Ep 37 - OKR Forecast 2025: Insights From The Experts

Sara: 00:00:01

Welcome to the Thinkydoers podcast.

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Thinkydoers are those of us drawn to deep work, where thinking is working.

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But we don't stop there.

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We're compelled to move the work from insight to idea, through the messy

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middle, to find courage and confidence to put our thoughts into action.

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I'm your host, Sara Lobkovich.

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I'm a strategy coach, a huge goal setting and attainment nerd, and board-certified

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health and wellness coach, working at the overlap of work, life well-being.

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I'm also a Thinkydoer.

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I'm here to help others find more satisfaction, less frustration, less

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friction, and more flow in our work.

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My mission is to help changemakers like you transform our workplaces and world.

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So let's get started.

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Hello, friends, and welcome to this week's Thinkydoers episode.

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I am super excited to get into this one for you.

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This is a replay of a LinkedIn and YouTube live that I hosted a couple

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weeks ago with my two OKR besties, Maria Rowcliffe and Natalie Webb.

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They are both brilliant practitioners in their specialties, which we

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talk about in the episode, and I am just so excited that they decided

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to join me for this conversation.

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It went so well, we're going to do this again, probably quarterly.

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We've already got the next one set up for Q2 because we had so many questions

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we couldn't answer in this first one.

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So if you want to be the first to hear about the Q2 State of OKRs with

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Natalie, Maria, and myself, join my email list at ck.redcurrantco.com

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Now, before we get into the episode, if you're a regular viewer, you'll

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notice things look a little different around here today, maybe even sound a

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little different on the audio version.

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That's because I am literally today recording the audio book for You Are

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Use No BS objectives and Key Results to Get Big Things Done.

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It's not, of course, going to all happen today, but we are starting

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the audio book recording today.

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And I am super excited.

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We have an ebook launch date set.

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We have a print launch, hopefully the same day.

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It might trail by a week.

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And then I'm getting the audio book done as quick as we can to try

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and get it out at the same time.

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We'll see if that becomes impossible.

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But it's really important to me that this book is as accessible as

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possible, and you're able to choose the format that works for you the best.

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So we're going to get them all done as close to the same launch date as possible.

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And you can find out more about that book coming up at youareastrategist.com.

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From there, you can sign up to be part of the street team, which is

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the folks who will help get the word out when that book is available.

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Because friends, I can't do this alone.

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I need your help.

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So visit youareastrategist.com.

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You can sign up for the advanced team.

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You'll get some extra special access beforehand.

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You'll be the first to hear about all the dates and everything that's

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coming up with the book launch.

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And I really just can't wait to have your help in getting this

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book to the people who need it.

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In other news, the 24, or it was actually 28 hour approach to

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the No BS Strategic Achievement Intensive was a massive success.

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So that is how I'm going to deliver that material live from here on out.

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So if you might wanna join me in Q2 for this intensive packed, it isn't actually

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24 consecutive hours, it's not a marathon.

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We work for a couple hours.

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We take the night off, have dinner, get some sleep.

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We get back together the next morning and we go until either noon

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or early afternoon, depending on if you stay for the bonus time.

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If you would like more information about that intensive, the best way to find

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out about it is to join my mailing list.

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And again, that's ck.redcurrantco.com.

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All right, without further ado, I can't wait to get into this

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episode with Natalie and Maria.

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I just cannot thank them enough for doing this live with me.

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And I really can't wait for you to join us for the next one.

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So, before we dive in, I'm Sara Lobkovich.

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I'm your host today.

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I'm the host of the Thinkydoers podcast and the creator of No-BS OKRs.

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I am super excited that these two said yes to this.

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So I'm going to let Natalie introduce herself and then Maria, and then we'll

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dive right in with our conversation.

Natalie: 00:04:43

Who am I?

Natalie: 00:04:44

Natalie Webb.

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I've told a few people about this podcast live stream, and they've

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referred to us three as the dream team.

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So I'm super excited to be here with you gals.

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I've been in the OKR space now for almost eight years, I guess.

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So, it works.

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I think that's why I stick with it, because it's great

Natalie: 00:05:02

to see results with clients.

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So, that's me

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I don't know if you can tell us where you're located right now.

Natalie: 00:05:11

I am currently in Saudi Arabia.

Natalie: 00:05:14

I'm working with Aramco and the very smart people there in the digital

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transformation and Aramco AI groups.

Sara: 00:05:23

Well, welcome and Maria, welcome.

Maria: 00:05:27

Thank you so much.

Maria: 00:05:28

You know, I love that No-BS OKRs because that you speak in my language.

Maria: 00:05:33

But thank you so much for having me.

Maria: 00:05:35

A little bit about me.

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So, I have been seriously passionate about understanding how organizations

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and people in them, actually more probably so, become successful.

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And, back in the day when I was getting my MBA, we had to choose

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what to study for a whole semester.

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And the two options were finance and capital markets and organizational

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behavior and management.

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And out of my whole year, there were 16 of us that chose to study

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management and organizational behavior.

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And I was obviously one of them.

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And that was very much around how do organizations make decisions

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and how do they execute them?

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And ever since then, this is kind of what I've been passionate about, and

Maria: 00:06:21

just like Natalie, I've used a lot of different frameworks in the past.

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And OKRs, I would say, has the potential of having the most transformative changes.

Maria: 00:06:32

But there's a lot of ways and making it go wrong and also a lot of ways

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of making it go right, which is what we're going to talk about today.

Maria: 00:06:39

But that's what I've been spending over 30 years at this point.

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And I think between the three of us, we have just a ridiculous

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amount of experience of this.

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Hopefully, there's going to be some useful stuff we say.

Maria: 00:06:50

So that's a little bit about me.

Maria: 00:06:51

The last thing I just want to say, because I always get this question, "Where

Maria: 00:06:55

are you from?" because of my accent.

Maria: 00:06:58

I'm Swedish, but I've lived in the US now for 35 years.

Maria: 00:07:02

And the fun fact is my dad's name is Leif Eriksson, and so it doesn't

Maria: 00:07:06

really get more Swedish than that.

Maria: 00:07:08

And it was his birthday.

Natalie: 00:07:10

Aw.

Sara: 00:07:10

Oh my goodness.

Sara: 00:07:11

Well, happy birthday ,pops!

Sara: 00:07:13

I always love the conversations we have Maria is like the chief of staff person.

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I mean, there's so much more to you, you're one of the folks that I look

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up to for chief of staff support and chief of staffing and the life of

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chiefs of staff and the role of a chief of staff as a leader strategist,

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not just the ops and admin side.

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So Maria's a champ there.

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And then, Natalie, is like a super smart, sciency patentee.

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There's so much more to you.

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So beyond just being incredible OKR experts, I am just really excited

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to introduce more folks to both of you because you've got such

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incredible experience in OKRs.

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And then, like a lot of us in this field, OKRs are the only thing we do.

