-user setting and making really good decisions, not on the details of facilitating the conversation, taking notes, time management, and kind of pulling the pieces together. Basically, with a solid OKR coach, you're able to really focus and think about your business, and it's almost like OKR is just magically happen. A good OKR coach can [00:07:00] hear the OKR potential in what you say.

Reflect it back to you and help you hear the Objectives and Key Results that you're talking about when you're not even meaning to talk about OKRs. You can focus on your business without being distracted by the overhead of mechanics of goal setting. Working with an OKR coach can be more efficient for learning how to create OKRs . It lets you learn by doing with confidence, with a guide to help. Participants leave OKR coaching with a draft of their OKRs and direction on how to finish them. In these free sessions, basically, I'm opening up the live, I'm asking for volunteers. Either myself or Ellie, my amazing EA, will provide you the link to join the live stream as a volunteer client. And then, depending on how many people decide to participate, you'll have 5, 10, 15, maybe even 20 or 30 minutes of free OKR coaching with me [00:08:00] to help you connect the dots between your strategy and implementation so that you've got a really crystal-clear idea of how to move forward. One of last week's participants, Jamar Diggs, who is an incredible YouTube strategist and runs a great membership that I'm a part of called the Low Lift Club, which I highly recommend, by the way. Jamar's response to being a volunteer client last Friday on the first live that I did this on was, and I quote, "You are so good at what you do." "You make goal setting, seem fun, creative, and actually achievable." That's my mission. The dates and times and time zones are going to rotate. But if you'd like to be able to observe OKR coaching live, or if you might like to volunteer to be a client, follow me on LinkedIn; that's where most of the lives are going to happen. I will do lives on other platforms, but for right now, we've got the tech all worked out for LinkedIn. So, we're just trying to simplify the variables and [00:09:00] we'll focus there. Connect with me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/SaraLobkovich for information about future lives.

[00:09:10] And then, for the first time, in nearly two years, I am doing my favorite thing I do in my business, and that is teaching a live cohort of Coaching No-BS OKRs. If you are an experienced, or aspiring OKR coach looking for efficient, effective ways to help others create OKRs, or if you're a non-OKR professional coach looking to add new specialty skills in goal setting to your toolbox, you might also be an OKR practitioner or OKR curious person who's interested in taking your skills to the next level. The Coaching No-BS OKRs course is my deepest available training with No-BS OKRs, and it's the only course right now that I'm offering that is a live [00:10:00] hybrid experience. So, if you are any of the above now is the time to register. This course is only offered once or twice a year or even less. And I expect this to be with the books coming out the last small cohort. Participants in this cycle will have a high level of individualized support and attention to build the strongest possible OKR coaching skill over the course of two intensive weeks in August. The live dates are August 19th through 30th of 2024. Your registration for Coaching No-BS OKRs includes the prerequisite and ideally you want to be signed up a few days

early, at least because it's about a 4-hour curriculum to complete the prerequisite. There are options for doing that faster, so, if you cut it close, I'd still love to see you apply. In this training, you'll learn how to coach any team in any industry at any level of an [00:11:00] organization to results-focused Objectives and Key Results efficiently, effectively, and sustainably. For more information or to apply for the upcoming Coaching No-BS OKRs course, visit findrc.co/okrcoachtraining.

[00:11:16] All right, all, that's it. Now, ironically, my next task is to go finish the revisions on You Are A Strategist. Today is my last writing day with the book. It's been in line edit, I'm incorporating changes now. From here on out, it's just finishing and scheduling and marketing. I can't wait to share these books with you. And I also have to say just a huge thank you to everyone who has kept these projects going. When my confidence flagged or when I got stuck, there's a very long list of acknowledgements for these because I appreciate you all not letting me give up on them. We're lining up some awesome additional interview episodes. I've been really enjoying the interviews. So, if you do [00:12:00] have someone you'd like to hear on Thinkydoers, point them my way. I'll put a link in the show notes that you can share with people where they can express their interest in being on the podcast. And then if you already have and you haven't heard back, I haven't forgotten about you. I put out a big call and got a lot of responses with potential guests right before I had to hunker down for my Wellness Coach Training Certifying Exam, which was last week, which was a bear. I've been studying for it for months, but I'm really glad that I took it. I'm glad that's in my rearview mirror; six to eight weeks we'll know if I passed. And this book deadline. So once I get these two things away, we're going to go through all the inquiries that we've received, and I'm really excited to get podcast episodes booked with more awesome interviews. So check out the book covers this week, let me know if you want to join one of the live OKR coaching demonstrations sometime soon. And don't forget thatthis No-BS OKRs Coach [00:13:00] Training is going to be a really special one. So, I would love to have you there. And I really appreciate you spreading the word with your colleagues and your social networks. So have a great week. Make some time to focus on your important, if not urgent goals this week, and I'll see you back here next time.


Sara Lobkovich
Previous

High-Stakes Leadership: Navigating Conflict and Setting Boundaries

Next

How to Suck Less As A Manager, with Author and Consultant Ben Arendt