Tag: OKRs

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Latest Read: Radical Focus

Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results by Christina Wodtke. After reading John Doerr’s Measure What Matters it was a short trip to discover Christina’s book as a worthy follow-up.

Radical Focus

Christina certainly established herself in Silicon Valley. Leadership roles at LinkedIn, Myspace and most recently Zynga.com serve her key message why OKRs are essential and not just limited to startups.

Further, her insights consulting with Yahoo, Hot Studio, and The New York Times solidify her experience. Today Christina teaches at Stanford.

Listening to Atruity Consultancy’s OKRs Q&A Podcast and following single episode OKR podcasts, it is clear Radical Focus holds impactful messages. It is and yet is delivered in a very unique way.

Above all, in the growing pandemic how can organizations inspire diverse teams to address unplanned challenges while collaborating remotely OKRs provide a framework for regular check-ins, reviewing weekly key results, adjust to setbacks and unplanned failures, while striving amid COVID to create success.

TeaBee

Likewise, Radical Focus is an actionable business book in the form of a fable as stated up front by Christina. To clarify, I had to stop myself from Googling their startup name. The narrative is a fictional case study of two recent MBA grads Hanna and Jack, who are stumbling in their newly launched startup. Likewise after hard lessons, they learn the practical steps they need to take to do what must be done.

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Education Reading

Latest Read: Smarter Faster Better

Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. Certainly after reading his previous book The Power of Habit I was really looking forward to this book exploring the science of productivity.

Smarter Faster Better

Above all the ideas outline managing ‘how’ you think rather than ‘what’ you think may actually transform your life. Charles provides insights to well told stories. Certainly while a story may be well known to others, your interpretation will provide insights for you toact upon.

Firstly, within Chapter 1 – Motivation: Reimagining Boot Camp, Nursing Home Rebellions, and the Locus of Control. These stories reveal how to adopt a growth mindset. At the same time, his story of Viola and Robert Philippe reveal a view of medical diagnosis. You may be able to leverage the Philippe’s story to reflect upon family or friends similarly impacted. This lesson can assist you in supporting a loved one’s long road to recovery.

Secondly, Chapter 2 – Teams: Psychological Safety at Google and Saturday Night Live. While too many books have been written about Google, looking at how Lorne Michaels at just 36 years of age would begin shaping an American cultural institution is widely appealing. Between Morgan Freeman and Larry David auditioning for SNL’s first season, many will easily understand how bringing teams together can benefit challenges at work, supporting your children’s extra school activities, or leading a volunteer group. Above all, Work Rules by Lazlo Bock would serve you best to understand how Google manages teams.

Chapter 3 – Focus: Cognitive Tunneling, Air France Flight 447, and the Power of Mental Models. Charles is clearly an excellent writer. Certainly his detailed description of Flight 447 which literally fell into the Atlantic ocean in 2009 teaches us to no blindly trust technology.

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Latest Read: Measure What Matters

Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr. It is easier to understand during a pandemic how organizations should embrace OKRs in a time of dramatic change.

Measure What Matters by John Doerr

Firstly, Measure What Matters begins with John’s story of landing an engineering internship at Intel. Andy Grove is credited by Doerr as the father of OKRs. John was able to work alongside Andy and his team. Certainly this benefitted John in his career. Above all, Grove served as Doerr’s mentor at Intel and left a lifetime impression on the delivery of goals.

Above all, this offers new views against smartgoals or annual performance reviews. Doerr also shares how Adobe, upon viewing OKRs decided to completely shut down legacy annual performance reviews. COVID is a game changer that also helps move away from year long reviews.

At first glance, I have to admit that I was somewhat dismayed to see the name of U2’s Bono on the cover. That is to say many interview of musicians go off the rails. But Bono’s contribution will surprise any reader. His ability to convey his non-profit’s OKRs is very revealing that speaks to the depth and grounding of a business plan that you may not initially attribute to a world famous rock and roll singer.

Similarly there is an inspirational story is Nuna. John shares the story of Jini Kim. Her brother, Kimong was diagnosed with severe autism. While vacationing at Disneyworld, he suffered a severe seizure. At nine years of age Jini enrolled her family into Medicaid. Jini was a product manager at Google Health. Moreover Jini helped launch Google Public Data. When Jini left Google to launch her own startup, Nuna (Korean for big sister) her application of OKRs helped her company win the bid to fix healthcare.gov in 2013.

Likewise there is simplicity to OKRs. But a foundation of solid objectives is key:

  1. Exceptional Focus
  2. High degree of alignment
  3. Uncommon degree of commitment
  4. Tracking progress
  5. Transparent goal system
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