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Like we're drawn to OKR so that we can be more effective in what we do elsewhere.

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Let's start with Natalie, since you're kind of in this space.

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How do you see generative AI and, potentially other emerging technologies.

Sara: 00:08:19

But right now, generative AI is what is on everyone's minds.

Sara: 00:08:23

How do you see generative AI affecting or reshaping goal-setting practices?

Natalie: 00:08:29

Yeah, and a common question I get all the time.

Natalie: 00:08:33

I'll tell you, my answer to this question has changed just this year, honestly, and

Natalie: 00:08:39

that's really because of the technology that's come out around quantum computing.

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Google came out with the technology to do that.

Natalie: 00:08:49

Being able to look back at all of this data and to decipher what all that data

Natalie: 00:08:54

means for predictive analytics, for machine learning, for creating models that

Natalie: 00:09:00

work and ones that don't is just crazy.

Natalie: 00:09:03

This idea, of course, I'm working with a very talented folks at Aramco.

Natalie: 00:09:07

But Forbes is calling this ability to search through history of data the new

Natalie: 00:09:16

black gold, which is an interesting play on words given where I am in the world.

Natalie: 00:09:22

Data as a service and providing quick business decisions based on decades and

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decades of data to the element level.

Natalie: 00:09:30

I'm a nerd about data visualization and the quantum computing piece of it.

Natalie: 00:09:35

The ability to learn quickly from all of that history and turn that

Natalie: 00:09:39

into predictive analytics for generative AI is mind-blowing.

Natalie: 00:09:43

Long ago are the days of ones and zeros.

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And doing it In the old way, being able to do it simultaneously and quantum computing

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is just amazing and amazing place to be.

Natalie: 00:09:54

I'm I'm super excited about it because of that aspect.

Natalie: 00:09:58

I will say I've I've seen some trepidation with health care related clients.

Natalie: 00:10:02

They're afraid, yeah, you guys have to.

Natalie: 00:10:05

But in the technology sector, preparing for digital disruption

Natalie: 00:10:10

is an opportunity, and not a fear.

Natalie: 00:10:11

So that's what I'm seeing.

Sara: 00:10:14

Yeah, that's awesome perspective.

Sara: 00:10:16

And Maria, what have you seen in your practice?

Maria: 00:10:19

So, I'm a little bit of Tigger and a little bit of Eeyore, right?

Maria: 00:10:22

The Tigger kind of agrees with what you said, Natalie.

Maria: 00:10:26

There's a huge opportunity around data analytics, data insights, tracking

Maria: 00:10:32

proactively, managing progress.

Maria: 00:10:35

That's the Tigger part.

Maria: 00:10:36

The Eeyore part is that this is a tool, right?

Maria: 00:10:40

This is a tool and an enabler, it's not a driver.

Maria: 00:10:43

All of this needs to land on humans, collaborating well, making

Maria: 00:10:48

great decisions, and execution.

Maria: 00:10:51

That hasn't changed.

Maria: 00:10:52

I think very little of the human condition, and the way we show up, and

Maria: 00:10:56

we interact with others has changed.

Maria: 00:10:58

And that's still going to be there.

Maria: 00:11:00

I know that we're going to talk more about the hype around this,

Maria: 00:11:03

but I don't think that this has, this changes the heavy lifting in

Maria: 00:11:06

terms of how people work together.

Maria: 00:11:08

I think that's the risk when you get too excited about a technology, which

Maria: 00:11:11

I'm sure all of us have experienced, both ourselves and, with clients.

Maria: 00:11:15

Me as having been a chief of staff and head of business operations in

Maria: 00:11:19

lots of companies, I've certainly been part of that on both ends.

Maria: 00:11:24

But I always end with, you know, that goes back to what I have been

Maria: 00:11:27

excited about all along, which is how do people actually make decisions?

Maria: 00:11:31

And so it's a huge enabler and a tool, but it really isn't the driver, I would say.

Sara: 00:11:37

I love that spending time with you two makes me smarter because

Sara: 00:11:41

even when I wrote that question, I was thinking about what I've seen.

Sara: 00:11:45

I've seen a lot of attention on generative AI for creating OKRs, for filling that

Sara: 00:11:53

gap of easing the difficulty of creation.

Sara: 00:11:56

I'm not even thinking about the predictive analytics part or the lack of impact

Sara: 00:12:02

that generative AI might have on the actual "how" of how we work together.

Sara: 00:12:08

That always just comes down to humans.

Sara: 00:12:10

I wrote a blog post a couple of months ago that is now really outdated.

Sara: 00:12:16

Natalie, I've had a shift just in the last couple of months where, wrote a

Sara: 00:12:20

blog post a couple of months ago saying it's just not ready for prime time.

Sara: 00:12:24

Like generative AI can't create OKRs as well as humans.

Sara: 00:12:28

And then I have to say, with the models having been trained

Sara: 00:12:33

more, and getting smarter, and then prompting getting better.

Sara: 00:12:38

I've been playing with tools, and trialing tools and I wish I had

Sara: 00:12:42

recorded my first login to a tool called Tability, which the podcast know

Sara: 00:12:48

Tability because I've, interviewed them.

Sara: 00:12:51

I'm a fan of them as human beings, but I logged into the tool and I saw

Sara: 00:12:56

their, AI-facilitated OKR creation.

Sara: 00:13:00

And I was like, "Oh, let's see how bad this is." And I gave it a prompt and

Sara: 00:13:05

I was like, "Oh, wow, that's actually quite good." I think the outcomes

Sara: 00:13:10

from generative AI are only as good as the prompts and the training.

Sara: 00:13:16

In the right hands, they're a enabler.

Sara: 00:13:18

For me, they can speed things up.

Sara: 00:13:20

And far as the impact of the actual work with people, like for me, they

Sara: 00:13:26

helped me take my verbal processing and turn it into something that

Sara: 00:13:32

humans can digest and understand.

Sara: 00:13:34

For me to be more clear, concise, or ease up more easily, simplifying

Sara: 00:13:41

concepts, things like that, I find them really valuable.

Sara: 00:13:43

I just still really struggle with trust with the platforms, I'm still

Sara: 00:13:47

a lawyer, so I've read every word of every agreement and I still had a

Sara: 00:13:52

conversation yesterday with some of the folks in my class about, they asked if

Sara: 00:13:57

I'm using generative AI and they asked if I'm training a model on my work.

Sara: 00:14:03

And I was like, I mean, for me, certain things, but there

Sara: 00:14:08

have been some hard line.

Sara: 00:14:10

while we were talking about it, I was like, "Well, if I don't train

Sara: 00:14:12

a model on my work, someone else has done it." So it's just like the

Sara: 00:14:16

ethics and the environmental impact.

Sara: 00:14:18

There's so much to it, but I also went from being a pulled out, not going

Sara: 00:14:24

to use it to now I really do see the utility in some parts of especially

Sara: 00:14:31

OKR creation with a well-trained model and a well-set up prompt.

