OKRs or Objectives and Key Results are the defining goal setting framework of the post-pandemic era. Able to distill complex organizational changes in quantifiable, attainable actions, OKRs have been prevalent in companies large and small since before 2020, but have come to the forefront of corporate goal setting with the rise of remote work and effectively siloed teams. Ascension Associates is an overall proponent of OKRs, as we use them exclusively in our business consulting practice and also integrate them into our hospitality client projects. However, what has seemed to escape many businesses is the crux of the OKR framework: relationships.
Origins of OKRs
Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, is generally credited with the creation and popularization of OKRs in the 1970’s during his time at Intel. With help from John Doerr, a venture capitalist, former student of Grove, and his book Measure What Matters, OKRs really took off as a universally loved and adopted business goal setting strategy. In the book, Doerr describes Grove’s management philosophy, centered around companies defining exactly what goal they want to achieve (the objective) and the specific actions planned in order to achieve that goal (the key results). This framework of corporate goal setting was the “gift” that was given to Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, with Page crediting OKRs for driving Google’s growth in the early 2000’s.
While OKRs were used throughout Silicon Valley in the first two decades of the 2000’s, it was Doerr’s book, published in 2018, that made OKRs a popular method for businesses throughout the rest of the country, particularly in the world of startups. While other goal setting and process improvement methods like Six Sigma and KPIs had their niches and uses, OKRs could be adopted by many types of businesses and at any level of responsibility, driving individual, team, department, even overall organizational direction.
The key to OKRs is their ability to provide alignment and autonomy to teams, as Forbes contributor Stephen Wunker writes. Particularly in today’s environment of remote, siloed teams, OKRs provide the right amount of alignment on team goals, so that everyone is working toward the same aims with the actions needed for success freely available to everyone. Additionally, autonomy is provided through OKRs because the process is inherently flexible; teams will likely set quarterly or semi-yearly OKRs as a roadmap, and the efforts to achieve the objectives are achievable through the key results in the normal course of business. Direct oversight of a team’s progress is rarely needed, and as Wunker writes, the framework is used “to encourage experimentation at the ground level, resulting in insights and innovations that make their way up the organization.”
People Come Before Results
All this theory and applicability of OKRs is fine. There are numerous books, seminars, practitioners, and whole companies (like ours) that can help organizations create, manage, and meet their OKRs. There is a $1.5 billion OKR software market, including companies like Gtmhub, WorkBoard, and Ally.io that will automate and enhance your OKR structure. The amount of technology and brain power behind these advancements is impressive, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always effective.
In particular for small businesses or sole proprietorships, where there isn’t a defined team structure and business goal setting is done at the individual level, OKRs can actually obscure how a business might achieve its objectives. Jeff Gothelf wrote for the Harvard Business Review about how individuals struggle to write functional OKRs because they’ll often write key results that are safer to achieve, resulting in less innovation and creativity than might otherwise occur. He recommends OKRs be written as a team, where team members push each other to write OKRs that although may be harder to achieve, potentially result in a better payoff And when you may not have the type of team to rely on when creating OKRs, that’s when the accountability and structure of a consulting firm can help to fill in the gaps.
Gothelf is implicitly saying something more about the nature of OKRs that we’ll extrapolate on: OKRs should be more than a strategy of business goal setting. They should push team members to grow as employees, become wiser, more efficient, and even happier in their relationship with their organization. OKRs have the dual benefit of being an employee engagement mechanism and a vehicle to organizational improvement. At the end of the day, it’s an organization’s employees that should outlast the temporary, fleeting OKRs, and failed OKRs that bring about more productive and engaged employees are worth having every time.
Furthermore, an organization doesn’t necessarily need fancy software or advanced theory to put OKRs into practice. What’s truly important is the team aspect of OKR creation and accountability, and for small organizations it can be helpful to bring in an objective 3rd party to help in the process. Ascension Associates is one of numerous organizations that can provide such support, and our particular experience with hospitality and real estate companies can be an asset for organizations in those industries who want to implement OKRs but don’t know where to start.
Ascension Associates Builds Relationships
Ascension Associates can be your partner in OKR planning and counseling, helping to transform and organize your business for future success. We’ve worked with small companies, startups, franchises, and more, and we are confident we can work with your business to craft smart OKRs and help your organization achieve them. Contact us today at clients@ascension-consulting.com or through our online form to see how we can help your business ascend today.