“The secret to success is setting the right goals.”
Andy Grove, a hungarian refugee, became the greatest manager of his time. And most likely of all time. According to Andy the role of a manager is to either be teaching or coaching. He deeply believed in uncapping the potential of people and ambition.
Andy developed a simple and flexible system to reach ambitious goals. (At Google these are called 10X Goals). The system or tool is called OKR. I call it the powertool ⚙️ or cybersword ⚔️ you pack to climb the highest mountain tops in life 🏔 🏔.
OKR´s stand for Objectives & Key Results. It is a system that has driven many highly successful organisations and people since. From Google, to Bono´s ONE foundation, to many individuals like you and me aiming te reach ambitious goals.
It is important to see that OKRs are not the same as your Purpose, Values, Vision or Mission which are about why and the future we want to create. OKRs are about what you need to achieve to get there and how you are going to do it.
Objectives = What you need to get done.
Key Results = How will you get it done?
The problem is that if we do not use a system to reach our goals (and there are many goal setting systems of course) we end up working very hard but with little progress and lots of frustration. Initiatives, efforts, individual progress leads to chaos. And great ideas stay just that…great ideas. The mountaintop remains in sight but we are not able to get closer.
As Steve Jobs once said “Great artists ship”.
This is the reason why to use OKR´s.
Execution. To achieve your ambitious goals. Because making dreams come true is not luck. It is hard work within a systematic approach.
The pay-offs of using OKR-system can by summarised in 5 points:
- FOCUS (for the individual, the team, the company but also the world around).
- ALIGNMENT (by being fully transparent everyone is aiming for the same North Star(S))
- COMMITMENT (a type of social contract comes to life to say what you will do and do what you have said)
- TRACKING (know where you are but even more importantly know how much progress you have made – OKRs can be part of Kaizen )
- STRETCHING (building a risk-taking culture)
So how do you get started?
Study:
– Andy Grove in 📗 High Output Management
– (30 minute intro) John Doerr on the power of OKRs. 🎬 OKRs explained.
– (15 minute practical) OKR´s applied in Asana. ⚙️ Asana on OKRs
Now to get started:
Create a Trello Board (contact me for a sample we use internally and personally) and get started to slay your goals.
⚡️ Important note ⚡️: choose your Objectives carefully and wisely. You may end up spending most of your energy and time trying to get there…and when you do it better be worth it.