Maria: 00:14:37

Can I ask the questions for either of you?

Maria: 00:14:39

Have you guys used it with your clients?

Maria: 00:14:42

How did that show up?

Maria: 00:14:43

How are you generate it?

Maria: 00:14:46

Because I certainly have not today.

Maria: 00:14:48

I have used it, and I don't know the number of times I have written

Maria: 00:14:52

back to is that is not a KR, right?

Maria: 00:14:55

Because it gives you back milestones and tasks, right?

Maria: 00:14:58

I started training my own also, because it's like, "No, that's not

Maria: 00:15:02

an objective, that's a project." It still gives back a lot of that, but I

Maria: 00:15:06

would love to hear how you guys have actually used it in sessions or with

Maria: 00:15:09

clients or organizations you work with.

Natalie: 00:15:12

I'm using it every day with clients now.

Natalie: 00:15:16

That's changed just since really like December.

Natalie: 00:15:19

But even as far back as October, many of my clients have their own version.

Natalie: 00:15:25

If they have a large technical presence they have their own version of AI, but

Natalie: 00:15:32

I'm finding, even myself, I'm using Claude and ChatGPT more than I use Google.

Natalie: 00:15:40

And I see it in my sessions, where it's usually to your point where they get to

Natalie: 00:15:47

like, "Hey, I want it to be this," but instead of going to a thesaurus, they go

Natalie: 00:15:51

to ChatGPT or some sort of AI tool and they look for words, and it does help

Natalie: 00:15:56

with the creativity, but to your point, Maria, it still has to be vetted that

Natalie: 00:16:01

it's going to drive the result, right?

Natalie: 00:16:03

You still have to have somebody say, "Okay, it may be written accurately, but

Natalie: 00:16:07

is this really what you want to focus your people's time and dollars on?" And then

Natalie: 00:16:11

that goes into the conversation of, is this really our critical strategy path?

Natalie: 00:16:16

So yeah, I think it can be helpful.

Natalie: 00:16:17

It can also be distracting because then they get like five different

Natalie: 00:16:21

examples and then they are more confused on which one they like.

Natalie: 00:16:25

Yeah.

Sara: 00:16:26

I've had clients, like clients always want examples.

Sara: 00:16:29

A marketing client wants, "Can you just show me an example of marketing

Sara: 00:16:33

OKRs?" And I'm like "No, I don't want you to look at those." It's too easy

Sara: 00:16:37

to look at the example and say, "Okay, that looks good," and then adopt it as

Sara: 00:16:42

opposed to doing the work of actually thinking about what is most important

Sara: 00:16:46

for your business and your timing.

Sara: 00:16:48

So the way that I'm using generative AI in my practice is I'm finding it's

Sara: 00:16:54

helping me speed up my OKR workshops, especially things like objective forming.

Sara: 00:17:01

Where my approach to objective forming is lightning fast.

Sara: 00:17:04

We don't spend a lot of time deliberating.

Sara: 00:17:06

We do a quick ideation.

Sara: 00:17:08

What's important?

Sara: 00:17:09

Why does it matter?

Sara: 00:17:09

We put them together.

Sara: 00:17:10

That's your objective But even with that, what I'm finding is

Sara: 00:17:16

I can get clients to where they have concepts for their objective.

Sara: 00:17:21

So I can get them to concepts and then instead of having to take the time to

Sara: 00:17:24

actually get it to a single statement in the room, I can say, "If it's okay with

Sara: 00:17:30

you, I'm going to take these concepts, feed them into a model, and give you

Sara: 00:17:35

some options." So, my workshop efficiency on objective creation has gone way up.

Sara: 00:17:42

Once it spits out a couple options, clients can make a

Sara: 00:17:45

decision of what they want to keep.

Sara: 00:17:47

takes that objective deliberation out of the workshop and lets us

Sara: 00:17:51

do it in the final finishing.

Sara: 00:17:55

And then what I always hope, and this is why I'm training my own model, is

Sara: 00:17:59

I hope that we can use these tools to help enable people's critical thinking

Sara: 00:18:06

about creatively creating Key Results.

Sara: 00:18:09

Thinking beyond the obvious KPIs they have available, or thinking

Sara: 00:18:14

beyond what they see in the examples.

Sara: 00:18:17

Some of the approaches to Key Results I work with are pretty out there.

Sara: 00:18:21

I'd love to be able to help enable people's creative thinking about

Sara: 00:18:27

what Key Results could be beyond the examples that most people usually see.

Sara: 00:18:35

But I have the same thing, sometimes when I'm preparing a training, I'm like, "I

Sara: 00:18:39

just need an example set of OKRs." And so I'll type in, "Can you give me an example

Sara: 00:18:43

set of OKRs for a software engineering team or for a marketing analytics team?"

Sara: 00:18:48

And it spits it out, and I'm like, "No, now I have to train the model.

Sara: 00:18:52

Now I have to teach you what an OKR is." I think in expert hands, the tools are

Sara: 00:18:56

an incredible enabler, efficiency source.

Sara: 00:19:00

I just worry about we already struggle enough with methodology understanding

Sara: 00:19:06

and quality of methodology adoption.

Sara: 00:19:09

And so I do worry about people putting too much faith in the training of the

Sara: 00:19:14

models if they don't the expertise.

Maria: 00:19:19

So one thing that I have done, I've used it more as an example, which

Maria: 00:19:25

is to help identify leading indicators.

Maria: 00:19:28

Because we, I think we all know what the general kind of KPIs are

Maria: 00:19:32

and the lagging indicators, because those are the metrics that we all

Maria: 00:19:35

know, and maybe not love so much.

Maria: 00:19:37

But it's the leading indicators that you actually can actively

Maria: 00:19:39

manage throughout the quarter.

Maria: 00:19:41

I mean my experience both in my own thinking as well as working with clients,

Maria: 00:19:46

that's still the hardest thing to do.

Maria: 00:19:48

Because that requires more thinking than what we typically

Maria: 00:19:52

want to spend on stuff like that.

Maria: 00:19:53

That's why we get milestones and kind of those KPIs that you can

Maria: 00:19:58

measure twice in a quarter as KRs.

Maria: 00:20:01

So I use ChatGPT primarily and I have got it to actually give me pretty

Maria: 00:20:07

good leading indicators that may not be what organizations actually should

Maria: 00:20:12

be managing, to your point, Natalie, just because it's there doesn't mean

Maria: 00:20:15

that it's actually the right for you.

Maria: 00:20:16

But I think you just seeing examples of what those leading indicators

Maria: 00:20:22

could be, that is a bit kind of out there, like you said, Sara, right,

Maria: 00:20:26

can actually help people think about it, what it is that they really should

Maria: 00:20:29

be managing kind of day over day.

Sara: 00:20:31

I am so glad you brought that up because I would agree, the

Sara: 00:20:35

hardest part of OKR creation and methodology adoption in my practice,

Sara: 00:20:41

is leading indicator identification.

