Preview: The No-BS OKRs Playbook
Design work is still in progress, but the mockups keep me motivated to make this thing real!
For the last two years, I’ve been working on rewrite after rewrite of an attempted book about the “flavor” of OKRs we work with at Red Currant Collective, which we call Evolutionary OKRs®️. It started as an exhaustive guide; it became a workbook; and now in its final rewrite it’s becoming a blend of the best of both: a short, useful guide to creating and implementing OKRs for transformation, innovation, and change.
After years of writing alone and then sharing with (wonderful, patient) beta readers, with this rewrite I’m doing something different. It’s time to write in public.
Certain chapters of the book are being shared via our email newsletter first; then after a week or two, some will be shared here, via Medium, and as Thinkydoers podcast episodes. As terrifying as this is for me personally, it’s time. The final rewrite is buzzing along, I’ve got a target date for the v1 eBook release if I keep up at this writing and editing pace, and it’s necessary to get this thing out so it can help the people who need it.
Here, I’m sharing the first full chapter, Chapter One. (It’s also available in podcast form via the Thinkydoers Podcast.) I look forward to your feedback; the rewriting is done, but the editing is not, so there’s still time to incorporate constructive edits.
And before I dive in, a quick IP notice. This material is © Sara Lobkovich and Red Currant Collective LLC (2023), all rights reserved.
You can find the other draft chapters I’ve published live here:
Chapter One: How did we get here?
Does this sound familiar?
You, or someone in your organization read some HBR articles or Measure What Matters and got excited about the promise of OKRs.
(That person’s excitement may also have been stoked by content and advertising from OKR software platforms — a $923 million dollar business last year, according to Coherent Market Research.)
That local OKR advocate shared the message of OKRs power to increase strategic alignment of our activities; surface what’s most important and improve organizational focus; increase cross-functional alignment; and improve workplace performance and satisfaction.
The senior leader made the call: we’re implementing OKRs.
And a copy of Measure What Matters has been handed to someone to figure out how to bring OKRs to life in your organization.
Which person are you, in this scenario? The advocate? The leader? Or the one caught holding the book when the music stopped?
(If your answer is “none of the above,” you and/or your organization may be in a different part of the adoption curve and that’s cool. Stick with me: you might find yourself in another of our upcoming scenario emails. And if you want to learn about our OKR Maturity Model, here’s a shortcut.)
I’ve been all three.
The concept of OKRs floated across my awareness in 2016, when I was leading an incredible creative strategy team in an advertising agency. My original discipline was content strategy, so I was used to having math to inform my decisions, and I was used to having targets or goals to aim for and against which my work’s success was evaluated. In creative agencies, I had no such waypoints. We did our best work to have it deemed a “failure” based on subjective criteria; we also had high-impact work that delivered quantifiable progress on key metrics at or above the targets set for us, but after the work went live, it was deemed to have not exceeded the goal by enough to be considered a complete success.
Incoherence is my kryptonite, so the subjectivity and moving goal posts of that environment were a real struggle for me. OKRs gave me a way to
Enunciate my own measurable targets or goals;
Ask my leaders: “OK, when you say success, is this what you mean?”
Align to their feedback and memorialize our targets and goals; then
Give my team clear expectations around what success means; and
We could work toward those goals.
When we achieved them we considered it a win. (And if leadership moved the goal posts, I had more cognitive peace, since I could still celebrate our achievement on the goal that we agreed on.)
When we failed, we took stock to determine what we could learn. One of my first KRs was that 100% of my pitch work yielded reusable frameworks, models, cases, and slides. Even when we lost a pitch, I got to celebrate the new reusable work that the pitch yielded (that may help us win in the next go-round).
Since then, I’ve been the OKR advocate in every organization I entered until my career shifted to OKR implementation being a core part of my work.
And since then, I’ve taught, coached, and supported OKR roll-outs and reboots with anywhere between one and 4,000 people participating (per wave); in 300+ organizations globally, ranging from early stage start-ups to Fortune 100 enterprises.
So if you see yourself in the scenario above, and you’re not sure where to turn for help, I’m glad you’re here.
Many OKR implementations struggle (avoidably). Measure What Matters gets people excited about the promise of OKRs, but does little to help them implement OKRs successfully (especially at scale). Objective and Key Results by Paul Niven and Ben Lamorte (along with Ben’s newer The OKRs Field Book) are excellent textbooks on the practice (and are helpful reads for OKR coaches and champions) but they’re also dense and may overwhelm people newer to the practice at first.
I saw a need for simple, easy-to-implement, step-by-step resources to help teams create and operate OKRs “in the wild,” in the complex and ever-changing environment of real organizations, not just in the classroom.
So that’s what I’ve spent the last few years creating.
And that’s what you’ll find here in this book. Everything I’ve developed that actually works to make the creation of OKRs easier. Everything that helps me help teams operationalize to actually achieve the OKRs they write. Every drawing, cheat sheet, flow chart, and script I use in my strategy coaching and consulting practice and in the classrooms I teach in, with over a thousand students per year going out of their way to learn with me is here, for you.
What do I ask in return?
That at some point you take a step back from the day to day of the labor of your work, and think a bit about what changed world you’d like to see someday. What difference would you like to make? How would you like to leave your community, career, or self better than you find it now? Dream big, then think bigger.
Then write that dream down as an Objective.
And ask yourself: how, in the near term, will I know I’m making progress toward that Objective? How, in the next quarter or year, will I know I’m succeeding at making the change I envision real?
And write those down as Key Results. (They don’t have to be perfect. You can start with what you have, where you are, and see what you learn in the next 90 days about how those Key Results might improve.)
For most OKR “experts,” OKRs are a mechanism for improving corporate performance, increasing efficiency and alignment, and increasing accountability (and sometimes ownership) for workers.
I’m more activist than that. For me, OKRs are a mechanism to achieve the courageous change, against all odds, that Thinkydoers like you and me believe might just be possible to make the world / our workplaces / lives a better and more equitable place to live.
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What do you think: Would you buy that book? Would you read that book? Would that first chapter hook you (or, make you put the book down and not pick it up again)? I’d love to hear from you. That's my last rewrite for this edition but there is still time for me to make edits!
🤔 P.S. Do you ever wish you could have an OKR coach on call?
I'm getting more and more demand from clients who don't want a long-term consulting engagement but who need spot-help with their OKRs. Some operate based on a "bucket of hours" model, where their core team purchases a block of time that they can use as needed (based on my availability) until exhausted; others book individual coaching sessions by the 6-pack, on a half-day, or on a full-day basis. If you'd like to hear about ways we can support you and your organization in a flexible way without a long-term commitment, drop me a message! These engagements can be designed to fit your budget and needs while still being quick and easy to set up and get started!
