WTF are OKRs?
This is super cheeky for a work blog — and I thought long and hard about whether to use it — but it’s really, truly one of the questions I’m asked most frequently by friends and family who know me personally, not professionally. And it’s usually followed by some version of:
”And why on earth do you care so much about them?” or
“Why should I care about them?”
I’ve always focused most of my content and work on expert and in-training OKR practitioners, since there is so much need in that territory. And often, I have business leaders who are new to OKRs stumble into my No-BS OKRs course and end it telling me:
“You have GOT to get this material in front of people who have never heard of OKRs.”
So here we go.
Watch the WTF are OKRs video for an introduction to the very basics of No-BS OKRs for change, transformation, and innovation.
With the WTF are OKRs Guide, I pulled together an excerpt from the upcoming No-BS OKRs Workbook to try to fill this gap:
To provide the absolute basics for folks who’ve never heard of OKRs (which stands for Objectives and Key Results, by the way);
To try to get the attention of people who are not already OKR converts;
And, to sneak a few of my most valuable one-page cheat sheets into a downloadable (that’s designed for OKR newbies but there’s value in those one-sheets even for experienced practitioners looking for new, simpler ways to work with OKRs).
The worksheets and one-sheets are only available in the download. But I am going to share the WTF are OKRs introduction here, for folks who don’t want to click through!
The WTF are OKRs downloadable has a brand new one-page OKR Cheat Sheet — an updated version of our popular “OKR Mad Libs” one-sheet published earlier.
WTF are OKRs?
OKR stands for “Objectives and Key Results.”
OKRs are an aligned goal framework used mostly within organizations to increase focus, clarity, and alignment.
Doesn’t everybody already know how to write goals?
We all have experience with goals -- but every person has a different relationship with goals and goal-setting, and a different set of beliefs, practices, and heuristics around goals and goal-setting, so without effort, two people rarely naturally speak the same “goal language.”
Some people approach everything in their life with a vision or goal, then work back from it to inform their choices;
Some people prefer to make plans, and then work forward from their plans to achieve what they can;
And some people have been harmed by unfair, biased, or incoherent applications of goals (especially in the workplace).
So every person brings a different set of experiences (and baggage) to goal-setting, and even in organizations that have some sort of documentation or guidance about their goal model, it’s pretty rare for that guidance to coherently define and align the practices and behaviors that connect strategy through to implementation in a way that’s actually clear and useful.
So yes, most people know how to write goals, but speaking different goal languages leaves room for expectation clarity fails, misunderstandings, and misalignments. And even if you’re working on personal or individual goals, you may have goal habits that don’t actually support your goal achievement (and joy).
Why might an organization need an aligned goal framework?
Are any of these situations familiar?
Have you ever found it unclear what’s expected of you at work?
Have you and a colleague, leader, or client have disagreed about whether a particular piece of work was successful; or, whether the goal for a piece of work was achieved by enough to be considered a win
Have subjective estimates of progress have lead to missing the mark on a critical lagging outcome
Have you seen, or experienced, arbitrariness around who gets credit for good work, or other forms of bias in recognition of success
Have you been in an organization with an employee feedback survey question like: “I know how my work matters” or "I know how my work aligns to strategy," and those scores are low.
If you're a leader
...the conditions I just listed (and their friends) are signs that your organization may benefit from a more organized approach to aligning strategy and implementation -- which a coherent OKR implementation is really good at.
And if you're an employee,
...you may be in a tough spot, with leaders who struggle to set and communicate a strategy, or stick to one -- where the goal posts are always moving. Or, you might be spending more of your energy than you think trying to mind-read what's expected of you. If that's you, even if your organization doesn't use OKRs, I've got some tips about how YOU might, to help create clearer expectations for yourself (and improve your career satisfaction while you're at it).
What’s different about No-BS OKRs?
In a lot of organizations, OKRs are about the numbers and charts and graphs on a dashboard, and often they’re implemented because senior leadership wants more visibility into the organization’s progress, as well as improved results.
No-BS OKRs -- the flavor of OKRs I created and work with -- achieve those basics, and also:
Increasing the organization's change-readiness by surfacing important truths to be tackled head on.
Focus on aligning what we do -- our behavior -- to what we ultimately must achieve -- so we find ourselves spending less time "doing all the things" whether or not they're contributing to our most important outcomes; and more time focused on what's important to move forward to maximize progress toward your strategy or vision.
Are aligned with the best available science on motivation and peak performance, and are informed by my own extensive experience as an executive, an employee, a conflict resolution pro, a trauma-informed coach, and a status-quo challenger and changemaker.
Historically, a lot of my material has been geared toward experienced OKR practitioners and leaders who are implementing OKRs (or, turning around implementations that have gone off the rails). But me talking about OKRs turns off a lot of people that No-BS OKRs could actually really help.
I put together a quick, free, WTF are OKRs Guide excerpted from my No-BS OKRs Workbook to get some basic information about this powerful, potentially transformative, bias-busting, gaslight-exposing framework in front of people who have no idea what OKRs are, but who need help with focus, getting clear on what's most important and why it matters, and increasing alignment and improving collaboration with others.
No-BS OKRs are one of the sharpest tools in my toolkit to support my personal mission of enabling Rebelutionary leaders and Thinkydoers to build fulfilling, high-impact careers and workplaces that change outdated systems for the better.
So if any of that sparks your interest, snag a copy of WTF are OKRs, and get started with No-BS OKRs right, from the start.
Have questions about OKRs, aligning goal models within organizations, or the power of goal-setting for improving your personal career growth and satisfaction?
Send them my way — I’d love to hear them. I’m building an uber-FAQ with all for the common questions and answers I get from students and clients — and I’d love to add yours to it!