Sara: 00:20:43

That's where I see people struggle the most.

Sara: 00:20:46

So I don't think I've used it for that, but that's a really awesome insight that

Sara: 00:20:52

continues to be one of the big barriers, even for those of us who do this every day

Sara: 00:20:57

and have really finely honed approaches to use with clients, clients still struggle

Sara: 00:21:03

with the leading indicator piece, partly because it also means instead of having

Sara: 00:21:08

the whole quarter to make progress on their outcome, it's moving up their

Sara: 00:21:12

accountability to a nearer time horizon.

Sara: 00:21:15

So it increases the anxiety.

Sara: 00:21:18

That's brilliant, Maria.

Sara: 00:21:20

I think using those tools as a way to get ideas for leading

Sara: 00:21:24

indicators is really good.

Natalie: 00:21:26

it is.

Natalie: 00:21:27

I agree, too.

Natalie: 00:21:28

And one other thing I've seen recently is a shift in accepting functional

Natalie: 00:21:36

team-level sets of OKRs versus, you know, like everybody gets a KR.

Natalie: 00:21:42

Like the Oprah, not everybody should have a KR

Natalie: 00:21:48

not everybody gets a KR.

Natalie: 00:21:49

This is not like a participation trophy thing.

Natalie: 00:21:52

And I think making sure everybody understands how they contribute

Natalie: 00:21:55

to this strategy, but don't have to have their name on it.

Natalie: 00:22:00

It can be at the functional team level, and they should still know how they're

Natalie: 00:22:04

contributing to overall company strategy.

Natalie: 00:22:06

That's another shift that I've seen.

Natalie: 00:22:09

Is stripping out layers where we can.

Natalie: 00:22:12

So instead of everybody having specific Objectives and Key Results that are

Natalie: 00:22:18

cascaded, how we used to see them blown out, seven layers or levels,

Natalie: 00:22:23

functional teams hovering with like sub-KRs under the top level care

Natalie: 00:22:29

because they're spiky and fast and smart and moving quickly and startups and

Natalie: 00:22:34

they don't have time for the layers.

Natalie: 00:22:36

So that's one thing I'm noticing too, cause back in the day we

Natalie: 00:22:40

used to give everybody their own individual cares too, and they were

Natalie: 00:22:43

like duplicated everywhere with just names on them and it, was too heavy.

Natalie: 00:22:48

And so I like that we're stripping out some of those layers to make it spiky.

Sara: 00:22:53

I'm really glad you brought that up Natalie.

Sara: 00:22:55

And Maria, I'm curious because we all work with kind of different types

Sara: 00:22:59

of organizations, different sizes.

Sara: 00:23:02

I'm also seeing what Natalie is, that the localization or cascading or connecting

Sara: 00:23:09

OKRs looks really different now than when I started working with OKRs.

Sara: 00:23:14

But Maria, what are you seeing in your practice?

Maria: 00:23:18

I think it's the same.

Maria: 00:23:20

It has always been the biggest problem.

Maria: 00:23:23

It's the easiest thing is for the leadership team to set OKRs, even

Maria: 00:23:26

though of them still struggle with that because it's like they have the

Maria: 00:23:30

top-level metrics to choose between.

Maria: 00:23:33

And that as you go down, it's harder and harder.

Maria: 00:23:36

I know that we have all created these descriptions of what localization looks

Maria: 00:23:40

like and it is so damn hard to describe it without getting all complicated about it.

Maria: 00:23:46

And so not surprising, that's also what organizations struggle with.

Maria: 00:23:50

So finding middle ground, how to do it because OKR is still not about

Maria: 00:23:55

the leadership team setting it.

Maria: 00:23:57

It is about how people spend their time actually doing and driving towards it that

Maria: 00:24:01

happens further down in the organization.

Maria: 00:24:04

So coming up with good ways for making that live, not to the leadership

Maria: 00:24:09

team, not even a level down.

Maria: 00:24:11

The third level, typically in larger organizations, is where most

Maria: 00:24:14

of that goodness happens or not.

Maria: 00:24:17

And so, and creating them to be aligned with each other.

Maria: 00:24:21

Because if everybody just had their KRs or their OKRs and they're kind of wildly,

Maria: 00:24:27

kind of not, in alignment, it's, it's not going to do an awful lot of good

Maria: 00:24:32

for the organization anyway, or solving the problem, which is the reason why

Maria: 00:24:36

people implement OKRs in the first place.

Maria: 00:24:39

And so I think it's still a struggle for organizations to figure out how

Maria: 00:24:43

to do that at a lower level and, and especially creating alignment.

Maria: 00:24:47

I don't know about you guys, but I work a lot with organizations

Maria: 00:24:50

that, have implemented OKRs already and are not seeing the

Maria: 00:24:54

value that they were hoping for.

Maria: 00:24:56

And inevitably there's a couple of things I see.

Maria: 00:24:59

One is you ask them, why did you implement OKRs?

Maria: 00:25:03

And they don't necessarily have a good answer to that other than, "We

Maria: 00:25:07

want to be more clear a lot," like they've read a book essentially, right?

Maria: 00:25:11

But they don't have a why that is a problem to solve that is relevant and

Maria: 00:25:16

kind of resonates with the people in the organization and they don't necessarily

Maria: 00:25:21

have an intentional kind of structure around the goal-setting process and the

Maria: 00:25:26

alignment, how they actually going to help their teams get aligned and clear.

Maria: 00:25:31

But it's more about the leadership team have set OKRs.

Maria: 00:25:34

And so that means that three levels on everyone's clear,

Maria: 00:25:37

which we know isn't true.

Sara: 00:25:40

We've got a great question in the comments that we'll come back

Sara: 00:25:43

to in just a sec. So folks who are tuned in, if you have questions

Sara: 00:25:46

at any time, send them through.

Sara: 00:25:48

I can see them in two different places, and we'll answer as many

Sara: 00:25:51

as possible while we're live.

Sara: 00:25:53

It always surprises me how hard clients struggle.

Sara: 00:25:58

I would say at this point, I'm probably doing about maybe 30%

Sara: 00:26:02

fresh-from-scratch implementations, and about 70 percent reboots, or

Sara: 00:26:08

we're struggling and we need help.

Sara: 00:26:11

A lot of the demand I see is.

Sara: 00:26:15

for help with localization to the individual.

Sara: 00:26:18

Like they've gotten started or they're adopting OKRs because they

Sara: 00:26:22

want to localize to the individual or because they've read the

Sara: 00:26:27

book that shows the six layers.

Sara: 00:26:30

The first conversation I have to have is that's just not how I do it.

Sara: 00:26:33

Partly because of the amount of time it takes, partly because of the

Sara: 00:26:38

degradation of the, methodology quality if we go too many layers, and then

Sara: 00:26:45

partly I was working with a very large, very deep organization and had the

Sara: 00:26:52

privilege of working with them quarter over quarter for a couple of years.

Sara: 00:26:56

And so what I saw was they were doing a cross-functional L1 at the

Sara: 00:27:01

company level, and then a functional L2 localization at the org level.

Sara: 00:27:09

And as they did that, we had high-quality OKRs at the company level and at

Sara: 00:27:14

the functional level, we didn't need to localize anymore downward.

Sara: 00:27:19

Like Natalie said, there were some KRs that would roll down from there,

Sara: 00:27:24

but we didn't see any gain from doing full localization at like L3, L4.

Sara: 00:27:31

What we started to see instead was that teams could bottom-up from there.

Sara: 00:27:38

So instead of the systemic, everybody has to go down, we'd have that downward

Sara: 00:27:44

flow from L1, L2, and then at L3, L4 for initiative teams, for individuals,

Sara: 00:27:51

they could look up at L1 and L2 and get the direction that they needed,

Sara: 00:27:57

either to create work plans and then do their delivery, or to create Objectives

Sara: 00:28:03

and Key Results, or Objectives, Key Results, and milestones, and work plans.

Sara: 00:28:09

I still see some orgs do the downward localization and cascading.

Sara: 00:28:14

I see it in, control-based leadership cultures, where it degrades down to

Sara: 00:28:21

activity micromanagement really quickly.

Sara: 00:28:25

And I also see it in organizations where the L1 leaders aren't creating

Sara: 00:28:31

OKRs, they're creating something and calling it OKRs, doesn't actually

Sara: 00:28:38

fit the definition of OKRs.

Sara: 00:28:41

Then L2 does their best to compensate, and then L3, Maria,

Sara: 00:28:44

you said the magic happens at L3.

Sara: 00:28:47

that's where the happens at L3.

Sara: 00:28:48

Because then L3 is like, "Well that's a bunch of hooey. So what are we actually

Sara: 00:28:53

gonna do?" And then they get it.

Sara: 00:28:56

So, I screen out every once in a while, I wind up working with one

Sara: 00:29:00

of those, like, the magics at L3.

Sara: 00:29:04

I struggle in that environment because my and my way just isn't compatible

Sara: 00:29:11

with those kind of leaders who are OKRs for everyone else, not for me.

Sara: 00:29:16

That just doesn't, it's not a culture fit to work with me

Sara: 00:29:20

in that style, but I see it.

Sara: 00:29:22

But more and more, it's just L1, L2, and then everyone else is bottom up.

Maria: 00:29:28

So I think that's fine.

Maria: 00:29:30

But As long as there is actually some kind of structured and formalized

Maria: 00:29:34

process that says, "Okay, these are the initiatives that we are working on."

Maria: 00:29:38

This is how we're spending our time and planning on spending our time."

Maria: 00:29:41

Can we articulate how it actually is contributing to the goals that we have

Maria: 00:29:47

set or that the organization have set?

Maria: 00:29:50

It's always scary, right, when people are working on initiatives and they actually

Maria: 00:29:55

do not have a clue, or are not very clear on they would say it's important

Maria: 00:29:59

or it, but they can't like clearly articulate how it is supporting the

Maria: 00:30:05

strategic priorities of the organization.

Maria: 00:30:07

And I mean, then the sad part of it also is oftentimes they then

Maria: 00:30:10

work on things that don't move the needle on anything that matters.

Maria: 00:30:14

I mean, they're done and they work really hard.

Maria: 00:30:16

And so it doesn't create purposeful work.

Maria: 00:30:19

And so I still think, even if the full-on localization process that we have all

Maria: 00:30:23

done in our careers isn't necessarily the most effective way of doing it.

Maria: 00:30:28

I still think that having a structure and a process where most teams can

Maria: 00:30:32

articulate how the work that they are doing contribute to strategic priorities

Maria: 00:30:38

and the metrics, and know if they're doing that or not, is still really important

Maria: 00:30:42

for any kind of goal-setting process to result in something that matters.

Maria: 00:30:46

I've spent most of my time with OKRs and strategy planning as the driver

Maria: 00:30:51

of it internally in an organization.

Maria: 00:30:52

I think about this differently than if I am a coach or a consultant where I

Maria: 00:30:57

don't have the same skin in the game in terms of thinking about all the aspects

Maria: 00:31:03

of execution, including management practices and readiness and capabilities

Maria: 00:31:08

and integration with other stuff.

Maria: 00:31:10

If you're overseeing all of that, you just think bigger.

Maria: 00:31:14

And you think differently about things than if you're coming in a

Maria: 00:31:17

more narrow lane to set just the goals and maybe trickle it down a bit.

Sara: 00:31:23

I think the distinction I would make is, it's not that we don't have

Sara: 00:31:29

that clarity deeper in the organization.

Sara: 00:31:31

For me, it's just about the directionality.

Sara: 00:31:33

In the conventional or older style, we would localize

Sara: 00:31:37

downward the whole way down.

Sara: 00:31:39

I had one client where we localized for an entire quarter.

Sara: 00:31:42

And so what we're doing different now is, instead of doing that sequential

Sara: 00:31:48

team by team down the org, we're doing L1, we're doing L2, and then

Sara: 00:31:54

we're doing a localization cycle where everyone else does their bottoms-up.

Sara: 00:31:59

So important initiatives create OKRs or work plans, you know, if it just has

Sara: 00:32:04

to get done, it's delivery planning.

Sara: 00:32:07

If it has to yield an outcome, they create OKRs.

Sara: 00:32:09

The shift isn't that we're not using OKRs elsewhere in the organization.

Sara: 00:32:16

The shift is just on the timing and that everything below L2 or L3,

Sara: 00:32:23

sometimes we go to L3, but everything below that is in a big cloud.

Sara: 00:32:28

It all happens at the same time, and then we can do a quick alignment

Sara: 00:32:32

instead of taking all order to do the sequential localizing.

Natalie: 00:32:36

One thing I used to say, that I still say to this day, is if

Natalie: 00:32:40

we're setting our OKRs up well, teams should be empowered to say no to

Natalie: 00:32:45

other things that get thrown at them.

Natalie: 00:32:47

I still firmly believe in that because it is disheartening to folks,

Natalie: 00:32:51

especially that horsepower, you know, the L3s and fours and five levels,

Natalie: 00:32:55

that are just really crushing the work.

Natalie: 00:32:57

If they have two lists, if they have like the work that leads up to OKRs

Natalie: 00:33:02

and then all the other stuff, and they're just over capacity, stretched

Natalie: 00:33:06

too thin, and that's just not visible.

Natalie: 00:33:08

I call those misses, really, because we have to make sure

Natalie: 00:33:11

that they're not spread too thin.

Natalie: 00:33:13

I love working at the detailed level with folks.

Natalie: 00:33:16

I love traversing L1s all the way to L7s and back again and catch those misses.

Natalie: 00:33:21

I think that's good stuff.

Natalie: 00:33:23

I like doing that.

Sara: 00:33:24

So we've got a couple good questions I want to ask.

Sara: 00:33:28

Stacey ask some execs expect to see that even individuals have KRs, or

Sara: 00:33:35

that everybody's work ties to a KR.

Sara: 00:33:38

So this kind of gets at what we've all been talking about.

Sara: 00:33:41

But sometimes that's not realistic.

Sara: 00:33:43

So in the situations in your practice where everybody has a KR,

Sara: 00:33:49

do you have any tactics you use?

Sara: 00:33:51

How do you handle that when a client is focused on that "everybody has a KR"?

Natalie: 00:33:56

It's interesting because everyone in the company

Natalie: 00:33:59

contributes to the strategy.

Natalie: 00:34:00

Honestly, even if it's facilities, keeping the facility safe and secure

Natalie: 00:34:05

for people to come and do work, they're contributing to the strategy.

Natalie: 00:34:09

So even though their name may not be tied to a KR, it is tied to a body of

Natalie: 00:34:16

work that is showing that the operation is happening, that the lights are on,

Natalie: 00:34:21

doors are open, business is happening.

Natalie: 00:34:23

I like to involve everybody that we can in those conversations, especially

Natalie: 00:34:27

when they're contributing to the top level, so they don't feel left out.

Natalie: 00:34:31

But also, the follow-up question I get to this is, do you tie

Natalie: 00:34:35

compensation and performance management to individuals with KRs?

Natalie: 00:34:40

Because then it feels weird, and it feels like Big Brother, and it feels like you're

Natalie: 00:34:45

gonna see some sandbagging if people have any compensation tied to their Key Results

Natalie: 00:34:50

and they're at the individual level.

Natalie: 00:34:51

So, it does get weird.

Natalie: 00:34:54

I like to hear the functional teams and carve out that critical bodies

Natalie: 00:34:59

of work is the words I've been using with them, to make sure they know

Natalie: 00:35:03

how they contribute, but it's not a participation trophy kind of thing.

Natalie: 00:35:07

Not everybody is going to have their name on a KR.

Maria: 00:35:10

The logic that I try to use sometimes, more successfully

Maria: 00:35:15

than others, is the whole concept of focus and prioritization.

Maria: 00:35:20

So, one of the best leaders I've ever had the pleasure to working with used

Maria: 00:35:23

to say, "It isn't prioritization unless it hurts." And the fact of the matter

Maria: 00:35:27

is, if everybody has a KR, that is never anyone's definition of focus.

Maria: 00:35:33

Because then the organization ends up with how many KRs that they're

Maria: 00:35:38

supposed to be driving towards, right?

Maria: 00:35:40

And so, it's more around being able to articulate how the way I'm spending

Maria: 00:35:45

my time and the decisions that I make are contributing to those.

Maria: 00:35:49

I am perfectly fine with saying, "Which of these KRs do you contribute to?"

Maria: 00:35:53

It doesn't mean that you own them, that you are the only one who's owning

Maria: 00:35:57

that, because that's the other concept.

Maria: 00:35:59

Very few things important in an organization is done by one person.

Maria: 00:36:03

Because if it is, it's probably not all that strategic.

Maria: 00:36:07

And so it's all about the people working together to make it happen.

Maria: 00:36:11

So I'm perfectly fine with having lists that says, "This KR, who are

Maria: 00:36:15

the people that are the most important contributors to that based on the daily

Maria: 00:36:19

work that they do?" Or even the teams?

Sara: 00:36:22

Yeah, this kind of dovetails into another question we got from Elena.

Sara: 00:36:27

Understanding that OKRs are not a project management tool, how do

Sara: 00:36:31

you integrate them without losing the scope that each should have?

Sara: 00:36:35

My answer to both questions is connected.

Sara: 00:36:38

One of the first education steps I do with clients is that there is a difference

Sara: 00:36:43

between what just has to get done.

Sara: 00:36:46

And if getting it done is success, in my model falls under delivery.

Sara: 00:36:51

That gets project managed, it gets planned.

Sara: 00:36:55

There might be some KR 's identified for change initiatives,

Sara: 00:37:01

for improving something.

Sara: 00:37:03

But there's a lot that just has to get done in our organizations.

Sara: 00:37:07

And the old language of OKRs, that we need an OKR for what's most important

Sara: 00:37:13

in the business, doesn't apply.

Sara: 00:37:15

Paying the electric bill, and getting payroll out on time, those

Sara: 00:37:19

fundamentals that just have to get done are as important as any

Sara: 00:37:25

innovation initiative we have.

Sara: 00:37:27

So that's one of our very first education points: If it just has to

Sara: 00:37:31

get done, it doesn't need an OKR.

Sara: 00:37:34

And if you don't have OKRs for delivery, for if it just has to get done.

Sara: 00:37:40

And then, if just getting it done isn't success, that's where OKRs come in, where

Sara: 00:37:45

we need to aim for an outcome, or some kind of impact, or success criteria.

Sara: 00:37:51

Even with that breakdown, it's still hard for clients to wrap their heads around.

Sara: 00:37:56

But I find when I start with a new org with that model that hasn't implemented

Sara: 00:38:01

OKRs, and we can get ahead of the what's important goes in the OKRs, so everyone

Sara: 00:38:07

feels like they have to be visible in the OKRs, it's working pretty well.

Sara: 00:38:11

People get recognized through delivery and project management for

Sara: 00:38:15

the stuff that just has to get done.

Sara: 00:38:18

And we have smaller sets of OKRs because we can really zero in on

Sara: 00:38:23

what does this just have to get done, if so, give it a milestone.

Sara: 00:38:26

if we have to achieve some sort of success criteria, then what is it?

Sara: 00:38:30

So, Elena, that's for me.

Sara: 00:38:32

kind of the split that we can project manage what we do and what we plan

Sara: 00:38:37

and what has to get done, then we can use our stretch thinking and

Sara: 00:38:42

our more expansive thinking around what's possible on that OKR side.

Sara: 00:38:48

So, Natalie, you said you had a project management example.

Natalie: 00:38:52

Oh yeah.

Natalie: 00:38:52

So, I think it's important if you have a lot of milestones that you're trying to

Natalie: 00:38:56

get accomplished through a project plan.

Natalie: 00:38:58

Whatever project tool you have, the way I like to show that is say, the

Natalie: 00:39:02

KR is deliver all 100 milestones for Project Rocket Ship by the end of Q1,

Natalie: 00:39:08

instead of listing out the milestones.

Natalie: 00:39:10

Yeah.

Natalie: 00:39:10

The body of work.

Natalie: 00:39:12

So then, they can manage the milestones, and a big number that they're

Natalie: 00:39:15

tracking, and it's also leading.

Natalie: 00:39:17

that's one way, but then the milestones are tracked in another tool or a

Natalie: 00:39:22

robust OKR tool that does tasks, actions, and milestones beneath the KR.

Sara: 00:39:27

That's really cool.

Sara: 00:39:28

Because then it also gives the visibility

Maria: 00:39:30

Yeah, the approach is, I think that the fact that we call

Maria: 00:39:33

it OKR is part of the problem.

Maria: 00:39:36

Because it's actually not just OKRs, it's also the, work that comes after that.

Maria: 00:39:40

So if it's OKR-A actions, or I-initiatives.

Maria: 00:39:45

And so I think if you stop the planning on we the KRs without them saying,

Maria: 00:39:50

"Okay, what work is actually going to drive us there?" I think that's one

Maria: 00:39:55

reason why these problems occur, because you have project planning over here

Maria: 00:39:59

and you have OKR planning over here, and they're not clearly connected.

Maria: 00:40:04

I think that connecting the two is important.

Maria: 00:40:07

Quite honestly, If you identify the KRs that are milestones or activities and

Maria: 00:40:14

you go, "Okay, so out of, let's say 15 KRs, 12 of them are actually activities,

Maria: 00:40:22

and milestones, and actions," then you know that that's not strategic drive.

Maria: 00:40:28

And they'll say, "Are any of these things in a platform or on a plan

Maria: 00:40:32

somewhere else, then why are you doing KR then?" You're duplicating work.

Maria: 00:40:37

And the fact is, that I would say that is one of the main reasons why teams,

Maria: 00:40:41

especially further down in the org, don't like OKRs, because they feel

Maria: 00:40:45

like, "Why are we doing this? We're duplicating things that we already do in

Maria: 00:40:49

some other platform." And they're right.

Maria: 00:40:52

I think it's part of the educational thing that we can help to highlight

Maria: 00:40:56

initiative, but the current KRs, and how much they are projects and

Maria: 00:41:01

that actually manage somewhere else.

Maria: 00:41:03

I have templates when identifying KRs that also includes a box for "What's

Maria: 00:41:08

the work that's going to drive it?" And that could be existing initiatives

Maria: 00:41:11

and projects or new things that we need to do, so that you help people see

Maria: 00:41:16

"turtles all the way down," as they say.

Sara: 00:41:18

I love that.

Sara: 00:41:19

Turtles all the way down is awesome.

Sara: 00:41:21

Okay, fantastic.

Sara: 00:41:22

Now I have a million questions, and we have, 11 minutes if I'm doing

Sara: 00:41:26

my math right, so we're going to have to do this like quarterly.

Sara: 00:41:28

So, the two things that I want to make sure we get to first is the other

Sara: 00:41:34

question I get every time a client calls, which is: How do we connect

Sara: 00:41:39

OKRs to performance management?

Sara: 00:41:41

What would you two say when you get that question?

Sara: 00:41:43

How do you respond?

Natalie: 00:41:45

Well, I can say it always makes me a little nervous to

Natalie: 00:41:49

understand their "why" about that.

Natalie: 00:41:52

Is it because you want to really drive operational efficiencies

Natalie: 00:41:58

or process re-engineering?

Natalie: 00:41:59

Like, what is it that you want to drive?

Natalie: 00:42:02

If they think people are not working hard enough, I struggle with that.

Natalie: 00:42:06

It's tough for me because you run into all kinds of nuances around, how do you

Natalie: 00:42:10

measure one person compared to another, and then do you compensate on that?

Natalie: 00:42:14

And then It gets really weird with money.

Natalie: 00:42:16

And so, I say at the functional team level, you're absolutely

Natalie: 00:42:20

going to look at how that team has performed against their Key Results.

Natalie: 00:42:24

And did they meet their goals?

Natalie: 00:42:25

Were there wins?

Natalie: 00:42:26

What could they do differently?

Natalie: 00:42:27

And would you factor that in a performance evaluation?

Natalie: 00:42:29

Absolutely.

Natalie: 00:42:31

But would you also factor like 15 other things?

Natalie: 00:42:33

Yes.

Natalie: 00:42:34

Are they a good leader?

Natalie: 00:42:35

Do they learn well?

Natalie: 00:42:36

Do they apply themselves?

Natalie: 00:42:37

You know, how are they showing up each day?

Natalie: 00:42:40

And so there's lots of other factors.

Natalie: 00:42:42

I would say the bodies of work that they complete are one of the

Natalie: 00:42:46

elements in performance evaluation, but OKRs are not for performance.

Maria: 00:42:52

So, the other point that I make is with OKRs, I at least try to say, "You

Maria: 00:42:58

shouldn't just focus on setting OKRs around things you have control over."

Maria: 00:43:02

No team or individual has control over an awful lot of stuff that's strategic.

Maria: 00:43:07

You might be able to influence it, highly influence it.

Maria: 00:43:10

And if you can't influence it, then having a KR around it isn't particularly useful.

Maria: 00:43:16

I think performance management or goal setting is the complete opposite.

Maria: 00:43:21

You have to set goals for people that they actually have control over or more

Maria: 00:43:26

influence than things you set around KRs.

Maria: 00:43:30

And so if you try to marry the two, you end up either with

Maria: 00:43:33

KRs that aren't necessarily strategic or broad enough, right?

Maria: 00:43:38

Because you're going to say, "One person can do it," or you're going

Maria: 00:43:41

to end up with KRs that no person actually can, you know, influence.

Maria: 00:43:45

And it's unfair to have them be accountable for that.

Maria: 00:43:48

And then you're going to have other problems to solve, right?

Maria: 00:43:50

With people being held accountable for things that just aren't possible.

Maria: 00:43:54

And so I think it comes down to conversations between a manager and

Maria: 00:43:59

their direct report to say, okay, this is what we need to accomplish this quarter

Maria: 00:44:03

or half-year or whatever cycle they use for doing this and say, what is it

Maria: 00:44:08

reasonable that you will do or contribute or accomplish in this period of time?

Maria: 00:44:14

And to your point, Natalie, both in terms of the outcome that they do,

Maria: 00:44:17

but also how they do their work route, which is a key thing with performance

Maria: 00:44:22

management, including what are the new things, skills, and the new things you

Maria: 00:44:26

want to get better at, which also is completely unrelated to some KRs because

Maria: 00:44:32

it's part of how you do your work.

Sara: 00:44:35

Yeah.

Sara: 00:44:35

Yeah.

Sara: 00:44:36

I wrote an enormous chapter for the book on why I'm in the we don't connect OKRs.

Sara: 00:44:43

We don't connect attainment of OKRs to performance management or incentive

Sara: 00:44:48

pay because — and we had to pull it out and I'm sharing it as a blog post

Sara: 00:44:53

because it was like, it was the longest book chapter in the history of OKRs.

Sara: 00:44:59

but I think you two covered it really well.

Sara: 00:45:01

There is a perspective even among OKR experts.

Sara: 00:45:06

There is a group I, there's a position paper out there.

Sara: 00:45:11

If I can find it afterward, I'll add to the comments, by one of the trade orgs

Sara: 00:45:16

where, you know, when everybody started working together on it the assumption

Sara: 00:45:19

was that the industry would say we don't connect OKRs to performance.

Sara: 00:45:25

In the creation of that position paper, at least the last time

Sara: 00:45:28

I saw it, there were two camps.

Sara: 00:45:30

There Is a camp that says, here's how you do it, and then there's the rest of us

Sara: 00:45:35

who's like, for me, when clients say they want to do that, I say, okay, let me tell

Sara: 00:45:40

you a couple stories about what I've seen.

Sara: 00:45:43

Is this what you want system to look like?

Sara: 00:45:48

You know, where people who are ambitious and set stretch goals,

Sara: 00:45:52

get penalized terms of incentive pay compared to people who set conservative

Sara: 00:45:59

goals and fully achieve them.

Sara: 00:46:01

you know, so there are a couple scenarios where I can say, here's what happens when

Sara: 00:46:06

you connect attainment to incentives.

Sara: 00:46:11

This is what happens.

Sara: 00:46:13

This isn't, you know, a fable, like it's what happens.

Sara: 00:46:18

If you look at the system design of it, here's the system you're setting up.

Sara: 00:46:23

Is that what you want?

Sara: 00:46:26

but, uh, but we have, you know, we've developed scheme that factors

Sara: 00:46:34

OKR contribution into performance evaluation, but not attainment.

Sara: 00:46:41

we never ever link it to attainment.

Maria: 00:46:43

Uh, I think, I think the problem, right, is that, you know, when we say

Maria: 00:46:47

it shouldn't be connected, people think that the work that people do shouldn't

Maria: 00:46:50

be actually connected to KRs, which is obviously not what we're saying.

Maria: 00:46:54

It's just that it shouldn't be a one to one, right?

Maria: 00:46:57

That you own the KR.

Maria: 00:46:58

And if that's not achieved, that means that you, your performance

Maria: 00:47:01

weren't good or wasn't good.

Sara: 00:47:03

So let's do a speed round.

Sara: 00:47:04

Cause we're almost out of time and we've got one other great question.

Sara: 00:47:08

What is the very first step and unfortunately, it just shows

Sara: 00:47:12

me linkedin user for this one.

Sara: 00:47:14

So I can't say who's asking the question.

Sara: 00:47:15

But what is the very first step for an organization to implement OKRs?

Natalie: 00:47:21

Ooh, I would, I would say have a strategic roadmap in mind, at least

Natalie: 00:47:25

an idea of the critical bodies of work.

Maria: 00:47:28

Yeah.

Maria: 00:47:29

So, mine is know your why.

Maria: 00:47:30

What problems are OKR supposed to solve.

Maria: 00:47:32

Because if you are not clear on the why, and the why now, in a

Maria: 00:47:36

way that resonates with people, they're not going to be successful.

Maria: 00:47:39

And not because people are bad, but people are busy.

Maria: 00:47:42

And it requires a new way of thinking and in order for people to take the

Maria: 00:47:46

time and energy to do that, there has to be a compelling reason and

Maria: 00:47:50

benefit to them to do it just for themselves as well as the organization.

Sara: 00:47:54

You guys made it hard for me to think of one, because

Sara: 00:47:56

you gave the two best answers, but, I'll give a spicy answer.

Sara: 00:48:02

.First step I would say is to look beyond the paid search results

Sara: 00:48:07

from OKR software platforms.

Sara: 00:48:10

To learn about what's happening in OKRs today.

Sara: 00:48:13

Because organizations would do themselves well to start with a strong

Sara: 00:48:18

methodology focus, and then figure out what tool they need and it's like we

Sara: 00:48:23

can create tools successfulness if we get methodology established well and

Sara: 00:48:29

get participation high with methodology.

Sara: 00:48:32

But so much of everything is dominated by information from platforms.

Sara: 00:48:38

I would recommend folks find me on YouTube, or Ben Lamorte, you

Sara: 00:48:43

know, there are like methodology

Sara: 00:48:48

Every time we talk to each other I'm surprised at how much we agree on.

Sara: 00:48:52

And how much we agree on is different from what was in some of the original books,

Sara: 00:48:58

or some of what we hear from platforms.

Sara: 00:49:01

So that would be my first step.

Sara: 00:49:04

All right.

Sara: 00:49:05

there's another couple really good other angles to that question,

Sara: 00:49:09

but we've got a hard stop.

Sara: 00:49:10

So, LinkedIn user, the rest of your questions, I'll make sure

Sara: 00:49:13

we get an answer to you, either in the comments or in follow up.

Sara: 00:49:17

You two, I want to thank you so much.

Sara: 00:49:19

This exceeded my hopes and dreams so much.

Sara: 00:49:22

I knew we were gonna have fun, but this was just fantastic.

Sara: 00:49:24

So, Natalie, can people find you if they want more information?

Natalie: 00:49:30

I'm on LinkedIn.

Natalie: 00:49:31

Of course.

Natalie: 00:49:31

I work with all the, you know, the, pool of OKR experts is fairly small

Natalie: 00:49:36

who have been in this over eight years.

Natalie: 00:49:38

Uh, of course I work with Ben, OKRs.

Natalie: 00:49:41

I I'm on LinkedIn.

Natalie: 00:49:43

You can find me, I think Natalie Webb and maybe put in, Colorado or

Natalie: 00:49:47

Wyoming, because I think there's a few.

Sara: 00:49:49

Natalie Webb, find Natalie on LinkedIn and then Maria,

Sara: 00:49:53

where can folks find you?

Maria: 00:49:54

Same thing with me.

Maria: 00:49:55

LinkedIn is probably the easiest way to find me as well, as long as

Maria: 00:49:58

you spell my last name correctly,

Sara: 00:50:01

Yeah, I'm in that boat too.

Sara: 00:50:03

Awesome.

Sara: 00:50:04

And then I'm Sara Lobkovich.

Sara: 00:50:05

You can find me at, findrc.co or at my book website of You Are A

Sara: 00:50:13

Strategist, yeah, coming soon.

Sara: 00:50:15

Um, youareastrategist.com.

Sara: 00:50:18

So you two, thank you so much.

Natalie: 00:50:20

Let's do it again!

Natalie: 00:50:21

Yay!

Sara: 00:50:31

All right, friends, That's it for today.

Sara: 00:50:34

stay in the loop with everything going on around here by

Sara: 00:50:37

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Sara: 00:50:43

Got questions?

Sara: 00:50:44

My email addresses are too hard to spell, so visit findrc.co/contact

Sara: 00:50:50

and shoot me a note that way.

Sara: 00:50:52

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Sara: 00:50:56

favorite social media platforms.

Sara: 00:50:57

For today's show notes, visit findrc.co/thinkydoers.

Sara: 00:51:03

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Sara: 00:51:07

And if you know other Thinkydoers who'd benefit from this episode, please share.

Sara: 00:51:12

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Sara: 00:51:16

I'm looking forward to the questions this episode sparks for you, and I

Sara: 00:51:20

look forward to seeing you next time.